Douglas Nyback has been in multiple TV shows, including Reign, Being Erica and most recently, the new show Incorporated. Incorporated, executive produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, which premiered on Nov. 30. Douglas tells us more about the show, and how he got into acting.
Tell us about Incorporated, and the character that you play, Roger Caplan.
Incorporated is a SyFy series set in a not too distant dystopian future where climate change has ravaged the world, dividing it into Climate Refugees who live in the slums called “Red Zones” and the Corporate Elite who control the world’s resource supply whom live in lush “Green Zones”. The show is all about one man’s (Ben, played by Sean Teale) journey to infiltrate the Green Zones to find someone from his past. I play Roger, Ben’s friend and corporate rival. Essentially, I’m the ruthless, cutthroat legacy kid who will do anything to get ahead. He manipulates and plays everybody. He’s the guy you love to hate.
What’s the funniest thing to ever happen at an audition?
Oh man, I’d have to say in my early days doing musical theatre, I was auditioning for a show with a German song and while auditioning I totally forgot all the words, but I still knew the melody. So I just made up a bunch of German words, which is a language I do not speak. It sounded like luggage falling down stairs to the tune of Ave Maria. Didn’t book it, but they said my German was great!
Do you have any behind-the-scenes stories you can share?
Ha! Yes! We had so many long days and late nights on this show that we all got really close. We had lots of really loopy Friday nights that would bleed into Saturday mornings (that I’d probably get in trouble if I gave too many details about). As far as behind the scenes stuff, most of the time we weren’t shooting we spent working on what was next. Sean Teale is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met. We were all really invested in making this the best show we possibly could, so we put a huge amount of work into the little details of our characters, we’d chat and jam on stuff constantly. It was a true pleasure.
How did you get into acting?
I started when I was a teen in Musical Theatre. My parents forced me into voice lessons when I was a kid, I was a huge brat. All I wanted to do was play hockey (#SoCanadian), but they read somewhere that when boys sing through the break in their voice, the break is less pronounced, so they thought I’d get made fun of less. But, I came from a very small town and needless to say I was made fun of WAY more for being the “musical kid”. That is, until I started to really fall in love with it while doing shows. And then I got accepted into AMDA in New York, then everyone was SUPER supportive. I’m actually going to teach an acting workshop at my old high school over the holiday break as a means of saying thank you to all my old teachers.
Do you have any upcoming projects that you’d like to share?
I’m actually leaving very shortly to go shoot a feature in Cuba called “Skin”. It’s about a girl who’s diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy who turns to stand up comedy as a means of coping with it. I’ll be playing her boyfriend, Evan, a politician’s son. Then in January I’m off to shoot another feature in Eastern Europe about an estranged brother and sister being brought together by their grandmother’s dying wish that they travel to Poland to explore her life before WWII. Couldn’t be more excited for both the projects and the travel.