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Patrick Oliver Jones:

I think most of us actors hope to be in a hit Broadway show or a popular film or highly rated TV show. But for those actors lucky enough to be in one, it can sometimes be all you're known for, and all your other work either goes unnoticed or forgotten. For example, you'll hear from Anthony Rapp in a few weeks that even with all he's done on screen and stage, For most of us, he will forever be Mark in the Broadway musical Rent. Now, I imagine that must be immensely rewarding to be in a show like that that made such an impact. But some days, I'm sure it can be a little frustrating to feel like the world only sees one piece of what you do. That certainly applies to a guest I talked to back in 2021, Geoffrey Owens.

Geoffrey Owens:

I'm much more than The Cosby Show. Not to belittle The Cosby Show. The Cosby Show was huge. It was significant. It was important. It was meaningful. But of course, I've done so much more than that, and a lot of even the theater stuff that people don't even know about.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I've got to admit, I was excited when he agreed to come on the podcast. I mean, I grew up watching him and the Huxtable family every Thursday night on The Cosby Show. But it was only after doing research for our interview that I discovered all the work he's done on Broadway and in Hollywood. But then there was the photo of him working at Trader Joe's that went viral in 2018, which made people see him and actors in general in a new light. We talk about that photo, the work that he has done, and yes, we address the shocking downfall of the man once called America's Dad and the toxic figure that Bill Cosby has become. Jeffrey shared openly about judgment, perception, as well as work in general and how important it is to find meaning and integrity no matter what you do. He shows us that patience and perspective matter more than recognition, and that steady effort always counts. Welcome to Why I'll Never Make It, an award-winning theater podcast about the realities of a career in the arts.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I'm your host, Patrick Oliver Jones, a Broadway actor here in New York City. And as we head into the 10th season of this podcast, I wanted to take a moment to look back at 10 guests who have been so meaningful over the years. Their stories, honesty, and lessons are still just as relevant today, and I'm excited to share them with you again, reminding us of what it really takes to keep creating, performing, and showing up in this business. Throughout his career, Geoffrey Owens has been an actor, director, and teacher. But he's best known for his 7 seasons on The Cosby Show from 1985 to '92, and more recently for a photo that surfaced in 2018 of him working at Trader Joe's. I've wanted to bring him on the show for a while now and finally reached out to him this past summer in 2020. Introducing myself and the podcast. After several months of back and forth, our schedules finally aligned for us to sit down and chat about the long and illustrious career he's had.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

But just as we were getting started with the interview, he said something that surprised me.

Geoffrey Owens:

From what I can tell from what you said about your podcast and your themes or whatever, you don't mind people being honest about things.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I prefer that, yeah, because I, I find so many actor interviews are like, "Yeah, I'm doing this great job," and people are so wonderful.

Geoffrey Owens:

And it's like you're not looking for feel-good material.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I'm looking for things that have gone wrong, but then how you overcame them, or if you did. It's that kind of stuff. That's what I like to focus on.

Geoffrey Owens:

Okay, because I, I, uh, I just want to feel like I can say whatever I feel like saying.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Oh, that's actually what I hope all my guests will feel like. Absolutely.

Geoffrey Owens:

Cool.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And with that, we began our conversation. In part 1, we talk about his work on The Cosby Show and how it's impacted his career since then. And in part 2, we focus on that Trader Joe's photo and the true meaning and importance of work. Though he's appeared in many TV shows and films, Jeffrey's first love is the stage. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and attended the High School of Performing Arts, which is known by most people as the high school featured in the film and TV series Fame. Jeffrey went on to graduate from Yale University, and 2 years later, he had a chance audition for a TV show that would ultimately change the course of his life. Welcome, Jeffrey Owens, to the podcast.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

It's so nice to have you here.

Geoffrey Owens:

Absolutely. Thanks for— thanks for being persistent.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now, Your experiences and training as an actor early on were mostly theater-based, particularly in Shakespeare and that type of thing. Was television part of your plan as you began your acting career?

Geoffrey Owens:

It really wasn't. I mean, it really wasn't. I mean, it's funny to say that now considering how much of it I've done, and that the fact that still to this day I'm mostly, you know, recognized as that guy on The Cosby Show. That's definitely the most, uh, you know, well-known thing I've ever done. But, you know, when I started out coming out of college, getting theater jobs, I really didn't give television and film much of a thought at all. I was just, um, bent on doing theater. So when The Cosby Show thing happened, it was kind of a side— kind of out of the blue, and I almost felt kind of sideswiped by it. I, I actually remember being concerned that it might cut too much into my theater stuff.

Geoffrey Owens:

I, I was, you know, I was like, okay, this is cool, but, uh, I hope this won't keep me from doing theater.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, at the time it was a new show. They were just in their second season when you auditioned.

Geoffrey Owens:

That's right. It was actually a wild story. I, I actually, when people ask me how did I get the job on The Cosby Show, My answer is my mother. And then they look at me as if I have 5 heads. And then I have to explain, no, you don't understand. It really is my mother. My mother was the one who actually connected me with the agent that ended up submitting me for The Cosby Show, through whom I got the show.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

How about that?

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now, when it comes to— you had mentioned being so identified with, with The Cosby Show, and for more than 35 years, it has almost been Cosby Show actor Jeffrey Owens. Now, does that feel limiting? Do you wish people like me would stop asking about it? Like, what are your feelings on that?

Geoffrey Owens:

It, it has at times felt limiting. I'm not, you know, I don't care if people, you know, I don't mind people asking me about it. Um, I feel like I've done enough since then that whether people know it or not or recognize it or not, I know that I'm much more than The Cosby Show. Not, not to belittle The Cosby Show. The Cosby Show was, was huge. It was significant. It was important. It was meaningful.

Geoffrey Owens:

Um, so I don't— I'm not belittling it by saying that, but of course I've done so much more than that. And, and a lot of even the theater stuff that people don't even know about. But no, I mean, at times I have felt a little bit like, just in terms of casting, I have felt that at times people have just identified me with that. In the business, that has been bothersome, that people in the business casting-wise, like, "Oh, he's Elvin. We know what he is. We know who he is. We know what he does." I remember there was one story when a well-known director was auditioning for a film. My agent, I guess, tried to get me submitted for it.

Geoffrey Owens:

And the response was something like, "Oh yes, we know Jeffrey. Thank you. We know Jeffrey's work. Thank you very much." And I never knew whether what that really meant, but I couldn't help feeling like they must mean they know that he's Elvin and then we're not looking for that. And there was no recognition that I could do more than that. And that was, that was frustrating. Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Once The Cosby Show ended, I imagine in some ways, was it hard to find work? Was there that certain expectation of the kind of actor you were, the types of roles you should be in?

Geoffrey Owens:

Well, you know what, it was interesting. I continued to work in the theater pretty consistently. Because I worked even while I was on The Cosby Show, because I was a semi-regular, if you want to put it that way. I, I worked in the theater while I was on the show. I kept working in theater after the show. But it was interesting because after the show ended, I didn't get much TV and film work, actually. And a lot of people, when they come off of a, a show, especially a successful show with that much, with notoriety and that much attention, that much focus, might very well go into another show, be offered another show, or at least have a lot of audition opportunities for their shows. I tell you, Patrick, for whatever reason, and maybe it was because of what was going on in my life otherwise at the time, I don't know, maybe because it wasn't enough my focus or whatever, but for whatever reason, that did not happen at all.

