Interview -- Jay Underwood (Actor)
"...the first time I took a dive into
the grass, it felt like crystallized
needles piercing into my skin."
~ Jay Underwood ~
Jay Underwood has been cast in dozens of films and TV shows, from his award-winning break-out role in the film "The Boy Who Could Fly"...to shows such as "The West Wing" and "The X-Files." However, for me, and I was just a middle-school video junkie...it was the John Candy comedy "Uncle Buck" where I was first introduced. Playing 'Bug'...the priggish, low-grounder boyfriend of Uncle Buck's niece and the foil for John Candy's wrath, Jay Underwood was perfect. I mean, how could one not enjoy the confused terror in Bug's eyes in almost every one of his scenes?
But in this movie, there is also one of those "if you blink, you miss it" kind of thing that happens. It's actually a very, very small snip of a much bigger scene. Nothing to get hung about. And yet, Bug appears to have one of those raw, open-sore revelations as if all the dick-move sins he had ever committed were instantly revealed to him, and he is truly sorry. Not with the initial angry, sarcastic outbursts of apology. It's the meek, trembly apology he offers up afterward that seems to come from a hollow place where only true contrition resides. This is what seals the deal. I must have rewatched the 'trunk scene' a hundred times. Looking for flaws in the delivery. A false note, perhaps. I couldn't. There wasn't. Of course, Bug immediately returns to being the asshat he always was...and it's go Uncle Buck and we live happily ever after. But that 2-second apology...I still remember to this day. So what is the point of this winded epistle? Maybe it's that sometimes the biggest impacts are made from the smallest of hammers. Jay Underwood…Go get you some.
Jay Underwood Interview -- April 2025
Jay Underwood
[The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.]
Casey Chambers: Last year was the 35th anniversary of "Uncle Buck." I've watched this movie a bunch of times and never tire of it. If I'm flippin' and it's on, I put the remote down. How did you get involved with this picture?
Jay Underwood: Well, for the better part of my career, I was always playing the nice guy next door. Kids with superhuman powers and things like that. And I was looking for things that would allow me to play parts that were not like those kinds of characters. Kind of expand as an actor. So the part of Bug was originally written as a punk rocker, which was funny because I had friends who had gone through the punk rock scene. I had even done a movie called "The Day My Kid Went Punk" for ABC. (1987) My agent had gotten me this audition for that reason and partly because my agent also represented John Candy, as well.
I thought if I show up at the audition just looking like Jay, there's just no way they're gonna see me in this part. So I called a friend who still had all of his punk rock regalias. Leather jackets, chains, boots and stuff like that. Another friend of mine does makeup and hair, so she did my makeup and my hair. So I was kind of looking like Sid Vicious a bit. (laughs) When I went in to audition...and the first audition was just on videotape for the casting director for John Hughes...I thought to myself, I'm gonna play the part from the time I walk into the office. Even if I know the cast director and they know me, I'm not gonna let up. And that's what I did. Even in between takes, I'm still playing Bug the way I saw him.
