Hear late “Felicity” actor Erich Anderson’s posthumous podcast appearance sharing memories of show

The actor died following a battle with cancer in early June.

In a new podcast episode, the late Erich Anderson reflects on his time on Felicity.

In a conversation recorded last year on the rewatch podcast Dear Felicity, cast member Greg Grunberg and cohost Juliet Litman talked to Anderson, who died earlier this month after a cancer battle, about the WB college drama. Anderson played Dr. Edward Porter, the father of Keri Russell’s titular protagonist on nine episodes throughout the series.

Related: Felicity cast: Where are they now?

On the podcast, Anderson said that he auditioned for Felicity during a low point in his career. “Having to get dressed and go to an audition just seemed like a lot of work,” he said. “I’d quit. And a couple years went by, and I was like, ‘I really don’t have any money.’”

He said he went back to his agents and began working on projects that he would have rejected earlier in his career, but couldn’t turn down because he was more strapped for cash. “And then suddenly, I got an audition for Felicity, and they sent the script over and I was like ‘Holy crap.’ I got the pilot script. Now I want this job, and not only that, I haven’t seen anything like this in a long, long, long time.”

The actor explained that he was somewhat nervous for the audition, but later found out that showrunners J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves were huge fans of his performance on Thirtysomething, so he’d probably been chosen for the role before he ever arrived to the audition. “What I didn’t know is that Matt and J.J. had created this entire myth about me from my work on Thirtysomething,” he said. “J.J.’s wife was a big Billy Sidel fan from that show, and they were giddy that I even came in the room, and they were in the back like laughing ‘Oh my God, Billy’s here,’ and I had no idea, I’m working my ass off to get this job. And of course, I already probably had it.”

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Anderson also revealed why he was uniquely qualified to play the medical side of his character. “I was premed, I took the MCAT,” he said. “I went to go work at USC School of Medicine — that was the first job I got off a clipboard — it sucked. Not only that, I would go and sit in on some of the medical school classes, and boy, it was not the life for me. I was not called to do that.”

To Anderson, Russell was among the most talented performers he’d ever shared the screen with. “I didn’t know Keri at all when I started working with her, and I became mesmerized from the very, very beginning,” he said. “And to me, I’ve explained it, she’s my Meryl Streep. She’s the one, out of all the actresses that I’ve ever worked with, that I would just look across the room or across the expanse between us when we were working, going, ‘Holy s---, look at that.’”

Related: Jennifer Garner cried in a bathroom after her Felicity audition from feeling all the feels: 'I needed to cry'

Anderson discussed how he envisioned his character, whose complex relationship with his on-screen daughter proved essential for the series. “Part of how I approached the character was that in dealing with everybody, I kind of had a monologue of what I wanted to say going in, and then they would keep interrupting it,” he said. “That was not in my dialogue or whatever, but the idea was that we’ve established what our relationship is, and so I’m already on board with however I feel about it, and you start talking, and if it goes awry for me, then I’m gonna have to say something, but I can’t because I don’t have a line.”

Anderson said that he initially had higher hopes for his career before he settled into his role as a working character actor. “I never rose to the level of any of the people that I aspired to,” he said. “I came to a certain place in my career that I would call journeyman, basically, which then extended for 40 years, and was great, but I was never gonna transcend whatever that thing is.”

“I worked with all of these people through all these years… and I began to define my thing as, ‘Oh, you know what, that’s what you do, you come in, you provide this part of the story, this is your part of the story that you do this, but the show is called Felicity,’” he continued. “‘You’re just there to give that to them: to the writers, to everyone else. That’s your responsibility. You’re the end user of this material for that purpose.’ And once I defined that for myself… I suddenly was like, ‘Oh, oh yeah, I get it now. I’m comfortable with where I’m at.’”

Related: Keri Russell tells all about her infamous Felicity haircut during cast reunion

During their conversation, Grunberg, who played entrepreneurial loft owner Sean on the series, told Anderson why the father character was so vital to the series. “You, to me, were in every episode in my mind, because you were the villain, you were the comfort, you were the support, you were the person that Felicity wanted to somehow win over,” he said.

In an introduction recorded after Anderson died, Litman paid homage to the late actor. “His warmth and his love for the show radiated throughout this conversation. He was such an important figure on Felicity, and he’ll be sorely missed,” she said. “We’re sending all of our best wishes to his family and friends.”

Listen to the full Dear Felicity episode with Grunberg, Litman, and Anderson above.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.