Geoffrey Owens:

In fact, um, auditions, even let alone jobs, were, were kind of few and far between. I remember the first significant thing I did after Cosby was The Paper, which, uh, you know, Cosby Show ended in March '92, and I filmed The Paper in the summer of '93. So over a year had gone by between the end of The Cosby Show and my next even remotely significant acting job.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Hmm.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I imagine that year, year and a half, was— you, you started wondering what what's happening? When's my next thing going to come up?

Geoffrey Owens:

I wondered. I wasn't too concerned about it. As I said, I was doing theater. I was involved in other things in my life that took a lot of focus, so I wasn't worried about it. But it did occur to me, you know, hey, I mean, this is a little odd that, you know, I did this hit show for— I was on it for 7 seasons, and I just kind of expected, I guess, somewhere in my heart, I expected that things would come from it. And That was not the case.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now, with your theater, you said that you continued to do that, then your theater life really wasn't affected by Cosby Show one way or the other.

Geoffrey Owens:

Um, occasionally it was, but, but for the most part, I, I worked on Cosby seldom enough so that I could do shows. I could do shows in theater. I only, I only recall one, maybe two instances where there was a conflict between the show and a theater project. There was a theater project I got at Yale at one point. Yale Rep was the— it's funny because it's the only time I've ever been cast at the Yale Rep that I couldn't do because of my Cosby contract. And that was maddening. I remember that was so frustrating.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've had my own where it's like you go months and months and months without work, and then finally 3 offers come in at the same time. You're like, really? Oh my God, couldn't you spread this out?

Geoffrey Owens:

That's happened so many times.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, it's, it's frustrating, and it's like, come on, theaters, get together, you know I'm free, let's spread these out.

Geoffrey Owens:

I once turned down playing Macduff to Stacy Keach's Macbeth at the Shakespeare Theatre of Washington, D.C., the great theater there, because I thought I had a job on Broadway with Richard Harris.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Wow.

Geoffrey Owens:

And that job eventually got postponed and then went away.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Oh, that, that's even worse when you, when you finally decide between offers and the one offer you go with drifts away. Oh yeah, yeah, that's frustrating.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's frustrating.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now, when you joined The Cosby Show, by that second season it had already picked up steam and you knew you were coming into a hit show.

Geoffrey Owens:

I knew very vaguely, Patrick. I had heard some things, but I didn't know much of anything. I wasn't a television watcher. I wasn't a ratings reader. I had no interest in any of that. So when I got onto the show towards the beginning of the second season, and the show had been on one season and was, was well on its way to becoming a hit and very popular, um, I knew nothing about the hype I knew— I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know the characters' names. I didn't know the actors' names other than Bill.

Geoffrey Owens:

I came in cold, which was good for me because I, you know, I was— that's the character I was playing. I was playing a character that came cold into the family.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, who was a little clueless about things.

Geoffrey Owens:

Yes, exactly my situation as an actor. So it fit. It worked.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

So then, even though this was your television debut, I'm sure there came with it some nerves. But then because of that, I guess, naivete, for lack of a better word, you weren't as nervous being around all these people on this hit show?

Geoffrey Owens:

No, no, I really wasn't that nervous. Um, first of all, I didn't— again, as I said, I didn't know enough to be nervous. Second of all, Cosby was the only reason to be nervous. I had always admired him since I was a kid, but he treated me extremely well. And he was very, very gracious to me, very generous with me. So he put me at ease. He made me feel like I was doing well. So I was fine with that.

Geoffrey Owens:

The way we filmed was like doing theater. First of all, there was a live audience when we taped it, which was— which was— I was totally used to. In fact, I appreciated it. Secondly, there were 4 cameras, not just 3, but a 4-camera setup. So that basically, I could just do my work like it was a theater scene. I didn't have to worry about hitting marks, particularly, or technical stuff that when you do one and two camera work, you have to really think about marks and stuff. I could just do the scene like I was doing a theater scene on stage, and the cameras would get it.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's great. Yes. So you didn't have a lot of like pickup shots where you have to do it from this angle, then turn around, do it from this angle.

Geoffrey Owens:

No, no, very little of that. All the years that I was on the show, very little of that. I was very comfortable with how it was set up because of my theater experience.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

The executive producers of The Cosby Show, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, had produced earlier sitcom hits like Three's Company and Mork and Mindy, but writing and developing a comedy based on the lives of an upper-middle-class Black family was new territory for these producers. While Bill Cosby was the heart of the show and his stand-up comedy was the basis for his character Cliff Huxtable, the producers hired noted Black psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint as a consultant to elevate the show beyond just another sitcom.

Alvin Poussaint:

You know, we saw all the shows on television, That's My Mama, What's Happening, all those shows. So Cosby knew he didn't want a show like that, didn't want the clown buffoonish stereotyping type things. And he wanted it something that would, would, would make kind of be on the high ground and inspire and eliminate certain kinds of stereotypes that people had about Black people, but also to promote education and good things. And that he wanted the show to be story-driven, not a bunch of one-liners, which is a major decision because that's where I came in. He— one of my jobs was to make sure the plots and stuff was believable.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And a big part of that believability was highlighting moments and events and ideas that were important to the Black community. An episode that stood out to me, even as a kid, is when the grandparents visited the Huxtable family and recounted their experiences in the March on Washington led by Martin Luther King.

Geoffrey Owens:

Yeah, I mean, I honestly don't know how the real-life experiences matched up with what was written for the show, but I know that, look, I mean, The people in that show— Earl Hyman, Cosby himself, you know, any of the older people in, in the show that, that play characters, you know, had personal connections with the whole civil rights experience. You know, I know there was an episode where the family just sits down and watches, just watches on television minutes of the MLK "I Have a Dream" speech. There's that beautiful episode where Rudy's watching the whole family just stands there looking and watching. It's gorgeous, you know. I know that Bill did a lot of stuff deliberately to celebrate, uh, Black culture and Black achievement.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Part of Alvin Passant's job was to go through and eventually sign off on every script, but this wasn't normal practice in TV production, especially on a sitcom, and he was met with resistance from most of the writing team.

Alvin Poussaint:

Nearly all of them were white writers except one who wrote an occasional script. And I could tell when the Black writer wrote the script too. The trouble with the white writers was not so much they were racist, it was that they didn't have the experience. They didn't know the context of what they were writing about. And then if you ask them, where did you learn about Black families, they didn't have an answer for you because it wasn't from hanging with Black people. It was from other stuff they had seen on TV. And so sometimes that was the biggest problem because I would get a script and one of the students would be talking about applying to colleges and they would have in Yale, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Princeton, and the University of California. And I would flag it and I would say, take out Princeton, put in Morehouse, take out UCLA and put in Howard. One of the writers said, "What's Morehouse?" They had never heard of Morehouse. So how can they put in Morehouse. If they had never heard of Morehouse as a historically Black— it was like sometimes that simple.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

The true beauty and ultimate success of The Cosby Show was that it highlighted important Black cultural touchpoints while at the same time appealed to a wide multicultural audience.

