He’s dyslexic in a profession where reading is a daily requirement.
He calls ADD his superpower.
He’s been a computer nerd, a T. Rex, an upper-class thug, a paranormal investigator, a reckless criminal, a disgraced inspector for the San Francisco PD, and, most famously, a Navy SEAL.
In case you’re wondering, the movies and TV series attached to those characters are (in order) “CSI: NY,”“The Good Dinosaur,” “Disturbing Behavior,” “Supernatural,” “Justified,” “Murder in the First,” and of course, “SEAL Team.”
His friends call him “the chameleon.” He’s okay with that.
“I disappear into the characters,” the chameleon said in a telephone interview with American Essence.
“People will meet me and say, ‘You were great as Sonny Quinn on “SEAL Team,”’ and then they’ll go, ‘Oh, you were also that guy, and that guy, and that guy.’”
“That guy” in the real world is AJ Buckley and all the earlier characters just scratch the surface of the work he’s done over nearly three decades of steady employment. Suffice it to say, if you watch television or go to the movies, avoiding AJ Buckley (sometimes “Alan Buckley” in older credits) is harder than checkmating a chess grand master blindfolded.
Although “SEAL Team” ended its seventh and final season last year, you’ll be seeing Buckley again soon, this time on the big screen, in a film that pits him against Mel Gibson. “Hunting Season” is set for international release in September.
“Mel Gibson’s character has a daughter who gets mixed up with the wrong crowd. Mel comes looking for revenge, and I’m on the wrong end of that stick,” Buckley said.
He’ll be a bad guy to Mel Gibson’s good guy?
“Being bad feels so good,” he said, with a grin you can see over the phone.
Buckley said he went “totally fanboy” while working with Gibson.
“What an amazing man Mel is. I was star-struck. I thought, I’m working with William Wallace! ‘Braveheart’ and ‘Apocalypto’ and ‘Passion of the Christ’ are three of my favorite films.”
Being Sonny
Shooting “Hunting Season” came on the heels of Buckley’s farewell to his most iconic role. Playing Sonny Quinn in “SEAL Team” (2017–2024) garnered Buckley a huge fan following. It also taught him a lot about the men and women of the American military:
“I learned from the show how selfless the people who serve our country are,” he said. “We wouldn’t have the country we have without their ability to sacrifice. That these young men and women would see the country’s promise and put their life on the line for it—that’s incredibly admirable.”
“SEAL Team” told fictitious tales of the famous Navy unit in such locales as Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and North Korea. Without a military background of his own, Buckley relied on real veterans who served as advisors on set.
“There was one guy named Goldie. I was told my character was based on him. He’d hang around a lot and I absorbed from him as much as I could. Sonny Quinn will always be one of my favorite characters, if not my favorite of all time.”
Sonny Quinn, also known as Bravo 3 or B3, is a gung-ho SEAL who loves a good firefight and courts danger as if she were a desirable woman. This lands him in all sorts of predicaments, like in episode 13, season 2, when he gets stuck in a submarine torpedo tube during a clandestine operation off the coast of North Korea. He was extracted safely in time for episode 14.
Sonny is as unlucky in love as he is lucky in combat, but that’s where the character and the actor are about as far apart as can be. Buckley lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife, Abigail, and their three children.
Family Life
“I’ve got an amazing wife,” he said. “I’m very lucky to have her. We make it a priority to be together, and when possible, with the kids. Every second I can get back home, I’m there. I’ve passed on some good paying jobs because they didn’t allow me time at home,” Buckley said.
Becoming a father added a side job to his acting career: the design and marketing of high-end diaper bags. (What would Sonny Quinn think?)
The story goes like this: AJ was out with his newborn baby daughter when she suddenly needed a diaper change. But mom was at home and men’s public restrooms are notoriously short on changing areas. The idea of a diaper bag that turns into a fold-out changing station was born. Founded in 2017 with friend and fellow actor/parent Artie Baxter, the Paperclipcompany flourishes today under the energetic leadership of Baxter and his wife, CEO Sara Baxter. It also offers other parent-friendly baby products, such as a high chair-booster combination.
Buckley was born in 1977 in Dublin, Ireland, and moved at age 6 with his family to British Columbia, Canada. His first acting experience came in an episode of “The Odyssey,” a Canadian fantasy series for children that ran from 1992 to 1994. He credits director David Nutter for offering him his big break and bringing him to LA at age 17. Buckley played the role of thuggish “Chug” Roman in the teen science-fiction thriller “Disturbing Behavior,” which also featured a young Katie Holmes. Buckley got an agent, and his career was off and running.
“Now that I have kids of my own, I have no idea why my parents let me move to LA at 17! But hey, times were different back then.”
Buckley and family left Los Angeles five years ago because of what that city has become.
“LA is like a beautiful, deadly flower that will lure you in and eat you up and get rid of you really quickly,” Buckley said.
‘It’s Always Been My Path’
Buckley the actor delivers his lines with surety and power, so it’s a surprise to know that Buckley the man struggles with reading. He’s been dyslexic all his life, and yet all his life he’s wanted to be an actor.
How does he cope?
“There’s an app called Speechify. I drop a script in there and it’ll read the script to me. When I hear something even once, I can memorize it.”
Before the convenience of an app, however, dyslexia made scripts challenging.
“Most times I had to have the script read to me. It was incredibly frustrating and disheartening at times,” he said.
Last-minute script changes were especially difficult. They continue to be a challenge.
The inability to read a script might have stopped most people cold in their ambition to be an actor. Not Buckley. Acting is the only thing he’s wanted to do since he can remember.
“I’ve had an overwhelming passion for this job and career that has outweighed everything else,” he said.
It’s outweighed his dyslexia and his Attention Deficit Disorder, too.
“I consider ADD my superpower,” he said. “I can balance 15 thoughts in my head at once. When that works for me, I feel unstoppable.”
“SEAL Team” changed Buckley from a semi-comedic type, like his nerd character in “CSI: NY” and the silly paranormal investigator in “Supernatural,” into a tough guy. It’s a persona he keeps viable with a morning exercise routine that starts at 4:35 every morning.
“I plan to stay in shape and get more opportunities to play action characters,” he said. “Acting is the only thing in my life that makes sense. It’s always been my path. By the grace of God, it’s working out.”
From Sept. Issue, Volume V
