Billy Magnussen fought hard for his role in AMC’s “The Audacity”

“No character is a villain in their own story. They always think they’re the hero.”

Billy Magnussen stars as Duncan Park, a tech CEO in AMC‘s The Audacity. “No character is a villain in their own story,” he tells Newsweek. “They always think they’re the hero.” 

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You could have leaned into leading man roles early in your career. Was the decision to go a different direction intentional?  

That’s so funny. Listen, we can hunt the career we want, but we can’t choose the jobs we get. The truth is, I went up for those leading man roles and for some reason, it just never went my way. That wasn’t entirely intentional, but I always wanted to be something different and never pigeonhole myself. I started out in soap operas, yeah, I was a good-looking guy in that world. Then in theater, they wanted me to take my clothes off all the time, which was ridiculous. As a young man, I felt objectified, so I stayed away from it. The villains have awesome backstories, and you get to pull out different colors of yourself. That was always exciting for me. I just did a presentation at the College Emmy Awards, and I get off stage, and they’re always like, “Wow, you’re so funny up there.” And I’m always like, why not sexy? Everyone always says funny. They never say sexy anymore. [laughs] 

What do you think leading men are often missing?  

A lot of leading men don’t have vulnerability. They don’t have the ability to let the mask down. I think that’s where humor comes from, those vulnerable places, that place of almost intimacy where you’re letting people in. Leading man roles try to avoid that insecurity, and I’m like, that’s not real. No matter how badass you are, you still fear sh**. 

The Audacity is about tech, sure, but it’s also about a lot more. What would you say it’s actually about?  

Everyone thinks it’s a show about Silicon Valley and the tech world, but Jonathan Glatzer [creator] is very specific: He does not want to make it about an office. It is not an office drama. It’s the people in this weird bubble where one of their mistakes affects 7.3 billion people. That’s an interesting story. I want to see his therapist, his neighbors, the people he works with. We know who these guys are—they’re in the headlines every week, and they live in a different world than us. The idea of, “I’m a normal guy, I just wear my hoodie”—it’s a $15,000 hoodie; that’s not normal. 

How did you approach building Duncan Park without making him fully cartoonish?  

First of all, I have to thank Jonathan Glatzer for giving me this opportunity. I believe no character is a villain in their own story. They always think they’re the hero. I can imagine a young Elon Musk, even [Jeff] Bezos, when they first went to Silicon Valley. There was hope. There was something like, “I’m going to make the world a better place. I want community, I want to communicate with people, I want to evolve the world.” The dot-com boom, all that stuff, there was real hope. Then slowly they realized they make a lot of money, and with that comes greed, comes corruption. With Duncan Park, I started from a place of pure intention. He probably went to the Valley to heal some wound he had as a kid. We know in the show, not to reveal too much, that he has daddy issues. His intentions were good, but then slowly you realize the toxicity of the place, the greed, the question of do we do what’s ethically right for everyone, or do we keep making more money? That was the genesis of building Duncan Park. I think he’s fighting his own demons constantly throughout this show. When you’re doing a scene, I don’t know where the boundaries are, but I have to go big enough to find them. You try to bring it back down from there. I think a lot of actors don’t know how to do that. You have to find where the boundaries are to know what your playground is. That’s how you define the tone. I don’t think you can walk into a project and declare the tone. It’s a building process, and we’re in a communal art form, so why not use the community and build something beautiful together? 

Your comedy background feels essential to a role like this. How does understanding comedy inform a character like Duncan?  

Very much so. I have a production company called HappyBad Bungalow, and the genesis of that name was kind of how I feel about entertainment in general. I love projects that make me laugh and projects that make me cry, that you feel deeply. If you can do both in one, you’ve hit a jackpot. Comedy is the invitation to say, “Hey, come on the journey with me. Laugh at it, be welcome into it.” And then that’s where you turn it around and get emotionally in there with the audience. No matter how horrible Duncan Park is, your favorite characters are the ones you empathize with. You’re on board with whatever journey they’re on. That’s a hard thing for any actor to figure out, especially young actors. You have to find a way to have the audience empathize with your character, and I think that’s always through vulnerability more than anything. 