Geoffrey Owens:

We were aware that we were all part of a show that had certain kind of messages, and we were very happy and comfortable with that. Absolutely. We were all very proud to be part of a show that was not only funny but was meaningful, that was not only, yes, particularly and deliberately Black, but was also remarkably universal. People have told me over the years about the universality of The Cosby Show, that yes, it was a Black family, but that everyone seemed to be able to relate to it. Oh, an elderly Italian woman came up to me once. She was of Sicilian descent, and she said, oh, Bill Cosby reminded me so much of my father. An old Sicilian woman. And I thought, yeah, because fathers are fathers.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, and it's interesting, the scenes that you two had, he was very much the, you know, wary father-in-law to you, to your character. Did any of the tensions that are between the characters ever spill out in real life?

Geoffrey Owens:

No, no, I don't. I mean, of all the years that I was on the show, I think there was just maybe one day or one, a few moments of one day when Bill and I were maybe a little artistically at odds about something. It had to do with the writing. Very late in like the 7th or 8th season, there was some scene in which I didn't get it. I didn't understand what the writing was doing, and I was asking a lot of questions of the writers. And I think he might have gotten a little concerned that I wasn't accepting the script as it was as much as he might have wanted me to. And so there was a little bit of— I won't even say tension, maybe, but just you know, we didn't— we weren't coming from the same place, you know. And that was the only instance I can think of on all the years.

Geoffrey Owens:

But generally, no, I never had the sense that— I always felt like he trusted me a lot and appreciated me a lot. And never the spillover, never the confusion. No.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. And on the flip side of that, I assume there are many times though, that you may have had to redo a scene because of laughter or just you know, cutting up?

Geoffrey Owens:

Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, there's a whole wonderful blooper reel for Cosby that I, I would hope that at some point they just did like an hour special on, on Cosby bloopers, because there's a, there's a ton of them. I've seen them from time to time, and they're hysterical.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. Now, in recent years, obviously, The Cosby Show has been seen differently, as Bill Cosby himself has. Has that affected you in any way?

Geoffrey Owens:

Yes, but only very slightly. Um, well, in two, in two ways. One, financially, to a certain extent, because the show for a while was pulled completely, and then for a longer while pulled partially from television. There was a certain amount of income from residuals that I haven't gotten. Um, so there was some financial loss, but that almost seems petty to mention, uh, you know, under the circumstances. But yeah, I was affected in just that bottom line way. And then the other way is just never knowing what to say about the situation, who's listening, who will be offended, what's right to say, what's wrong to say. My whole take on the whole thing that happened was, I don't know, I wasn't there.

Geoffrey Owens:

And even saying that much, remaining neutral, like, I really don't know. I really don't know what to say about it. I really don't know what's true. How could I? Puts you in an odd position because there are some people who will read into that, that you don't want to take the side of certain, you know, you don't want to take certain sides or whatever, and that's, you know, wrong or whatever. So, you know, that's been a bit of a minefield that has been a little annoying trying to navigate, trying to negotiate, but it hasn't come my way that much. I did an interview recently about Shift Happens, the Instagram show that I've started and I'm hosting. And the interviewer all of a sudden asked me a Bill Cosby-related question. And I said a certain thing that had to do with my being a friend of his.

Geoffrey Owens:

And the interviewer jumped on it and made it, or tried to make it sound like I was condoning what he did and that I, or that I didn't have enough sympathy for his alleged victims. Like, she turned it right on me in the middle of an interview about Shift Happens, and I really resented that.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Because your career and your personal life has nothing to do with whatever Bill Cosby has done.

Geoffrey Owens:

Absolutely. And nor does the fact that I could still consider him someone who was a positive influence in my life. Should that cause anyone to Judge me.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I remember going to see Bill Cosby live. It was like the one time I finally got to see his stand-up when he came to Orlando, and I was over the moon excited to see this icon of comedy and television, someone that I had grown up watching, to see him live. And despite whatever's happened, the work that he did, both in The Cosby Show and other things, that the stand-up that he'd done Yes, he did some horrible things and was convicted for that. But I don't think that that takes away from the wonderful work that he did do in other areas. And some people can't separate those two. Other people like me can find a way to separate the two.

Geoffrey Owens:

I've met a lot of people who can separate it. I've met a lot of people who can't. And it's a personal thing. It's up to everybody individually to treat it as they want. And that's— and that's that. Let's let it go at that.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Whether it's TV, film, or theater, actors often find work in unexpected ways and through unexpected people. Geoffrey mentioned earlier that he got the audition for Cosby Show through his mother, and he has plenty of other stories and chance encounters like that throughout his career.

Geoffrey Owens:

Things happen in the weirdest ways, Patrick. I'm sure every actor has at least one or two stories like this, but another one was later, many years later, when I was in LA. I ended up getting contacted by Estelle Parsons, with whom I'd worked with in the theater for many— for a long time. She was directing Al Pacino in a play in LA and wanted to know if I wanted to be in it. But the funny part of this story is the only way that she found me, the only way that she got my number or even knew that I was in LA rather than New York, was that her daughter told her that I was in LA and her daughter gave her my phone number because I had bumped into her daughter a couple of weeks before that at a child's birthday party. And if not for that child's birthday party, Estelle would never have been able to find me, and I would not have done Salome with Al Pacino, which ended up being one of the highlights of my theater career.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

It's amazing. I, you know, I've had limited opportunity to work with such big names in Broadway or TV, and there's a bit of awestruckness when you start it and you're meeting these people for the first time. Did you have any of those kind of like nervous fanboy moments of meeting someone that you looked up to?

Geoffrey Owens:

Actually, it's funny, of all the people I ever worked with— Pacino, Duvall, Glenn Close, Frank Langella, Michael Keaton, Bill Cosby, uh, you know, I mean, like so many people— the one that I felt skittishly starstruck about was Uma Thurman.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now, why her in particular?

Geoffrey Owens:

I worked with her on one episode. It was one scene of a, of a, of a, a miniseries, a television miniseries called The Slap. And I played her obstetrician, her gynecologist. Um, and she walked into the room and I, I don't know whether— I mean, I'd never had a crush on her or anything. I never gave it a second thought. I was a huge fan of the Kill Bill movies. The Kill Bill movies are two of my favorite films. Um, and she walked into the room, and the combination of— I mean, she's a beautiful woman, and she's actually more beautiful in person than I ever seen her on film, which was kind of like, wow.

Geoffrey Owens:

But the fact that she was real, you know, associated with two of my favorite movies, the combination— I don't know what it was. I was like a little kid. I was so nervous, so starstruck. It was really, you know, it was— I was surprised at myself because I'd actually never had that reaction before, no matter how, you know, esteemed and famous the person had been. So that was kind of funny.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, I've had a couple of those. I, you know, for me, I tried to just kind of take the bull by the horns, approach them and be like, I'm a big fan, it's such a great opportunity to work with you, you know, and just tried to get get all that out of the way. And of course, they kind of chuckle it off. Did she kind of laugh it off as you were trying to get the words out?

Geoffrey Owens:

You know what? I don't even think that I did that. I don't think I had the nerve to say, "Hi, Ms. Thurman. You know, Jeffrey Owens, I've appreciated your work." I usually do that kind of thing. I don't think I did it in this case. And she didn't say anything to me. You know, and so it was like an hour into working with each other that we kind of actually looked each other in the eye and go, hey, and said, hey, you know. And at one point, just for fun, she reached over and poked me in the tummy.

