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In a new interview with Zap2it, Tom Berenger talks about his 3-episode stint on Major Crimes, and how coming to the show was a bit of a reunion for him.
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“I know three people on the show, so it’s a little bit of a reunion,” the friendly Berenger tells Zap2it. “I did a comedy in Spain with G.W. Bailey (‘Rustlers’ Rhapsody’), and Raymond Cruz worked with me on [the movie] ‘The Substitute.’
”And then Mary McDonnell and I did a fabulous play back east with Kevin Spacey (‘National Anthems’), two acts and three characters, and it was sold out … so this was like old home week. They’re a really nice bunch over there, very relaxed and very happy, and that’s always good.”
Berenger and McDonnell both have had Kevin Costner as a co-star, he in “Hatfields & McCoys” (for which Costner also won an Emmy) and she in “Dances With Wolves,” which made her an Oscar nominee. They didn’t really swap Costner stories on the “Major Crimes” set, according to Berenger, who enjoyed applying their shared stage past to their latest stint together.
“We played a husband and wife back then, and now here I am playing her husband again! We kind of joked that we already had the chemistry going, and it was just really easy. You could walk right into it.”
Though he considers his new alter ego “a little comic relief” for the police procedural “Major Crimes” is, Berenger hastens to add his character isn’t totally light.
“He has a drinking problem,” Berenger says. “That’s part of the subtext, and though he got over that, he still gambles a little bit. And he likes it, card games and all that. Maybe it was worse when he was drinking.
“I’m kind of basing it on a friend of mine,” notes Berenger. “He didn’t have a drinking or gambling problem growing up, but the subplot just reminds me of him. And also of ‘Mad Men,’ which I’m a big fan of. I talk to my daughter about it, and it’s like we’re talking about real people when we talk about the characters.”