**VALENTINO** sweatshirt.
[Matthew Daddario](https://www.instagram.com/matthewdaddario/) has had nothing short of an adventurous year, becoming a dad, premiering the movie _Trust_ and now starring in the second season of Marc Cherry’s glamorous Paramount+ Series, _Why Women Kill_.
Premiered on June 3rd, the second season of _Why Women Kill_ features Daddario as Scooter, in the darkly comedic drama as an adulterous young man focused on making it big in Hollywood no matter what means it takes. Set in 1949, this season peels back the mask people wear to uncover the hidden truth as well as the estrangement women feel within society.
_Flaunt_ had the opportunity to chat with Daddario about his compelling role in _Why Women Kill_, _Lord of the Rings_, and motorcycles.
**APC** shirt.
**So you're from New York originally? What was it like growing up in the city?**
Here's the deal. I think that people don't really know what New York is unless you live there. I think a lot of people want New York to be a certain way, and they want New York to to be a way that fulfills whatever the image is in their head, and they get that image, probably from TV, from film, and from whatever else, or other sorts of media where they see the city. I think for me, it was just a place that I was growing up. Obviously, the thing that drives New York really is this kind of energy, I think that everyone always talks about, right. But that is kind of hard to understand, and I'm sure many people have written many essays on the topic.
But really, what it felt like for me was a sense of freedom. I think that New York provides young people with an enormous amount of responsibility and enormous amount of freedom, in comparison to growing up elsewhere. You're not limited to access to things by vehicles, or by getting moved around by your parents, if you're in the suburbs, hypothetically. There is full access to everything, really, that you could fill your every day with something new at that age. So I think that that's really what New York was, was this large amount of freedom and a large amount of responsibility. And I think that it's very hard for some people, and I think that it's um, I don't think it's the greatest place to grow up, but I do think it's the greatest place to grow up. You know what I mean? Those two things at once.
**So what did you do with your freedom?**
What did I do with my freedom? So many good things, I was very well behaved. Let me tell you, my mom will read these things. Now if my mom reads this, she’ll say, “Now, Matthew, why are you telling people that?” I walked around, I skateboarded, I went and met my friends and we would wander around the city. I had some good friends that would just wander when we were younger, then go meet people. Meet other people from other schools and see what they're doing and what they're up to. You don't get in trouble. Because you know, that's not what people in New York do. That's not what teenagers do. They don't get in trouble.
**So how did you get into acting?**
So actually my older sister, she is an actress. She was in it for a bit and obviously, I didn't get into it and I went to college for different reasons. I majored in something else and then when I graduated, I kind of went to it as I exposed to it. So I knew what it was. I understood the elements and I understood what the process was. I understood that it's a bad decision to try and become an actor. If you want it as your livelihood, it needs to be something that you're doing, because you actually love it, because really, your chances of succeeding are near zero, and they're not necessarily based off your skill level. So you are kind of in a weird business, and a lot of a lot of chance plays into it.
Like I say, luck, but chance and circumstance. So I knew what I was getting into, and I said, “I'm going to try this.” It was at a time when the economy was not doing so well. I wanted to experiment in this area, because I felt that it would provide me with a better sense of self. When I started taking classes, it really gave me this realization that this is really what I want to do. Eventually realizing that made me kind of question my other choices, and then it kind of went from there. I continued to go to classes and got an agent and went through the whole process of managers, agent auditions, failure, a lot of constant question of “is this really the right choice?” Eventually, it worked to a degree, and I'm so happy that I did it.
**Tell me about your sisters and growing up with them.**
I think that because my sister and I were very close in age, we played a lot together, and grew up with each other. I have a kid now, so I kind of realized the benefit of having that it must be. I think it was kind of hard for me to contextualize how important that could be. Hypothetically, if my kid doesn't have exposure to other kids, you have this permanent playmate, and the two of you can compete. And the two of you can play games and things, it gives you a lot of time with another young child, which is enormously beneficial.
And then we have the younger sister, Catherine. And that was also very good, because it also gave me a sense of what it was to have a younger person who you were sort of responsible for. So I actually think that there's something really nice about having three kids that are close in age, and I also recognize the incredible difficulty of having three children, which is like madness nowadays, especially in New York. Oh my God, we were crazy. It's nuts. But you know what, I encourage everyone to have tons of children, it's a lot of fun.
**So you recently became a dad this last year, in the middle of the pandemic, how has that been like for you?**
There's nothing really great about the pandemic, not a fun time to discuss the pandemic. But one big advantage was that we had time at home and time with family. People weren't busy doing other things, because we were at home. And so that gave time with the baby and that otherwise I might not have had and that other people might not have had. So it was really, it was really great for the family in general. And I mean, I wouldn't suddenly say I would recommend having your baby during a pandemic. But now we can find that it was actually quite alright. It was quite alright from that perspective.
**Yeah, so the reason why we are talking today is that you're going to be appearing on the second season of _Why Women Kill_. What was your initial reaction to the role?**
Oh, man, the character. His name is Scooter. I was very, very excited by this character, because he’s a little bit dim, but he's a nice guy. He's a really nice guy, and he wants to be an actor. I sort of assumed he was from somewhere in the country that maybe doesn't have access to anything like a theater or anything like that. But he saw things in the movies, and he wanted to be an actor, and he goes out to LA, and obviously it doesn't work out for him, and he has to find another way to kind of care for himself, which he does.
