We recently had a chance to catch up with the star of Lights Out, Holt McCallany, and while we did our best to avoid making tasteless puns about the actor-turned-boxer getting his "Lights" knocked out, McCallany had some especially poignant things to say about the inspiration he draws on for Patrick "Lights" Leary.
Chris Radtke: There’s three things that "Lights" Leary has: the boxing life, the family life and the dark places he goes. What inspiration are you pulling from for each of these areas?
Holt McCallany: I looked at the lives of certain boxers that had seemed to me had been unable to reconcile themselves with certain losses, that they had that haunted them and I think, made them bitter. Because I didn’t want to make that choice. I thought, listen, we’re going to follow this guy around and really get to know this character well. I think it’s a more interesting choice for me as an actor and for the audience as well. He’s fun to be around. This is a guy that we’re really going to like if he’s able to put behind him the bitterness about the loss.
Look, I’m a big fan of Smokin' Joe Frazier, have been for 30 years. He came to my premiere back in January, and we got to hang out and fool around. I think that he’s just one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. But there’s no question that Joe is still haunted by all of the controversy that surrounded his fights with Muhammad Ali.
Can you blame him?
He said to me, one time we were talking about the show and the dementia and all that stuff, “You know they say Ali got Parkinson’s, but he got left hook-itus. He got Smokin Joe left hook-itus.” And I thought to myself, “Wow man. These fights were 40 years ago.” You know what I’m trying to say? Or Marvin Hagler, when he lost that controversial decision to Sugar Ray Leonard and then put himself in self-imposed exile in Italy. He’s unable on a certain level to get past it. I didn’t want to play that.
Don’t get me wrong, nobody wants to go out on a loss, especially when you feel like you won the fight. It’s not how I wanted to finish my career. But there was something else I liked that was more important to me than boxing, and that was my family.
Once I decided that I was going to play a character, for whom his family was the most important thing in the world, it was possible for me to move on in my life and to try to get over those feelings. I’m also just as glad to get over the need for adulation and the spotlight, and all the things that I think fighters miss when they go into retirement. "
You can catch Holt in Lights Out, Wednesday nights at 10pm on FX.
