By Mike McCarthy
The life of an actor can be extremely busy, but Jocko Sims takes it to another level. Not only does Jocko film the hit show, The Last Ship six months of the year, but he does a weekly radio show among lots of other projects. Having grown up wanting to be a doctor or a dentist, Jocko went left instead of following that dream and decided to join the arts. A great decision if you ask us. You have seen him in the hit shows Castle, Masters of Sex and Bones, as well as films like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Jarhead. Check him out as he reprises his role as Lt. Burk on The Last Ship, Sunday nights on TNT this summer.
Wingman Magazine: Season 3 of The Last Ship starts on June 12th…without divulging too much, what can we expect out of Burk and the rest of the crew this season?
Jocko Sims: The Last Ship fans can expect to get more of what they love: A lot of action, tons of explosions with that Michael Bay step and the feel that you are watching a movie every week. Along with some cliffhangers that will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat this season. This season we are over in Asia. The President of China at this time is supposed to be distributing vaccine to different parts of Asia, but we find out that people are still dying. We don’t know if the vaccine has mutated or if he is even distributing it. So, we have a summit to find out what’s going on.
Wingman Magazine: Burk had a little romance last season with Inbar Lavi’s character Lt. Bivas… any more light to brighten up the dark times?
Jocko Sims: Yeah, Burk is always on the prowl. He is never not on the prowl. He is the heart of the ship and he puts the mission first. But if there is any room for any second, he will be looking around, so look for that a little more this season.
Wingman Magazine: How much of the filming occurs on an actual ship, and how much somewhere else?
Jocko Sims: We do the majority of our filming indoors, or inside the ship out on a lot in Culver City, CA, called Culver Studios. They built a set that looks so much like a Navy ship that you can’t tell the difference. We had the Secretary of the Navy come and make a guest star appearance and he came on the set and said that he couldn’t tell a difference. That’s a shout out to the people that designed our sets. We go to San Diego about two or three times a season and we will stay down there for a week at a time to work with the ships. They are all active ships and you will see a lot of actual naval servicemen and women as background actors and get the duty of being with us and working with us. It gives us a more realistic feel and helps with our story and our characters.
Wingman Magazine: What is your favorite show on tv, besides The Last Ship that you absolutely can’t miss weekly?
Jocko Sims: I like reality competition shows and my favorites are Big Brother and Survivor. I don’t know what it is, but I do like the reality shows bring all these different personalities and make them live together. The cool thing about Big Brother is you are in this house for three months with no contact from the outside world; no cellphones, no email, no television. You have to work to kick people out and be the last man standing, but the last few people you kick out, you have to get to vote for you to win. So you have to lie and cheat to get them out, but get them to still like you. I learned a lot of social experiments by watching these. The fact that you have no concept of what’s going on in the outside world is a little extreme. I personally wouldn’t go on but I remember watching during September 11th and the contestants missed that. They didn’t get the experience, and the only reason that the producers told them what was going on, was because unfortunately one of the contestants’ family members had passed away in one of the towers.
Wingman Magazine: I’ve been doing some research and everywhere I look you have a huge smile on your face or joking around…but your acting chops are mostly drama (The Last Ship, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Masters of Sex) By choice, or just how it works out?
Jocko Sims: I have filmed two comedy movies over the past two years, and I got cut out of both of them. Maybe they are trying to tell me something. Incidentally I did a film with Larry the Cable Guy a few years back, and they had to get to the story quickly. I was in the beginning of the film, so myself along with a lot of other actors had to be cut from the film, unfortunately. More recently the same type of situation occurred. I love comedy and I am a writer as well, and I am working on a comedy series that hopefully we can see in the next year or so on the small screen. When I am writing that and directing that, I am more myself and having a lot of fun. I am serious about my business, but I love to have a good time.
Wingman Magazine: Actor and weekly radio host…how the hell do you find time for anything else?
Jocko Sims: The radio show is on every Monday night and you can watch us live at 7PM PST: www.apollonightla.com We have a lot of fun, we bring a lot of comedians on and play a lot of unsigned musicians. I do the show with my mom, Karen Sims. We have had a lot of great guests, including the cast of The Last Ship, Keke Palmer, Jamie Foxx. I sometimes have to miss an episode here and there due to filming, but I have some great people that will fill in for me. It’s not always easy to juggle the schedule, since we film The Last Ship for five or six months out of the year. It isn’t relatively long against a lot of other shows on tv.
Wingman Magazine: You have interviewed a good amount of big names in the hip hop world…who would your be your ultimate interview and what would be your first question for them?
Jocko Sims: I would interview Pharrell, who I look up to the most, musically. I hear in his music a lot of influence from Prince. My first question to him would be, “ How much of an influence if you can quantify that, does Prince have on your music and who you are today?”