David Denman made his big-screen debut alongside Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman in the football comedy “The Replacements,” and continues to build his resume with impressive TV credits. Denman is best known as “Roy,” the third leg of the “Jim” and “Pam” love triangle on “The Office.” We recently caught up with him to discuss his new role as Mike on FOX new series, Traffic Light.
Traffic Light revolves around three best friends since college, Mike, Adam, and Ethan, who are now in their thirties. Each man finds himself in a different stage of life. Ethan is perpetually single, while Adam just moved in with his girlfriend, and Mike is married and has a son. The series follows the group as they try to balance their friendship with the different demands in each of their romantic relationships.
A GROUP OF FRIENDS NAVIGATE LIFE AND RELATIONSHIPS IN THE SERIES PREMIERE OF “TRAFFIC LIGHT”
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, ON FOX
Friends Mike, Adam and Ethan are each at different points in their lives in terms of their romantic relationships. Mike is married to Lisa and the two have a young son. Family demands stretch Mike thin in terms of time for himself and he finds himself getting his “me” time watching movies in his car, and thinking Lisa has no idea it’s going on, when she’s all too aware of what he’s up to. Adam has just moved in with his girlfriend Callie and he finds living together is a whole lot different than “she comes over a lot,” and they are just starting to figure out how to balance their life together with the previous freedom of their lives apart. Ethan is perpetually single and thinks dating the same woman for three weeks is an extended commitment in the “Pilot” episode of TRAFFIC LIGHT airing Tuesday, Feb. 8 (9:30-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
ADAM TRIES TO WIN BACK A LOST PUPPY ON AN ALL-NEW “TRAFFIC LIGHT”
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, ON FOX
Mike and Ethan learn that Adam has been hanging onto “CJ,” a stuffed animal he won for Callie at a carnival when they were first dating – and a sort of “go-to” move that Adam has used in the past to win over the ladies. When the guys get rid of CJ, Callie becomes noticeably upset over the missing toy, so Adam tries to win a replica to replace Callie’s before she figures out what happened to it. Meanwhile, Lisa’s company hosts a charity tennis tournament, and she teams up with Ethan’s former flame to form the “Smash Sisters.” But their plans for intimidation on the court take a turn when Ethan reunites with his ex-girlfriend in the all-new “En Fuego” episode of TRAFFIC LIGHT airing Tuesday, Feb. 15 (9:30-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
TRAFFIC LIGHT airs Tuesdays (9:30-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX
Can you relate in your personal life with the upcoming episode where Mike was having me time and he was totally unaware that his wife knew what was going on? It’s the common mistake men do make in relationships. Is there any way that you can relate in your personal life to this?
David Denman: I think Mike falsely sometimes thinks it’s better for him to hide information from Lisa because he then won’t have to maybe necessarily deal with things. Like, for instance, you know in the pilot episode he’s hiding in a car and saying he’s stuck in traffic so that he can swatch Iron Man on a DVD player. And the reality is, the second he comes home from work he’s on a second shift with being at work with the kid, not that Lisa’s not doing the exact same thing, so I think he probably would get more mileage out of just communicating and telling his wife that he needs this or that, but I think Mike is trying to; it’s easier for him to just avoid the conflict by making up these little white lies to try to have a little more time. But if he were just honest about everything we wouldn’t have conflict and then the comedy wouldn’t come in. So, I think he definitely needs to screw up a little bit with his ideas of what he thinks he can communicate. We have a couple of episodes where Mike screws up pretty bad in his need for thinking that he’s controlling information and keeping the relationship happy and, in turn, it makes it ten times worse, but I think that happens in any relationship. One of the things that we don’t do is, you know, people give this advice all the time in relationships, don’t sweat the small stuff and we don’t sweat the small stuff, although Mike gets very caught up in the details about the small stuff and that creates plenty of conflict.
Most actors accept roles that are somewhat similar to their personalities. What drew you to this role, in particular, and were there any similarities in your personalities?
David Denman: Well, I’ll say from my perspective of Mike, I’m not married, I don’t have any kids, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t have a lot of those things, but personality-wise, I related to all of these guys, to be quite honest. It seemed like my group of friends that I hang out with. I could name five deep in every, in a huge character of friends of mine that are just like these guys. And that was very intriguing to me because I wanted to tell stories about people I related to. I hope I don’t get as wound up as Mike does, but I think there are moments where I do get upset about the details when I feel there is something unfair in the world, but I try not to let it consume my life, like it can do to Mike at times. But there are some similarities, but you also have to understand that as the show goes on the writers start to write to things, aspects of characters’ personalities that they find funny or interesting that they just start to meld because we spend so time together. So, there will be little isms that come in that we don’t even realize it that they’ve started writing, they just start putting in the script. And, in addition, we do do a lot of improv within these characters, with banter with each other and so a lot of that stuff comes out from us. So, there are definitely some similarities. But, truth be told, no actor likes to think that they’re just playing themselves on television. So, hopefully, I don’t think I was like other characters that I’ve played, to be quite honest, and I think this guy may be closer to me in personality than even Roy on The Office or Tony on Drop Dead Diva, other things that I’ve done. So, in all fairness this character is probably closer to me than those are.