Bailey Chase
Bailey Chase
Bailey Chaseis an American stage and television actor known for his role as Butch Ada in the television series Saving Grace, starring as Graham Miller in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Christopher "Chris" Robert Hughesin the soap opera As the World Turns , Beckett 'Becks' Scott on Ugly Betty, Sean Everett on Damages and as Deputy Branch Connally in A&E's crime thriller Longmire. Bailey Chase has also starred in the thriller Summoned alongside Cuba Gooding, Jr.; Tao of Surfing; Sex, Death,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth1 May 1972
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
'Longmire' is more of a show about the characters, and you couldn't pay a bigger compliment than to want to know more about my character, or the characters on the show.
'Damages' was cool. It brought me back to New York for a little while, so that was a lot of fun, and I was obviously very excited about the opportunity to work with Rose Byrne and Glenn Close. I'd been a fan of that show before I started working on it.
I had grand visions of being in professional sports. But when reality set in, I went, 'Oh, OK. I'll just move to Hollywood and be an actor.' I didn't want to look back on my life and wonder, 'What if I had done this? Or I had done that?'
I prefer to do cable TV because it allows you the time to do other things. I definitely have an eye on doing more work in features and playing different characters, but I am also a big fan of going on vacation and playing golf and going to the beach.
I live in Hollywood, California. It's absolutely nothing like Absaroka County, Wyoming. For me, it's a great escape and I really enjoy it.
'Saving Grace,' even though fictionally it was set in Oklahoma, we shot it right outside of L.A.
It was a great time to grow up in Chicago. It was the mid-'80s, and we had the '85 Bears and the Michael Jordan era.
I went to church as a kid, but it was as much a social thing as anything going to the youth group with the other kids and whatnot. It wasn't until I got out of college that I got on my own religious trip and started finding other things out there as well as philosophies. I've kinda been on my own spiritual path since then.
First and foremost, my hats off to our directors and camera department. That is something I will miss after Longmire. I can't imagine working on another show that looks like this. We'll get the whole crew out on location and have a hundred people standing around, waiting for about 40 minutes, so that sun is just a little bit further in the sky and the light is hitting the cloud, in the perfect way.
When I sat down with the creators of the show [Longmire], back when we were first starting to do the pilot, Branch was not that interesting on the page. What really sold me on the show and the character was their vision for him. It took the whole first season to flesh him out.
I really loved the story. I originally read for Walt Longmire. He is obviously a very dynamic, strong, manly man that almost any dude would want to play. Once I got in the room and met with everybody, the feedback came back that they loved me, but that I didn't have the age. And then, they brought up the idea of Branch, who wasn't that interesting on the page in the pilot, but once they explained the vision, I really bought into it.
I love when a director shows up with a lot of energy, and different ideas about how to change things and do it a different way. Once you get into series, sometimes you don't have that, so I certainly don't take that for granted when I get it.
I definitely have an eye on doing more work in features and playing different characters, but I am also a big fan of going on vacation and playing golf and going to the beach. With anything, it's about finding the balance.
Where I grew up, acting wasn't really accessible. I was just playing sports. But, I did watch a lot of TV. I watched a lot of Clint Eastwood movies on TV and had this fantasy of being like him when I grew up.