Geoffrey Owens:

Patrick, she poked me in the tummy. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm never going to wash that spot again. Yeah, it was, it was so funny. So, but no, all the conventional You know, what you do in those situations went out the window.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

It was, it was, it was— of course. Yeah, you know, it's funny that you bring up poking in the belly because I was in Jubilee in Las Vegas and we were doing this, uh, this opening night for The Producers, which was just opening at a theater next to us. And so The Producers was having an opening night party and Robert Goulet was there. Robert, right, right. And of course I had to go meet him, so I, I had a friend carry the the camera, and I went up to him. And at first, when I said, "Hi, Mr. Goulet, my name is Patrick," he kind of has that face of, "Okay, all right, I'm meeting someone else." But as soon as I said, "I'm one of the singers in Jubilee," his face lit up. He's like, "Oh, you're a singer! Hey, how you doing?" He's, you know, I asked for a picture, he's like, "Sure." He puts his arm around me and starts poking me in the belly while we're taking the picture.

Geoffrey Owens:

Oh, how funny! You've got a poking in the belly story too.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Right, right. And so the picture I have, you see his finger about to poke me as the picture's being taken. I'm laughing, of course.

Geoffrey Owens:

But you know what's interesting about that story is that you, when you have a connection with somebody, it makes the difference. You know, at first it was just okay, here's this kid approaching me. And then there was a connection. I remember I worked with Anthony LaPaglia on an episode of Without a Trace. And I came up to him and I said, hi, Mr. LaPaglia, I'm Jeffrey Owens working on the episode. And you know, he had that face, not rude or anything, but kind of like, yeah, okay. He gets approached a million times.

Geoffrey Owens:

And then I said, I saw you on Broadway in View from the Bridge. And man, his face changed. I said, I thought you were wonderful. And it was like a whole different thing between us. There was a real significant, substantial connection because of that. It meant a lot to him. That meant so much. I could tell that, that theater experience meant so much to him.

Geoffrey Owens:

And the fact that I had actually seen him meant something.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And that's probably something that people don't mention when they, when they meet him. So that's probably another reason, right?

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Whether as actors or in the audience, there are those shows those characters, those performances that stand out in our minds and have a deeper meaning beyond just simple entertainment. And I have to admit that The Cosby Show was one of those pivotal shows as I was growing up. Since Bill Cosby's downfall, I, like many people, stopped watching The Cosby Show. But in doing research for this interview with Geoffrey and in putting these episodes together, I found myself going down the YouTube rabbit hole of this scene with Rudy or that scene with Theo and that episode where all the couples are fighting at a picnic in the Huxtables' backyard. But then I came across one of the most iconic scenes featuring Geoffrey and Felicia Rashad. Now, Elvin wasn't always the brightest bulb and had some antiquated notions of the husband-wife dynamic. Well, Claire Huxtable Dr. Huxtable sets him straight.

>>> A scene from The Cosby Show

Patrick Oliver Jones:

The life of any actor is one of going in and out of employment. But for Jeffrey Owens back in 2018, his work was captured in a photo and spread across the internet. In part 2 of our conversation, Jeffrey opens up about what led to his job at Trader Joe's. We talk about the importance of work and how hard it can be for actors to find it. Jeffrey, like so many of us, has gone through months of auditions and auditions yet finding no work. And this pandemic has only brought extra layers of stress and lack of opportunity.

Geoffrey Owens:

2020 was— to say it was the worst year of my life is such an understatement. Just horrific.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Was most of that professional or personal or equal parts?

Geoffrey Owens:

Personal, but professional as well in that I hardly worked, you know.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, right there with you.

Geoffrey Owens:

I worked less than a handful of days of the year.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

You know, most actors, most all actors take side jobs. I've certainly had plenty of them.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

But I'm guessing there is a certain.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Expectation of those who have made it or been on big TV shows that they shouldn't have to take side jobs anymore. Did you ever feel that expectation of yourself?

Geoffrey Owens:

Absolutely. It was a very difficult decision to take a job like Trader Joe's. And that doesn't Trader Joe's is a wonderful place to work, by the way, and I had a great experience there. But when I say a job like Trader Joe's, I just mean a regular job, a job outside of show business. Because of, you know, the attention that I've gotten in my career and the fact that at some point in my career, 55+ million people watched me on television on a Thursday night, and that since those times, Not a day has gone by in my life when someone, at least one person, has not recognized me in public and approached me about having been on The Cosby Show. So yeah, when you've lived for 30, 35 years with that kind of, that level of celebrity, whatever, however you might define that, it's a little bit of a daunting prospect to say the least. To get a job where you are going to be in contact with the public constantly in a completely different capacity. What I would— I used to think to myself, well, I, I could never blame someone for feeling weirded out by encountering me working in a grocery store.

Geoffrey Owens:

What if I went into a restaurant or a bank or a grocery store or whatever, or a shoe store, and Joaquin Phoenix was one of the people working there, right? It would freak me out. I mean, I wouldn't be an asshole about it, right? I wouldn't say a stupid thing about it. I would be like, I want, I want to say out loud, even though, what are you, what the hell are you doing here? I would want to say, what happened? Because to me, the last thing I saw Joaquin Phoenix, you were in this movie, you were in that movie. I mean, I, I I idolized you. I admire you. You should be— you should be doing this. You should be doing that. What are you doing here? And this is— I don't equate myself with Joaquin Phoenix, by the way, um, but, but for my fans, for people who grew up watching me on The Cosby Show or, or, uh, admire me, they feel like— they feel that way.

Geoffrey Owens:

Like, they don't get it, and I don't blame them. How could they get it? How could they understand how the entertainment business works? How could they understand how the entertainment business and any given actor's individual life experience works? They can't.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, because they watch us, they see us on stage or on screen, and to a certain extent, they know us, they know our body of work, but they don't know what our lives are like.

Geoffrey Owens:

Of course, and you make assumptions. I do the same thing. I put myself in their shoes. I do the same thing. If I went into a pizza restaurant and saw Al Pacino behind the counter, it would be like, I'd probably walk out. I'd be embarrassed. I don't want to see Al Pacino serving me pizza.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Exactly.

Geoffrey Owens:

You know what I mean? But I'll tell you, having said that, the people that I encountered at Trader Joe's, the customers were beautiful. They were lovely. I got recognized every day, at least a handful of times, you know, whether people approached me or not, whether it was a nod or a wink or smile or whatever. Only, only once in the 15 months that I worked there did someone say something that remotely put me on edge about it. People were wonderful about it.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And how about the workers there? How were you treated as one of the coworkers?

Geoffrey Owens:

Oh, they were totally cool. They were totally cool. In fact, it was funny because for whatever reason, a lot of the workers at first didn't know who I was. They just didn't make the connection. They either, either maybe because I was, wearing a beard most of the time and gained a little weight, or they so not expected that guy from The Cosby Show to be working with them at J.J. Joe's that they might have even looked straight at me like, oh, he looks like that, but that's not him. And some of the guys I worked for, my supervisors, it took them a little while to catch on. So that was kind of charming, I thought.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, and actually, I'm going to turn that question back around on you. So you were saying Joaquin Phoenix. What are you doing here? What happened? So what did lead up to you needing to go to work at Trader Joe's?

Geoffrey Owens:

Um, debt, financial hardship. I'll put it this way, Patrick. When I took the job at Trader Joe's, I didn't even take the job at Trader Joe's to make money. And you're— I know you're going, what do you mean by that? I didn't even take the job at Trader Joe's to get out of debt. And now I know you're saying, well, what are you talking about? What did you take? I took the job at Trader Joe's, Patrick, to stop the debt from growing. Oh, I didn't even get out of debt from working with Trader Joe's. I just was able to stop the debt. Now, how I got into debt, long story.

