

Michael Irby as Detective Richard Paul in Almost Human. Photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox.

Chasing after bad guys and helping maintain law and order is very much all in a days’ work for Michael Irby. Over the past several years, the talented and versatile actor has played police officers, FBI agents and other law enforcement officials who put their lives on the line every day in order to help make the streets safer. Not too long ago, Irby once again chose to pick up a badge and strap on a gun holster, this time around to portray Detective Richard Paul in Fox’s new hit Sci-Fi TV series Almost Human. While the type of role may be similar to some of Irby’s earlier ones, the setting and overall story is decidedly different, which made the character an irresistible draw for Irby.

“I originally auditioned for the Dorian role,” he says. “I worked on the character and found some of the qualities that I felt he possessed. I went in to read for the part and thought I did a pretty decent job, but then I didn’t hear anything for three months. It was getting towards the end of pilot season, when one day I received a phone call from my agent telling me that they [the Almost Human producers] wanted to bring me back in, but for a new character, one of the detectives in the precinct. I said, ‘Alright, let’s do it.’

“When I first read the script it was like nothing I had done before, I’ve played plenty of cops, but never one in the future who’s surrounded by all this new technology and where police officers are paired with robots. I just knew it was going to be something special. To top it off, you had people like Joel [series creator/executive producer J.H. Wyman] and [executive producer] J.J. Abrams involved. So I met with Joel along with [casting directors] April Webster, who brought me in for my initial audition, and Sara Isaacson. After a couple of callbacks and screen-test, I was sitting at home with my wife when I got a call telling me I had the job.

“We knew at that moment that our lives were taking a turn and we were going into this as a family. When you’re involved in pilot season, you sometimes have to make [job] choices together, and this was one of those times. Everyone involved really stepped up to the plate and was responsive to what I brought to the Richard Paul character at the audition, so right from the start I knew this was going to be an exciting adventure. We shot the pilot in March and then waited until we heard it had been picked up as a series. Ever since then I’ve been up in Vancouver for the past few months working on this awesome show,” enthuses the actor.

Almost Human is set in the year 2048 and a not-so-distant time in Earth’s future where human police officers are partnered with humanoid robot officers or “MXs.” In the pilot episode, Detective John Kennex (Karl Urban), the lone survivor of a brutal and bloody police ambush, wakes from a 17-month coma. He recalls very little about the ordeal, other than the fact that his partner was killed and he lost a leg, which has since been replaced with a synthetic replica.

Despite struggling with some personal and professional inner demons, Kennex returns to work at the “gentle” urging of an old friend and his boss, Captain Sandra Maldonado (Lili Taylor). When the detective’s first teaming with an MX comes to an abrupt end, he is partnered with Dorian (Michael Ealy), a discontinued MX model who, unlike newer MXs, is programmed with human-like emotions. He and Kennex along with their fellow officers immediately have their hands full when the precinct is targeted by a group of criminals that are intent on stealing a vital piece of evidence.

“When John comes back to the office there’s this great pause, the type that happens when someone who has been taken away for a while makes an entrance back into the real world,” notes Irby. “I really like how they captured that moment in the pilot where everybody is pretty much just standing there watching the old dog come back in. It’s such an interesting moment, too, not because it was my moment, but because it’s the first time we see how John is dealing with everything around him. I love how that played out.

“Honestly, I have to tell you, when I first saw the finished pilot, I couldn’t get over what a beautiful job they did in creating this world of 2048, and it’s just very subtle things, like the modes of transportation and the way the characters deal with each other. In doing such a good job creating this world, it made the audience want more, and I think that’s what you try to do as a storyteller. You always want viewers to be fulfilled, but at the same time you want to leave them wanting more, especially with a television series. Obviously movies are different in that you have your first, second and third acts, but with television shows, the first, second and third acts could take place over several seasons, which is always the hope, right?”

John Kennex’s return to active duty causes a ripple in office dynamics at the precinct. While he would never admit it to anyone or outwardly show it, this turn of events leaves Detective Paul with a proverbial sour taste in his mouth. “I think my character is kind of a sad individual,” muses Irby. “He wears the mask of a brave warrior, but at the end of the day he’s sort of a lonely guy, and he doesn’t make it any easier on himself by being such an ass. I think Paul would like friends, but the problem is he has some big trust issues. So far we’ve learned that he’s been separated and divorced from his wife, and we also see that to some extent he’s married to his job.

