Paul and Kulchak both grew up in the Treasure Valley longing for a shot at their Hollywood dreams. Through a mix of Idaho optimism, talent and grit, both achieved their goals and now are working at the top of their game.
Aaron Paul
Aaron Paul Sturtevant graduated from Centennial High a year early and headed to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Now Aaron Paul — as he’s known professionally — is an Emmy winner for his role as Jesse Pinkman in AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and is considered one of the top character actors working in television or film.
“I feel like I’m a 15-year overnight success,” Paul says. “It’s so funny how it works, but I’m glad it happened this way because I appreciate it more.”
Paul arrived in Los Angeles at 17 in 1996, along with thousands of kids from across the country, for the International Model and Talent Association competition. He prepared a monologue for the big showcase that draws managers and agents looking for the next big thing, but that’s not the one he delivered.
“Here I am this kid from Boise, Idaho, and I’m sitting there watching and realize that there’s no way my monologue is going to stand out,” he says. “I knew this was my shot, and I had to do something bold, something dangerous.”
Paul went to his room and wrote his own monologue about a boy who wakes up inside a padded cell in an insane asylum. His character talks to his mother (the audience) through the hole in the door, pleading for his release. Paul knew he nailed it when hotel security showed up at his door.
The risk paid off. Paul won runner-up and signed with his first manager that day.
Bold and dangerous aptly describe Paul’s approach to acting. His gritty, visceral performance in “Breaking Bad” brings humanity to his crystal-meth dealer Jesse Pinkman. Jesse starts his journey in the first season as a lost, drug-addicted kid. By season four, he’s a killer, through his partnership with his high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston).
“I love gritty, intense stuff. I gravitate towards that,” he says. “I’m a character actor. I do not want to be the leading man, nothing against leading men. I want to play guys who terrify me.”
Paul left for Tinsel Town with the support of his high school drama teacher, Nancy Link, and the blessing of his parents, Robert and Darla Sturtevant. He attributes much of how he’s handling his fame to their support and growing up in Boise.
“Boise keeps me humble,” he says. “I was so fortunate to grow up there. It’s so beautiful, and the people are amazing.”
While Paul, the youngest of five children, was growing up, his dad was a Baptist minister. He had some of his first theater experiences through the church. When he started taking these dark roles, he worried how his family would react, he says.
“Now that I’m in my 30s, I’m just thinking about what I want to do,” he says. “And they’re so supportive of all of us kids. I know I will choose the right projects, and they’ll be happy with whatever. ”
“Breaking Bad” explores the seamy world of meth production, addiction and crime — in a decidedly unromantic way — through the experiences of Cranston’s character, Walter, an under-achieving chemistry genius who winds up teaching high school and eventually receives a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Walter decides he can ensure his family’s financial security by making and selling high-quality meth. He partners with Paul’s Jesse, a street-savvy meth addict he hopes will show him the ropes.
But both make serious mistakes along the way, as they go farther down the rabbit hole into the world of organized crime. In season three, Jesse really embraces his dark side.
That season earned Cranston and Paul Emmys for best actor and supporting actor respectively in a television drama series.
Paul landed the role of Jesse in “Breaking Bad” in 2007 after a lot of rejection, he says. (That was a big year for him. He also was cast in a recurring role on the HBO series “Big Love” in a character that was the polar opposite to Jesse.) “Breaking Bad” was the first pilot — of many he had done since 1996 — that got picked up.
“Rejection is part of the business. But I think if I had gotten any of those other shows, I might not have been available for ‘Breaking Bad,’” he says. “So, you’ve got to think that things happen for a reason.”
When “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan cast Paul, Jesse was slated to die at the end of season one. But as soon as he saw Paul and Cranston together, he knew he had to change his plan, he says.
“From day one it became clear that killing off this wonderful character Aaron created would be like cutting off my right arm,” Gilligan says. “He was just so charismatic and skilled as an actor, humanity just poured out of him. It became clear that would be a big mistake.”
That chemistry has in part fueled the show’s success because their relationship has become the kernel for the stories.
“In the writer’s room we’re always asking, ‘Where is Walter’s head?’ ‘Where is Jesse at?’” Gilligan says. “That’s where we start.”
“I feel I really lucked out,” Paul says. “I think anyone working opposite Bryan would have chemistry because Bryan is one of the greatest human beings I’ve ever met. From the beginning, we had this instant rapport where we were just playing off each other. I’d never felt that before.”
The fourth season wrapped up last month with record-setting viewership and all the reviews peg Cranston and Paul as front runners for the 2012 Emmys. In October, AMC renewed “Breaking Bad” for its fifth and final season. Now on hiatus, Paul has been making movies, thanks to the opportunities that have come with his Emmy win.
“It really opens doors. I’ve been having dream meetings. It’s wonderful. It’s not really an audition,” he says. “You’re just talking to these amazing actors and CEOs of huge studios. It’s pretty surreal to me.”
Paul is currently filming “Decoding Annie Parker,” a dramedy based on the true story of Mary-Claire King, who discovered the genetic link to breast cancer. It stars Helen Hunt as King. Paul plays Parker’s husband.
Two of his other films are in post-production: “Quad,” the true story of Adam Niskar, a high-powered salesman who becomes a quadriplegic after a diving accident; and “Smashed,” a darkly comic update of the Oscar-winning “Days of Wine and Roses,” in which Paul plays the husband who must cope with his wife (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as she’s getting sober.
