For nearly four decades, Dylan Walsh has built a career rooted in craft rather than spectacle. From his early days studying process in New York to commanding the screen in “Nip/Tuck” and evolving through layered roles across television and film, Walsh has always approached the work with discipline and intention. His trajectory has never been about chasing fame. It has been about stretching his creative limits and deepening the work with every role.
Now, with “Heated Rivalry” drawing international attention, Walsh finds himself in a phase of his career he once spent years striving toward. The adrenaline of youth has given way to experience, control, and earned confidence. Where younger actors react, he is ready to anchor. It is a shift that comes only with time, patience, and a deep understanding of the craft.
Jason Price of Icon Vs. Icon recently sat down with Dylan Walsh to talk about the journey behind the work. From early influences and hard-earned lessons to “Nip/Tuck,” “Heated Rivalry,” and the evolution of his process, Walsh opens up about what it takes to stay relevant and keep growing in a constantly shifting industry.
Take me back to the beginning. What was your first exposure to the arts, and what really grabbed you?
Well, honestly, when I was very young, my dad was in the Foreign Service. He worked for the State Department in different countries, so I lived all over the world. It was really exotic and fun, but I was a kid, so I complained because we didn’t get TV or movies. In India, Indonesia, I don’t clearly remember Africa, but I know there was no TV there either. As a kid, I was obsessed with what I couldn’t have. One day, when I was five years old, my dad said, “I’m taking you to the naval base. They’re screening a movie called ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.’ Let’s go see that.” I was five when I saw Dick Van Dyke on the silver screen in that role, and I remember thinking, “I’m not really sure what they’re doing up there, but I want to do that!” [laughs]
I was a shy kid, but from early on that feeling stuck with me. Every time we went back to the States, I became obsessed with old movies. When we moved back permanently around age ten, I knew we were in a suburb of D.C., not L.A. or New York, so there wasn’t much of an acting scene. My mom found a class for me, and I had to be patient. I did a lot of plays in high school and eventually went to New York after college. But that initial excitement and awe I felt about what a movie even is, sitting in a theater and seeing it on the big screen, was incredibly powerful for me.
At the end of the day, you’re a storyteller at heart. What do you think drew you to that side of the craft?
It had to do with two things. First, I was shy. And I was looking at pictures recently from when I was a kid, living in all these different places, and I was always dressed up as something. A pirate. A cowboy. At one point, a gladiator. My mom must have been working overtime to get all these things I wanted, but I just loved being those people. Halloween was great. We didn’t celebrate it overseas, but when we got back to the States, I was all in.
Acting became a place where I could exist differently. I took some classes early on, did things here and there, and I instantly loved that it felt like a license to belong. In those moments, the next line is mine. It belongs to me. I don’t have to earn it. I have a responsibility to be it, and I like that. But I don’t have to fight my way in. It’s there. It feels like a launching pad.
You mentioned leaving the suburbs of D.C. and heading to New York. Who were you at that time? When you look back now, how do you relate to that younger version of yourself?
Well, even when I was 16, I was obsessed with film. When a movie like “Kramer vs. Kramer” came out, I’d go see it three times because Dustin Hoffman was so good. I was becoming an acting geek. I was learning a lot, and I finally had access to movies. There was a local channel that would play them, and I’d tape scenes with a recorder and act them out later. Over time, I just got more and more into it. I started doing plays. I was an English major in college, but I did a lot of theater. I was lucky enough, even in high school, to take the bus into Washington, D.C., and be in some professional productions, playing small parts.
So by the time I got to New York, I thought all those things counted. And this is what’s funny, everyone arrives in New York with a résumé. You think all those experiences matter. They don’t. Throw it out! [laughs] New York is its own training ground. I got into a class right away with Greg Zittel at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and that’s when the real education began. But I didn’t arrive with a clean slate. I had seen a lot of movies, I had already done some acting, and I knew I loved it. It was just a matter of really learning.
I was such a kid. Still shy, but I had some gumption. It’s New York. It rubs off on you. You find yourself knocking on doors they’re not even expecting you to knock on. So yeah, I remember that kid.
