Category Archives: Cast Interviews

News Briefs: Major Crimes Season 1 Marathon and Mary McDonnell Discusses Season 2

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tomberengerset- TNT will be airing an encore of Major Crimes season 1- all ten episodes- before the season 2 premiere on June 10th.  Check local listings for the exact start times, but in most markets the marathon, starting with the season 1 premiere episode “Reloaded” will begin at 11am, and continue all day until the season 2 premiere at 9pm/8c.

- In a new interview with Celebrity Extra (part of a larger piece that will be released later this week) Mary McDonnell talks about her character’s long-estranged ex-husband, Jackson Raydor, that Tom Berenger has been brought on to portray.

 “We’ve worked together before, so we knew that working together again would be awesome,” she said. “He’s been on the set for the past couple of weeks, and it’s been absolutely great! It is exciting because we learn more about Raydor’s past. As we learn about her and how she deals with this personal relationship in her life, we get a much more revealing picture of the woman. The more I find out about her past, the more I understand her present.”

About the new season, McDonnell also says: “We are about to finish shooting episode No. 5, so we have a good sense of at least the beginning of the season, and I can tell you we’re pretty excited. It’s fantastic. It’s new, and it’s interesting, and it’s complicated. I don’t want to give away too much, but let’s just say there’s a lot to be learned, and it’s been tremendous fun to shoot.”

 

American Profile: Mary McDonnell Up-Close

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1.04-sharonFrom Dances with Wolves to Major Crimes, Mary McDonnell’s early life and her career of playing strong women characters are featured in a wonderful new article with American Profile. McDonnell’s husband, Randle Mell, was also interviewed for the piece, as was her daugther Oliva Mell, who says of her mother, “She’s Wonder Woman! She’s very gifted at playing a strong woman because she is one.”

Read the whole article here.

Spotlight on Mary McDonnell of Major Crimes

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(photo credit: Chris Frawley/Warner Bros. International Inc.)

(photo credit: Chris Frawley/Warner Bros. International Inc.)

In a new interview with TV Watchtower, Mary McDonnell discusses insights into her role as Sharon Raydor, and what she’s looking forward to being explored in season two of Major Crimes.

What do you identify with most about Sharon Raydor and what’s most challenging for you about her?
MARY:  What I identify the most about her and with her is the position of being a middle‑aged woman who, instead of retiring, is working more with bigger challenges, with more power.  We’re moving into territory that’s uncharted, and I love representing that dilemma, both its exuberance and its pitfalls.  And I love coming up against society’s prejudice and I love pounding away at ageism.  I just love it.  And it excites me to be on the cultural swing forward.  If you look at the women that are running the world right now in their sixties and seventies and it’s really quite fascinating to watch how they are getting stronger and more specific, but they’re also mothers and grandmothers.  And the feminine of their maternity can be absolutely a part of the story.  So I’m excited about that. The challenges in this first season  was to be able to transition a character from being an antagonist to a protagonist without trying to ask anything of the audience but to take a look and to veer this way or that way when it felt like there was too much effort and to keep her mind on the job.  Because she kept wanting to spin out or react or stand up or just do whatever happens to you when you’re put in that kind of position.  She knows everything about these people.  She was Internal Affairs.  She knows their personalities.  She knows how much they hate her.  She knows the whole thing.  What’s the job and what do I have to do?  So it was like a mental exercise.  That was the really hard thing.  For the actress, for me, the hardest part was to resist thinking about whether or not it would work. And that’s what I worked very hard on and, for the most part, resisted it.  But every once in a while, we would all just go, “Ahh, what are we doing?  This could flop.”

Read the whole interview here.

Doing Time in Major Crimes: Q & A with Tony Denison

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By M. Sharpe

tonypanam

Photo credit: MajorCrimesTV.net

From his role as Ray Luca on Crime Story to Lt. Andy Flynn on Major Crimes, Tony Denison’s career has come full circle.  In fact, as David Burke, executive producer of the 1986 drama points out. “He was being pursued years ago by the Major Crimes unit in Crime Story… and now you are in the Major Crimes unit in Major Crimes, right?”

