A Friendly Conversation With Eric Dane

Eric Dane shows up to our scheduled friendly conversation, blowing a cloud of smoke from his vape—a hell yeah, brother! amount of smoke, actually—at the camera. Dane's in a gray tee, shitty hotel art behind him, clearly on the road. The vape mirage dissipates, revealing Dane, happy as all hell to be here, wherever here is. "Hey!" he says, like I surprised him.

You'd never know that this is the man who, as Euphoria's resident bad dad, Cal Jacobs, delivered one of the most show-stopping batshit monologues in recent television memory. In one fell swoop, the man came out to his family, disowned said family, and whipped his (prosthetic!) dick out and whizzed all over the welcome mat during the in between. Dane's performance as a once-closeted, ultra-violent suburban father not only punctuates a career that includes memorable turns in Grey's Anatomy and The Last Ship, but might just be the role that nabs him an Emmy nomination. In the meantime, the actor, 49, is in the middle of a hellish work stretch—one that'll last all the way until Season Three of Euphoria starts filming, which we talked about, of course.

Yet Dane, over Zoom early this month? He's cool, calm, and very much still reeling from his indeterminate number of Top Gun: Maverick watches.

ESQUIRE: Eric, what’s going on?

Eric Dane: Living the dream, Brady.

How are you?

Well, I'm in Vancouver shooting a movie. I love Vancouver. The Pacific Northwest.

What do you do for fun when you’re in a city like that?

I've seen Top Gun three times already.

I feel like you would've been good in that. I could see you as one of the admirals with Jon Hamm.

In another lifetime, man, maybe I'll get a shot. Have you seen it yet?

I saw it at a drive-in, but immediately regretted it. Could hardly hear anything.

Well, here's the good news—it's better the second time. So go see it on the biggest screen you can possibly see. Canada has this theater that projects films on the main screen and the walls on the side, too. So you get a totally immersive experience. It's fucking phenomenal, man.

What else are you up to in Canada?

I'm shooting this movie in Vancouver, and then I’ll go to Atlanta to shoot another movie. Then I'm in New York, possibly, to shoot after that, which will probably take me right back to Euphoria. So yeah, man, I'm lucky. I'm very fortunate.

Is there anything overwhelming about that? Or is it more of a relief to know that you have the work just lined up and ready to go?

It's both. It requires a lot of preparation and that can get a little daunting. Also, these movies are location shoots. So, life on the road is not as glamorous and romantic as it might seem. I do love staying at home. I love being around my kids. I love my routine in Los Angeles. And you try to recreate that on the road, so that you can have some semblance of normalcy. For obvious reasons, it's different.

I’m not sure how far you got into shooting Dangerous Waters, but I wanted to offer condolences for Ray Liotta.

Thank you. It's hard for me to speak on that because Ray got to the Dominican Republic a day after I left. And while our storylines intersect, I didn't spend any time with him. Obviously, it's tragic. It was so sudden and just so odd. Ray seemed to me like a young funeral, man.

Last week, I was telling someone about Field of Dreams who hadn’t even heard of the movie.

Oh, man. That was one of my favorite movies of all time.

Mine too. I cry every time at the dad stuff.

Oh, yeah. Well, because I lost my father when I was seven years old, when he asks his dad if he wants to have a catch, it kills me every time.

Can you take me back to the very first time you learned of Cal Jacobs? What did you think of him?

Well, I thought he was a complex guy and I had to figure out how my life circumstances are dramatically different from Cal's life circumstances. Save for the fact that we both have families. There are those similarities. But Cal is a really, really conflicted guy, leading a very stark, double life. And I had to identify with that, find a way in so that I could portray this guy as accurately as possible, and bring him to life.

I thought, well, I know what it's like to live a double life. I've had my bouts with addiction, et cetera. Certainly know what loss is like, not struggling too much with that anymore. So, we're good. But I thought, well, I know what it's like to live that lie, to live that double life, to have a sod you put up in front of other people to look one way on the outside and feel entirely different on the inside.

