Kevin Zegers admitted that he fought hard for his role in the “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan’s new show, “The Madison.”
While the “Gossip Girl” actor didn’t divulge how he landed the role, he told Page Six exclusively at the show’s premiere earlier this week that the process was “not easy.”
The 41-year-old theorized that perhaps, “I wasn’t totally right for it, but I just wouldn’t [give up]. I just knew I was supposed to be doing it.”
The actor joked that he was even willing to fly to creator Sheridan’s house “and bang on his door” to get the part.
He didn’t have to resort to that, however, as he ended up landing a role in the neo-Western series that follows a New York City family relocating to rural Montana. The show, which premieres March 14 on Paramount+, also stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell, Patrick J. Adams and Matthew Fox.
Zegers also shared that he was happy to apply some tenets of sobriety while shooting the series, including that of service, which mirrors his role in the show as a caring neighbor.
“I try to live my life that way,” he revealed. “That’s like a huge tenet of how I live my life. And I just hadn’t seen, like, a representation of a guy just without any expectation, just trying to help.”
Zegers explained that he became especially close to child actor Alaina Pollack, who plays Pfeiffer’s granddaughter.
It’s something that he knows about, having starred in 1997’s “Air Bud” when he was just 13 years old, and believes it contributed to his later issues.
“100%,” he exclaimed. “I’ve never met a child actor who isn’t either actively like a drug addict or in recovery.”
Zegers acknowledged that it’s “weird” for a child to “have to go to work, like you could have a bad day. When you’re 11, you can just say, ‘I don’t want to go to school today,’” but it’s different on set because “there’s 250 people waiting…and that’s a lot of pressure.”
The “Dawn of the Dead” star attended the premiere with two dates — his 10-year-old twin daughters, Zoë and Blake, who giddily posed on the red carpet with their dad.
“They think I’m the biggest loser in the world,” he joked. “And so this is like a moment where they’re like, ‘Oh, maybe you’re not so bad.’”
“I was getting dressed, and they were like, ‘You can’t wear that jacket,’ so they changed me.”
Zegers shared that he’s “proud” of his work on “The Madison” and is glad he brought his kids to see it.
“It’s good for them to see like what daddy does when he’s proud of something, and I’m really proud of this,” he said.
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