Geoffrey Owens:

People get into debt, right? People get into debt when they spend more than they make. Am I a spendthrift? Absolutely not. My, my family and I, we don't spend a lot of money on a lot of stuff. But keep in mind, I've gone for the last 10 to 12 years through so many periods of months and months at a time with no work. I've gone through 7, 8, 9 months at a time with no work and then a day or two of work. And then another month or two or three or four or five without work. This is, this was my life for 10 to 12 years.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I think that's the life of any regular actor.

Geoffrey Owens:

And the only consistent work being theater, which I appreciate artistically, but is not, you know, is not enough to support yourself or family. And, you know, and so 10, 12 years of that, living a normal life with these normal expenses of a normal person with a wife and a kid. You know, there's debt starts building up. And finally it was like, you know what? I gotta do something about this. I can't, I can't just wait for the next acting job. I've gotta go out and get a regular job. And then it was a matter of what can I do though? Two things so that I won't, it won't be, you know, extremely awkward. Okay.

Geoffrey Owens:

I don't want a job where. It's just gonna be like flat out embarrassing or humiliating or something. And also, I wanna find a job that'll give me some kind of flexibility to try to keep one foot in the business, which Trader Joe's actually allowed me to do. I actually got 5 gigs while I was working at Trader Joe's. I think I got 4 TV gigs and a commercial while I was working there, which is, you know, pretty cool. They were very good about letting me audition for things and letting me take jobs. But yeah, debt, man.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, because a lot of times actor jobs, those side jobs, are called survival jobs. You know, we take them just to survive, just to pay the rent. And were there other jobs? I mean, obviously Trader Joe's became the, the famous one in your case, but were there other side jobs that you had through those years?

Geoffrey Owens:

No, um, other than teaching and directing occasionally. Directing occasionally, teaching pretty cons— not, not regularly, but pretty consistently on various levels. Other than directing, teaching theater, and acting, I had not had a regular job outside of that, those things, uh, before Trader Joe's for 32 years, going back to 1985.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

So then Trader Joe's, it really was a, a step in a new direction for you.

Geoffrey Owens:

It was an enormous step. And now the more I think about it now, I think to myself, man, how did I do it? How did I do that? But I'll tell you, Patrick, these days, the way, you know, things have— you know, I had my, I had my time in the sun for 9 to 10 months after that whole thing happened. But things, let me put it this way, things have returned to normal again, especially with the pandemic. And I am back somewhat in the situation, not quite as dire, but I'm heading towards the same situation again that I was when I went. So there's not a day that goes by that I don't think, am I gonna either go back to Trader Joe's or something else like it? I'm just being very, I'm being very candid with you and anyone that's listening. Yeah. Between the normal vicissitudes of the entertainment business And the pandemic, the last year and a half has been— has not been good.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I think any actor, you know, at any point in their career can, can identify with that. I mean, if it weren't for, you know, the extra unemployment benefits that have come, the stimulus checks over the last 9 months, I mean, I, you know, I'm still dipping into savings. Thank Thank goodness I have that, but, you know, without the extra unemployment benefits, I, I'm not sure where I would be as well, because yeah, acting work has dried up.

Geoffrey Owens:

I'll add another little branch or twig on the fire. Um, I haven't been able to get any unemployment all this time. Oh yeah, and that's the reason for that is complicated. I won't go into it, but I'll just tell you I have not been able to benefit from unemployment at all.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, so then when you're in that situation, because, you know, because there are other people because of whatever their work situation was before that they can't get it, as you say, that is extra fuel to that fire of it's not.

Geoffrey Owens:

Because I didn't try.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I'm sure.

Geoffrey Owens:

Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

So how do you think the understanding and discussion around work has changed since that Trader Joe's incident?

Geoffrey Owens:

In the month or two or three after what happened to me, there was this intense focus on the idea of the nobility of work, et cetera. But I think that honestly, I think that faded a bit. Not for the workers who do the work, but for society in general. But what has put focus on work is the pandemic.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Definitely.

Geoffrey Owens:

And I'm not I'm not glad the pandemic happened, but one of the positive byproducts of it has been that people have definitely learned to appreciate the everyday worker in a way that they have not been appreciated in decades and decades.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

In the months that followed that Trader Joe's photo, Jeffrey received overwhelming love and support from his fans and fellow colleagues in the industry. Tyler Perry, for example, offered him a role to appear in his hip drama The Haves and Have Nots. Jeffrey also received $25,000 from Nicki Minaj, but he graciously opted to pass that on to other actors in need. By donating it to the Actors Fund in memory of the late Earl Hyman, who played Cliff's father on The Cosby Show. So there was definitely a boost to Jeffrey's career that came out of what was initially a low point, but there was also an elevation in the conversation around work. And so last summer, in the midst of the pandemic and 2 years after Trader Joe's, Jeffrey started a new show on IGTV called Shift Happens, focusing on the dignity of work.

Geoffrey Owens:

I just basically interview people about their jobs. I just throw some focus on them, basically. And the reason I thought it might be a good idea was that it just seemed the whole idea of work being dignified and the dignity of work and the idea that all work matters. All Jobs Matter, was not only just as relevant as it had been when the whole Trader Joe's incident happened to me, but even more so because of the COVID crisis that we were now really recognizing the everyday, the quotidian heroism of essential workers, of workers of all types, that before we were not really acknowledging as significant at all. So it was almost as if pandemic plus Trader Joe's incident equals Shift Happens, that it seemed very timely for there to be a show that in a fun, creative way celebrated the ordinary working man.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Right, because had Trader Joe's happened last year, you would have been called an essential worker. But since it happened in 2018, then you got some backlash from it, you got some support from it, and I assume I assume that both reactions were rather unexpected of you just working a job at Trader Joe's.

Geoffrey Owens:

Yeah. I mean, the idea that anyone would make fun of me or denigrate me about it is very odd and unfortunate. Fortunately, many more people defended me, encouraged me, supported me, many more. So it was a positive result. But at the same time, it was equally strange to me to be made a kind of hero and kind of poster boy for the All Work Matters kind of movement. I wasn't comfortable either with people putting me up on a pedestal as someone who had done something heroic. Um, I didn't do anything heroic. I just got a job because I had to.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And what has been the response to Shift Happens?

Geoffrey Owens:

Well, interestingly, we did what was called a promo video, which was about, I don't know, uh, less than 3 minutes long. And oh my gosh, it got all this attention. It was like, whoa. We were not— we meaning my co-producer and I— were not prepared for it. We didn't have an episode 1 lined up. We should have— we should have waited till we had an episode 1 to make the promo, but we didn't. We didn't think it was going to— I mean, all of a sudden there was, for a week or two, there was the kind of focus on me, like back what happened with TJ, with Joe's. It was like my, my managers call me, hey, this guy wants to talk to this guy.

Geoffrey Owens:

TMZ wants to talk to you. An article in this blurb in LA Times. NPR All Things Considered interview. I was like, holy shit. It was like, it became this hot thing for a week or two. But unfortunately, because we didn't have product to back it up, it took us another 6 weeks or 7 weeks to produce episode 1. By the time we produced episode 1, unfortunately, a lot of that interest had waned.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's unfortunate.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah.