That's where I found my in with Cal too, because obviously this show to such an extent is about a younger generation, but I do think Cal has something broadly to say about the inner lives of men today, and what we hold on the inside.

I mean, I think as men today, we have this ideal of what we're supposed to be. I don't know if that's changed over the past 40 years.

I think it's true to an extent still, for sure.

Well, certainly in my lifetime, there's this ideal of what a man should be. And although it's kind of redefined itself over the past 10, 15, 20 years, it's still a sort of a primitive idea of what a man should be. And I think Cal, for the most part, nailed it. This facade he created, this life he created—he created the ideal man. He worked in a very masculine industry. He was a builder-developer. He had the perfect life, two boys who were just as masculine as he was. The perfect wife and house. Pillar in the community. Inside, he's just the exact opposite of all of that.

In the season finale, we do see a glimpse of him being free. In general, what do you think it means to live freely?

Living freely? I don't know if it necessarily means you just get to do whatever the fuck you want whenever. I mean, we have instincts that often have to be tamped because of the architecture of the society that we live in. And I think Cal for the most part is figuring it out. I don't think he's found his freedom yet, but he's on the road to that. I think right now he's like—it's Sunday morning and he's having dim sum. He's just kind of trying everything.

But I think eventually he'll figure it out. I hope he figures it out. It would be nice to see Cal in a relationship, like to finally settle down with somebody that he loves. That he finds a soulmate, you know?

Do you think Euphoria is leading to a point where Cal’s journey ends on a high note?

I don't know. I don't know what the ending of Euphoria looks like. Last season we see Cal, there's obviously a big dip in his journey back to consciousness, right? But I'm pretty sure we don't see Cal behind bars, or he is not having a relationship with Nate behind glass.

Can we talk about how you pulled off the monologue?

Well, I had to make sure that I had the words right before I started really kind of making choices because there were so many. It was a pretty daunting task to memorize this thing. But memorizing lines is an eighth of how the sausage is made. And I can't really pass judgment on this character because doing that is going to color the choices I eventually will make with him. But I will also work with somebody. I have an acting coach, a mentor, a teacher that I work with, that helps me figure out what the strongest choices are and what's underneath the hood of what the writer's intent was. And ultimately, at the end of the day, how to make it true.

That's what I've loved about Euphoria from the very beginning. It really is portrayed as a total fever dream, but the actual words and interactions are true at the very core of it all.

Well, look, we have a crazy talented cast. And I refer to them as young adults. I try not to call them kids because that just makes me feel old. But these young adults are so precocious and they've handled all the success really well, but they're phenomenally talented and I'm inspired every time I get to step on set with these guys.

What have you learned about the future just by being around so many talented young people?

You know, it gives me a little bit of hope. We have these young adults who are so deeply involved and interested in the craft of acting. And they're not just showing up and putting on a fancy costume and some glitter around their eyes, and reciting lines that somebody wrote.

Here’s something that bugs me as someone who covers sports for Esquire. What’s going on with Nate's football career?

[Laughs] I don't know, but I'm going to go Warriors in six. I'm from San Francisco, man.

Are you watching the game tonight?

Oh my god, of course. Every single dribble.

Do you run into any athletes in real life?

I met LeBron James once. He was so gracious and super nice.

LeBron has to watch Euphoria, right?

I'm pretty sure he does. When I met him, I think there was an understanding that he knew who I was, and I figured it was from Euphoria.

We'll have to get Bronny Jr. into Euphoria High.

Let's get Bronny. Bronny's great, man.

Well, the last note I have is that I feel like you would make a great sports movie coach.

Oh, dude. You know what? That is my dream role. Because everybody wants to give that rousing speech to the team that's behind at halftime. You go in and fire your men up, whether it's football or baseball—well, baseball has no halftime—but like a football coach or a basketball coach.

I can see it.

You get your team inspired and fired up at half? Then they come in and win.

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