An Interview with Shaun Duke

He has never had a full-fledged hit television show of his own, yet Shaun Duke has landed more than forty guest-starring on some of televisions most watched series. A musician at heart, Shaun has found a balance in life, which includes his promising acting career, a talent for painting, whipping up some sort of fantastic dish and playing for Johnny the Bossman. I was lucky enough to chat with the easy-going and extremely intelligent Shaun a.k.a. "Duke" and learn about his musical and acting careers and the three upcoming roles he has on Alias, The OC and The Unit. Oh -- and I did manage to extract a little bit of intel for all you Alias fans out there!

Q: When did you decide to become an actor?
Shaun: "My parents were third generation farmers, so I was literally on the farm. My older brother was always interested in entertainment and was working out here (L.A.) and in my late 20's it just hit me like a ton of bricks -- I've got to get out of here, I've literally got to leave the farm and I went down here (L.A.), just on a whim. I lied my way into cooking at a restaurant.

I signed up for an acting class and one day I was cooking (at the restaurant) and the phone rang and someone said my agent was on the phone and I said I don't have an agent. Someone in my (acting) class gave my name to somebody. The role was for a Roger Corman film and I had put on my resume that I was a musician. They asked if I could do Prince and I said sure. It was some girly prison movie. There was a song that sounded like "When Doves Cry," and I wound up doing that and then he submitted me for Cagney and Lacey and Dynasty and I got three or four jobs right off the bat. So, that was how it started."

Q: When did you first start playing an instrument?
Shaun: "I was in my early teens, I had a friend who was actually discovered. We were both alter boys and he was very much into The Doors, so when church was over, he'd show me how to play "Light My Fire." He kind of got me going and he had a band and that was my connection with that stuff. It was something I was always interested in."

Q: What musicians do you draw experience from?
Shaun: "I'm an enormous Paul Simon fan and the people that he plays with are just top of the line people. Also, Peter Gabriel, Sting, always The Beatles. Great songwriters as well as players."

Q: How about actors?
Shaun: "I'm a real die-hard Al Pacino guy. And Peter O'Toole is a guy I've always really loved. Him (O'Toole) in Becket, playing the king, he had that wonderful, sort of dignity and great humor -- he had a great sparkle to him. Richard Harris was always a great guy, and Anthony Hopkins is a stellar performer."

Q: If you were forced to choose between music and acting, which would be your choice?
Shaun: "That's such a tough one, I think about that a lot. I've had some lousy jobs in my day. I've never been able to quit music. There's something really nice and Zen about acting, it's extremely rewarding. But there's something about music that I can lose hours and hours. There is some kind of magic that happens. There's something about music that always wins the day."

Q: If you could be a member of any band, past or present, what would it be?
Shaun: "That's a tough one, there are so many. I'd love to stand up to the microphone and see John Lennon to my left. Or Jimmy Page. My taste in music covers quite a bit of ground."

Q: If could have played any role in movie or TV history, what would it be?
Shaun: "Well, I hate to sound too cliché, but that's a hard one because you're inspired by a role because what the guy did with it, so it's really the actor. I don't know if I had read Michael Corleone (The Godfather) if I would have done that, but that's always been an inspiring role. The role of the king in Becket, I've always loved the dilemma of this guy and the turns that character gets to play. It's a role I would have loved to have played."

Q: Tell me about your role on The OC.
Shaun: "Well that's a fun thing! This is a fun kind of storyline that's developing. Peter Gallagher and I are going to build a hospital and I'm playing a doctor who is head of the board of directors. We have a few problems that develop. I have a lovely daughter and she's dating a character by the name of Matt, who is Peter Gallagher's young, hotshot partner. But Matt is breaking her heart! And Dad doesn't like that too much.

I don't know how much I can say, but my character is a little more shady than we think. On the surface, I'm trying to get Matt fired from the project because he's breaking my daughter's heart. Matt seems to think I'm a little shadier than we think, so there's a few car crashes in personalities than we think. Peter's character is in the middle of this because he doesn't know who to trust. Matt is sort of a partying young dude and dating all the girls and stuff and we don't know if he's just trying to hang onto his job or if I'm a really bad, bad guy."