And I got a callback. My agent said it was gonna be with John Hughes and John Candy. And I'm like, 'Sweet!' I love John Hughes movies. I love John Candy. I was just so excited. So I went back and got my wardrobe from my friend. And it was funny 'cause the one who was doing my hair and makeup...she's like, 'Oh, no! I'm gonna be out of town! Okay, we're gonna get somebody else, and I'm gonna call him on the phone and I'm gonna tell 'em exactly what to do for you!' (laughs)
I had to go over to Universal Studios when I went in for the second audition. I remember it was in the evening. And I thought I'd just do the same thing. I'm gonna play the part from the time I walk in. So I'm in the waiting room, and there are other guys reading for the part, too, and when it was my turn, I went in and played Bug in front of Hughes and Candy. And when we were just doing like, small talk before my reading, John Candy said, 'So what's that...uh...what's that thing around your, around your neck there?' I had this necklace on, and I said, 'It's a jaw of a rat.' And it was! (laughs) He's like, 'Oh, that, that, that's very, that's very interesting. That's very interesting.' (laughs)
Lo and behold, you know, I got the part. An interesting thing was that they had me fly out to Chicago to participate in some rehearsals. I was a little bit nervous because now I'm gonna show up looking like Jay and not the part that I auditioned for. But once I got there, John Hughes said to me, 'Well, here's the thing. The more I've thought about it, the punk rock scene is kind of on the out. You know, it's fading out. And I've kind of noticed that there's this weird thing going on with a lot of young people; it's kind of goth, but not to that degree. It's kind of like this weird beatnik kind of deal I've seen. Guys with turtleneck sweaters and berets and patches on their elbows. Rolled-up tweed pants and stuff like that. So...I think we should just kind of go a different direction.' I was like...'Sweet! I'm down for that.' (laughs) And it was one of those things where once the wardrobe person started fitting all the clothes for me and you put the clothes on...the next thing you know...you're feeling the character. And I think that's what happened with this new Bug character that Hughes had come up with.
His Name is Bug - "Uncle Buck" (1989)
Casey Chambers: Hughes was known for making a lot of his movies in Chicagoland. What did you think about filming out there?
Jay Underwood: When we shot "Uncle Buck," we were outside of Chicago in a town called Skokie. There was this high school called New Trier West High School, and it was gigantic. It had two giant gymnasiums. It was just humongous. And the school had closed at some point, so Hughes rented it and turned it into a studio, basically. It was perfect because you had all these classrooms that you could use for dressing rooms. You could use'em for prop rooms, or costume and wardrobe rooms and this, that, and the other. He used the gymnasiums for the sound stages. They had high ceilings, so he could build whatever he wanted in there.
The hallways were big and wide, and I remember people riding bicycles to and from the stages and the production office. All the different rooms anyone needed to go to. That was really cool. Now, the downside was that we were in Skokie in the dead of winter. I think it was January when I started shooting, and it was freezing cold. John Hughes just took so much time. Tons of time. I've talked to other character actors who had supporting roles for Hughes, and they have said the same thing. They'd get hired for two weeks and end up spending six to eight weeks on the job. And that was the same thing with me. They flew me out. I did the rehearsal stuff. They'd hired me for two weeks. I was supposed to start shooting, and they never shot any of my stuff. Never even got to my first scene. So I'm sitting out there in Skokie in the dead of winter with not a lot to do. I made a friend with a kid they hired to be my stand-in, and we'd hang out.
I'd call the production office each day to see if they needed me, and then I went to the mall and saw all the movies. I read books. And I was bored out of my mind. Finally, they flew me back to L.A. and said, 'We're gonna redo your deal, and we'll bring you back out.' At that point, I said, 'By the way, would it be possible I could stay at a hotel in Chicago, instead of Skokie?' 'Cause I knew Candy was staying at a hotel in Chicago, and I thought, 'well, it couldn't hurt to ask.' (laughs) And they surprised me and said, 'Yeah, sure, we'll put you up at the Ritz-Carlton where Candy's at.' (laughs) And it was the same kind of thing the next time. I was there for another four weeks. I probably shot two of those weeks, and the other two weeks I got to enjoy Chicago. So, it was a sweet deal.
Casey Chambers: The answer's always no if you don't ask, right?
Jay Underwood: It was great!
Casey Chambers: So, let's talk a little bit about one of your scenes with John Candy. What do you recall about shooting that scene where Bug is in the trunk of Uncle Buck's car?
Jay Underwood: I loved the way John Hughes shot stuff. He would take as much time as he wanted and shoot things, ad nauseam. He would put a fresh magazine on the camera...a thousand-foot film reel amounted to about 11 minutes...and he'd just let the camera roll and do spontaneous things with a lot of improv. Hughes always shot the script first, got it in the can, and then just had fun. He never wanted to have short ends. I mean, it was great. For example, when we did the trunk scene, I maybe had one or two lines. But once we got to the improv stuff, he was like, 'Just say whatever you want.'
