Stephen Mangan has a lengthy résumé of TV and stage acting in his native United Kingdom, but he realizes that his benchmark for success might not fit in Hollywood.
"I told a producer once that money was fairly low down on my list of priorities. He laughed for an hour and a half, he thought it was the funniest thing," said Mangan, one of the bright lights in "Episodes,"Showtime's barbed ensemble comedy, which returned Sunday.
The actor's friendly yet deranged-on-demand countenance is a natural attention-getter â€" one critic summarized him as having "alarmed-spaniel eyes and jutting-jawed stroppiness … and Medusan hair" â€" but it's his acting that draws professional admirers.
Before "Episodes," Mangan's most notable appearance in the U.S. came in 2009, in a much-lauded Broadway revival of Alan Ayckbourn's triptych farce "The Norman Conquests." He received a Tony nomination playing the title character, and Ben Brantley, reviewing in the New York Times, noted "Mr. Mangan's oversexed-sheepdoglike Norman is magnetic … narcissistic, longing to dominate and oh so hungry for attention and affection."
"Episodes" creators, writers and executive producers David Crane ("Friends") and Jeffrey Klarik ("Mad About You") recalled seeing "easily 60 guys," but seized on Mangan as ideal for the role of Sean Lincoln, half of a husband-and-wife team of English sitcom creators imported to Hollywood to remake their hit show while enduring various comed ic indignities.
During a break at Paramount shooting exteriors for the program's second season, the two show runners channeled each other's sentences to muse on Mangan's talents.
Klarik: "Stephen gives off vulnerability, plus he thinks funny…."
Crane: "… he can find the funny in what's painful…."
Klarik: "… and he roots it in truth, you believe everything he does, it's not actor-ish."
In "Episodes," Matt LeBlanc plays a conscience-less, self-involved TV star coincidentally named Matt LeBlanc; in January, the actor won a Golden Globe for the character. Though on screen he's Mangan's tormentor, LeBlanc is an off-screen admirer.
"From the first table read, Stephen's inventiveness and intelligence was dynamic," said LeBlanc. "Last season [in the final episode] we had this goofy fight scene â€" his character found out my character had slept with his wife.
"And …" LeBlanc flashed a toothy grin "we're on the floor rolling around a nd in the scuffle a potted cactus was knocked over. It wasn't scripted, but he seized the pot, and I'm on my back and what I see, charging me on his knees, a deranged look on his face, is Stephen coming to skewer me!"
Mangan is happy doing an ensemble comedy. His pleasure likely stems from an early life of communality.
"A big Irish family [Mangan, 39, was born and grew up in London] â€" I have 52 first cousins and I saw a lot of them," he said.
"A gathering of Mangans meant enjoying a laugh. Saying something funny was prized as an asset, but it wasn't about holding the room for 20 minutes where you are the focus. It was everyone chipping in, playing their part, adding to the merriment and atmosphere."
Mangan paused and said, "I certainly think that's why I'm an actor instead of doing stand-up."
His father's success in construction helped build the way to a Cambridge education. After subsequently graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Mangan had a single focus: theater.
"I wanted to do leading parts â€" as I saw it, that's how I could grow as an actor. For five years I toured the countryside and did Shaw, Molière and Shakespeare. But it dawned on me it was the people I was working with, the insightful director, the keen actor I played across from, that was helping me develop."
Financial realities also expanded his vision beyond stage work.
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