Heels gets back into the ring tonight at midnight for those with the Starz app and Friday at 10/9c for those who watch the linear broadcast.
We had the chance to chat with the incredible Chris Bauer, who plays Heels’ Wild Bill Hancock, the flamboyant pro-wrestling veteran with a heart of gold (Oh, you know he’s a softy at heart).
In this insightful interview, completed before the SAG-AFTRA strike, Bauer shares many thoughts about Wild Bill and the DWL in Heels Season 2 without giving too much away. You’re going to love it!
So how excited are you for people to finally see this incredible season?
I’m so excited that people are going to get to see it, and it’s almost worth the wait.
I think it’s an incredible season that outdoes the first.
Oh, thank you. That’s very, very nice to hear. I feel very grateful that people will see it. And I know that there was something about shooting Season 2 that just had a 2.0 kind of energy where we trained harder, the material was, I think, even more finely observed than Season 1, and everybody in the cast rose to another level.
You can tell. You really can.
Wow. That’s great to hear.
Considering where Wild Bill was during the first season, it seems like he has nowhere to go but up. How would you describe his Season 2 arc?
I definitely think it’s true that by the end of Season 1, he has nowhere to go. And what’s exciting about Season 2 is that there’s some question about whether he will go up or will he go down.
And the world of Duffy and the Duffy Wrestling League turns into this kind of fertile environment for him to slowly and very potentially go up by committing himself to sharing what he knows, to admitting some weaknesses, and to kind of tapping back into his original dream of making something great.
And we get to see a little bit of Bill’s original dream and how he was involved in the DWL, he and Willie with Tom Spade, and just how things fell apart, which led to him going elsewhere and everything else.
Yeah. I loved that.
I really liked that. What was it like on your end getting to show a little more of what it was like with Tom and to explore that relationship?
It was a really generous chunk of story for them to backfill a little bit about why Wild Bill is perceived the way he is. And it was also, I think, really moving to see the naive sort of dreamers that they were when they were younger. And at the same time to very quickly story-tell how life is always in charge.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how big your dream is, things can get in the way. But what I love most about it is that I think you see that Wild Bill actually has an incredibly strong set of principles.
For being such a flamboyant, self-promoting solo act, he really is run by loyalty and commitment to what he thinks is sacred, which is wrestling and family. But he’s never been able to find a family, so he’s kind of always half-empty. And I think in Season 2, it was really nice to sort of play Wild Bill learning how to get along with others.
Right. It seems like in Heels Season 2, he’s still a little less concerned with himself and his personal well-being. But he’s very concerned about the people that he’s come to love and seeing them succeed and thrive.
Absolutely. All great wrestlers are innovators, and at the heart of innovation is almost spontaneously discovering how to turn mud into gold, whether it’s a moment in the ring or in the case of Season 2 with Wild Bill.
I think that his crapping his pants at the end of the state fair match is a great example where that could have been something where he is basically locked into a box of shame for the rest of his career, and he spun it into something arguably heroic. And he does the same thing in the second season.
He looks around and says, “I have no shelter, I have no love, and I’m falling apart. So in order for me to get what I need, which is some kind of emotional nourishment, I have to give what I know.”
His devotion to making the DWL a legitimate enterprise that should be respected and celebrated is how he starts cultivating relationships that are based on generosity instead of transaction.
Right. And he’s lifting others up instead of only promoting himself, which is really nice to see.
It’s nice to see, and I have a feeling throughout his career, he was one of those wrestlers known as somebody with a persona that is self-centered and me first but was actually probably one of those wrestlers who was putting younger wrestlers over and doing what he could to pop other people along the way.
We just don’t know that yet in the show.
We do find out a little bit about that and how magnanimous he really was. So I hope if there is a third season, then we get to delve into that even more.
Me too. I mean, listen, I could live in this guy for a good long time.
Well, something else that I noticed at the end of Season 1, he started taking some pills, which I thought led to his crapping his pants. What he’s really looking at in this season, and as somebody who is growing older myself, he’s facing the fact that he’s aging.
And in this business that he’s in, aging is really detrimental. You don’t get to just play the old guy in the ring because you have to really do physically demanding things. So how do you think he’s dealing with the fact that he’s aging?
He sees other people who have successful relationships, things that he’s put off, but now he’s getting to that age where now you’ve cultivated yourself at the expense of everybody else, and you have, like you said, no family, nobody close to really prop you up.
I think that’s a really astute observation of the show and him in the show, and it’s totally accurate. And I think that, like all great drama, his situation is not that he has one more chance; I think he’s out of chances.
