Tim Minear

Riley Smith ("Rob Laird")

IGN TV: What can you say about your character?

Riley Smith: His name’s Rob Laird. He’s from Arkansas. He is a US Army specialist who just got back from his second term in Iraq. He’s kind of coerced into this race by his wife, because she wants to keep him out of Iraq and keep him with her. So he, as a sucker, gets involved, and then realizes what he’s in. And I don’t know if he really wants to be a part of it, but he has to, because once you get in, you can’t really get out.

IGN TV: Is this a dream come true for you, to be in a race car driving show?

Smith: Oh yeah. I mean I grew up in Iowa, so I grew up with cars and I grew up a huge car fanatic. I actually used to fix up cars myself, so to be able to be on a show like this, which is pretty mainly - it’s got fast cars and hot chicks - is nothing to be ashamed of as a guy! And also our car that we drive is the old ’80s Pontiac Firebird, and that was the coolest car in the ’80s and even the ’90s, in the Midwest. In Iowa, where I came from, like a small farming community, if you had one of those, if you had a Firebird, you were cool. I never did, so now I do. It’s great!

IGN TV: Since you do most of the racing stuff with green screen, do you ever talk to your costars about what it would be like if you really raced each other?

Smith: Yeah! Well we always talk crap about that with each other; "Who’s really gonna win this?" Ultimately it’s up to the writers, but you know, we all have our little reasoning’s for why we would win. But I think I have the hottest wife on the show, that’s for sure! I get to make out with her all the time. I have a really cool car. And I’m a tactical specialist in the army! So I think if I can handle Iraq, I can handle a cross country road race. But everybody’s got a reason for being chosen, so as we’ll find out, we all have our own skills. So who knows what’s gonna happen?

IGN TV: Do you ask a lot of questions about what’s to come?

Smith: I wanted to ask a lot of questions, and they kind of cut us off and let us know there’s not a lot of answers. We’re pretty much winging it right now. Everybody gets the scripts the day before we start the episode and nobody really knows what’s gonna happen. And Tim Minear is really good at keeping things interesting. So anything can happen to anybody at any moment. A contract doesn’t really mean a whole lot on this show! So every time we get a script, we’re all flipping to the end to see if we’re all still intact and alive. I was on a show called 24 a few years ago, and it was like that. We knew we had "X" amount of episodes guaranteed, but every time we got one, we were flipping to the end, like, "Are we still alive? Yes!"

IGN TV: What’s it like filming in front of the green screen so much?

Smith: It’s easy in the sense that you’re in a controlled environment. You don’t even have to wear pants! Because you’re in a car the whole time, nobody’s gonna see anything from the waist below.

IGN TV: And you have a hot wife!

Smith: And I have a hot wife! So maybe I’m not wearing pants. You guys don’t know what happens between takes. But though it’s easier, because it’s controlled, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s hot or cold outside, it’s harder, because on top of acting, you have to pretend to drive. Normally, if you’re just driving, we’ve done it so long, it becomes second nature. But when you’re not moving and you’re sitting still, you have to pretend to drive, which is harder than actually driving. You have to make sure you don’t over steer, and when you look in your rear views... I started to pay attention to how I drive in real life, and your rear view isn’t that big an adjustment to look into with your eyes. But on the first couple of episodes of the show, I’m like throwing my head way up into the air. It’s like the mirror’s not that high, you know? And how often do you look at the person in the passenger seat when you’re talking? Are you looking ahead, actually watching the road enough? All those things you need to think about in your head, on top of acting.

IGN TV: Have you gotten to work with anybody besides your wife yet?

Smith: No! I didn’t know anybody’s name for the first two episodes! It wasn’t until we were all doing this promo shoot, just hanging out together, taking pictures, that we spent like five hours together and got to know each other. Because I’d only worked with Mircea, who plays my wife. I think I’ve only still worked with her, and we’re six [episodes] into it. But things shift and things change. Not that I don’t love working with her every day, but I look forward to working with other people too. It’s gonna be fun.