And so what happened, and again, we're filming outside in the middle of the night...I'm in my short-sleeve shirt in the trunk of a car with my hands and face duct taped. I mean, it was freezing cold. They had put a thing in my mouth and put the tape over it. And the very first take where the cameras focused on me, John Candy opens up the trunk, reaches in, and I mean he really rips the tape off. And my, oh, my! I swear he ripped half my mouth off. When I spit the thing out at him, I just started ranting and raving and cursing at him, and I swear that was definitely the first take. That was no acting. (laughs) And I asked John Hughes, 'Well, do I have to be careful that I don't shout out profanity?' He says, 'No, just do whatever you want. I'll edit it the way that I wanna edit.' It was just so much fun.
Casey Chambers: And watch out for golf balls. Hughes made Candy look like Happy Gilmore. (laughs)
Jay Underwood: (laughs) It was the same thing when I was shouting all that 'I'm gonna sue you! My dad's a lawyer!' stuff. There wasn't any dialogue for that scene. That was all just ad-lib. When Buck says, 'Time to teach him a golf lesson,' he swings, knocks me down, and you see me just taking a dive into the grass in my short-sleeve shirt, right? And what happened was...in movies, just to make things look aesthetically better, they like to wet stuff down. It doesn't mean that it was raining, necessarily. It just reflects the light and looks nicer. And they did the same thing in "Uncle Buck." They sprayed a big fire hose over the trees in the background, and the water just crystallized instantly. It's freezing. Well, the water went on the grass as well. So when the ball hits me in the head...and somebody off-screen tosses the little plastic golf ball...the camera's tracking with me, and I fall out of frame. Well, the first time I took a dive into the grass, it felt like crystallized needles piercing into my skin. (laughs) And we did that scene a whole bunch of times. (laughs)
But yeah, it was an exhilarating shooting night. I mean, it was awesome. It was fun. But man, I was kind of beat up when it was all over. (laughs) In fact, when Candy ripped the tape off, the makeup gal came running up to me. She's like, 'Oh my gosh! I was watching the monitor, and I saw him rip that tape off, and I didn't realize that was gonna happen!' So they vaselined up my lips and barely put four corners of the tape back on for the next several takes.
Bug in the trunk - "Uncle Buck" (1989)
Casey Chambers: Oh, yeah. That's some funny stuff.
Jay Underwood: For me, as a young actor working with John Hughes...I was just eating it up. I really enjoyed it. I remember one time he told me the most film he ever shot in one day was 35,000 feet of film. 35,000 foot magazines on the camera, which is just unheard of. That was when he was working on "The Breakfast Club." You figure 35 x 11 would be how many minutes of film that he shot in one day. It was just nuts.
When I was doing "Uncle Buck," Jean Kelly, who played Tia, Buck's niece and my girlfriend...well, that was her first movie. She had come from Broadway. In Broadway, you do things repetitious, ya know? You do a show a day. Then do another show kind of thing. But with filming, you repeat scenes over and over and over again. She had been filming for like a month before I got there. And I could tell she was getting worn out. She was like, 'Oh my gosh, do we have to do it again?' And I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, we get to do it again!' (laughs)
Casey Chambers: I'd like to jump to another role of yours. And I'm just cherry-picking. You made an appearance in an episode of "The X-Files." Any memories you took away from that show?
Jay Underwood: My first experience working with Chris Carter was when he was producing the TV show "Millennium." Chris had asked me back shortly thereafter for "The X-Files." It was towards the end of the series. The girl who played opposite Robert Patrick was Annabeth Gish, and Annabeth and I did our very first movie together. We were like boyfriend/girlfriend in the movie, "Desert Bloom" with Jon Voight, JoBeth Williams and Ellen Barkin. We hadn't seen each other in 20 years or whatever it was. So, we both had a really good time getting back together and reminiscing. And then here's the cool thing. And I thought it was poetic justice...the first movie we did, we're like boyfriend/girlfriend, and then on this one, she's shooting and killing me. (laughs).
