Arts & Culture
Actor who is an Evergreen alum uses time at home to put his twist on TV theme songs
Best known for playing an addict on Vince Gilligan’s groundbreaking TV series “Breaking Bad,” David Ury, a 1996 graduate of The Evergreen State College, has tackled several new roles while staying at home in Los Angeles.
Ury, a character actor whose “Bad” guy was crushed by an ATM, has been turning TV theme songs into dramatic — and funny — monologues.
Think “The Facts of Life” spoken by what might be a serial killer. Or “Different Strokes” by an impassioned and quite possibly unhoused fellow.
There’s something comforting about hearing those old familiar songs in a new way, even though the tone is generally disturbing. That’s because Ury — who got started acting while living in Olympia — is most often cast as a drug addict, a criminal or a generally creepy guy.
“That’s my meat and potatoes,” he told The Olympian, describing his role on AMC’s recently canceled “Lodge 49.”
“I think of this guy as kind of an Olympia archetype,” he said. “He was an aging punk rock guy, an anti-capitalist working as a dishwasher by day and a security guard by night. He was not an overtly sketchy character, but after a few episodes, he was talking about doing meth. I thought, ‘Man, even when I play a different type of character, he’s still going to dabble.’ ”
He’s also been seen on “CSI: NY,” “Malcolm in the Middle” and “The Young and the Restless,” among many other TV and film roles. His last paid role was on Hulu’s yet-to-be-released “Woke,” which filmed its first season in late February in Vancouver, B.C.
“I came back from that job, and a week or so later, the quarantine started,” he said. “That was probably one of the last TV productions to finish.”
Ury has long been producing and starring in his own videos, including a series in which he plays Ken Tanaka, a Caucasian man raised by adoptive parents in Japan. (He did spend several years in Japan, appearing on Japanese TV as a wacky foreigner who could speak perfect Japanese.)
And while he’s staying home in Los Angeles, the actor will be tackling more theme songs. “Making these TV theme song monologues, as silly as they are, has become a way for me to channel my creativity into something while I’m stuck at home,” he said.
While many of the monologues showcase his skill at playing weirdos, his take on “One Day at a Time” has a different flavor.
“With all of these, I have to work through them until I figure out who I’m talking to and what this is about, how I make it about something,” he said. “I did that one a few times and then I stopped, and then I came back to it and I thought, ‘Wait a minute, this is somebody trying to comfort someone during the quarantine.’ ”
To quote the song: “Rest assured, you can’t be sure at all, so while you’re here, enjoy the view. Keep on doing what you do. Just hold on tight. We’ll muddle through — one day at a time.”
He made the first monologue on a whim, he said. He’d long used the words to “Facts” and other theme songs to practice accents.
“I pretty much knew all the words,” he said. “I always thought it would be fun to shoot one, but it wasn’t until quarantine, when I had nothing else to do, that I thought, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll try that.’ ”
He got into acting on a whim, too, though he’d always enjoyed doing characters and voices and making up funny songs to entertain friends and classmates.
His first time on stage as an adult was at Olympia’s Midnight Sun in 2000, five years or so after he moved to the city to finish his bachelor’s degree in linguistics at Evergreen.
“A friend just randomly asked me if I wanted to do this improvised soap opera,” he said. “I think it was called ‘On the Crater’s Edge.’ Within the first day of working with people and getting on stage, I had this feeling of ‘Why have I not been doing this my whole life?’ ”
One night, members of the Louisiana-based band/art collective the Residents came to see an episode. The group’s Molly Harvey told Ury about an improv comedy class she’d been taking in Los Angeles and suggested he take it, too.
He signed up and headed to California, planning to return to Olympia after the six-week class.
By the time the class ended, he was performing with sketch-comedy troupe The Groundlings and had an agent.
“I never went back,” he said.
TV Theme Song Monologues
- What: Actor David Ury, a graduate of The Evergreen State College, is turning TV theme songs into dramatic monologues.
- Where: http://bit.ly/3bce72v
- More information: Catch up with Ury’s doings on social media at http://twitter.com/isthisdavidury/, http://instagram.com/davidury/, http://facebook.com/David-Ury-Actor-157698444284449
