Terry Dale Parks is an actor that has managed to find the balance between following his dream of becoming an established actor in Hollywood while maintaining the family life he longed for. We had the chance to interview him about how he’s managed to find happiness in marriage and fatherhood while also appearing in many well known films such as Thor and the upcoming Terminator: Genisys.
He also manages to shed some light on the reasoning behind the controversial “PG-13” rating for “Terminator: Genisys” rather than the “R” rating that fans expected. His response is quite logical when stating that the film is more focused on supplementing the story from the original James Cameron films rather than saturating the film with senseless violence. While the action and special effects are present in the “Terminator: Genisys,” Terry feels that fans of the original films will feel more satisfied with this sequel rather than “Terminator 3” or “Terminator Salvation.” Take a look at the full interview below.
Terry Dale Parks on managing family-life and his career.
FilmFad: Hi Terry, I’m Ryan Christopher from FilmFad.com, how are you?
Terry Dale Parks: Good, Good. How are you doing Ryan?
FilmFad: So I did a little bit of research on you prior to this conversation and you’ve moved back to Oklahoma to take over your family ranch and I was wondering how that has impacted your career as far as set locations and things go?
Terry Dale Parks: Well I moved back about 15 years ago and it definitely keeps me busy. I was just working New Orleans last week. I have a baby, an 18-month old, and my wife and we spend a lot of time on the road and they were down there with me in New Orleans. It’s a big balance, traveling everywhere to take care of things.
I actually started my film career though, after moving back to Oklahoma 15 years ago. It was a time when in LA, it was very tough for me. I was living there and had been there since the 90s. I was really having a hard time, I was spinning my wheels. It was when I moved back to Oklahoma that I met a casting director who cast me in a film. I met her and two weeks later she cast me in a film. First role I ever got.
FilmFad: Well I have to say that it’s awesome to hear that someone can maintain a home life and a Hollywood career. I heard you mention New Orleans and this is more of a personal note but I’m absolutely fascinated with New Orleans and I gotta ask, does your frequenting of New Orleans come more from a personal love for the city or is it just where the work is? For instance your NCIS work?
Terry Dale Parks: Well it’s where a lot of the work has been over the last few years. I will tell you that I have a history with New Orleans as well. My wife is from southern Mississippi, very near New Orleans. We bought a house in 2005 and moved in to Gulfport, Mississippi just outside of New Orleans. So we spent a lot of time down there. But we bought a house there [and] we moved in 10 days before Hurricane Katrina hit and it was a half a block off of the beach. So Hurricane Katrina destroyed the house.
So yeah, we intended to live down there but the Universe had other plans I guess.
Click to the NEXT PAGE to read about Terry’s action movie career and “Terminator: Genisys!”
FilmFad: So switching gears, I actually watched your reel and I checked out your IMDB page. You’ve had quite a few action films. Thor, Olympus has Fallen, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, The Last Stand, and your upcoming one is Terminator: Genisys. Do you think this is a genre of choice for you?
Terry Dale Parks: Well I love sci-fi, I can tell you that. Sci-fi and action together, that’s what my first love was growing up. I grew up watching a lot of Saturday Night Live in the 70s but I also grew up watching a lot of Star Trek, a lot of Twilight Zone, a great little show that was on in reruns right behindThe Twilight Zone called The Outer Limits. So I really got into sci-fi. And the action movies, I’m a big fan of the action movies of the 90s. I was just watching one that I love and people laugh at me because I love it so much but it’s called Broken Arrow.
FilmFad: Oh yeah, John Travolta!
Terry Dale Parks: John Travolta yeah, which is one of his best films…he’s so him in that film you know? And I love watching Travolta in that film. Anyways, I’m a big fan of the whole action [genre]. I feel like that’s when action films really came into their own in the 90s. There were so many great ones. In fact I was just looking at a ranking of the best action films of the 90s so that I could go through and watch them all again.
FilmFad: Well speaking of 90s action, two of [your] films you were in with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is this just a coincidence or did you guys hit it off in some way?
