The Interview: Charlie Saxton

YOU CAN take Charlie Saxton out of Bristol, Bucks County, but don't try taking Bristol out of Charlie Saxton.

In from LA for the holidays, the 26-year-old actor ("Hung," "Betas") stopped by the Daily News in a brand-new Wawa hoodie and an old (kelly green) Eagles hat.

Saxton plays roommate to the title character in "Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life," a sitcom premiering this weekend (8:30 p.m. Sunday, Fox29). He talked with Ellen Gray about his acting childhood and a few things that West Coasters just don't understand about Wawa.

Q So tell me about the Wawa shirt.

This was actually a gift from Fox for my birthday [in November]. I don't know if they were stalking my Instagram feed, but I'm a huge fan and Wawa supporter. It's probably my favorite fast food/convenience/happy place.

When I walked into my trailer, there was this huge basket, and it had like a hoodie and it had cups, it had coffee and I just screamed in excitement.

But people from other areas don't get it, do they?

They don't get it at all. They try to say, "Oh, we have like a restaurant. Is it similar to this?"

Or someone will say, "There's this really cool gas station that we all hang out at," and I'm, "It's more than a gas station!"

It's really the experiences you have with the people who work there that are more personal than a drive-through McDonald's, or some dude in Jersey pumping your gas.

You come from a theatrical family, right?

I come from a very theatrical family. My mom [Drucie McDaniel-Saxton], she's an actress as well, and she used to teach acting at the University of the Arts for like 27 years. My dad [Mark] was also an actor until my parents had my sister and they realized someone needed to get a job that wasn't just chasing the artist's dream. So he became a stage manager.

When did you begin acting?

My first production was at the Bristol Riverside Theatre when I was 5 or 6. We did "110 in the Shade." I don't even think I could read properly at that point. I was being fed my lines and then going out and saying them.

I did a few Pennsylvania Lottery commercials I'm waiting to come up on YouTube one day.

And I did a six-month tour of "To Kill a Mockingbird," with my older sister, Mianna [she played Scout to his Dill in a multi-state tour that included the Walnut Street Theatre].

But I was lucky enough to have a normal childhood. I went to Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary School. I went to Bristol Junior-Senior High School. I was president of my senior class. Which reminds me, I have to organize our high school reunion, I think, next year.

And you continued to go to school while acting?

When I was in middle school, I did a revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" on Broadway, and that was crazy because the show was in New York City, and I was still living in Bristol with my parents.

So every day they would let me go into school late, around 9ish or so, and then I would do a normal day of school, run home at 2:30 and take the R7 from Bristol to Trenton and then take New Jersey Transit to New York. I was 13 and trucking to New York City every single day [by himself, catching a ride home after midnight with a cast member who also happened to be from Bristol].

And then in high school, I got the role of Bug, the bass player in "Bandslam." That movie changed my life.

Your TV career is sort of a study in the different ways people can see television. You were in an HBO show, an Amazon show and now you're in a Fox sitcom. How is this different?

This is the first time in my career that I can tell someone how to see it and it's fine. And before it was, "I don't have HBO." And then it was, "What is Amazon Prime?" This is like, "Sunday at 8:30. We're on after 'The Simpsons.' "