Dan Fogler on Parenting, Work/Life Balance and Pursuing Your Dreams
How Dan Fogler’s Boyhood Dreams Turned Into Adult Realities
Dan Fogler is living in the UK indefinitely. The Fantastic Beasts and The Offer star extended his stay in the United Kingdom while filming the third installment of the Beasts franchise, and the decision to make the cross-pond location home was motivated in large part by his kids. “We decided we liked it here during lockdown and it was also the most stable place with the kids in school. Your kids are in so many ways at the top of the list so whatever makes them the most comfortable wins out.”
While keeping his kids front and center, Fogler also understands the importance of balance, and he’s able to maintain his successful career — currently in development on a Heavy Metal Moon Lake animated series — and personal life by adhering to a schedule that works for him and his family. “On the work projects, it’s hard to be away from the kids. We don’t like to be away from each other for more than three weeks. That’s a lot for my family, so we plan for me to visit them or for them to visit me on set. We get doses of each other and then we’re able to go another three weeks.”
When we connect by phone, Fogler opens up about his childhood dreams leading to adulthood realities, the inspiring creative takeaways from his recent project The Offer, and how being able to play your comic heroes and have a part in their universe is the ultimate boon.
AskMen: As a multi-hyphenate man studying theater at Boston University, was being a performer always the path for you growing up?
Dan Fogler: [Superhero voice] Multi-hyphenate Man! I like that [laughs].
When I first started out, I was just trying to play and have a good time. I once got some clay for a birthday and started sculpting and started making all of the characters from the Sunday comics. If I hadn’t become an actor, I’d probably have tried to become a sculptor somehow, which is ninety-thousand times more difficult [than acting]. I was very right-brained and would also watch Saturday morning cartoons and started doing the voices and stuff while sculpting the characters.
I then got into reading and enjoying comic books, making my own little comics with my brother, playing Dungeons and Dragons and the Marvel games — all of which really inspired me to make my own characters. If you were a Dungeon Master, it inspired you to direct your own story. Making your own comics is just like storyboarding, and it just seemed like one thing cascaded into the next where suddenly I was making home movies on the block with my friends. It seemed inevitable that I would get into this kind of field via many different pathways.
While pursuing those different pathways, was there a seminal moment or experience that gave you the inclination that those pursuits could be a vocation?
I wasn’t the best student but I excelled in the arts. I loved getting laughs on stage and stealing shows and stuff like that. I had just finished a school play and my art teacher Mr. Waithe was like, “Man, you were funny, man.” I said, “Thanks. Do you think I could do this as a job? I’m trying to figure out what career I could pursue.” And before I could even finish my sentence he said “Absolutely. Absolutely you could do this.” Just hearing from this guy who I trusted and respected gave me some confidence to look into acting at colleges and pursuing that road.
So knowing you had the talent and then having the validation from someone you admired and respected was a Mario mushroom-power-up that helped you to take the next steps in your trajectory.
[Laughs] Yeah, it emboldened me. Once I started auditioning for colleges, it was cool to see them recognize, “Oh, this kid’s got talent.” But it was a long journey, man.
After college, I was knocking on doors, doing all sorts of things before landing a “real” gig. I was doing stand-up comedy and I was doing improv and was taking gigs as long as there was some kind of acting involved. It was tough, but I think it’s really cool that the thing I was able to knock down the door and get into — this big aquarium that we call “The Biz” or whatever — I was able to get in because of something I created with my friends. I think that’s cool. Like, I created my character from the Spelling Bee show with my friends and that took us to Broadway and accolades and then that really opened a lot of doors to movies and television. So I’m very proud of that.
How much do you think the formula for the kind of path you’re describing is owed to simply having fun with yourself and fun with your friends?
When you do things for the love of the game, just for the joy of it, the universe tends to conspire in your favor and help you out. It all stems from playing on the block with my friends, creating with my friends, making movies, and playing Dungeons and Dragons and the Marvel games.
Then you get to the theater and it’s all about the ensemble. You get into improv and it’s all about the ensemble. You’re only as good as the people you’re working with. In a world that can be really tough if you’re on your own, it’s so important to create a village and hunker down in it. Even if it’s just a writing partner, someone you like writing with, someone you like brainstorming with — that’s the real joy, the creating. When you’re in the middle of creating something and really having a good time with it, I really believe the universe helps you out.
We’ve got the show The Offer [about the making of The Godfather] right now where it’s [Mario] Puzo and [Francis Ford] Coppola. For me, it’s all about those moments where you see those little brainstorm sessions. There’s one scene — I think it’s in the second episode — where you see them coming up with the moment of dropping the gun or holding onto the gun during the Sollozzo and McCluskey scene where Michael [Corleone] does the assisanitation in the restaurant. To see that little brainstorm — that’s what it’s all about. Two minds coming together, and you see from out of that, some little miracle happens where Puzo lays out this playground of The Godfather universe and Coppola is inspired by the guy’s genius to create another genius moment. You build on these genius moments until suddenly you have one of our favorite movies of all time.
For me, it’s distilled down to that moment. The joy of brainstorming and creating. That’s where it all comes from. Making each other laugh. Telling each other a story. That little communication between two people and then suddenly people are winning Academy Awards years later. It’s amazing.