Geoffrey Owens:

So The, the reaction to episode 1, uh, was, you know, the people who saw it appreciated it, but it, it's the, the focus on it and the attention on it was not commensurate to that of the, the, uh, that was, uh, bestowed on the, on the promo. And now it's been a while since— it's been over 2 months since we did episode 1. We're now working on finalizing episode 2. We're trying to get more people on board because it's just been two of us working on the show. And basically what happened was neither of us had enough energy and time to devote to it. So it didn't get done. But now we brought someone else on board and hopefully we're going to try to put out episodes of Shift Happens with more, more consistently.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, believe me, as someone who does his own podcast and is a one-man operation, it can be tough to do it.

Geoffrey Owens:

Yeah, it's because it involves, it involves a lot of editing. And neither I nor my colleague has a significant editing experience. So it became basically untenable for us to really get it done with any kind of regularity. Everybody who's seen it loves it, but it's just a matter of getting it out so that more people see it.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Jeffrey touches upon the concept in that old saying, "You have to hit while the iron's hot." Basically, for us actors, that means you land in the news or you make a big splash doing something, Well, you want to capitalize on that and hopefully let that propel you to your next job, maybe even something bigger. In many ways, that's what Jeffrey has been doing since The Cosby Show, and for the better part of 35 years, he's been navigating a ladder of success. But unlike other professions, which generally progress up a corporate ladder to better pay and better positions, we actors can find ourselves at any point on that ladder of success at any time. And we spend our whole career climbing up and down, up and down. And in many ways, our status is based upon the last show we did. We're only as good as that last performance we had.

Geoffrey Owens:

You know, it's like people see me as we were talking about before, that people see me very much still as Elvin and It's, it's, there's two different things. There's the way the public sees you, and then there's the way the industry sees you. The public sees you like, oh, we loved you as that. What else are you gonna do? We wanna see more of you. The business is more like, what have you done lately? Oh yeah, you were Alvin and 55+ million people watched you and you get recognized every day on the street, but that is not good enough for us. We need to know what you've done in the last month or two. Um, it's very much starting constantly starting over. Like I remember when I went to LA in 2005, I kind of stepped out of the business for almost 4 years in a way, cuz I, I was teaching for 4 years and doing very little acting.

Geoffrey Owens:

And when I got to LA after that, it was like literally this was 2005. I'd been in the business for 20 years at that point. I was starting over. And I remember it took Raven-Symoné giving me an episode, a job, an episode on her show, That's So Raven, to get me going again. It took, it took a, a well-placed favor from an old pal who believed in me to get me going again. And even that was just, that was slow going. I, I hardly worked at all 5 years that I was in LA. As I mentioned, as I implied before, I really haven't worked a lot for many, many years except for a, a, an intense spate of work, uh, following the Trader Joe's, uh, incident.

Geoffrey Owens:

So again, this business is easy. It's easy for them to forget about you. You've got to stay hot somehow or you get cold really fast. You know, after the Trader Joe's incident, I had 9 months of scrutiny, attention, offers of work, and audition opportunities for 9 months. At the end of 9 months exactly, it stopped cold, and I did not work again for another 7.5 months. And it was like, well, wait, it's me. I'm, I'm still that guy. I'm, I'm the guy on The Cosby Show.

Geoffrey Owens:

I'm the guy from Trader Joe's, remember? Well, yeah, you are those things, but we've moved on. What have you done for me lately? Not enough. And look, Patrick, here's the reality. There's a lot of good actors out there. I know this. Casting people, producers, and directors, they have a lot of wonderful people to choose from. Honestly, before the Trader Joe's thing and since. When I get a job in my business, I consider it a miracle because the chances are so slim.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, because with almost every audition, we're up against 50, 100, 200 people depending on the, the role.

Geoffrey Owens:

But not even people of your type, people of any type. Now, when I audition for a role now It could eventually be played by an Asian woman. You know what I'm saying? It's not just like I'm going up against the best of the African American men of my age. I'm going up against the best of everybody.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, there is a fluidity now of, of, of gender, of ethnicity, of all.

Geoffrey Owens:

These different— which there should be, which there should be. I mean, sociopolitically, it's real good for For any one individual actor, not so much.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Right, it just puts added pressure, added competition for those limited roles.

Geoffrey Owens:

Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now, how has your race affected your career? In what ways have you found it to be both either a limitation or a benefit?

Geoffrey Owens:

Um, you know what, Patrick, this is a hard thing to gauge. I know that in general, in the most broad terms, that as a Black actor, I'll say this, and I think I can defend saying it, as a Black actor in general, I haven't had as many opportunities as I might have as a white actor. Beyond saying something very general like that, it's really hard to say because within being a Black actor, I've had a better career than a lot of people. I've had more opportunities than a lot of people, right? So as an actor of color, to a lot of people, they see my resume, they see the people I've worked with, they go, wow, you've had quite a career. I'm like, yeah, I actually have, you know. It's a hard question to say if my race has held me back or helped me. A bit of both. I think it neutralizes it.

Geoffrey Owens:

What's held me back more, I think, And this is not something I seriously regret because it involves who I am. What has held me back more is not being an actor of color, but being a mixed actor. Until recently, until the last 5, at the most 10 years, the business wasn't quite sure what to do with mixed actors.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Is that because of the lightness of your skin?

Geoffrey Owens:

It's because I ain't white. And I ain't Black enough. Okay, I'm talking about falling through the cracks. I'm saying we can't cast Jeffrey in a white role, he's obviously not white. Now we're looking for a Black actor, and in crass business terms, he just doesn't read Black enough.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And, and what does that definition mean? That, that's what's so crazy about it. Like, what does that mean?

Geoffrey Owens:

Well, the definition of what it means to be Black, which has been changing in the last 5, 10 years in terms of showbiz. There have been strides, there's been progress. But up to that point, it's like, we don't know, you're neither fish nor fowl, we don't know what to do with you. Being mixed is too complicated for TV, film. Theater is one thing. There's a suspension of belief, whatever. You can play anything in the theater. Sometimes, you know, there are some, some limitations to that, but in theater, there's more freedom.

Geoffrey Owens:

There's more imagination involved. Television, film, you got to look like what you're supposed to be playing. And if the definition of what you're playing is narrow, then people like me will fall through the cracks. And that I do feel has happened. To me a lot. So really, if I'd say anything, it'd be like, well, being a person of mixed heritage has had a, an adverse effect on my career. That I can say.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's so interesting.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And for you personally then, do you feel a responsibility as a Black actor to, to promote this or go after this or say things in a certain way? Like, how has it affected you and what responsibilities do you personally feel?

Geoffrey Owens:

I don't think I feel any personal responsibilities except to do work that I'm proud of in some way, or at least avoid work that I wouldn't be proud of in terms of content and theme.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

So you don't let your race dictate the kind of career or opportunities or work or roles that you do?

Geoffrey Owens:

No, I mean, I don't have the chance to do that, Patrick. People do that for me.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

For me.

Geoffrey Owens:

You know what I'm saying?

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Oh, I see.

Geoffrey Owens:

I would never limit that. I've got lots of people out there who are making sure that, you know, there's, there's tons of things I don't even get seen for because for whatever reason I'm not right for the part. That's okay. That's, that's the business. But myself, no, I mean, I, within reason, I'll go up for anything that I can possibly go up for. Because I am the kind of actor that's like, listen, don't, don't say I can't do that. I wanna, I wanna try, you know, why shouldn't I, you know, whatever. 'You know, maybe the, the role should be seen a little bit more in a more complex way, in a more whatever subtle way, a little more diverse way, a little more nuanced way.' 'No, I should be seen.' Okay, I'm all about that.