Did you base Duncan on any specific real figures?  

They’re all in the headlines, they’re all there. My job as an actor is to never copy someone outright, but I love stealing things I like about people and things I hate about people and putting them into my own mixture. I think that’s the talent of an actor: to dream up the character, build it, give it breath, give it a heartbeat. That was the goal. There are little things in the show where I know exactly why I put something in there, where it came from. Maybe it’s a trash fire, but I loved every moment of creating it. It’s fun. 

When you got the call about this project, was it an immediate yes?  

I don’t know what your assumption of where I am in my career is, but I auditioned for this. I fought for this. I got to read the script and then hunted it down, knocking on the door, asking for an opportunity to be seen for it. For some reason, I’ve always had to fight for everything. It was never a given thing. When you read Jonathan Glatzer’s script and his work, I’ll say this: I think he is one of the most profound writers of our generation. You can see it in his work with Better Call Saul, Succession, Bad Sisters and now The Audacity. Proof is in the pudding. I hunt it down. I can’t choose if I get the job or not, but if that opportunity is there and I can pursue it, I will. 

This feels like a culmination of everything you’ve done. Does it feel that way to you?  

Yeah, it feels like a culmination of my whole career. If it doesn’t work, I guess I’m done with acting. [laughs] But it does feel that way. Twenty years of being in this industry, theater, TV, film, and this is the first time I’m really at number one in a TV project. It’s an honor just to be setting the atmosphere and giving the space for all the actors to do their art and show up fully every day. I’m showing up alongside Sarah Goldberg, Zach Galifianakis, Rob Corddry, Simon Helberg, Paul Adelstein, Meaghan Rath, and the list goes on. All I can think is, I hope I’m good enough for them. Because they are showing up. 

Does the fear of not being good enough ever go away?  

I don’t think it does, and if it did, you’d probably be a boring actor. My heart craves the challenge. The fear is what I crave. Can I do it? Can I jump off this ledge? Can I keep going a little further? If that’s not there, I think I’m in the wrong spot. In this show, all the years culminated together, and I’m like, okay, it’s time to throw my fastball. Put me in, coach. It’s really an honor. I wake up every morning proud to be associated with these people and proud of the work. It wasn’t handed to me. I’m a blue-collar kid, grew up in Queens and Georgia. Nothing’s guaranteed. I still feel like that kid taking the subway every morning, getting my egg sandwich, heading to auditions before self-taping was even a thing.

How has working on this show changed the way you approach your craft?  

When I was young, in my 20s, I always thought acting was about pulling from all these external experiences. I’m going to become this character, so let me study all the world it lives in. That felt very external, the way I was building characters. Now, as I’ve gotten older, I’m connecting with something deeper. It’s like trying to go to the soul, the breath of a character, the way the heart beats. It’s internalized more. Even though Duncan is gregarious and audacious, he’s still an honest person. My fiancée is not in the industry. Every day I’ll be stressed about something with work, I unload on her, and she stops me and goes, “Listen. No one gives a f***. No one cares.” And you’re like, “Oh yeah. That’s right, babe.” I still believe I’m that kid taking the subway in the morning. That’s how my head still works. 

Did making this show change how you think about data and tech in your own life?  

Yeah, I think all the things we’ve worried about before. The black oil of Silicon Valley is data. That’s all it is. They want it all. Duncan Park’s company in the show, Hypergnosis, is a third party that collects data and sells it. One of the real tech CEOs basically said, “We’re going to take all your data and eventually sell it back to you. That’s the goal.” If you can hold onto your data as long as you can, I think you’re better off. Don’t accept cookies. Tech moves so fast, AI and all that, but data is the oil of this industry. That’s what they’re trading. 

You’ve talked about needing to stay grounded outside the industry. How do you manage that?  

I’ve always lived away from it all, weirdly. I love the industry, and I love the people in it, but I don’t want to be around it all the time. I don’t think you gain the resources and tools you need to develop a character while you’re just hunting and acting. You have to live. You have to have a life with real people.