Starving actors who busk in subways might not be such a rarity—but when you recognize them from The O.C., that’s a different story. Acton Bell meets the very off-beat Ryan Donowho. Photographed by Kenneth Cappello.
If Ryan Donowho’s cherubic face looks somewhat familiar, it’s because you’ve probably seen him before. Perhaps kissing Emile Hirsch (Donowho’s roommate when he’s in L.A.) in the 2004 suburban drama, Imaginary Heroes; maybe in the 2005 Sundance alumnus Strangers with Candy, finally getting a full release this summer; possibly in Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers; probably in The O.C., where he played tortured surfer Johnny Harper, who, his love for Marissa Cooper unrequited met a grisly end; or, in all probability, sitting on the streets of New York. Hitting a bucket with a stick.
In fact, although Donowho has been acting on and off since 2001, he was still playing drums (“hand drums, mostly, congas, bongos, djembes, buckets,” he specified) on the streets and subways of New York up until a few months ago. “I had played drums in a musical in Aruba,” he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, while feasting on hummus, tabbouleh, and tea in a restaurant in downtown Manhattan. “And once I moved here I found some guys to play with in the subway, and that was my sole income for a good many years. It’s definitely a tough, competitive thing to do. At first, I made nothing. Then I connected with a few guys, like this one guy Ace who played refrigerator parts, and ended up making OK money.”
Donowho soon started performing with such legendary street performers as Rob on Bass and the originator of bucket drums himself, Larry Rice (“the best fucking player alive”). Then while playing in Astor Place one day, Donowho was cast enough (he had parts in The Mudge Boy and Bringing Rain in 2003, among others), but Donowho never stayed off the street for long. “Every time I didn’t have a job, I’d go back down there,” he says.
But although many people might assimilate such busking with professional failure, even destitution, Donowho is adamant that his time spent tapping out a living, while not exactly leaving him well off, has molded him into who he is today. “It’s taught me to be wary of my surroundings and be aware of things around me, but it’s also showed me the true beauty of New York,” he says, brushing his hair out of his face. “The New York subways are the realist venues you can play.”
One night, at a party with a friend at Michael Pitt’s house, Donowho’s talents caught the attention of the perpetually bedraggled host. “I was really angry that night,” he says. “And for some reason I had my sticks on me so I went to go find a bucket, and I started playing and Mike came up to me and was like, “You gotta be in my band.’ I told him no. But he kept calling me, and the third time I realized he was really passionate about it and wasn’t just some actor who doesn’t care about music. So I went and met up with him.” The band they formed (along with a bass player)—Pagoda—just recorded its first album in Italy, and has already made quite the name for itself on the New York music scene.
I ask Donowho what he thinks about the skepticism that greets most actors in bands. Dogstar, anyone? “I would have to say I would be the first to be skeptical,” he says, laughing. “And that’s specifically why I didn’t want to play with Mike at first. But we are passionate about our music and I came from music first. Acting feels like a whole other side of me. It’s just as important to me, but I wouldn’t want to be on the planet without drums.”
But, even if there aren’t any drums to hand, there are always buckets. Or trash cans. “One day, when I was working on Broken Flowers,” he recounts, “one of Bill Murray’s Pas came to my trailer at eight in the morning and was like ‘Bill wants you to play bucket, now.’ And I got up to the makeup trailer, where he is, and he has the Rolling Stones blasting and he’s still wearing his makeup bib and he tosses me this trash can and says ‘Play it!’ and so I start jamming out and he’s dancing…it was hilarious.” Good times indeed.
Recently, Donowho was cast as a vagabond musician in The Pacific and Eddy, an indie from first-time director Matthew Nourse that also stars Dominque Swain and Donowho’s girlfriend, Susan Highsmith. So what did Highsmith think of her 25-year-old man making out with 14-year-old Willa Holland on The O.C.? “Yeah, she wasn’t really into it,” he says, laughing. “She thought it was gross.”
But although The O.C. might have gotten Donowho some recognition on the street (“No one’s going to know me from all the indie films I’ve done,” he says, he’s still the grounded guy who grew up in a “trailer park town” outside of Tyler, Texas. “I’m completely broke,” he laughs. “The fact that I can be on a hit TV show and still be broker than anything is, let’s be honest…just weird.”
