Actor PJ Sosko Talks About Moving To Oklahoma And Upcoming Roles

Actor PJ Sosko was living in New York City and moved to Tulsa during the pandemic. The change of city has not slowed his career down.

He has appeared in The Equalizer, Reservation Dogs, Chicago Med, Time After Time, Awkwardly, and The Blacklist. He was recently cast as the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson in “The Girls on the Bus,” currently streaming on MAX. 

Sosko stopped by the Arca Continental Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages Porch to talk about his experiences.

What was your first acting role?

My very first acting role was in the Catskills in upstate New York in a tiny high school that no longer even exists, where I played the wizard "In Once Upon a Mattress", without even knowing the word from the get-go, I went gonzo with it, became an apprentice to an actual magician in town and suddenly was coming up with all my own tricks and gags to add to the show, even to the point of starting the act with something that doesn’t even exist in the script, where the second act would open with me reaching my hands into a smoking cauldron and bringing up a plume of fire in my hands.

When did you know you wanted to be an actor?

For some reason, I distinctly remember leaving the movie theater with two buddies having just watched "Hook" with Robin Williams. I was thrilled with the whole movie, and I remember walking into the parking lot and looking around and seeing all the joy and wonder that people left the movie theater with, and I remember saying to my friends I wanna do that. I wanna make people feel that and leave them with the feeling that I had within me and saw all around me wouldn’t that be dope?

How long have you been in Oklahoma? Did you move here because of the pandemic? 

I like to say I got plague-transplanted here to Tulsa after 25+ years of being a working actor in New York City. My wife grew up in New York and was plague central. The industry was at an unforeseen standstill with no end in sight, and we had a then 3 1/2-year-old. We lost our apartment, and our hand was forced to split from all of my representation in NYC. We came down here to start over.

What are your current shows that our viewers can watch you on?

Well, happily, I’ve been doing this for a long time, and now with streaming, you can catch me turning up in a lot of things that I’ve done over the last 20+ years, but most recently, you can catch the horror fable "The Last Thing Mary Saw" now streaming on Shudder. 

"The Girls on the Bus," where I got to play the iconic Hunter Thompson, is currently streaming on MAX. 

I have a nice little recurring role on "The Equalizer" on CBS. You can catch me in the third season finale, and then they wrote me back into last season and at some point this current season. 

I can also be seen in the season three premiere of "Reservation Dogs". 

And in the film "Fancy Dance," streaming on Apple and the long game on Netflix.

Are you getting these auditions locally, or through representation in New York City?

I'm represented through Reel Talent Studios here in Tulsa.

Can you tell us more about your role in "The Girls on a Bus"

So, the central character in the show is a reporter played by Melissa Benoist from Supergirl. She has been inspired by the writings of Hunter S. Thompson and his form of gonzo journalism throughout the show. In critical moments, she is visited by his ghost, played by yours truly. 

The beauty of the part is that he’s the magical realism in the show. So, I don’t necessarily have to go by the rules that all the other characters have to play under. She’s the only one who can hear me or see me, and she was inspired by his writings from "Fear and Loathing" on the campaign trail, so I could really focus on a side of Hunter that we haven’t necessarily gotten to see that much of before. 

What is your creative process for developing a character that is based on a real person?

It all depends on the person. I’ve actually gotten to do it a good amount. I’ve gotten to play Hemingway and the famous Life magazine photographer, W. Eugene Smith, on off-Broadway. With Hunter, I first dove into his iconic expansive body of literary work to see how his mind flowed, what rhythms he established in his writing, the unique turns of phrase and his opinions. Then you go down the rabbit holes on the internet and that allows you to chase down actual videos of him so you can work on vocal patterns and physicality.

Little moments he would have that were truly unique that you could explore in moments in the show. This was also the first time for me that I was able to develop a character over the course of a show for seven months. I was able to do an incredibly deep dive continually throughout the process. It really allowed me to be obsessive about doing my best work on such a large platform.

What is the audition process?  

The audition process was very funny. I was about to leave to shoot "The Long Game". I had to leave on Friday and drive nine hours into the middle of Texas, somewhere. 

Shoot all night, get a couple hours of sleep and then get back in my car and drive back. As I was about to leave, I got the audition for this part. It was due Monday morning, and I was about to have no time to work on it in between driving to set, shooting, and driving back. 

Somewhere in the middle of the night, I found this wonderful video of Hunter being interviewed by David Letterman, and it became my linchpin entry into Hunter.

Can you tell us about the Circle Cinema table reads coming up in September? Why is organizing something like this important in this community?  

One of the most important things in my creative process throughout this whole journey has been helping to develop new work with writers in a collaborative way, whether it be through cold readings, staged readings, weekend workshops or going away for two weeks in the woods with a bunch of playwrights and actors, helping all to develop new work. 

I did this with many companies in NYC, like Labyrinth, Ensemble Studio Theater, and Playwright Horizons, to name a few .

I was lucky enough to find "Naked Angels", a long-running cold reading series, in NYC called Tuesdays at nine every Tuesday night, six writers would bring 10 pages of new material they were working on. Pick actors out of the audience they go read it over real quick. We go up and read them all in front of the crowd no chitchat in between, but then afterward, we all have drinks at the bar and really get to find a like-minded artist or talk to the people who just did really good work. 

Circle Cinema is going let me curate and host one of these kinds of evenings, script table reads once a month here, and I’m really thrilled to expand this nature of collaboration in the local Tulsa film world community and allow playwrights to get out of their own head and see their work come alive off the page with spontaneous decisions from actors that can bring a lot of light to the world.

What is next for PJ? Do you have any projects coming up? 

The second season of "Mo" is about to hit Netflix. I’m in the first two episodes of that I was lucky enough to have three films, including my directorial debut, which weirdly I got together within the first year of landing here at the Circle Cinema Film Festival recently in town, I have about 8 different projects hitting the festival circuit that I’m really excited about, including some upcoming local Oklahoma festivals that I hope we’ll get into, like Red Brick Road. 

I got to work on the last rodeo that was filmed here in Oklahoma with Neil McDonough in the can. 

Also, I got to work with Jackie Earle Haley and Theo Rossi in Arkansas on a project called "In Fortune’s Shadow," which was dynamite. That’s also in the can. 

But next up, I’m headed to Kentucky to jam with Kyra Sedgwick on a feature for a couple of days, and as always, there are things I’ve submitted for auditions recently that I never know if they’re gonna end up happening or not. Personally, I have a lot of plates spinning. 

I have a huge post-apocalyptic epic feature film called "Cured" with my buddy Steven Ogg. That’s nearing the finish line, and I am the lead and producer on. And I have a short-form anthology series called "The Geography of Loss" that I had originally intended on shooting up in New York City but might be coming together down here.

Is there anything you would like to add that hasn't been said?

One of the fun little side pockets that I’ve been able to have a foothold in this industry has been in the voice-over world, where I’ve gotten to voice many popular video games, which have also led to mo-cap, narrate TV shows and have probably sold you something in the last 25 years on television or on the radio in one of the over a hundred national campaigns from Kentucky fried chicken to Sudafed to Honda to yogurt. If there’s something to sell, I’m probably the voice that told you to buy it at some point in the last 25 years.

To learn more about Sosko's work, visit his website.