Does everything you’re describing come from that same place of joy as it did in childhood?
It’s all from play. Acting is basically playing outside with a bigger budget. It’s literally the same thing as “Oh man, we’ve gotta get from this couch to that couch but there’s lava and crocodiles!” I’m literally doing the same thing in Fantastic Beasts. I have to imagine there are creatures there, I have to jump from one thing to the other. It’s like we’re getting paid to play, which is why it’s really hard to complain. We’re just so lucky to get to do what we were doing as kids — now, for a living.
Does the same sort of play go into your own process with writing, such as with your Heavy Metal books like Moon Lake?
It’s the same process. I get together with my buddy Larry Blum — who’s also an actor — and we record all of the sessions, which is very important so we don’t lose anything. He and I do the dialogue together in the scenes and play all of the characters. All of those times as a kid with the tape recorder [creating all of these different voices] was all preparation for my rehearsal process today.
Your younger hand is feeding your older hand in some ways.
Absolutely. I sit here and I think about Moon Lake which we’re making into an animated series — it’s my Twilight Zone/Heavy Metal the movie homage. It’s dedicated to everything I stayed up late past my bedtime to watch.
You look at what is dominating pop culture now and it’s Marvel, DC, Star Wars — it’s everything we grew up on. It’s like, “Yes, we were smart for consuming all of these pop culture franchises” because it’s really a huge part of the economy today. Our action figures of yesterday are the superstars of today. It's an amazing phenomenon. I’m glad to be a part of that wave and I want to ride that wave for as long as I possibly can and continue to make 10-year-old Dan a happy fella. That seems to be what my passion is.
It’s like the quote about how there’s two people in life that you want to serve — your 10-year-old self and your 80-year-old self. You want your old self to reflect back and acknowledge you were serving the kid in you.
It’s all about doing what you love, right? It’s all about trying to reduce the stress and do what you love. That’s it.
I’ve had enough miracles in my life to believe that [life] is a give-and-take situation we’re in. If you put out the right energy, there is — whether you call it God, the source, the universe, whatever you want to call it — something that will take the emotional energy you’re sending out and will help you make it happen. Whatever that energy is. If you have the right frequency [that energy] will amplify it. You’ll then have to work and make it happen, but [the energy] will set up an opportunity for you to either swing and miss or hit it out of the park.
You ever read The Alchemist?
It’s one of my favorite books.
The Alchemist basically describes the process. What happens in the book — for those of you who haven't read it — is that [it states] if you’re on the right path, you’ll experience certain signs that will tell you you’re on the right path and you’ll have to listen to your own intuition. It’s so important to listen to the signs your body gives you. If you ignore the signs — the synchronicities, seeing certain numbers over and over again, hints that you’re on the right path — and you go on the wrong path, the universe will beat the shit out of you until you’re back on the right path [laughs]. And it’s so true.
In terms of being on the right path, how is it starting off being a fan of certain work and now being a part of that work?
Just focusing on the Harry Potter universe, I’ve got my daughters — 10 and 6 — reading it for the first time and watching the movies. I just watched the last film of the series where everyone dies, it’s heart wrenching, and you find out everything about Harry’s past, Snape, and then you see at the end it’s David Yates and all the guys who are working on Fantastic Beasts now, and I sit there and I’m like, “Man, this is some beautiful stuff.” Just sharing it with my kids, I’m very proud to be part of the universe.
I had a lot of trouble with reading growing up. I don’t know if I had ADD, but I had some combination of those letters [laughs]. I wasn’t reading well until third grade, but then it was off to the races. To see my kids reading great in kindergarten and stuff like that — and that they’re getting into it because of Harry Potter — it really warms my heart.
Anytime I go to these “Cons” and someone walks up and hands me The Walking Dead comic book or something like that and there’s Luke on the cover of the comic book, and they want me to sign my name near that character on the cover of that comic book — oh man! That is just awesome. It’s the coolest thing. It’s like, [dons superhero voice] “Yes, I am that character from that comic book and I’m very proud of it.” It really validates all of the things I was into as a kid.
Having kids of your own now, how do you balance your career, fatherhood, and being a spouse in an effective way?
It’s tough because you have kids and then suddenly priorities are shifted to how comfortable they are. Like I’m now living in London and I thought I’d be living in Brooklyn my whole life. But that’s just how life evolves.
For The Offer, I was able to have my family come for a good majority of it and stay with me in Los Angeles, which is usually the best. And I thought that that was cool because that’s how Coppola would do it — he’d have his family around constantly.
Thankfully, what I do is interesting to my kids. They’re like, “Oh, let’s go to a premiere. Let’s go see that movie, let’s go to that Comic-Con.” For now, they’re excited to be around, so I’m enjoying that. They’ll be teenagers soon and will want to be dropped off 10 blocks away from things, but for now they’re enjoying it.
And hopefully you personifying a youthful curiosity for them will allow them to see that that’s an option for them later in life as a career. Not necessarily in entertainment, but in anything.
I think they will get into the arts, it’s kind of inevitable. They’re both very entertaining. They can do whatever they want as long as they’re happy.
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