There was nothing attractive about Gregory, the character Xander Berkeley currently plays on AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”
In Berkeley’s own words, Gregory is “narcissistic, egotistic, vainglorious, with a showman’s big shell of bravado but with an empty locker of true grit and character. Someone whom life taught very bad lessons to, and is now having to face the real world at a stage when it may be too late for him to change his spots.”
Eventually, many convinced Berkeley to accept the role, largely because the ensemble cast of “Walking Dead” TV series – where humans struggle to survive a zombie apocalypse – is “an amazing group of people.”
“I knew he would be very hard to play convincingly without having the audience hate me,” says Berkeley, who will attend Motor City Nightmares at the Novi Sheraton the weekend of April 27-29.
“So unctuous were the list of characteristics describing him I actually said to my reps and the show runner (Scott M. Gimple), ‘Why on Earth would I want to play this guy? I have kids who are gonna grow up some day and I want them to look back at Daddy as something other than a (expletive).’ I’ve been working for years to try to undo some of the more venal portrayals I did earlier in my career.”
Berkeley worked with Gimple to weave some humor into Gregory that could serve the show and offset some of his worst characteristics for the audience. He binged-watched “Walking Dead” and read the comics to “get my Gregory on.”
“I wanted to be able to incorporate all the gestures from all the comic images of Gregory into my repertoire of physical mannerisms for the character. I thought that would tell me from the outside-in what kind of guy he was. And it did,” he explained. “I figured a big-drinking, blowhard like this guy would have blown his voice out in noisy bars trying to talk over everybody else, smoking cigars, telling jokes, performing for the ladies.”
Berkeley also channeled showmen with bravado, such as Robert Preston in “The Music Man” and the Wizard of Oz with a touch of the Cowardly Lion “thrown in for good measure.”
“I think with a guy as awful as Gregory, the only thing that makes him bearable and watchable is if you make him entertaining, and even a little pathetically tragic so you can’t help but feel sorry for him,” he said.
Berkeley’s looking forward to coming to Nightmares. Co-star Pollyanna McIntosh, Barry Bostwick (“The Rocky Horror Picture Show”), Malcolm McDowell (“A Clockwork Orange”), and Bruce Davison (“X-Men”) are also attending.
“I have always been so lame when it comes to returning fan mail,” he confesses. “I get it delivered in a big package by my manager who always lets it pile up before sending it, and then I always screw up which picture goes in what envelope because I open them all at once – it’s a nightmare, Motor City! I’m much better in person.”
Berkeley’s worked with renowned directors including Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, Rob Reiner, Ron Howard, and Wolfgang Petersen.
Perhaps he’s best known as George Mason on the first two seasons of “24.” Like “Dead,” he was reluctant to take the role.
“At the time there was a distinction between being a movie actor and a TV actor. If you established yourself in the ranks of the former, a certain amount of restraint was required lest you become associated solely with the latter,” he recalls. “I took a certain amount of pride – some might argue too much – in flying under the radar, remaining a secret weapon of great filmmakers, turning up in films as completely different characters each time out.”
However, “24” co-creator/Detroit native Joel Surnow convinced Berkeley to accept because he promised to kill off Mason. In the second season, Mason ingests lethal plutonium and with less than a day to live redeems himself by crashing a bomb-carrying plane safely in the desert.
On “24” Berkeley met actress Sarah Clarke (she played Nina Myers), whom he married in 2002.
“I loved the character arc they gave me on ’24’ when (Mason) finds himself dying and struggles to make up for a life misspent,” Berkeley says. “His redemption was very beautiful and moving to me. And I met my very beautiful and movingly talented wife on the show. And we have our two beautiful daughters as a result, so you can’t beat that!”
* If you go: The 10th Annual Motor City Nightmares Horror Expo & Film Festival runs 5-10 p.m. Friday, April 27; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, April 28; and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, April 29, at the Novi Sheraton, 2111 Haggerty Road, Novi. After-parties will be at 10:30 p.m. Friday, April 27, and at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 28. Admission is $25-$150; children 5 and younger free, ages 6-11 half off. Active military and veterans get a free one-day pass with a military ID. Visit motorcitynightmares.com for more information.