What were some of the early lessons you learned that still resonate with you today?
Study, study, study! I was 22 and taking an acting class, and like I said, I had already done some things. I thought I was ahead of the game. But my teacher told us he didn’t want us auditioning. I thought that was crazy. We’re all here to be actors. He said, “No. Give me two years. Commit to it. I’m going to work you, and I’ll make you ready. But you’re not ready now. If you rush it, you’ll skip steps and develop bad habits.” He had all these reasons not to jump in.
Well, I cheated. I went to class and I went to auditions. And more and more, I started to understand what he was saying. When you go to an audition or book a job, you’re expected to go from zero to sixty, and nobody helps you. There’s no teacher there. A director isn’t a teacher. It’s a job, and they need you to deliver. You have to have a process, a technique, a path, and that’s on you. It took me some time to really see that and figure it out. I did get work, but honestly, I was working before I knew what I was doing. I had to catch up, watch other actors, and learn on the job. But I stayed in that class. I lied and said I wasn’t auditioning. I got caught a couple of times. He had a soft spot for me. Someone once asked him what I was like in class. He didn’t hesitate. He pointed right at me and said, “Quiet, stubborn, insistent, but really open to getting better.” That was who I was then.
At what point did you feel like you truly came into your own as an actor?
Boy, when I was in my 50s. [Laughs.] I’m actually not kidding. You fake it till you make it, so to speak. That’s something my teacher used to say. We were all green and young, and he told us this stuff wouldn’t really click deep down in your bones until you were in your 50s. I know what he meant, because so much of your career in your 20s and 30s is fueled by adrenaline.
You might have gone to Juilliard or studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse like I did, but you’re often playing younger roles that rely on energy. It’s not until later, and Tom Selleck said this when I was working with him on “Blue Bloods,” that things shift. When you’re in your 50s, you start playing the mayor, the general, the congressman. You’re not the new guy reacting anymore. You’re the one younger actors are reacting to. You have to bring a different quality, and that’s not adrenaline. That’s experience. That’s wisdom. That’s a kind of relaxation earned over years, and it has to come into the character.
These are things you just live and learn. But I’d say in the last 10 or 12 years, I’ve really felt that when I walk onto any set, I still have the usual nerves, but I’m coming in with so much experience. I’m able to try what I want to try and let it go if it’s not working. I’m able to adjust. I’m able to trust myself.
At this stage of your career, what do you look for in a project before deciding to invest your time and energy?
The criteria can change, but I’m always looking for contrast from what I just did. Coming out of “Nip/Tuck,” I played that character for seven years and loved every second of it. But I was so inside him that I needed to get out. The next job I took was playing an NYPD detective on “Unforgettable,” and I remember being very particular about the shoes. The wardrobe designer was so patient with me. She kept bringing comfortable options, and I kept saying, no, I need harder shoes. It was all about finding ways not to be Sean McNamara. Dropping my voice a little. Changing my physicality. A cop has a completely different demeanor than a plastic surgeon. I look for contrast.
Of course, I’d love for every project to be an Academy Award winner, but I’m just an actor. Most of the time, when I start a job, I can sense the level of quality pretty quickly. Sometimes it feels like a step up from the last thing, sometimes not. But the work is the work. What I really enjoy is asking, who is this guy, especially compared to who I just played? That’s the fun. It’s a new world every time.
Your latest project, “Heated Rivalry,” has been generating a huge buzz in recent weeks. Did you sense early on what it might become, or did that evolve as you went?
Well, none of us knew it was going to become what it’s become. When the offer first came in, I read the scripts and thought they were really well written. I didn’t have that much to do on the page, but I liked Jacob Tierney, the writer and director, and I wanted to work with him. To be totally honest, I was doing the job with an eye toward the future, wondering what else we might do together, because there really wasn’t that much there for David Hollander.
Coming into Canada, the immigration officer will sometimes recognize you and ask what you’re there for. I’d say, “It’s a show about two hockey players who fall in love,” and they’d look at me like, okay, here’s your passport, good luck. That’s honestly how I thought the reaction would be.