Geoffrey Owens:

But then this is what happened recently. I had an audition for a television show, and I read the script, and I called my manager and I said, 'Karen, this is a really fun role. There's only one problem.' He's Italian American. He said, uh, Jeff, yeah, I know it's written that way, but you know, they could change it. I said, no, wait, wait, wait, no, Karen, it's not a matter of changing a line or two or a name or anything. This character is an Italian American steeped in Italian American culture with Italian American themes in the script. It's all about being Italian American. Why on earth are they asking to see me for this?

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Right.

Geoffrey Owens:

This is what I'm saying to my manager, Patrick, because I'm like, look, I'm all for diversity in casting, but I'm not going to throw myself into some complete exercise in futility for someone's amusement. I mean, what is this? They're not going to— well, they could change it. Why would they change it? They're not going to find a good Italian American actor to do this. They're going to go with an African-American because they couldn't find a— it was, it was absurd, Patrick. But my manager said, look, they're interested in you. If they don't want you for this, they might want you for something else.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's what every agent says, right?

Geoffrey Owens:

Yeah, you shouldn't limit yourself. Do it. And I tell you, I was like, you know, okay, I'm gonna do it. And Patrick, I threw myself into it. It was 3 scenes. It was freaking 12 pages of script. I worked my ass off on it. I was a self-tape.

Geoffrey Owens:

It was in within the last pandemic. It was in pandemic times. So I had to do a self-tape. I had to hire someone. I did it, spent money and time and energy, and I did it. And I think I did a great job. And guess what the answer was? Well, Jeff, they didn't feel like you were right for this, but they did love— but they loved your audition. And I'm like, no kidding, really? Really? They didn't think I was right for this? Wow, go figure.

Geoffrey Owens:

Oh my gosh, it was just so ridiculous. But you know what? You know what? In retrospect, I'm glad I did it because it was kind of fun.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, I've had those auditions that, that are fun whether or not I book it. I enjoyed the audition, so I've had those.

Geoffrey Owens:

Yeah, but I don't know what they were thinking. I don't know what they were thinking.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, you've been behind the table. Do you have— has that ever entered your mind where, you know, a certain character or role is usually portrayed this way, or this is kind of what— but you're open to, you know, a different take on it? Have you gone through that yourself?

Geoffrey Owens:

Absolutely, absolutely. But if I were directing a play, for instance, with Italian-American character, I wouldn't be looking at African-American actors. I'm sorry, call me narrow-minded, call me old-fashioned, call me limited, call me bigot, call me whatever you want. I would not be looking at African-American actors to cast an Italian-American character because that is an insult to every Italian-American actor in New York City and the world.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. And, and the vice versa is true as well. Of course.

Geoffrey Owens:

Exactly.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Okey-dokey, well, let's finish up here with the final 5 questions. So number 1, if you could have any other job outside of the arts, what would it be?

Geoffrey Owens:

Um, teaching English.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Okay, now, you know, with English comes Shakespeare and all those other kind of plays, or would— is there a particular kind of literature that you would want to teach?

Geoffrey Owens:

I'd want to teach any literature at all, preferably English literature, although I do love French and Russian literature. It would not have to involve Shakespeare. If it involved the English novel of the 18th, 19th, or 20th century, or the American 20th century novel, I'd be perfectly happy to do that for the rest of my life.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Nice.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And so what is your favorite book or favorite genre of books that you love to read and study?

Geoffrey Owens:

My favorite genre is the novel, and I have a particular fondness for 19th-century English and 20th-century American novels.

Alvin Poussaint:

Nice.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Nice.

Geoffrey Owens:

And I don't think I could narrow it down, although Russian novels too. And if you had to press me for a favorite book, it would be War and Peace.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's like 2 or 3 books in one. Yes. And I assume during the pandemic, you've, you've had a lot of opportunity to read.

Geoffrey Owens:

I have, but you know what, I've been as equally an avid reader before, before that for many years. Of course, I read it. I read a lot. And yes, sure. I certainly have read a lot during this time as well.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. Number 2, what is a bucket list role or show that you still hope to do one day?

Geoffrey Owens:

I'd like— my favorite Shakespeare play is King Lear, and I think I'd like to play Lear. I mean, I'm only wondering if I'd have enough energy.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, but that's a mammoth role.

Geoffrey Owens:

Other than worrying about that, yeah, other than worrying about that, I would— I'd like to play Lear. Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Is there something in particular of that character that you love so much?

Geoffrey Owens:

Oh, it's just a, it's just a great old man character, and now that I'm becoming an old man, I'm looking out for the great old man role. Uh, I just did a reading of it with a group, uh, the past few Sundays. We read through, uh, Lear. I was reading the title role and it was fun. Um, uh, yeah, it's all, it's been a favorite play of mine since I directed it many years ago.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Number 3, who is it that you look up to as a mentor or someone that inspires you?

Geoffrey Owens:

Do you know who Austin Pendleton is?

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I do know who that is.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah.

Geoffrey Owens:

That's my— he's my idol. He has never technically been my mentor, but he has been at a distance my mentor for many years. He was a professor of mine at Yale. Um, I have audited his class over the years at HB Studio, and he has always been for me the single most exemplary man of the theater that I can think of, a complete Renaissance man of the theater, actor, producer, writer, director, probably one of the most busy people in the theater in the world.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, yeah. I constantly see his name in this project or that project in the arts column. Yeah, that's certainly mammoth praise for him, and he's had such a long and illustrious career. Is there a particular way that he inspires you? Is there a particular quality about him that you're drawn to?

Geoffrey Owens:

His mind. His teaching is— he's a wonderful teacher, a wonderful storyteller and teacher. He sees things— the way he sees things is unique. His perception, his insight as a teacher, as an actor. Most people know him from some television and film roles. He's most famous for the stuttering lawyer in My Cousin Vinny. And he actually is a stutterer. Austin is a stutterer who overcame stuttering and actually had to reproduce and act stuttering in that film.

Geoffrey Owens:

And he does it absolutely brilliantly. But he had to defend himself when stutterers came after him to critique him for doing that. He had to let them know, "I am actually a stutterer." He's a brilliant performer. I've seen him on stage a number of times, and he's a wonderful stage actor. I saw him do some Shakespeare things in which his technique, a way of saying lines that seem like they're coming 100% organically and genuinely from him in the moment, which is a remarkable thing to do, especially with a heightened text like Shakespeare. Like, yeah, I really feel like he's just in the moment, spontaneously breathing out these lines. Um, uh, just wonderful. A wonderful writer, wonderful playwright.

Geoffrey Owens:

I saw a play of his called Orson's Shadow, uh, years ago about the relationship between Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier and someone else. Brilliant play. And brilliant director. I've seen many things he's directed. And, uh, yeah, he's just the, you know, just as I said, a Renaissance man of the theater. I admire him so much, and, and we are friends, which is lovely too.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that always helps whenever you, you get some personal connection with someone that you look up to, for sure.

Geoffrey Owens:

Absolutely.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Number 4: Name a personal lesson that took you a while to learn or one that you're still learning to this day.

