As ‘Bad Monkey’ wraps, Orlando’s Tom Nowicki is hanging with the dogs

Tom Nowicki is in a nautical frame of mind. He can be seen — and heard — on screens as a sea captain and narrator in Apple TV+’s streaming hit “Bad Monkey.” And here in Central Florida, where he grew up, he can be seen in person — in the water with the dogs he helps at Hip Dog Canine Hydrotherapy .

He says working with the dogs has helped him avoid the self-destructive pitfalls of other actors caught up in the drama of showbiz.

“It’s so easy when you have that untapped creative energy move through you to go down some unhealthy rabbit holes,” he said. “I can swear to you that there isn’t a single time I don’t get out of the pool thinking there wasn’t a better way I could have spent my day. It saved my sanity.”

A twisty and darkly comic Florida-set crime story, “Bad Monkey” drops the final episode of its debut season Oct. 9. Based on the Carl Hiassen novel, the show stars Vince Vaughn and has proven a hit with critics and audiences. Nowicki, who lives in Winter Park, hopes the buzz is enough to get a second season.

Meanwhile, in between other roles popping up, he’s content to keep his hand in Hip Dog Canine Hydrotherapy, which he owns with partner Kristina Latimer.

Some 20 years ago, Nowicki was flying home to Florida from a gig in Los Angeles when he discovered “some guardian angel” had left a magazine with an article on canine hydrotherapy in the seat pocket. He knew Latimer had a three-legged dog and wondered if hydrotherapy could help.

The pair signed up for training so they could administer hydrotherapy themselves, he said. And then, “We decided it would be kind of selfish to keep this to ourselves.”

Apopka’s Anthony B. Jenkins is lighting up screens, scary and otherwise

So they went into business.

“Twenty years later, we’re doing 65-70 dogs a week,” Nowicki said. Hip Dog Canine Hydrotherapy ( hipdogcaninehydrotherapy.com ) just moved to a new facility in Winter Park a few weeks ago. The new location “makes our work easier and more advantageous in the way we do the therapy,” he said.

But he doesn’t ever want to go through the construction process again.

“I have spent five decades avoiding adulthood, and the adventure of that pool has reminded me why,” said Nowicki, a graduate of Winter Park High School and Yale University. He also trained at New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Those decades of “avoiding adulthood” have found him on the stages of Central Florida theaters and in more than 150 TV and film roles. His varied career also includes a stint as Lord Larry Oliver, Evil Genius of the South, a villain in the Dixie Wrestling Alliance. In the late 1990s, he memorably starred as “a right-wing Christian version” of flamboyant WWE figure Vince McMahon in “Roller Jam” — a favorite experience in which he also played twin brothers and the family matriarch.

There’s talk of reviving it.

“I’m not sure how my body will take it 25 years later,” he laughs.

With guest spots in everything from “MacGyver” to “Dexter,” you’ve probably seen him in something: Among his most notable appearances are parts in “The Blind Side,” “The Punisher” and “Remember the Titans.”

“I was at a small restaurant in Winter Park on Tuesday,” Nowicki recounted, “and a guy taps me on the shoulder and says, ‘Are you the narrator guy from ‘Bad Monkey’?”

As is the way of Hollywood, “Bad Monkey” was actually quite a ways in Nowicki’s rear-view mirror when it was released this summer. He shot the series, based on the Carl Hiassen novel, in the spring of 2021.

Then, before Christmas that year, he got a call asking if he would be willing to serve as the story’s narrator in addition to his onscreen role, providing a voice to “take the audience’s hand and guide them” through the tale. Nowicki was game — even though it required a somewhat new skill set.

“I’ve done very little voiceover work in general,” he said.

But he appreciated the reasoning for the addition of narration, especially for fans of Hiassen’s irreverently satirical style.

“It gave them the opportunity to get Carl Hiassen’s voice in there,” Nowicki said. “His humor is in the narration, not the dialogue.”

And he was excited that the narration work would force him to develop that aspect of performing.

“I really like to be challenged. I work better with demanding directors,” he said. And it did take time to get the tone of the narration just right: He estimates it took 60-70 hours of work to record the series’ 10 episodes.

At first, he was overcompensating for the lack of movement in voiceover work.

“That was a trap,” he said. “I felt like I had to load up the words with what I’d do physically.”

Later, as he got more comfortable, there was a different problem: He found he was enjoying the writing too much.

“It would take me 10 takes to get through it without cracking me up,” he said. “It was a blast.”

Unusually, Nowicki has amassed his prolific career without leaving Central Florida.

It was easier when Florida was home to more TV and movie filming, helped by a statewide financial incentive program for production companies. He hopes the success of “Bad Monkey,” which was filmed in Miami and the Keys, might inspire officials to reinstate deals that bring more work to the state.

“The loss of the film incentive [which ended in 2016] was a big blow, and maybe a show like this will give the Legislature incentive to bring it back,” he said.

He’s hopeful he’ll be back for more “Bad Monkey.”

“I spend most of my time on my knees praying to the TV gods to get a second season,” he jokes.

And he’s toying with the idea of doing some play readings locally with friends.

But at the moment, you’ll find him in the pool helping dogs work out their stiff joints and other maladies.

“The dogs have brought me way, way more than they’ve gotten from me,” he said, confessing his own dog — Bart, a “big boy” who’s probably a mix of mastiff and “maybe ridgeback” — is snoozing under his feet while we talk. “I’ve gotten more spiritual growth and energy from those puppies than anything else.”

Follow me at facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com . Find more entertainment news and reviews at orlandosentinel.com/entertainment .