But the guys were so good. Everyone could see it. I’d watch them on the monitor and see how beautifully it was shot. I could hear what Jacob was doing with them and with me. Still, it felt low-key. It was Canadian. It wasn’t drawing a lot of attention. The leads were relatively unknown. I knew how strong they were, and I thought it would be good, but I assumed it would appeal to a small slice of the audience and maybe even get some backlash. And now it’s this major worldwide hit. It’s crazy. It’s incredible.
Has your process for building a character changed over the course of your career? Do you approach it differently now than you did early on?
Mine is still rooted in what I was learning back then. I’ve just built on it over the years. The business has changed, and I’ve had to adapt to that. Process used to be something everyone understood. The casting director understood it, the director understood it, and you were auditioning in the room, not self-taping. Nobody expected a final performance in an audition. You gave a glimpse of it, and then together you worked toward it. There was a little more room to breathe because of that.
That isn’t how people think anymore. They want it right there. They want you to put yourself on tape in what could essentially be your final, polished performance. They don’t want to hear about process or building it. So I’ve had to adjust. Auditioning is much harder now that it’s self-tape.
That said, I do get offered a certain amount of work, and the work itself hasn’t changed. I still have to get into the character and figure out who this person is. What are his buttons? How does he work? Sometimes it’s small things, like the shoes I mentioned earlier. A lot of times it’s something physical, something that makes you feel different. That’s not hocus pocus. It’s just about knowing I need to feel different than the last guy I played.
What have been the biggest challenges for you while working on “Heated Rivalry”?
It’s a trap for an actor to look at a role and say what I said earlier, that “there wasn’t much there.” Watch out! There’s always something there. You just have to work it and find it. And fortunately, I did have plenty to work on. Jacob said from the beginning, “I hired you because I loved you in ‘Nip/Tuck,’ but I don’t want you to do anything like that. I want you to listen, process, have some trouble, but if anything, you’re mad at yourself for not being able to be more positive and just get a grip. In no way are you outraged or anything like that.” That gave me something to build from early on.
Then there were the dynamics between Christina, me, and Shane, played by Hudson. It was an interesting triangle. She had a bit of a stage-mother energy, pushing him, and I was often trying to referee. We had to find the nuances in that relationship, and we did, right from the start. It was small. We just concentrated on the work. There weren’t big expectations. And of course, that’s the one that ends up skyrocketing.
Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie seem to be stepping into a moment similar to what you experienced when “Nip/Tuck” exploded. Even though the media landscape was very different then, what was it like adjusting to that kind of spotlight, and what did it teach you? I imagine your world shifted in a major way, even with all those years of experience under your belt.
I had already been in the business for a long time. I was pushing 40. I’d done this, that, and the other. I was used to working steadily, not being a star, just being an actor. I had kind of resigned myself to that. And then suddenly I’m in a show that’s a big hit. You had to qualify it at the time. It was a big hit on cable, which was still new territory. But the attention we were getting, the promotion, not just for the show but for the network itself, was exciting. From the moment you woke up in the morning until the end of the day, everything revolved around it. It wasn’t just making the show. It was the entire experience. Like you said, it changed my whole world.
I didn’t always navigate it particularly well. It’s overwhelming. You can lose your way. But I had Julian. He was my best buddy, and we went through it together. We had each other’s backs. Ryan was fantastic, but he was very controlling at that time as a writer and director. We struggled with him. We loved him. He was the kind of guy you’d hug every day, but once you got to work, you might go head-to-head on things. It was a tough job.
You don’t get to this point in your career without putting in serious work. Has that drive always been part of your DNA, or is it something you’ve had to consciously develop over time?
It really comes from loving it. I didn’t get it in the first ten years of my life, but once I fell in love with acting, that was it. My idols were everybody’s idols, and we just lost one the other day, Robert Duvall. I would watch performances like that and just feel inspired. I loved it so much that it never felt like I was grinding through something. If anything, I always felt like there was more to do.