Geoffrey Owens:

To succeed in this business, you have to Network. I was very slow to learn this lesson and I'm still learning it. I'm getting better at it. I'm still not good at it, but I'm better at it than I used to be. But I used to be horrible at it and it cost me. There were many opportunities I feel I either missed or wasn't available to and didn't have access to because personal connections with people are everything in this business. I've always resisted that. There's something about it I don't like, but it's a reality.

Geoffrey Owens:

And if you're not willing to engage in it, don't blame anyone but yourself if your opportunities are limited. And I blame only myself for a certain amount of limited opportunities because of that weakness.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I would absolutely agree with you. It's something that has seemed off-putting to me. In the fact that I, I need to get to know someone or, or use their position in any way to further my own career. Like, it just— like, some of that just seems very much what I do not want to do and not why I got into this business. I want to audition, I want to show my talents, and then be cast in what I should be cast in. But yeah, there is a bit of that networking that feels like you're just schmoozing.

Geoffrey Owens:

There's a good way to do it and a bad way to do it. You know, there is a good There's a good, healthy way to do it. It's a difficult kind of balance, but there is a good way to do it. I'm not that good at it, but I know you can do it in a good way, and it needs to be done. Because yes, you could, you know, you want to, you want to, you want to rely on your merits in the audition room, but you may not get to the audition room. You may not get in the door. Without the connections you need. That's the catch.

Geoffrey Owens:

You might be the one that's best for this role, but the world will never know it because you didn't get into the room. You didn't get into the room because you didn't know enough people.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, I mean, it's very true. And this pandemic, I think, has drilled that point home even more. I mean, I, I have really felt like just a little island for the last 9 months, and nobody knows who I am or where I am.

Geoffrey Owens:

Wow.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

So it did, yeah, it can be disconcerting to feel like, you know, you— I read all these people that are doing this job and that job and I'm like, where? I mean, I, you know, I'm looking at audition notices, the few that are there, I'm looking at that and I'm going, how are all these people getting.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Work when nothing's happening?

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And then I'm like, yet things are happening. And so it's felt, yeah, it's felt, I felt very much on the outside, not even on the outside, Like, like, I'm just— what? Like, I'm on the outside and I can't even see it.

Geoffrey Owens:

Patrick, you know, I mean, I've had— I've had this career that I've had. I've worked with so many people. I've had so much exposure. And there are still just tons of— tons of projects that I'm right for that I don't even get seen for still. You know, I watch stuff all the time where I could have been in that, I could have been that. I'm like, I wasn't even called about it to even to come in for it. Wasn't even considered for it. That's the result of not being on people's lists.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, it goes back to that story you told about going to a birthday party, exchanging phone numbers, and then Estelle Parsons calls you.

Geoffrey Owens:

That— well, that, that's the most bizarre level of it.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yes. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's like a random case.

Geoffrey Owens:

That's very unexpected, but random level of it. But basically, yeah, it comes down to, yeah, it was a personal connection.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, I mean, you were talking about that balance of a good way to do it, bad way to do it. Is there like a nugget of wisdom that you've discovered, like, okay, this is at least one good way to do it?

Geoffrey Owens:

Yes, go to the party, go to the event. In the past, I don't want to go to— I know I'm supposed to go to the party because I'm supposed to meet people. I, I hate that whole schmoozing thing. Okay, so don't, don't schmooze. Make a make a decision. I'm not going to schmooze. I'm not going to ass kiss anyone. But you know what? Go to the party.

Geoffrey Owens:

You never know what's going to happen. Go to the party and see if you don't get into a normal, comfortable, nice conversation with somebody that may not lead to anything, and then you've lost nothing. Or who knows, may lead to a connection.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah.

Geoffrey Owens:

You know, I didn't go to the birthday party for the kid thinking I was gonna meet Estelle Parsons' daughter and we're gonna connect me into doing Salome with Al Pacino. I just went cuz my son got invited and we were like, yeah, it would be nice. Let's go. Rather than, nah, I don't wanna go to a party. So you know what I mean? Go to the party. Go out.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Love it. Love it. Well, that actually leads us into number 5. So what is the most useful advice you you've received?

Geoffrey Owens:

Interestingly enough, when I was in college, my mother took me to a Planned Parenthood benefit, a benefit gala for Planned Parenthood at the Stratford Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut, which burned down a few years ago, the old famous Stratford Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre. That's where it was held. And it was hosted by the head of ConPared at the time, who was, as you might know, Joanne Woodward.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Oh, okay.

Geoffrey Owens:

Joanne Woodward hosted the evening. And at the end of the first act, when the intermission was starting, one noticed a man cross the stage, picked up the microphone in the middle of stage and walked and crossed to the other edge of the stage. Basically crossed and struck the microphone off the stage. And just as he was getting off stage, you realize that was Paul Newman. My mother and I go backstage because there's a little reception, snacks and stuff, and there's Paul Newman standing alone on stage behind the closed curtain. I think everyone was afraid to, uh, approach him, but not my mother. My mother marches me up to him, and Newman was eating ribs. He was eating ribs with his hands and his ribs and his lips full of barbecue ribs, probably with his own Newman's own barbecue sauce.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Of course, Newman's sauce.

Geoffrey Owens:

Yeah, he's eating ribs and he just— he looks like he does not want to be bothered. Not a rude way, but just kind of like, I understand. He's like, okay, lady, what's up? So my mother tells him My son is at Yale because we knew that he went to Yale Drama School. And he said, oh, you went to Yale Drama? And I was like, no, I'm an undergraduate. And then he visibly lost interest. That wasn't good enough. Going to Yale undergrad wasn't good enough. So, okay, okay.

Geoffrey Owens:

So then my mother, I remember my mother said, well, you guys talk. I'm going to go off. And I'm like, Mom, So I'm standing there alone with Paul Newman, and I don't know what to say, Patrick. So I said, well, Mr. Newman, that was the best stage cross I've ever seen. Like, I felt like such an idiot, such a nerd. But I'll never forget what he said as he's chomping on his ribs. He said, well, kid, You gotta do something.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I was like, wow, there you go.

Geoffrey Owens:

And I'm sure I extracted myself, walked away, excuse myself, and let him be. But he said, you gotta do something. And what that's meant to me over the years was, you gotta do something.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah, you're on stage, so, you know, give it something.

Geoffrey Owens:

You're on stage, you're, you're in it, do something. I was like, yeah. Yep. That makes a lot of sense.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, this has been a joy to talk to you, to pick your brain about things. So thank you, Jeffrey, and I greatly appreciate it.

Geoffrey Owens:

Thanks, Patrick. It was really enjoyable, actually.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

If I'm being completely honest, going into this interview, I was nervous to meet Jeffrey.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I wanted to impress him in some way.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Let him know he didn't make a mistake in agreeing to be on the podcast. But what came of this, I think, was a wonderful, honest, and heartfelt conversation between colleagues about this business that may frustrate us from time to time, but is one that we ultimately love dearly. Do check out Jeffrey's work in TV and film.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I was looking on IMDb, and in.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

2020, he appeared He's appeared in 8 different projects, so check the show notes for a list of shows that you can see him in. Thank you so much for joining us in our conversation today. If you know someone who you think could benefit from this episode, please tell them about this podcast. Well, that about does it for this episode. I'm your host, Patrick Oliver Jones, in charge of writing, editing and producing this podcast. Background music is from John Bartman, and the theme song, that was created by me. Be sure to join me next time as we talk more about why I'll never make it.