So the clock is ticking every second that he is not essentially finding out or learning or creating for himself some community is a second closer to him, probably withering away in a bar or taking one too many pills in a Motel 6.
So that desperation is beneath him trying to make the DWL something that everybody involved can celebrate and be proud of.
And that’s part of the character that I just really, really appreciate playing because I think that one of the themes that runs through Heels from beginning to end is you can’t get where you want to go without the help of your fellows. It’s just not possible.
Wild Bill’s an example of maybe you have a good 20- or 30-year run on self-will, but you’re going to run out of road, and you’re going to need other people, and people aren’t there if you haven’t cultivated a reason for them to be.
And I have to say, as a side note, the other day, I watched Sting on AEW Do a ladder jump from about 20 feet, and I think he’s 62 or 63 years old.
Oh, wow.
And I thought to myself, that is so beyond remarkable, and Wild Bill could never do that.
You hope he never has to. [laughs] Let’s be honest, Chris, some things you just don’t want to do.
Yeah. [chuckles] I was scared for many reasons watching that.
And the other thing I think is interesting is how we saw Bill hit rock bottom in HeSeason 1, and now we’re watching Willie, the person who he’s known longest in this career, also circling the drain.
How do you think that they’ll be able to reach out and help her, maybe realize some things that he’s come to realize?
I think that the Bill and Willie relationship, especially in Season 2, is right at the cusp of all kinds of potential. And I think that in order for Bill to help Willie, he’s got to get over himself a little more.
And I think that’s writing. It’s a great observation because I’ve found that in life, you can have a much bigger effect on people and be of much more service when you can get over yourself first. And so I think that needs to happen.
But I also think that Willie is her own person, and Bill knows that she’s never been somebody who you can tell what to do, which is the thing he likes about her the most. And if all else fails, I really think he loves her.
So short of being in a box himself, I think he’ll do anything and everything he can to be there for her, no matter whether she can reciprocate it or not.
What do you imagine is the very best place, the very best position in this world of wrestling for Wild Bill to be in?
At this point, at the point of Season 2, I think he is still comfortable in the ring on a mic. I think he can do a couple of spots here and there; take a bump or two. But the logical evolution of his experience and expertise is more and more behind the scenes and guiding a company creatively.
In particular, everything he’s gathered over decades on the road. Like all people like this, he is an almost computer-level database of what a crowd likes, what a crowd doesn’t like. And the data inside that data is, what are people like? He really knows people.
He certainly knows people in the context of performance and entertainment. So, I think that behind the scenes, he thinks he could make a difference for a company that has the potential for sure.
And I think he knows people and allows them grace in a way that he doesn’t himself.
Exactly. God, that’s such another one; it’s a great observation.
It’s a sort of subtle inference of the writing, but one of the great sort of unspoken tragedies is the imbalance at the end of a great artist’s life where they are so lucid and so emotionally articulate about what people are like and then know very little about themselves because they’ve spent so much time with their attention outward instead of inside.
It’s just one of those almost mythological tragedies. One that I have always been very wary of because, vocationally, I have a predisposition to create, entertain, and perform, and I’m endlessly curious about it.
I have a family, so I have to remember that outside of all of that work, I actually am a person. I mean, there are times when I’m like, am I a person? I’m not 100% sure.
Well, you’ve played so many different roles that I’m sure you lose yourself in some of them, and you build new facets of yourself because of getting to play them.
That’s really true.
I can understand how it must be difficult to remember who you are in the face of all these different roles that you played.
It’s true because everybody works in a different way. But for me, I really try to hold empty space so that these characters can come in without interference. It’s a bit of a cliche, but I honestly feel like characters play me more than I play them. And I’ve been so blessed to play a really broad realm of characters.
But at this point in life, I am asking myself some different questions, I never want to stop doing that. And I never want any of the work I do to be anything less than honoring the reality of being a human being. At the same time, I have to remember that I am one, too. It’s crazy, but it’s really true.
Yeah. You’re not the first person I’ve heard who said that, so you’re not alone, Chris.
Oh, good. Good.
You’re not alone.
Thank you.
And thank you so much for talking with me today. Our time is up, but it’s been wonderful. You’re so insightful and so compassionate about what you speak.
Thank you. I appreciate your time, too, and your interest.
—————————-
Don’t forget to watch Heels tonight at midnight on the Starz app or on Friday at 10/9c on Starz!
Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She’s a member of the Critic’s Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on Twitter and email her here at TV Fanatic.