The thing about it was that Scooter is immensely positive, endlessly trying to succeed, endlessly trying to find a way to provide for himself without ever really thinking about it too much and that is a fun character to play. It's something very real about him. He's not, he's not some genius who suddenly has the answer to every question. He doesn't. He doesn't instantly know what's coming next. We see a lot of characters who are kind of really superb with every aspect of their life. Scooter has a certain set of skills, those skills are maybe a little particular, for TV, but he knows how to use those to his advantage and he has to come up with ways to solve problems that he encounters on his own as he goes along. That's very nice, I like that and I really like his story arc, which was something that I got to see soon after being cast and it was really fantastic. So I was thrilled, I was thrilled to play a sort of happy go lucky character.
**Did you find that you connected to the character of Scooter personally ?**
Oh, yeah, let me tell you, I'm living out in LA, it's sunny all the time. I'm living the Scooter life. Suddenly, I find myself wearing a lot of Hawaiian shirts. So I guess that's not so different from what I normally am doing, but I'm wearing them with a little more 1949 flair.
I'm starting to think about wearing my pants up higher, I start to stop thinking so much. To start really doing the LA thing. You know, I sat out in the sun and I listened to a lot of music from the time. I just really started to live the 1949 life. There wasn't a lot going on, my days were spent primarily with Scooter. So eventually, hanging out with a bunch of other people dressed like it was 1949, and talking in 1949 ways, I kind of adapted to that. So that was what it was like and let me tell you, that was awesome.
**So you mentioned that the show is set in 1949 and it's filled with a sense of like, old Hollywood glamour and nostalgia. Do you mind telling me a little bit more about what it was like stepping into this world?**
Yes, it was bizarre. When we sort of place ourselves in time, we're obviously not from 1949. So our notions of 1949 are based off of films that we've seen, television we've seen, often recreating a time period, not actually filmed in that time period unless you're watching older films. Maybe you've seen newsreels, maybe you've listened to old radio, as I have on long drives using that satellite radio station with the old time radio.
Our context for what that time period is based on a lot of media, so it could be all wrong. But then the clothing, you put the clothing on, you put on the hairstyle and you see yourself in the mirror and you really start to feel that a little bit. Then you go to the set.
We have houses that are sort of leftovers from the 1940s and, it's this sort of the same vibe and all that. They handed me a newspaper, it was from 1949 and I was supposed to read it in the scene. I'm sitting in this diner, and people are smoking fake cigarettes and I'm sitting there reading a newspaper. I'm dressed in the clothing and I'm listening to people talk in a certain way, I look around and the prices on the walls are different.
And I realize, “Oh, it's everything all at once.” I suddenly felt that sense of 1949, and I think that's what's so great about this, like the film industry is that it's all the things combined. It's all of them put together to create an atmosphere, down to the lowest detail down to the words that are on a newspaper that no one is going to see when we're filming. I think that's really when I felt that sense, “Okay, this is in 1949” and that's very helpful actually, when I was acting. That was a very surreal actually very surreal feeling.
**Yeah. So you mentioned a little bit about listening to the radio and reading newspapers, how did you prepare for this role?**
Certain elements, I based off of some lovely people that I know, but other things I did as I figured that, Scooter, we've mentioned this before, was probably watching a lot of movies in the idea of what being a movie star was, even if that wasn't accurate. And so he would probably be copying the movie stars of the era to some degree. So I watched a bunch of movies in that time period and started to mimic the way they speak, which is honestly not a real way of speaking, I think it’s the Mid-Atlantic accent. So then I make that to a degree and tried to really copy the movement of like Cary Grant, who I've mentioned a few times. But that's really what I did, Scooter is playing a character when he's in LA. He's playing a character, he's playing what he thinks a movie star is, and so I did the same and that kind of adapted to it.
**What does it mean to be a movie star at this time? What would you think that it was?**
I think there's the glitz and glamour element to it all, but that's not really what's real. It's sort of like, speaking of Cary Grant, which I keep mentioning, people are gonna think I have some obsession with Cary Grant, but you know, who he was on screen is a lot different than who he was in real life, and if you read his different biographies, there is lots of varying accounts. But generally, they say that he was a much different person.
Who's presented is this very, very charismatic person. They're very active, they speak very clearly, and they have a kind of charisma that is over the top. They're very serious, they're intense, everything is slightly heightened.
I think that Scooter really thinks that that's what these actors really are like, it's not just movies, it's the movie business. It's a thing. It's like a whole culture in itself. So it's kind of a heightened element of everything, and I'm not sure if that's true anymore, given how we see stars nowadays, but back then, I think there was such a distance between the regular person and the movie star. It allowed for that really heightened sense of who these stars were—this kind of illusion. So it's definitely not accurate. It's definitely more of an illusion.
