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A chat with Jackie Earle Haley on Human Target , Feb. 17 “Lockdown” previews

By April MacIntyre Feb 17, 2010, 1:51 GMT

Jackie Earle Haley - © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

Jackie Earle Haley is enjoying a major "do-over" in his career, and he is not reticent to share his happiness at being given a second shot to show Hollywood his acting chops, again.

Haley was a key kid player in “Bad News Bears” and also was cast in “Breaking Away.”

Prior to his "rediscovery" in the film, "Little Children," Haley had carved out a low key production life for himself in Texas, where he met his current wife and worked hard to forget the huge success and fanfare of his early acting years. 

It was the deeply raw performance he gave in "Little Children," playing a convicted sex offender, Ronnie, once again living at home with his mother, that earned him an Oscar nod.  

It also provided a platform for new eyes to see an A-list level talent long dropped off casting agents' radar. 

Haley was mesmerizing as Rorschach in the much ballyhooed "Watchman," and many critics feel he was the best element of the entire movie.

Fans can look for him as the next Freddy Krueger in the remake of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” due later this year and this week Haley will act opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the film “Shutter Island” (opening Friday). His scene outtakes from "Shutter" have Hollywood talking once again.

Now, lucky for us, FOX, and executive producers McG and Jonathan Steinberg cast this electric actor as Guerrero in Wednesday night's no miss series, “Human Target."

Mark Valley is billed as the top dog in this series, but ask any fans, the interplay between Chi McBride and Jackie Earle Haley is the E-Ticket to this wild ride of an action romp.

Monsters and Critics was on a phone conference and at the TCA presentation with Jackie Earle Haley, and asked him what the acting experience was like for him now, versus his early success.

““I probably took it for granted when I was a kid. I definitely was in love with the craft as a youngster, but I probably didn’t fully understand it and fully get the depth of it. I think I appreciate that more now,” Hayley said in a recent conference call with reporters.

“I’m pinching myself that I’m getting to work, and to work on so many different things in different genres,” he said. “I can’t tell you what a blast it is to get to work on movies and to get to work on TV. I’m a fan of both, and I’ve just been having an incredible time. It’s amazing. Sometimes it gets very real, and I’m doing the work, and it can be arduous and time-consuming, and I’m flying all over the place. I’m not even sure the last time I was home. It was like September or something. But what an incredible, I don’t know, just gift, to be able to practice this craft again and to get to work so much. It’s just unbelievable.”

The energy he shares with Chi McBride creates a tribe of two.

Haley elaborated, "Chi is just such a hilarious guy.  I mean he is a fun guy to hang around.  It’s always fun to hear him kind of go on one of his political rants too; you should try to get him going.  Some of that fun I think, even though he’s so different from his character and I’m so different from my character, I think some of that fun we have just somehow kind of just transfers into our roles even though our characters are kind of at odds with one another."

Haley shared his backstory on Guerrero was an ongoing discovery process.

"I think that to us from the very beginning, the back story of these three guys was important, and not just as a mystery for its own sake, but it defines where they came from and their shared experience defines their relationships now," shared Haley.  "I think that was interesting to us was that they all share this one traumatic, but also sort of very big kind of mythic experience between the three of them.  It was interesting to us to see how that rippled through their relationships currently.  I think before the end of this season, you’re going to learn a lot more about them and a lot more about that event."

FOX sent us a teaser clip for Wednesday's next show: