Jake Busey On 'Justified,' Getting Splattered, and Dear Old Dad

Warning: Spoilers below

Jake Busey is blowing up! He came and went with a bang on last night's episode of Justified as Lewis Mago, a hyperkinetic explosives expert who was vaporized into a cloud of red goo after Walton Goggins' Boyd Crowder forgot to turn off his cell phone during a detonation test. (Let this be a lesson to us all.) "It looked like I got run through a blender," Busey says. "I was there when I blew up. Out of context, that must sound strange. I witnessed the explosion and the dummy and the blood and guts. It was quite impressive." So, too, was Busey's performance, which was eerily reminiscent of his father Gary's manic intensity. In a chat with Esquire.com, the 43-year-old actor proved he has his dad's gift for wacky gab as he discussed Justified as well as his indelible roles in Starship Troopers and, yes, Shasta McNasty.

ESQUIRE.COM: Do you wish you could have stayed on Justified longer?

JAKE BUSEY: It's every actor's dream to get on a show and have your name spray-painted on a parking spot. We don't get that. We're circus players and we travel. We live in tents and hotels. So having a stable job is what I'm aiming for, but getting the opportunity to be on a show like Justified is very inspirational.

ESQ: You bear a resemblance to Walton Goggins. Have you ever noticed that?

JB: It's funny you say that. I didn't think we had a resemblance, yet in watching Justified, there are moments when I think, "God, he looks like my dad!" There is a genetic familiarity. And I love his name. He sounds like some guy you meet in the mystical forest: "You go down the trail and around the bend and on the other side of the third tree, underneath the purple stone, you'll meet Walton Goggins, and he'll give you the secrets of how to get to the underground river."

ESQ: That's true! Adam Arkin directed the episode. He's also a second-generation actor—did you feel like he was a kindred spirit?

JB: There was an unspoken understanding. There's a very unique club we're in—we both grew up on film and TV sets. When you meet someone else who had the same upbringing, you have an immediate sense of camaraderie. They told me he was directing the episode and I said, "Oh my God, I hit the jackpot!"

ESQ: Your character had so much energy—he's described as "irritating, a handful, and his mind is fried on drugs." How did you psych yourself up to play him?

JB: It was really tough. Adam and Walton both took me to a place I had no idea I would go to. They pushed and pushed. I was hitting a certain level of reality, and they were like, "No, crazier! Laugh more!" We got to the point where I was hysterical, out-of -control and maniacal, and I had no idea what was happening. At the end, I was like, "What did they do to me?"

ESQ: You've also got the History miniseries Texas Rising coming up…

JB: You did your homework, son!

ESQ: You play Samuel Wallace. Isn't he the man who said, "Remember the Alamo"?

JB: You know it!

ESQ: How do you make such an iconic line sound like normal speech?

JB: It was very fucking difficult. It's like when the character has to say the phrase that is the title of the film. That's always hard.

ESQ: What was it like having Gary Busey as a dad, and how's your relationship now?

JB: It's a lot calmer now (laughs). My dad is a very energetic force to be reckoned with. He has a motivation and drive that is unmatched. His enthusiasm for performance is so strong. We spent a lot of time on the road with Willie Nelson after they did this Western Barbarosa together. It was an exciting way to grow up. It was a random life. You never knew where you were going to end up.

ESQ: Did you ever regret not having a more normal upbringing?

JB: When I was in my late teens, I thought I had missed out on a childhood I wanted—this 1950's nuclear Brady Bunch family. All the commercials for Father's Day were like, "Get your Dad a new set of Craftsman wrenches." So I did, and after a year, I realized he never touched it. I was kind of bummed out. And we never went fishing. But I lived on the beach in North Carolina for four months when I was 13 and my dad was shooting Silver Bullet, and I went fishing off the pier every day with Corey Haim. And we flew on the MGM gold-plated 737. I look back on it, and say, "As much as I was a grumpy little kid because we never went camping, I didn't appreciate how insanely cool my life was." It was magic.

ESQ: Was it ever difficult?