“There are certain traps that we as human beings can sometimes fall into when we give it all up for our work, one of which is that we tend to lose some of those things that helped us get to where we are. I think Paul is at the point now where he really doesn’t have anything else but his job, and ever since Kennex’s return, Paul is wondering if he even has that anymore. While John was in a coma and away from work, Paul sort of inherited some of his ‘power.’ He became one of the go-to guys, but now that John is back, and because of his friendship with Maldonado, I think my character is feeling a bit stepped on and like some of his power has been taken away. He’s probably somewhat envious of how John has been able to just walk back into the precinct and become that go-to guy again because of the history between him and Maldonado.

“It’s funny, with all the advancements in technology and the changes in humankind that Paul has witnessed over the years, I think that he’s trying to hold on to some old values. I think he has a high moral base and isn’t really cool with the way things are unfolding now. He and John definitely have a few beefs, and that’s kind of explored in some of the scenes that Karl and I have recently shot. I don’t want to say too much, but I will tell you that after seven or eight episodes with these two guys stewing, they might have to go after one another a little bit, and I think Paul is fine with that,” teases the actor. “I do believe, though, that at the end of the day, he and John are going to realize that they’re both just good cops who need each other. They don’t need to be best friends or anything like that, but they are going to need one another at some point, which is something that the show’s writers and producers are getting involved with story-wise.”

Looking at all the Almost Human episodes he has shot so far, how has Irby seen Detective Paul grow and develop as a character since first playing him in the pilot? “We’re seeing there are certain lines he won’t cross,” he says. “Paul is very clear about who he is, which is, again, a good cop and a guy who you can go to and get what you need. He’s willing to bend the rules a little bit in order to get to the truth, but I don’t think he’s a guy who would take a bribe. I also don’t think he’s a guy who’s going to be stepped on without reason.

“There’s a great deal that you can play out with this character, including the fact that he sometimes says things that are really out of left field. He tends to be a bit aggressive with Valerie [Detective Valerie Stahl, played by Minka Kelly], and he definitely doesn’t like Dorian. He’s got his eye on Dorian and is willing to ‘unplug’ this guy, or MX, at any second with regard to his partnership with John. I don’t know how much you would want to cross Paul, because I don’t know how much he truly cares what people think about him. In today’s real world, it seems like more and more people really care what you think about them. We have all these ways online of masking who we actually are, and I think technology is only going to take us further in that direction. I don’t think Paul is someone who texts, Tweets or goes on Facebook. I doubt that he has a big social networking profile, and if he does, I’m not sure he’s saying he is who is,” jokes Irby.

Born to Cindy and Ernie Irby in Palm Springs, California, the actor grew up in Cabazan, California with his two siblings, Ernie Jr. and Jason. A gifted athlete, he focused on honing his skills as a soccer player and eventually went to Europe where he played for Team USA. Paul loved what he was doing and was certain that soccer would continue to be his chosen profession, but as often true with so many people, his life subsequently began to turn in a very different direction.

“I had reached a point where I felt like things were changing and I didn’t really want to do it [soccer] anymore,” recalls Irby. “I’d come across a couple of coaches who kind of sucked some of the passion out of me, and perhaps it was something that was happening prior to that and coaching was the catalyst that set everything in motion. When I returned from Europe I got into a car accident and broke both my legs. Funnily enough, I think it was God working in mysterious ways. I ended up stepping away from soccer and moving back home. I had already been out on my own at that point and sort of had to go back to being a child, but then I began to spread my wings creatively.

“Growing up, I wrote a lot of poetry. In fact, when it came time to do book reports or give oral reports at school, I started writing poetry. I guess I was always a fish out of water. Teachers used to ask me to do plays and I’d tell them, ‘Oh no, I can’t. I’ve got soccer practice,’ but then after the car accident I spent a year floundering, and one day – I don’t even know why – I signed up for an acting class at junior college. I did a scene in class and the teacher called me over and said, ‘I don’t know if you have any interest in this, but I think you might be able to be a professional actor and make a living at it.’ I asked him, ‘How do I do that?’ He explained to me, ‘Well, you can either move to Los Angeles, get a headshot, take an acting class and try to meet people, or you can also go to New York.’

“As soon as he said New York it was like a light bulb went off in my head, I went to the movies a lot when I was a kid and I always had a curiosity as well as fascination with New York and with actors like Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, but I didn’t really know why. There’s obviously an innocence where you can watch a TV show or movie and not really know why you’re so drawn to it, and now years later here was a teacher telling me I might be able to do [acting] for a profession. He got me some information on a school in New York - The American Academy of Dramatic Arts - and three months later I was gone. I auditioned for the school and was accepted, so I quit my job, broke up with my girlfriend, took $500 I’d saved and moved to New York. I lived at the YMCA, started school and was in it for the long haul.