Terry Dale Parks: No, it is totally a coincidence. In fact the first film I did, it was a Schwarzenegger film called “The Last Stand,” I never even got a chance to meet him. But, [Terminator: Genisys] was the first time I ever had a chance to meet Arnold Schwarzenegger. And you can’t say “Arnold” and you can’t say “Schwarzenegger” you have to say “Arnold Schwarzenegger” haha.
It was the first time that I ever had the chance to meet him and it was the “post-governor” Arnold Schwarzenegger. We met him at a table read for the very first time and it was quite an experience honestly. He was nothing like I expected him to be. He was this, kind, older gentleman haha. I don’t if there’s exactly a way to explain it. He’s got a lot of charm of course and he’s got a lot of presence.
I was a big fan of the first two “Terminator” films.
FilmFad: Well let me ask you about those since you know about the previous films. I think it was only “Terminator Salvation” and this film that received a PG-13 rating. I know that you play one of the police officers in the film. Would you say that this PG-13 rating is due to maybe watered down violence or do you think it is more of a testament to how desensitized we have become as a generation and where our standards are less strict.
Terry Dale Parks: That’s a great question. I think it’s a lot of both. I think we have become desensitized to a lot of it. A ten year old today can get on the internet and see more violence than I ever saw before I was 25 years old. I don’t think there’s any way to deny that as a culture we’re become desensitized to it.
Now, for this particular film. My feeling is the reason why it’s PG-13 is that one of the things that the executive producers on this film and the director too, one of their goals was to return back to the original Terminator films. Return back to that original story, the original idea behind it, and honestly that becomes more story-driven because of it and less about the violence. It really is a good story in this film. There’s amazing cinematography and all the special effects. I think that [the rating] is a lot more due to the fact that it’s a really great story.
FilmFad: Hmm, that’s a good call. That’s very optimistic for the film because I’ve been looking forward to it as well.
Reiterating what you just said, would you say that outside of all the sequels of the original James Cameron films, would you say that this relates the best out of “Terminator Salvation” and “Terminator 3?”
Terry Dale Parks: Without a doubt. When we all got together for our first table read, that was laid out as the intention. And I think they’ve done a really great job of capturing that. I think it’s going to be a really great film. And it is going to be a lot more akin stylistically and story-wise to the first two Terminators.
Click to the NEXT PAGE for Terry’s upcoming projects.
FilmFad: Outside of “Terminator: Genisys” which of your upcoming projects are you most looking forward to?
Terry Dale Parks: Well, starting tomorrow night ABC is starting a 10-part miniseries, “Astronaut Wives Club!”
FilmFad: I saw that! It looks really interesting.
Terry Dale Parks: It is really interesting because it has a whole lot of things that appeal to a lot of people. If you just take the title “Astronaut Wives Club” you kind of get this vision of “Desperate Housewives.” It’s not exactly what it is although there definitely is an element to the story. There’s a lot of interesting things going on in the story of the families of these astronauts that were part of the Apollo missions of the 60s. And if you think about it, these guys were the superheroes of the 60s. They were the real deal superheroes. They did something that people before them thought could never be done. And that was their job every day. I think from a biographical standpoint, it is a really interesting story but also because it’s the story of what these people’s lives were really like, these kind of superhero figures from the 60s, it’s going to grab another kind of audience that’s much younger than anybody who could have possibly lived in the 60s. And also interest them in what these astronauts and their families went through.
FilmFad: I know you have a couple other interviews scheduled but it seems like you’ve just found a perfect balance of your home life and have been able to maintain this kind of lustrous Hollywood career as well. Do you have any advice for any aspiring actors?
Terry Dale Parks: You really have to keep your life real. What is marketed as Hollywood and Hollywood lifestyles is about 99% of the time not always the truth of how people actually live their lives. Everyone puts their pants on one pants leg at a time. You gotta focus on keeping the things that are important in your life real because Hollywood is really good at marketing above everything else.
FilmFad: Thank you so much for your time Terry.
Terry Dale Parks: Thanks Ryan, great talking to you buddy!