Kelly AuCoin is best known for playing cult favorite “Dollar Bill” Stearn on Showtime’s Billions and Pastor Tim (known to fans as Pastor Groovyhair) on FX’s iconic drama The Americans. Last year he starred in Hulu’s The Girl from Plainville and AppleTV+’s WeCrashed and is currently filming the FX limited series The Sterling Affairs. He has a host of other television, film and theater credits, including playing Octavius Caesar in Julius Caesar on Broadway opposite Denzel Washington. In this episode, Kelly talks with Tanya about his process of developing a character, his “tortoise-like” career path, the intersection between art and activism, what it’s like to work with Denzel Washington (“He’s got gravitational pull”) and the moments that truly thrill him as an actor.

Off-Leash Arts theme music by Asher Witkin.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy my conversation with Playwright-Performer Visual Artist Hebert Sigüenza, White Jesus Was the Original Fake News; my conversation with Actor-Writer-Filmmaker Shruti Tewari, Think Amorphous; or my conversation with Writer-Actor-Director Michael Gene Sullivan, Never Shoot for Compromise.