Denison hadn’t made that connection before – “Holy Toledo, you’re right!” – but Burke just laughs: “Course I’m right, I had to write that show! Lt. Torello (Dennis Farina) was in charge of Major Crimes (on Crime Story), and all he wanted to do was to catch Ray Luca. So you were being chased by Major Crimes, and now you are Major Crimes.” Continue reading →

Spotlight on Major Crimes’ Stacey K. Black

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staceyblack

Photo Credit: Mimosa Arts

In a new interview, Mimosa Arts blog talks to Stacey K. Black about her work and passions in music, documentary film and television, and her unlikely transition from hair stylist to director on The Closer and now, Major Crimes.

“During season 3 of The Closer, I approached Exec. Producer/Director Mike Robin and asked if he would consider me as a director, if and when they started to promote from within the company. I knew it was a long shot, because its just not done. Promoting a hairstylist to director? Its not. But I thought, well its not done, until it IS done. So, I just had to ask, and I gave him my short films to watch. If I didn’t, then the answer would automatically be no. Three years later, a couple weeks before we started shooting season 6, I was called in to the producer’s office, and greeted by Exec. Producers Mike Robin, Greer Shephard, James Duff, Rick Wallace, and Kyra Sedgwick, so they could all tell me that I was going to be directing an episode that season. It was surreal! ”

Read the whole article, and learn more about Stacey K. Black’s current documentary film project Send My Mail To Nashville, here.

Graham Patrick Martin Discusses Acting Career, New Orleans and His Role Major Crimes

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1.02-61-rustyIn a new interview with MyNewOrleans.com, Graham Patrick Martin discusses how he got into acting, his first career choice, and about his role as Rusty Beck on Major Crimes.

“Landing the starring role on Major Crimes was “a dream come true. I’m excited to do what I’ve been training for for so long. I enjoy the work you have to put behind a dramatic performance, researching the background and representing a different human life,” he says.

Major Crimes is now the top-rated scripted show on Monday night and was picked up for a second season. Martin plays Rusty Beck, a former rent boy who witnesses a murder.”

Read the whole article, where Martin also discusses his role opposite Jessalyn Gilsig in the upcoming film Somewhere Slow, here.

 

From Pan Am to Major Crimes, Phillip P. Keene Soars

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By M. Sharpe and S. Youngblood



panam1-phillipsm

Photo credit: MajorCrimesTV.net 

Comparing his career as a flight attendant with Pan-American Airways (Pan Am) to his current role as Buzz Watson on TNT’s Major Crimes and The Closer, actor Phillip P. Keene points out that these jobs aren’t as different as they might first appear. “That is really an aspect of it,” he says.  Both “have crazy hours, we go to different places all the time- not as exotic as when I was flying, but we’re all there for each other, and we have each other’s back, so if someone’s tired a little bit, or cranky maybe if that happens at the end of a sixteen hour day, you’re telling them ‘it’s fine, don’t worry about it’ and elbow each other, and it’s a great sense of family again, so it’s like I never left in a sense.”

Keene revisited his airline roots last month in Palm Springs, CA, where his collection of Pam Am memorabilia was showcased in “Welcome Aboard: The Pan Am Experience” as part of the city’s popular Modernism Week. The exhibit, featuring an impressive archive of materials from the iconic airline, has been a labor of love for Keene, who flew with the company from 1987 until its closure in 1991. “When we shut down, I had my uniform and my forms and my luggage and I was still in love with the company, and wanted to continue thinking about it.” He started by collecting advertisements, and over time branched out: “When more pieces came up, and I had a little bit more ready cash I bought lighters and ashtrays and dishes and it just kept growing. I got my degree in history in my thirties, and this is my history project.”

Continue reading →