Casey Chambers: Good thing she didn't have golf clubs with her. (laughs) That episode was called "Empedocles" (S8:E17). Now, there's a word you don't hear every day.
Jay Underwood: Exactly! Which was like a fire demon.
Casey Chambers: And the special effects for that episode were pretty dang sweet as well.
Jay Underwood: Totally! It was one of those cases where I had the opportunity to play the bad guy. It was just fun. And like a lot of the bad guy characters that I did, with the exception of Bug, it was always because the bad guy looked like a good guy, right? (laughs) You see me at the beginning, and I just look normal, nice, whatever. I get fired from my job. I witnessed a car accident. The guy's on fire. He walks into me and turns me into this fire demon. And yeah, it was pretty cool.
What they had to do for the big scene where I pull my face apart and you see the molten lava underneath my skin...they made a face mask of my head and created this latex piece that went over my whole face. Then they cut pieces of latex for my hands for when I actually pull the pieces off. And they colored my skin blue, so when I pulled the pieces of latex off, it became like a blue screen underneath where they put in the molten lava effect. There was another scene where they had an air pump going up my hand covered with makeup so they could squeeze air and make it look like my skin was bubbling.
Jay Underwood - "Empedocles" / The X-Files
Casey Chambers: That's awesome!
Jay Underwood: It was, it was! Yeah, it was very cool! I remember we filmed the car crash scene in downtown Los Angeles in the middle of the night. It was amazing watching the stunt guys do the crash and the stunt guy on fire do his thing. I love the fact that I got to play in some really good TV shows. I'm glad I got to do "The X-Files." And "Millennium." I did "The West Wing" in the first season. And "ER." I've been fortunate to have worked on some really neat shows.
Casey Chambers: Great shows. And the episode you did for "Star Trek: Voyager" was a good one. I think the episode was called "Good Shepherd" (S6:E20). Were you a Trekkie at all?
Jay Underwood: No, not at all. Not at all. But it was a ton of fun. I was more of a "Star Wars" guy. I had seen some "Star Trek" and some episodes of the original show. But no, I wasn't really a follower. I remember auditioning for "Star Trek: The Next Generation," I think it was. The part that Wil Wheaton got. He and I would often go up for a lot of the same parts. And so when "Voyager" came up, it was cool. I had gotten the part. And then my agent...he was all bummed out. He said, 'Oh, you're a Starfleet guy.' I said, 'What's wrong with being a Starfleet guy?' He goes, 'Well, if you're a guest actor on the show, if you really want to make money, then you need to get cast as an alien. Because they have to pay you for the whole time that you're in the makeup chair, and you would be in the makeup chair for hours so you'd get a ton of overtime.' And I'm like, 'Oh, man!'.
Casey Chambers: Bummer.
Jay Underwood: Yeah, exactly. So, guys always wanted to get the alien parts. But what was neat was that the whole episode was basically the three of us and Kate Mulgrew. It was so sweet to be able to work with her. She was really kind to us. And it was also fun because I had my youngest son at the time, and I could bring him onto the set. He was a toddler. And so he got to come down to the "Star Trek" set, and everybody on the crew was great. They let him fly the ship. Put him in the captain's chair. After we watched the episode, for months afterward, he would tell everybody, 'Daddy shot the alien! Daddy shot the alien! Daddy shot the alien!' (laughs)
Mortimer Harren (Jay Underwood)
Star Trek Voyager Card / #128
It was also neat to play with all the Star Trek props. But, oh man, they are watching the props like a hawk. When you're rehearsing a scene, the prop guys will come over and hand you the props so you can rehearse with them. Get a feel for it. But the very minute you are done shooting, those guys are right there to take it out of your hands. They know where that stuff will end up otherwise. On eBay and whatnot. And it's funny because your Starfleet communicator, it's just a hunk of plastic with a piece of Velcro on the back, y'know? It's nothing special. My mom bought a Star Trek communicator off of the Shopping Network once, and it looked way cooler than this hunk of plastic. (laughs) And I remember saying to the wardrobe guy when I was finishing up...it was like my last day, and I said, 'Now I don't suppose I can keep my communicator.' And he was like, 'Oh, yeah, well we're not supposed to. But you know, if I happen to come in at the end of the day and your costume was there and the communicator was missing, I would just presume it fell off somewhere on the ground.' (laughs) He was basically giving me permission...wink-wink...to take it. So I do have my communicator. My official Star Trek communicator.