“That was 15 years ago. My first acting job was an episode of Law & Order, and if your then lucky enough to book your next job and then the next one, you just keeping thinking, ‘Yes, this is right for me.’ I’ve doubted it a few times, as we all do, and you think, ‘This is my last job.’ However, as long as you keep hearing, ‘Yes, we want you,’ you’re able to keep reinforcing the fact that this is what you’re supposed to be doing. When I look around now, I’m so grateful for having had the opportunity to create a beautiful life with an amazing family.”

Once Upon a Wedding, Final Draft, Law Abiding Citizen, Fast Five, Duke and Dirty People along with the upcoming Breaking Tradition and Bolden! are among Irby’s feature film credits. His other small screen work includes roles on a number of TV shows including CSI: Miami, 24, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Good Wife, Castle, The Mentalist, Person of Interest and Elementary. He also played Charles Grey in the CBS series The Unit as well as Dante in the short-lived series Haunted.

“The Unit was another dream job,” says the actor. “You just have to look at the pedigree of those involved, including [executive producer] Shawn Ryan and [series creator/executive producer] David Mamet and even CBS. My character of Charles Grey was a guy who asked a lot of questions. He would go against orders and everything he was commanded to do, because at the end of the day he was trying to stand up for what he believed was right. Sometimes you go into a situation and you can’t ask why we’re doing it, you just have to do it, especially if you’re a Special Ops guy. I think a lot of the credit for that goes to Eric Haney [co-executive producer on The Unit and retired member of the U.S. Army’s counterterrorist unit, Delta Force], who wrote the book Inside Delta Force. He posed some of these same questions, and I’m an actor who likes questions. I always have and I don’t really need an answer, but I definitely like to question things and I like to ask people to question things.

“Over time we developed a fan base, and the fans of The Unit were so incredible because everybody had a connection. When we started the show, 9/11 had already happened and this country was already three or four years into the war overseas. I thought this would be a great opportunity to show the world as well as our fighting men and women that we were behind them and that this was kind of a show for them. This was one of those things that I knew from the get-go I had to be a part of, and it was such an awesome experience. We went to Iraq and did a USO tour in between seasons two and three. Robert Patrick [Colonel Tom Ryan], Max Martini [Mack Gerhardt], Dennis Haysbert [Jonas Blane] and I went and got tattoos. We really became a brotherhood, and when it was all said and done, we knew that this show was bigger than all of us, and we tried to make it the best it could be for all those men and women and the families of everyone involved in the conflict.

“As for Haunted, that was another one of those jobs where I don’t think anything doesn’t happen for a reason. The show’s producers had already cast the role of Dante, but then there was a recast after they finished the pilot. They pretty much brought in, I believe, every young, kind of non-established, no-name actor in Los Angeles. They didn’t know what they wanted for this role, so in the breakdown it basically stated for you to prepare something and just come in to read. So I pulled out one of my old pieces of poetry, which was the one thing they hadn’t seen.

“I was literally shaking when I read it, and I ended up getting a callback. This time around there were probably 38 network executives in the room along with Matthew Fox [who played the lead, Frank Taylor]. As I read this piece of poetry I had written about life, love and the world, I watched all these people as they started leaning forward. The whole room just shifted and all this energy was coming at me. When I finished, I looked at Matthew and he gave me this wink, so I knew it was on. I had been in New York for 10 years and had just moved out to Los Angeles. My wife was pregnant and all of a sudden this just changed everythinghttp. It changed who I was as a man and a human being. I thought, ‘I’ve got to go out and get this [job],’ and I did. It was another incredible experience and a blast.”

To say that acting is an unpredictable profession to pursue is quite the understatement. It is difficult for many to make a living at, and that becomes an even greater challenge if you also have a family to look after. Irby is well aware of that, and is thankful that his talent, experience and commitment have helped pave the way for a fulfilling professional as well as personal life.

“I’m fortunate to have enough to take care of my family as well as do what I do, and I love what I do,” he says. “It doesn’t really feel like a job, and it never has. Even the audition part is exciting, but what’s especially rewarding is when someone who has seen something I’ve done comes up to me and says, ‘Wow, man, you blew me away.’ It’s never really been about me as far as that goes, you know? It’s great when you get to give it back to people. I’m lucky to be able to live and do what I want for a living. I’ve tried to teach my son that if you can just find something you love doing, then it’s not work, and you find out that the rewards that come with that are truly grand.”

Steve Eramo

As noted above, photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!