Of course, you have long days. You’re working 14 hours, you’re exhausted. But when we were doing “Nip/Tuck,” we knew what an incredible opportunity it was. We were so into it. I remember it being three or four in the morning, and we’d finally walk out to our cars. We were wiped out, but it felt great. It felt like we were building something.
You’ve worked with some incredible people over the years. Who would you say has impacted you the most creatively, whether by example or through direct collaboration?
I was lucky enough, while I was still in my 20s, to work with Paul Newman. He was a huge star. Everyone knew who he was everywhere he went, so there was that aspect. But what struck me was watching him work.
He had such a process. He worked incredibly hard on his preparation, going over the script, taking notes, listening to other actors, making adjustments. He loved to rehearse. This was a guy who understood that you had to make it look effortless. But he also knew that took a tremendous amount of work. Watching him pull that off, and pull it off so well, taught me a lot.
Early on, I also worked with James Earl Jones and learned just by observing him. The greatest gift those guys gave me was that they didn’t hand out advice. They didn’t package it up. They just showed up and did the work, and I got to absorb what I could. It made me feel like I belonged there as an actor.
One of the best parts of doing “Nip/Tuck” was the guest stars, episode after episode. I was working with Academy Award winners. I’m sitting across from Vanessa Redgrave doing a scene. Later in the run, it’s Bradley Cooper, who wasn’t quite Bradley Cooper yet, but you could see how good he was. Jill Clayburgh came through, also an Academy Award nominee.
It was a gift. All I had to do was pay attention. Watch what they were doing. Watch how they struggled. I remember seeing Vanessa Redgrave trying to find a moment, working through a prop or a line, taking a few tries, and then suddenly she’s Vanessa Redgrave. That’s the best lesson you can get.
You’ve talked about each project being a gateway to what comes next. So what’s ahead for you? What are you still reaching for? You seem to love this as much as ever and have plenty of gas in the tank!
I do feel ready. I really do. I told you earlier that it wasn’t until my 50s that I started to feel like I had grasped some of what I’d been reaching for all those years. Now I feel ready as an actor.
As you get older, you naturally segue into more of a character actor. A perfect example is Robert Duvall. He didn’t have the traditional leading man look, so he wasn’t going to play the Robert Redford role. He was the quirky guy talking to Robert Redford. But look at the performances he gave.
I’m not putting myself on his level, but I do think I’ve gotten better. For the future, I’m looking for that opportunity, whether it’s on stage or on screen, to really command something. Early on, so many roles are fueled by adrenaline. You’re reacting. I’m ready for the role where others react to me. I’m ready to be that presence.
When you look back on your journey so far, what’s the biggest lesson it’s taught you?
Boy, the business has changed so much that I’m not even sure my advice is still relevant. I want to make sure whatever I say applies to today. But I was just a kid who fell in love with whatever they were doing on screen. Now I actually know what they’re doing, and I love it more than ever. Not everyone gets to do this. I’ve known so many people over the years who tried, got close, and then fell away.
I feel like your journey is your journey. As long as you’re learning, as long as you still have your idols in front of you and something you’re striving toward, that matters. I’m never going to be on the level of my idols. I’ve barely even been in scenes with them, aside from Paul Newman. Guys like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and now that Duvall has passed. That’s beyond my realm. But it doesn’t matter. That’s still what I reach for.
At the end of the day, for almost 40 years, when I fill out my income tax return and it asks for occupation, I write actor. That’s what I wanted. I compare myself all the time to people doing better than me and think, what do I have to do? And then I remind myself, I’m an actor. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I am.
Thank for your time today, Dylan. Keep the good stuff coming!
Thank You, Jason! Talk to you soon.
You can catch Dylan Walsh in “Heated Rivalry,” streaming now on HBO Max. If you haven’t experienced the series yet, now’s the time to see what everyone’s talking about!
Jason Price founded the mighty Icon Vs. Icon more than a decade ago. Along the way, he’s assembled an amazing group of like-minded individuals to spread the word on some of the most unique people and projects on the pop culture landscape.
