When the cameras roll, Paul Walter Hauser doesn’t flinch at gore or intensity—but he still felt shaken by one of his recent parts. In the OUT OF ORDER “Balls Up” clip, he returns to the set of Black Bird, the Apple TV+ series where he played accused murderer Larry Hall. Hauser says the scenes in which his character dissects victims’ remains hit him harder than any stunt, and he spent weeks in makeup testing how realistic he could get without crossing the line into “nightmare fuel.” He mentions one sequence—shot over three days—that required six hours of prosthetics each morning. By day two, even the crew was white-knuckled. He credits director Mimi Leder for keeping the mood light between takes. Leder would break up the tension with classic sitcom reruns on set, so no one stayed in the darkness too long. Hauser also leaned on dialogue coaches to nail Hall’s monotone delivery; he’d watch court footage of real criminal confessions to mimic the flat affect. Still, he says painting paste onto his face and pretending to scrub off blood every morning was the oddest part. He’d find himself nearly gagging the moment “action” sounded. After wrap, he debriefed with his own therapist instead of the show’s on-set counselor. Hauser describes one 90-minute session devoted entirely to “getting the gore out”—painting pictures, walking through the set in his mind, even playing basketball to reset his body. He insists these steps are non-negotiable after any dark role, and jokes he now judges every horror movie by its “clean-up routine.” When the interviewer flips him a tennis ball—part of the show’s signature bit—Hauser smirks and reveals he does a similar physical game at home. “I catch tennis balls with my dog for 20 minutes,” he says, “just to remind myself I’m not Larry Hall.” The segment ends with him tossing the ball back, a simple gesture that, for him, signals the shift from on-camera monster back to everyday guy.