‘Every day is a writer’s retreat’

By Mary-Justine Lanyon

 

Imagine it’s 2033 and humans about to die can “upload” themselves into a virtual afterlife of their choosing.

That’s the premise of Upload, an original comedy-drama on Amazon Prime.

The show stars Lake Arrowhead resident Kevin Bigley as Luke Crossley, a former Army corporal and resident of Lakeview – a pricey afterlife resort – who befriends Nathan Brown, a recently deceased computer programmer who has also been uploaded to Lakeview.

The relationship between Luke and Nathan develops over the three seasons that are currently available online. In this uploaded afterlife, those who are deceased but continue to “live” virtually are able to talk with their living friends and families by phone. Each uploaded individual is monitored by an “angel,” their handler.

Bigley is a California native, having been born in Yuba City. When he was 12, the family moved to a little fishing town in Oregon and then back to California, settling in San Francisco when Bigley was a sophomore in high school.

His first ambition was not to be an actor but a boxer. “I was fighting a lot,” he said, “mostly because I was getting bullied at school. I got sent home so many times, my Mom finally said I had to figure out a different way to deal with it.”

That answer was comedy. “I started coming up with comebacks,” Bigley said. “I always had a mouth!”

He would record episodes of Saturday Night Live and comedy specials, as well as his favorite fights. Midway through the tape, he said, the recordings became more comedy. Then, at school, when someone mentioned who had hosted Saturday Night Live, he would reenact the scene.

As for who he admired most, Bigley is quick to say John Belushi was his favorite comic. But he also admired Bill Murray, “who seemed so cool. He always had a quip, an answer. I wanted to be like that.” And he would pretend to be Nick the lounge singer, made famous by Murray.

Bigley graduated from the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University in Chicago, where he met his wife, Kate Cobb, who is a director. Most of the professors, he said, had a negative view of comedy. His time there was made up of mostly serious acting and playwriting. But, Bigley admitted, “I would still try to bring in a Neil Simon scene.”

After graduation, Bigley appeared on stage in Chicago in Killer Joe at Profiles Theater in Chicago and A Separate Peace at the Steppenwolf Theater.

His big break came when he was cast in a pilot for Fox written and directed by Vince Vaughn. “He was at the height of his comedic powers,” Bigley said. “Very Bill Murrayish. He championed me, pushed me.” And Vaughn checked in with Bigley over the next couple of years, getting him a role in The Dilemma, a Ron Howard movie.

It was Vaughn who gave Bigley and Cobb advice about moving to Los Angeles. “He said we’d hate it but convinced us to do it.”

Bigley earned roles in Bones, CSI: Miami, Chicago Code and then as the rookie EMT Brian Czyk in the series Sirens. After appearing in the Amazon original series Undone, he was cast as Luke in Upload in 2020.

It was at about that time that Bigley and Cobb decided to make the move to Lake Arrowhead. They had been coming up a lot on weekends, for getaways and writing retreats. “We wondered if we could do it,” he said, “as auditioning was so hard.”

Then the pandemic hit and the industry changed – everything became digital.

They bought their first home in Crestline. “It worked out better than we had hoped,” Bigley said. “We never loved Los Angeles. When we came up here, it felt like home.”

In 2003 they realized that, if they were going to stay here, they needed a bigger home. They bought their current home in Lake Arrowhead.

“We wanted to live here because we were coming here all the time. We wanted to be part of a community,” Bigley said.

He was gone a lot, filming, but when Bigley was finally able to stay home for a bit, he reached out to the theater department at Rim of the World High School.

“I finally had some downtime,” he said, “and went to talk with them to see what the program was like, to see if they needed any help.”

After talking with both Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas, he and his wife started going into the drama class to talk with the students and answer their questions. They found that an overwhelming number of the students were interested in the tech side of putting on a show. It’s important, he noted, for actors to know how to strike a set, to know what goes on behind the scenes. “Then you have a greater understanding and appreciation for all that goes into a production,” he said.

And so, Bigley started going in to work with the drama students once a week. He shared with them that acting should be treated like any trade job. “It’s built on the same principles – technique and skill. Talent can help. But I learned that work ethic in the career could get me far. That’s the key that unlocked it all for me. That’s what I teach the kids.”

The questions Bigley got from the students revolved around how to get an agent, how to succeed, how to break in, how to get started. “I told them they just have to worry about getting good. If you get good, someone will find you. I’ve seen a lot of talented people not do anything in this career because talent is so overrated. Connections are built over time.”

When Mr. Nicholas transitioned to teaching the TV-Video Production classes, Bigley transitioned with him. The questions, he said, were similar to those of the theater students as well as how to come up with ideas, how to beat writer’s block.

And so, Bigley continues to go into class once a week, working with the TV-Video students on their writing. He tells them to think about what they like and then think about a plot and the characters. The students started coming up with ideas they didn’t even know they had, Bigley said.

He has had the students write down their favorite movies and then think about how they are similar. Do they all feature groups of people? Ensembles? He has had them read a scene from a script, then shoot it and finally compare it to the scene as shot by the professional filmmaker. How is it similar or different? he’ll ask. Which do you like better?

Bigley has also been teaching them editing techniques and was working on the creation of a TV pilot with the advanced students. In January, they worked on idea creation; in February they fleshed out the ideas; in March they wrote the script; and then in April talked about how to shoot a script.

The process, he reminded the students, can be slow and painstaking.

As for Upload, the cast has filmed Season 4, the final season of the series; it is currently in post-production and should be released in the fall. “It’s a very funny season,” Bigley said. “Funny, sad and exciting – it might make you cry.” He feels the premise is great because it’s neither utopian or dystopian. “A lot of the ideas presented have come true,” he said.

Bigley hopes to shoot a movie here on the mountain. And he and Cobb are working on a TV show. He would like to use some of the high school students as actors and crew.

In addition to seeing Bigley in Upload, viewers can also watch him in Animal Control on the Fox network. And his film Okie is available on several streaming services. He wrote the script and acts in it; Cobb directed it. His writing comes from the need “to create opportunities for myself as well as feeling I’d like to express myself in a deeper way.”

“Lake Arrowhead provides me with a lot of serenity and peace, a sense of belonging Los Angeles could never provide,” Bigley said. “It’s funny to live in a place where people come to participate in a writer’s retreat. Every day is a writer’s retreat here.”