Meet the Actor: Kurt Yaeger
For this installment of Meet the Actor, we’re featuring Kurt Yaeger, an actor known for his work on series such as Sons of Anarchy, NCIS: Los Angeles, Tell Me a Story, and L.A.’s Finest. Yaeger was recently filming the second season of Netflix’s Another Life, on which he’s playing a military character named Dillon Conner. During a break from shooting, Yaeger virtually sat down with Casting Networks® to talk about his journey from professional athlete to working actor, as well as one of the favorite stunts he’s performed along the way. Keep reading for a window into the actor behind the credits.
Thanks for taking the time to talk today before leaving for set. I’d love to start with how you went from professional BMX biker to professional actor.
I rode BMX professionally for 16 years, which was another way to perform. It relates to acting but doesn’t require you to be vulnerable. And then after I had a life-altering experience, I realized vulnerability was a major part of my life that was lacking. Plus, my aunt reminded me that acting was something I’d always wanted to do growing up. I’d never thought I was good enough to pursue it, but that turning point was when I realized it was a part of me that I needed to explore. I knew that even if I didn’t succeed at acting in terms of financial success, it was going to make me a better, more vulnerable person. And I think that vulnerability is all about being authentically you. So if you are open to that and apply it to playing a character, you essentially connect to your audience through a two-dimensional device by creating empathy in a three-dimensional viewer. It’s a lot of work, though.
Speaking of work, can you share a little from your journey when you were just starting out in the industry?
I’ll start by saying that whether you’ve worked twice as much as me or not at all, you’re going to feel some sense of imposter syndrome. Just go with it because no one really knows what they’re doing. When I first got into acting, a big thing I did was try to put myself in the shoes of people in other roles. For example, I asked myself what agents actually do and how I could make their job easier. One way was to get lots of good tape so I did every free project under the sun to build up a strong reel. I figured out that if you give your rep everything they could possibly need, it’s like slow-pitching a baseball to a professional hitter instead of trying to throw one past them. I tried to empathize with casting directors to understand what their job was like, how they get work for themselves, and how actors could help them with it. Then I put myself in the shoes of the writers, the showrunners, the networks, etc.
That sounds like a smart approach, and your résumé proves that it works! You also play a lot of action roles, and I’ve heard that you do a lot of your own stunts. Do you have a favorite one you can share?
Even though it didn’t make the final cut, I did a stunt for this series called Quarry that was one of the favorite ones I’ve performed. I played a 1970s contract killer on the show, and my character was trying to escape a situation where his crime partner was being murdered. But it wasn’t easy because my character had been shot in the shoulder and had his leg ripped off. So I had to go down these rickety, wet stairs on one leg, and I couldn’t hold onto the railing because you couldn’t possibly do that if your arm was shot. I slid down this handrail in an awkward way, wearing these 70s platform shoes, and then spilled onto the concrete at the bottom. I hopped all the way to my car and then sped away after jumping a curb and doing a big burnout. When they yelled “cut,” the entire crew started clapping and making a big deal about it. Getting that reaction was just really satisfying.
Do you often get that reaction when you do your own stunts?
It’s interesting because I’m a below-the-knee amputee, but you can’t tell when I wear pants. I run, jump, and do everything anyone else can do. I don’t have any limp or gait issues so I book plenty of jobs that have nothing to do with being an amputee. One example is when I booked a role on Lethal Weapon. After filming many days of dialogue scenes, we got to a sixth day of shooting, which involved a stunt scene. They asked if I was comfortable riding a motorcycle after they heard about my athletic background. I wound up riding a motorcycle down a mountain onto a beach. The stunt continued with me shooting guns, running, and getting shot in the head. So we’d been shooting my scenes for hours already. It was about 109 degrees, and they called a break from filming because everyone was just cooking. My prosthetic leg had started filling up with sweat so I took it off to dump it. No one had realized I had a prosthetic before that moment, and you could just see their brains popping. They had a hard time thinking an actor could be that physical or do this level of their own stunts, and add on that an amputee was doing the stunts. They were shocked.
Going off that, where do you feel the industry is at with how it includes and represents actors with disabilities?
There’s a lot to be said about disabilities being portrayed in film and television and the lack of representation. We could talk through all the reasons behind why it happens, but it all really boils down to ignorance. You can be innocently ignorant, which I don’t think a lot of people give room for. For instance, I don’t know what it’s like to grow up as a woman. And I haven’t lived in a place without access to clean water so I don’t know what it’s like to have to walk five miles for water. How would I expect someone who has had different life experiences to understand what it has been like for me? If you don’t have someone in your life with a disability or have one yourself, you can’t possibly know what it’s like. So while there is a problem with the onscreen representation of people with disabilities, the solution is to work together rather than against each other to fix it. For example, I can look at a script and easily see a role that could be cast with an actor who is disabled. The casting wouldn’t change the character, but if I share that idea with the creators, they have the opportunity to make an inclusive choice that adds a visual element we don’t often see on TV.
In light of the backlash against Warner Bros. for its depiction of limb differences, the conversation about onscreen representation of people with disabilities is an important one that needs to be continued. When asked if he had anything to add to his interview, though, Yaeger offered some advice that applies to all actors. “Everyone in the film business seems like they want something,” the actor asserted. “You can pretend that’s not true, but you do, too.” Yaeger advises actors to be upfront and ask for what they want because the worst thing that can happen is a no. He adds that it’s important to simultaneously be looking for ways to bring something to the table and give back, too. “And at the end of the day, just be authentic,” Yaeger concludes.
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This interview has been edited and condensed.
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