My worst moment: 'Suits' and 'The Right Stuff' star Patrick J. Adams on the sting of getting fired

The story of the first group of NASA astronauts is the basis for “The Right Stuff,” which began as a 1979 book by Tom Wolfe, then as a 1983 movie and now as a TV series from National Geographic that’s streaming on Disney+.

“I loved the book,” said Patrick J. Adams, who stars as John Glenn. “My father, who’s a journalist, he gave me the book at a young age and it was really formative to me, not just because it was about the space program and these remarkable guys, but also just because Tom Wolfe is such a brilliant writer and his insight and his sense of humor and his ability to get at the heart of the matter was hugely influential. So the book was this mammoth thing in my past.”

He hadn’t thought much about it, though, until he heard there was a new series in the works. “I had no idea what part I could possibly play, but I just knew this was the first time since I finished my work on ‘Suits’ that I got out of my chair and was like, ‘How can I be a part of this?’”

Playing one of the most famous U.S. astronauts is a high point of Adams’ career. When asked to share an experience on the other end of the spectrum, he replied: “I guess I have to talk about the time I was fired.”

My worst moment …

“It’s still so hard to think about. I was pretty young. It was right before ‘Suits’ and I was still sort of scraping by and trying to figure out where my next paycheck was going to come from. I was probably 26 or 27 at the time and I was auditioning for a lot of pilots.

“When you’re a young actor, you’re kind of just going out for everything — you’re taking whatever you can get — but I wasn’t auditioning for a ton of sitcoms. It wasn’t because I wasn’t interested, but it wasn’t really in my wheelhouse. It wasn’t where I shined. But an audition came in for something called ‘Friends with Benefits’ — I didn’t really get it, it didn’t excite me — but it was the end of pilot season and my reps were saying, ‘You gotta go for this, you gotta do these things, we want to get you a job.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, OK, let’s get a job.’

“So I went to the audition and it went really well! The show was about a guy and a girl who had been best friends forever and they’re also sleeping together and it’s all good — but of course it’s not all good and they’re trying to understand why it’s getting weird. And I was the guy.

“I keep going back in to audition and the director kept fighting for me — because you could feel that the network and the producers were like, ‘Eh, we don’t know’ — and he kept going, ‘No, you’re my guy.’ Secretly in my head I’m going, ‘I don’t think I’m the guy.’ From the very beginning I didn’t see it. But he liked what I was doing and I got caught up in that and it was like, OK, I guess I’m doing it great.

“Anyway, I get the part.

“And for network TV shows, especially sitcoms, you do a big read-through in front of the whole network. I didn’t know any of this because I’d never worked in sitcoms, so I just thought I was going to a table read, no big deal. And then I get into the room and it’s everyone from the network. It was NBC and all the higher ups were there. And it didn’t feel like a friendly environment, it felt like it was still part of the audition process. And again, I’m sitting at the table like, ‘Why am I here? This does not make sense. It doesn’t feel right.’

“So we do the table read and there are a couple of people who are really great comedians and the room is exploding in laughter with everything they say. And then every time it comes to me, it’s just crickets. And then I start trying to make people laugh, which is even worse because it falls really flat.

“Afterwards I was like, it was just a bad table read, it happens all the time. Little do I know that these table reads are a big deal for the network — they’re still making decisions.

“So I get home and I’m trying to shake off the nerves from the day, and I get a call from a bunch of people saying, ‘Listen, the network isn’t very happy with how that went.’ And I’m like, ‘It’s OK! Let’s just call it a day!’ And they’re like ‘No, no, no — we’re going to fight for you. We want you to come in and shoot some scenes.’ And I’m like, ‘This is crazy,’ and they’re like, ‘No, were going to convince them that you’re the guy.’

“So I go on the backlot one day and we shoot three scenes, me and the woman playing my best friend and lover. And the entire time we’re doing this you can feel, behind video village (where the monitors are set up), there’s just a bunch of people sitting there trying to figure out how to make me palatable to the network.

“It was just a horrible experience, the entire day on set, because I was trying desperately to be something I know I’m not — I know I’m not the guy you want for this. But I didn’t want to let down the people who were fighting for me.

“I was going to New York that night with my (now) wife, we were going to see a bunch of plays and I was just going shake it off and be done with it. So we’re in New York and we had just gotten out from ‘A View From the Bridge’ and suddenly my phone had 25 missed calls on it. And I’m like, ‘Uh oh, here we go.’

“And it was just a bunch of people saying, ‘So sorry, it’s just not going to happen. You’re not getting the job.’

“And I fell into great despair. Which I thought was so weird because I didn’t even want to do this in the first place! And yet it was just devastating to have that level of rejection. I was still at a stage in my career where I didn’t even know if this was going to work out. So any kind of hit like that was pretty devastating and it took a few weeks to bounce back from that.

“But lo and behold, I think it was six weeks later that I got the script for ‘Suits’ and read it and had the exact opposite reaction — it was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got this. This is my role.’ It was about a young guy trying to prove his worth to a bunch of people who don’t believe in him and he’s down on his luck, he feels like garbage, but he’s making one last play. It was exactly where I was at.

“And the funny thing is, that whole project (“Friends with Benefits”) just turned into a nightmare. I think everyone was fired off of it, from what I remember. Every other actor except for one was fired; the writers were fired. They were miserable, they had a terrible time. It became one of those projects where no one really knew what they wanted it to be so they kept blaming this actor or that actor or the writers. Shooting a show where people are constantly getting fired or rearranged, and the network is constantly trying to make it into something it’s not? It’s the worst work environment; it’s not fun, it’s not playful and it’s a grind.

“And looking back it’s like, well thank God I was the first off that ship because if I hadn’t been, I would have missed what has become one of the more important jobs in my life.”

What if the tape from that day still exists somewhere?

“(Laughs) Oh God! (Laughs) You want to see me cringe, that would be it. I can barely watch anything I make period, so watching that would be the absolute worst. I’m sure it was a train wreck. I was probably flop-sweating and trying desperately to play it all cool.”

The takeaway …

“You never know why something’s happening. Sometimes things aren’t going to work out.

“Listen to your instincts. In this business we’re often told, ‘Take what you can get.’ But even at that stage I was like, ‘I would love to have a job but I know I’m not right for this part.’ So listen to your instincts if you know it’s not a good fit.

“And then also, just know that there’s something great waiting around the corner.”

———

©2020 Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.