Casey Chambers: Excellent. How could you not! And now you're the lead pastor of a fine church.
Jay Underwood: Yeah, the Lord just took my career in a totally different direction. I went to seminary, I guess it was back in 2003, and then started working at the church I'm at now in Burbank. I later took up a church in Northern California for about 13 years, and then returned again to the church here in Burbank. And it was interesting because at the beginning I was asking God, 'Lord...what was the whole 20 plus years in the entertainment industry all about for me to now be in ministry full time?' And I didn't have to wait very long before I got an answer. Because even as a pastor, you're preaching sermons and doing a certain amount of storytelling in a way that's going to capture people's attention and imagination and help them to see...to make the Bible come alive. Jesus told the parables and great stories, y'know? An actor is always studying people and human nature. As a pastor, my main concern is people and helping people. So I already saw the ways that I was able to use that part of my career in my new career.
Once I moved out here to Los Angeles, back to the church that we're at now, I started a Cast and Crew Fellowship Group. Our church is right in the middle of Burbank, which is right in the middle of the entertainment capital of the world. We have lots of industry people in the church. We have animators down the street at Disney. We have editors. We have actors and voiceover people and stunt people, and administrative people, and you name it. And it's a unique thing, I think, to be a Christian in the entertainment industry. Challenges that go with being a Christian. So, I started this group at the church. A place where people can share their challenges. To share how things are going for them out there. Where we can pray for each other. And it's been very fulfilling for me to have gone through what I went through as an actor to be doing what I'm doing now.
Casey Chambers: Very cool. Before I let you go, I'd like to ask about some of the music you've been listening to. Maybe recommend an album or two you might enjoy.
Jay Underwood: Oh, my word! (laughs) Okay, well, here's the thing. I'm a product of the '80s. So if we're around the house, I'll just put on some playlist that we can find that's 80s stuff. And what's funny is some of those songs...my kids are listening to now. I'll listen to some classic rock. I'm a fan of Journey. "Don't Stop Believin'" I mean, that's my song. Now, I don't know how this will go over, but I'm a showtunes guy. I love to go to plays. I love musicals. I love the latest soundtracks for this, that, or the other. "Hadestown" is a great album from a show I saw last year. In fact, I was just listening to this in my car on the way over. I also love the movie "La La Land." I love the way it ends. Nobody likes the way it ends, but I love the way it ends. (laughs) And the music is amazing.
And "The Greatest Showman" is a favorite of mine. For my 50th birthday party, we were living in a small town, and I was on the board for the Performing Arts theater. So I invited all my friends to a sing-along version of "The Greatest Showman." (laughs) And I love listening to classical music when I'm driving. It's true. My wife hates it (laughs), but I'm like, 'No, it's good. It's peaceful.' In Los Angeles, when you're driving on these crazy freeways, you need something to help focus you. Bring a little bit of peace to the car.
Casey Chambers: Well, I've really enjoyed talking with you tonight. Thank you for sharing a little bit about yourself. It's been a treat hanging out. Thank you so much.
Jay Underwood: You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you, Casey. I enjoyed it, too.
******************************************************
Comments