**So what was it like working with Marc Cherry?**
Marc is really the best. The one thing that I was really just so over the top happy about was that Marc is a really, really, really good writer. It was kind of incredible. The story structure was so sound, the way people speak is so consistent, the plot lines are solid, and it makes sense. They follow a good path, and there's funny bits in there.
Yeah, there's lots of humor, it's all combined, it's just very impressive that that man puts so much effort. He was always there, always on the Zoom calls in order to help advise us on every scene. So every scene, we'd have a Marc Cherry rehearsal where we call him up through Zoom, and he talks to us through the scene and whether to hit certain parts of humor and also gave us a lot of room for freedom to do things ourselves and not overly particular. So really just wonderful to work with Mark.
**What has been one of your favorite memories on set?**
Oh, man, I think the first time I got to be at Golden Oak ranch and the first time we got to the set outside there. It's this whole town. There’s a movie theater, it’s a restaurant, road houses and all of it. Walk through it, and it’s like a real town. I've seen large sets before, obviously. But this is the scale, that is slightly different. I thought that was a very cool moment, especially during quarantine when I was kind of deprived of seeing new things.
**What do you do for fun? Do you have any hobbies?**
Oh, man, there's one that's I'm starting to get into. My wife would kill me. I like motorcycles. I’m not allowed to have one, because I have a new baby so I can't have a motorcycle. At the same time it’s all I want.
I’m online, I'm looking at different motorcycles and which ones are for sale nearby on Craigslist. I'm in New York, put me on a damn scooter. I want to get around. It's so fun. It's such a sense of freedom. I love that.
I also really know I like landscaping. I love it. Maybe that's an effect of quarantine, but honestly, I probably was like that before. I just love it. I love digging a hole and putting up a retaining wall. I like putting down bricks. I just really enjoy it, I think about it sometimes. I like gardening. I like putting out trees. I just like having a shovel, a pickaxe and we have a bunch of bags of dirt or cement or stones on a pallet. It's a really, really nice thing to be able to do when you want to do it.
**So I guess what's next for you? Do you have any more plans for acting?**
Yes, I'm going to continue acting. It's a big, big choice, going I continue doing that. And I'm not, I'm excited to see what's coming up now. I know a lot of filming stuff, obviously. So a lot of people spend a lot of time making good material, and a lot of good writing most likely. So I'm looking forward to seeing what people have created and getting back out there.
It will be interesting to see what people want to watch now. After everything. I think that the culture and what people want to watch changes depending on what's happening in the real world. It's gonna be curious to see. I think we'll have a desire to see things that are slightly more lighthearted. The world is difficult enough to be exposed to which we are endlessly exposed to. So I think people might want a little bit of escapism, I've always liked that. I like movies and films that are slightly off, slightly heightened, you know. Movies or it's this sense of things that aren't quite real and even if it's based in reality, it's just slightly off, magical realism is there maybe a little bit. Just something that gives me the sense that this is, this is not the real world, this is somewhere else. So I like that a lot. So I'm looking forward to seeing if that happens.
**Have you been reading anything? Or maybe listening or consuming anything at the moment?**
Oh, man, let me tell you. I went through a lot of books, a lot of audio books, because I was driving long distances, because there was no flying. So I was listening to audio books, and I kind of ran through a lot of stuff. And I said, let me go back to some old classics I liked when I was a kid. I was moving boxes around and found _Lord of the Rings_. Some people are gonna dismiss liking _Lord of the Rings_ as just like some nerd activity. Tolkein’s incredible philosophy about the world and this world that he created was just incredible. It's really incredible. And it really is his life's work. So I read through all the different books, I read a lot of his letters, and it really was just tremendous. I've gotten really into that, it's probably a little bit of an issue. I'm going to finish off with that soon and move on to something else. That's what I've been reading recently.
**As we're seeing in these next couple months, we're seeing the world slowly open up again in embracing this summer. How do you feel about that?**
I think that it's gonna be really great to see people getting back to being human. I think that it's a very, very scary time. Very frustrating and difficult time. It is a very sad time, I think that we are returning to, maybe not normalcy, but a better normal state, where we have a little more perspective and we recognize the importance and value of having social contact.
I'm very excited to get back to it. I can't wait till the world gets vaccinated and I'm tremendously excited about the scientific advancements that have been made in vaccines. And I'm really hoping that this changes the world for the better despite the sadness of it and I think that this summer is going to be a good time, the end of the summer when people are safe and vaccinated. I think it's gonna be time to go see things, go see people, travel around and really get back to exploring and doing the things that people love to do. Even if it's just in your own neighborhood. Suddenly, like the little place down your street that you couldn't go to suddenly seems like this wonderful opportunity. I remember the first time I went to a bar recently, I went and sat down in a bar and just had a beer, and some fried pickles. And it felt like the greatest freedom in the world. It was just wonderful. Yeah, we're excited for that.
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Photographer: [Victoria Stevens](https://www.instagram.com/vsteves/) @ [Early Morning Riot](https://www.instagram.com/earlymorningriot/)
Stylist: [Eliza Yerry](https://www.instagram.com/elizayerry/)
Grooming: [Melissa DeZarate](https://www.instagram.com/melissa.dezarate/) @ Kalpana
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