Only Murders in the Building’s Michael Cyril Creighton on “Hello Darkness” and Why Playing Howard Is “A Gift”
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The post Only Murders in the Building’s Michael Cyril Creighton on “Hello Darkness” and Why Playing Howard Is “A Gift” appeared first on Consequence.
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Only Murders in the Building, Season 2 Episode 8, “Hello Darkness.”]
It’s very, very likely that you’ve seen Michael Cyril Creighton on screen at some point over the past decade: The New York-based actor has popped up in a wide range of projects, from 30 Rock to The Post to High Maintenance to Dexter: New Blood. And right now, he’s one of the standout supporting cast members of Only Murders In the Building, playing cat-loving Arcadian resident Howard, who got an unexpected moment in the spotlight during the newest episode, “Hello Darkness.”
Consequence spoke with Creighton for a larger feature about the full breadth of his fascinating career, but his Only Murders journey this season is a fascinating one on its own. “What’s interesting is learning about [Howard] through the scripts. Like I’ve learned so much about him this season that I had no idea,” he says. “When I get an episode, I handle it at face value, and I never really know if he’s telling the truth or not, because I don’t necessarily know the full story.”
This season, he says, “It feels like they really started writing for Howard and for me, and I’ve learned all these little new pieces about him, his hobbies, his job, the fact that he works at a library — I had no idea about that until the episode came out.”
Creighton’s path to the Emmy-nominated mystery comedy actually began after he filmed a small role for the pilot of the upcoming Amazon series adaptation of A League of Their Own, in February 2020. This introduced him to director Jamie Babbit, who would go on to direct the pilot and second episode of Only Murders — she was the one who suggested to casting that he be considered for the role of Howard.
Initially, Creighton was told very little about the character, beyond what was revealed in the sides. “There was maybe a little bit more in the audition than ended up in the final script, so I had some extra little details about how much he loved his cat, but it was pretty close to what we ended up filming,” he says.
But, he adds, “I think the note that [executive producer John Hoffman] gave me in the callback that was so helpful and helped seal the deal was that we did a version where he felt dangerous. We never really know where Howard’s coming from, like if he’s face value or if he’s not. I made this decision that his emotions worked in extremes and he lashed out at random things and then got very sensitive and sweet, sort of like this very salty, sweet character. So playing with that and putting a little danger in him — because we want to think in the first season that he’s a viable suspect for a minute… That was the trick: figuring out the danger underneath the eccentricities.”
Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)
So far in Season 2, it’s not looking like Howard is a suspect in the latest murder being investigated, but the character still got a prominent storyline in Episode 8, “Hello Darkness.” More importantly, when a blackout strands Howard with his cute neighbor Jonathan (Jason Veasey), Creighton got a love interest, “which is not something I get to do ever. It was such a nice surprise for me and such a great experience, particularly with that actor, who I loved and love.”
Creighton had known Veasey a little bit prior to them working together on Only Murders In the Building through the New York theater community. “I was a fan of his work and I was just so pleased when he got on set. Those were really, really fun, fun days, doing those scenes in the blackout.”
Well, except for one thing: Says Creighton, “I don’t really know how to yodel.”
It’s not a task many actors have to execute on a regular basis, but as Howard turns out to be a fan of “yodelshop” (as Howard explains, that’s “classic barbershop harmonies punctuated by the ancient alpine art of distance yodeling”), Creighton had to learn enough to successfully lead the building-wide sing-a-long to Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.”
“I learned very basic yodeling online and I can do a voice crack. But then when I found out I was going to be yodeling ‘Sound of Silence,’ that was like, absolutely not… I didn’t know how to translate anything I had learned into that,” says Creighton. “So they set me up with this amazing guy, Dan Faber, who gave me yodel lessons and was there on set with me when I needed it.”
Faber, Creighton says, is a voice teacher who “does all sorts of singing, but he was really good at yodeling. He would stand there and we’d have a take and then I would talk to him and he would do it and I’d repeat it back, because I’m not necessarily a musical person. I really learned a lot from him.”
The key for him was keeping in mind the truth of the character. “The most important thing is I don’t think Howard’s a good yodeler. I think he is an earnest yodeler and a nervous yodeler. He doesn’t have to be great,” he says. “That’s why he surrounds himself with other people. So the important thing in that moment was to just lean into the discomfort and lean into the earnestness of how much he loves the art of yodeling. But they gave me a lot of support and I learned the best I could.”
There was no lip-syncing for the sequence, for the record. “We had earwigs on and did it live, and then we recorded it on a stage live separately. We would do it together, then we would do it separately, then we would do it separate from the action. So there’s a lot of versions of me yodeling out there.”
And Creighton says that Veasey was great to work with in their scenes, even given Creighton’s nervousness about the yodeling. “I was very insecure about it, and to be able to play around and do that with someone I trusted and who was such a great scene partner, it really made those scenes feel even better. I could have done it with any actor probably, but I don’t think it would’ve felt as special, because Jason is just like a prime actor.”
Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)
Howard’s blooming relationship with Jonathan faces one major obstacle: Jonathan is allergic to cats, which leads Howard to offer, at the end of the episode, to send his beloved kitten away. “I was very concerned about that, because I was like, I really don’t think Howard would get rid of his cat for anybody. And I think it’s important that I’m saying I will let the cat visit my friend from the library,” he says. “I’m not giving it to anybody, but the cat will step away.”
Fortunately, Jonathan tells Howard that he doesn’t need to send away the cat. “The fact that he said that made it better for me, because I would never think that he would give away his cat.” More importantly, it confirms that Jonathan isn’t the kind of guy who would ask Howard to give away his cat — a major red flag for any potential love interest.
Who knows what future awaits Howard — Only Murders loves its twists, after all — but Creighton feels a lot of gratitude towards the opportunity to play this character. “I feel really fortunate that I felt like they really took so much care with Howard and really seemed to care about him and like him and made him so multi-dimensional. He was fun in the first season, but he’s really grown this season. What a gift as an actor, to get to do that.”
New episodes of Only Murders in the Building debut Tuesdays on Hulu.
Only Murders in the Building’s Michael Cyril Creighton on “Hello Darkness” and Why Playing Howard Is “A Gift”
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