Starring and executively produced by Tom Holland, “The Crowded Room” is a gripping, 10-episode limited series that stars Holland as Danny Sullivan, a man who is arrested following his involvement in a shooting in New York City in 1979. Along side Holland, stars rising actor, Sam Vartholomeos who has also acted in shows such as Star Trek (season one) and Bridge and Tunnel. We chatted with the NYC based actor about his time acting in new AppleTV show and more.
How are you doing today?
I’m good, I’m good. The time I did press was the day the Canadian wildfire smoke was in New York.
So, yeah. No, it was pretty gnarly outside. Yeah. Um, so I have to ask, so I love, I love the credit room.
What inspired from reading the script for The Crowded Room, to join the show?
Thi was one of a couple projects that I’ve been a part of that have been super hush hush and from the get-go. I didn’t get a script. I really only got the audition sides. I think Mike’s name was Kevin in the beginning. I only got a couple of scenes that are like in episode one. He was just this kind of like, cool New York kid, not that I can relate, maybe to the New York part haha. I really loved working with Akiva (Goldsman). Again, I worked with Akiva, in season one of Star Trek discovery. I had a little recurring role on that and we, it was really funny. During the Zoom, I had like a few Zoom callbacks for this job, one of the last ones was with Tom and Akiva and kinda like everybody I was like, I wonder if Akiva will remember me. And then the first thing he says when I come on is like, Hey Sam, nice to meet you. And I’m like, you know what? Nice to meet you too, Akiva. I was like, did, did our time in Star Trek mean nothing to you? Am I that forgettable? Damn it. Um, but we joked about it afterwards. Like when we started filming, I was like, Akiva, you know, this isn’t the first time we’ve worked together. And he was like, looking at me, I was like, Star Trek. And he was like, STAR TREK. And I was like, yeah man, come on. I hope he remembers me after this one.
Like, come on, dude, but honestly, like it was really the people involved, Akiva, Tom, especially Cornell, our, our director who gave me like one of the most memorable audition experiences of my life. I auditioned for this probably in January of 2022, and I have a pretty short memory when it comes to this business, especially like auditioning, you just kind of like do them and, and forget them to hold onto your sanity. Um, so my, my rep had texted me literally like a month after I sent that tape and was like, Hey, you have a call back for The Crowded Room. I was like, what? What’s The Crowded Room? Like you know, like that’s, that’s how much I forget them.
It’s whatever dude. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. I go back to my email and it shows that I have a director session like tomorrow. I’m like, oh God, okay. So I’m like getting my, my sides ready going, you know, getting back into, into that head space. And Cornell was just like a really personable, like, chill guy and literally asked me, like, tell me about one of the, like, happiest memories you have in your life.
I just started telling him about this story about my grandfather in Greece and was weeping by the end of it. That was my, that was my session with Cornell. And I heard from some of the other actors as well that they had pretty similar experiences with him. I know Emma Laird had a crazy one that I won’t spoil for her, some of them weren’t as happy, you know, like, I think he based his questions off the characters we were auditioning for. And Mike is sort of this like, really happy go-lucky. Like if there’s a problem, he’s the solution for it, or he’ll, he’ll find it.
You know, there’s always a silver lining with him. I guess Cornell was just trying to find different aspects of the characters in us. So that was really cool. A couple of days later, I had my session with Tom and like, you know, someone’s genuinely charismatic and genuinely like a good person when you can tell that over a freaking zoom.
You can stream The Crowded Room on AppleTV now. Listen to our full interview with Sam Vartholomeos on ECHO’s Podcast below.