JB: It was not without its hardships, given the cocaine of the 1980s. That made life really tumultuous. But my father is a man with a great capacity for love and a huge heart, which has led him to be somewhat of a lothario, but at the same time, he's genuine. He's far more loving and kind than I could ever be. As selfish as he is, he is an extremely giving person. He's just 100 percent in every direction.

ESQ: He's credited you with helping him kick cocaine and recover from his near-fatal 1988 motorcycle accident. Did you ever feel like he was the child and you were the parent?

JB: Yeah, we did have a flip-flop. I was a big part of teaching him how to talk and eat again. When he came out of the coma, he was a vegetable. For a year or two, it was like I had a kid, and that kid was dad. It was a weird dynamic. It was super-trippy.

ESQ: What was the strangest moment growing up Busey?

JB: When I was about 18, I had this beautiful girlfriend for about a year. I saw her flirting with my dad, but I didn't realize until years later there was more going on than I knew about. (laughs) There were some backwoods elements going on. Life is unpredictable when you get non-standard behavior patterns.

ESQ: Speaking of which, what are family get-togethers like now that you have a three-year-old daughter, Autumn, and your dad has a four-year-old son, Luke?

JB: Amazing! It's so cool to see my brother and my daughter together playing. He is this cute little blond-headed dude, full of energy. My dad and [his girlfriend] Steffanie are both hippie, free-love kind of people, so Luke is just a sweet little kid. Christmas was fantastic with them all running around the tree. God, it was just a beautiful thing.

ESQ: Your first role was in 1978's Straight Time, with your dad and Dustin Hoffman. What was that like?

JB: They brought in an older kid and put him against me for a screen test. I was five years old and I didn't know what to do. They gave us some toys and put us into an improv situation. And I beat the other kid out in my first audition, I say with sardonic irony. My first gig was playing my father's son, and it's been the role I've been playing ever since off-screen.

ESQ: You got heat-stroke filming 1997's Starship Troopers. Was that because you were shooting in the desert in a heavy spacesuit?

JB: Exactly. They had to shut down production for a week at a cost of $1.5 million a day. It was 115 degrees, and I was standing in the sun in a suit that didn't breathe. I'm from a pretty fair-skinned white Nordic bloodline. I can't handle the sun like that.

ESQ: Did you sharpen your rap skills for UPN's 1999-2000 sitcom Shasta McNasty?

JB: We were supposed to be this terrible band who had lost their record deal, and we certainly pulled that off. But it was a magic time in my life. I wish I could go do it again. The only thing I was upset with was the network kept moving it around, and this was way back in the day, before DVRs. If you didn't watch it, you missed it. They canceled it after one season because the ratings weren't good. Whose responsibility was that? It was a funny show, but whatever—that network doesn't exist anymore.

ESQ: You turned down some big movies like Fight Club, Zoolander, 12 Monkeys, and Requiem for a Dream. Why?

JB: In some cases, I just didn't understand the material. For instance, when I read the male-model walk-off scene in Zoolander, I didn't get the humor. Now it's one of my favorite movies. That's when I kick myself and go, "God, I'm an idiot!"

ESQ: Well, there's a sequel coming up…

JB: I haven't heard about it, but I'm definitely gonna go see it! 

ESQ: Didn't you also turn down small roles because you thought you'd be a big star?

JB: Yeah, I almost turned down Enemy of the State because I had just done Starship Troopers and Contact and a film called Home Fries that Vince Gilligan wrote. I was the second male lead with Luke Wilson and Drew Barrymore. I thought that was going to be a huge success, and I was on the cusp of being the next greatest thing since sliced bread, and I couldn't have been farther from the truth. Starship Troopers bombed—it was a movie aimed at young people, but because of the violence and the rating, they couldn't go see it. And Home Fries was such a weird movie—it wasn't a big romantic comedy to follow the string of Drew Barrymore hits. But Tony Scott convinced me to do a smaller part in Enemy of the State, and I'm glad he did because that's one everybody remembers. So it's been a real unpredictable life.

ESQ: What's your attitude towards stardom these days?

JB: I'm looking at everything with a new, clear eye and an attitude of acceptance rather than skepticism. I realized, this isn't a career—this is my life. This is what I do. It doesn't matter what the size of the role is. It matter that you're enjoying yourself. And I'm loving it.