And at press time, Paul is rumored to be shortlisted to play the son of Bruce Willis’ character John McClane in “A Good Day to Die Hard,” the fifth installment in the series. It's only a rumor at this point, but Paul's is the name that keeps popping up on various lists on the Hollywood websites.
Kelly Kulchak
Kelly Kulchak had wanted to write screenplays since she was 5 but eventually found her way to the production side of the business after film school.
Now she’s producing two hit TV series: “Psych,” the comedy detective show now in its sixth season on the USA Network, and “Man Up!,” the quirky Chris Moynihan vehicle that debuted on ABC last month.
“A lot of people see others where they’re at, but they don’t see the journey it took to get there,” Kulchak says. “That’s what people lose perspective of. There were a lot of steps that got me to where I am now. It was a long, hard road.”
Capital High grad Kulchak didn’t go to Los Angeles in early 1980 to become a television producer. She went for a guy.
“I thought I was going to get married,” she says, and like the start of many made-for-TV stories, the guy didn’t work out and yadda, yadda, yadda: “I end up sleeping in my car at Zuma Beach.”
When she woke up, she saw some guys rappelling off the cliffs.
“It looked like fun, so I went over and talked to them,” she says.
It turned out they were stuntmen training for a Chuck Norris film up in San Francisco. A few rappels later, they invited Kulchak to join the crew.
“It was one of those weird things, and I just went with it,” Kulchak says. So, she worked as an uncredited extra on Norris’ action flick, “An Eye for an Eye” (1981).
It didn’t launch a fabulous performing career, but a conversation with director Steve Carver did change her life when he suggested she go to film school. A few months later she enrolled at the University of Southern California.
The openness and sense of fun that got her rappelling off the beach cliffs still serve her well these days. The producing business is very much an adventure, and you have to be ready for it, Kulchak says.
“You never know what the outcome is going to be, especially in a business that is 94 percent failure,” she says. “You’re pretty much assured at some point you’re going to fall on your face.”
It also makes her stand out in Hollywood, says her assistant Krista Lettko, who like Kulchak, moved to L.A. with ambition and no connections.
“She’s so warm and open,” she says. “Kelly will talk to anyone, doesn’t matter how many credits you have.”
She met Kulchak on the “Man Up!” pilot where Lettko was a set production assistant. “That’s the very bottom of the totem pole,” she says. “But Kelly seemed so lovely and approachable, I seized the opportunity to pick her brain. We talked, and literally 15 minutes later, I was no longer a PA. I was her executive assistant. She’s a pretty cool boss.”
So far, Kulchak has done well by following her instincts. She’s worked hard, grabbed an eclectic mix of opportunities and taken to heart the occasional bit of good advice. “I wish it was a direct path, you know, like I had some huge master plan,” Kulchak says. “When I graduated from USC, I thought I was going to be Steven Spielberg. But I realized I knew how to make a film from beginning to end, but I knew nothing about the business.”
She took a friend’s advice and got a job at International Creative Management, a top Hollywood agency. She became an assistant and learned the nuances of deal making.
From there she took a job at Fox, where she worked with the network’s shows, including “In Living Color,” “The Simpsons” and “The X-Files.”
She moved to the WB and worked on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Dawson’s Creek,” then to Worldwide Pants on “Ed” and “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Then she returned to Fox and moved into development with “Malcolm in the Middle,” “Grounded for Life” and “The Tick.”
Along the way, Kulchak says, she learned from some of the best producers in the business, including James L. Brooks and Richard Sakai (“Simpsons”) and Phil Rosenthal (“Everybody Loves Raymond”).
“I got to work with amazing talent and amazing people. It’s all this experience you’re gathering and filing away of how to be constructive with your thoughts, how to work with talent, how to give feedback,” she says. “All of that is a learned skill.”
By 2004, she had built a solid reputation in a fickle business. That’s when Chris Henze, J.B. Roberts, Ron West and Willie Mercer of ThruLine Entertainment convinced her to head their production company, Tagline Pictures.
Henze, whom she now works with on “Psych,” introduced her to the show’s creator, Steve Franks. Once she heard the pitch, “I thought, ‘I can sell that.’ ”
“Psych” is fast-paced and clever, filled with witty pop culture references and just the right balance of crime and comedy. It attracts a broad array of guest stars, such as Ally Sheedy, William Devane and Danny Glover.
Kulchak met Moynihan on the “Psych” set where he played an accidental murderer of a tennis star in season two. She immediately clicked with his quirky sense of humor and started working with him to develop the ideas that eventually led to “Man Up!”
“Chris is this fantastic, talented writer and actor, who is an original voice,” Kulchak says. “I like to deal with eclectic talent, people who are a little outside of the box. I think that keeps me fresh and relevant.”
Oh, and that guy who didn’t work out? Good thing.
Kulchak eventually met the L.A. guy of her dreams, her husband Andrew Robinson. He writes for animation shows such as “Transformers” and “Batman.” The couple have two kids: Mira, 12, who wants to be a performer, and Ethan, 14, who wants to go to MIT.
Dana Oland is a former professional dancer and member of Actors Equity who writes about performing and visual arts for the Idaho Statesman. She also writes about food, wine, pets, jazz and other aspects of the good life in Boise. Read more arts coverage in her blog at Voices.IdahoStatesman.com/Oland.
