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Benjamin McKenzie Interview for 'Southland'
"If they want to watch Ryan Atwood on 'Southland,' then please do. If that gets you over there ... whatever it takes, baby!" Fans went ga-ga over him as brooding Ryan Atwood on 'The O.C.,' and now Ben McKenzie has graduated to a more mature TV role. But no worries, ladies -- he's still very much a swoon-worthy heartthrob.
On NBC's 'Southland' (premieres Thurs., April 9 at 10 PM ET), McKenzie plays rookie LAPD officer Ben Sherman. He's surrounded by seasoned cops and passionate detectives, all determined to catch the city's most violent criminals, solve crimes and console victims' families ... all while keeping their personal lives intact.
McKenzie talked to AOL TV exclusively about having his face on billboards again and trying to shake -- but also embrace -- being seen as Ryan Atwood, and tells us how he's like a big kid on this show ... and why it'll be the next 'ER.' -- By Maggie Furlong
Ben McKenzie Q&A
Fans went ga-ga over him as brooding Ryan Atwood on 'The O.C.,' and now Ben McKenzie has graduated to a more mature TV role. But no worries, ladies -- he's still very much a swoon-worthy heartthrob.
On NBC's 'Southland' (premieres Thurs., April 9 at 10 PM ET), McKenzie plays rookie LAPD officer Ben Sherman. He's surrounded by seasoned cops and passionate detectives, all determined to catch the city's most violent criminals, solve crimes and console victims' families ... all while keeping their personal lives intact.
McKenzie talked to AOL TV exclusively about having his face on billboards again and trying to shake -- but also embrace -- being seen as Ryan Atwood, and tell us how he's like a big kid on this show ... and why it'll be the next 'ER.' -- By Maggie Furlong
NBC
1. Are you ready to be back on TV and on billboards all over town again?
God, I don't even know. I mean, you think you are, then things start getting crazy again and you're like, "Ahh! Geez." But if the world's ready for me, I'm ready for it. Thankfully I've had that experience -- I've gone through that with 'The O.C.' -- and I think it really helps remind me that it's just the deal that you strike when you go into this sort of thing. It's very flattering -- I can't say that it's not enjoyable sometimes to get the attention -- but I just hope it works, I hope people watch, because I'm very, very proud of it.
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Gerardo Mora, Getty Images
2. The show delayed a little bit when creator John Wells announced he was adding a few more episodes to the final season of 'ER.' Are things full-steam ahead now?
Yeah, the whole thing took a little longer than we thought but, hell, it worked out ... we're doing it. Things are chugging along just fine, but we're on a tight time schedule to get them all to post-production in order to get them on the air. But things are going great. Everyone on set, both the cast and crew, are really, really excited about it -- it's good energy and it's a very fun show to make.
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Jason Merritt, Getty Images for Global Green
3. Fun, huh? The first episode was your first day on the job, and you shot a guy to death in the middle of the street. There must be a lot of levity on set ...
There is. The episode that we just wrapped has a lot of comedy in it. It revolves a lot around the Hollywood nature of what goes on -- that cops are called to various people's residences to solve sort of ridiculous problems that they have -- and it really uses that as a fun character. There's a lot of levity on set -- it's like being a big kid. You're running around through the streets, you're chasing bad guys, you're playing around with a fake gun while a real gun shoots ... it's really fun.
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NBC
4. This is one of the strongest, most diverse casts we've seen in a long time. How much will we be seeing of all the show's other characters?
Every character on the show is going to have plenty of back story and everybody has secrets. Everybody has a side of their personal lives that they're not sharing with everyone else on the job. I'm really excited about how strong each and every member of the cast is. It really allows the show to focus on various cast members at various points, and it will. The show is very much an ensemble and, although the pilot is really centered around my character and Michael Cudlitz's character, the subsequent episodes will really diverge and follow totally different characters. It will follow Regina King's character completely or Shawn Hatosy's or Tom Everitt Scott's... they'll focus on whichever character they want to focus on.
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WireImage / NBC (3)
5. So, who is the biggest diva, who's the most fun to hang out with?
So far no divas ... no problems at all. [Laughs] I really end up working with Michael Cudlitz pretty much all the time, and we've got a great relationship. He's great, we have a good dynamic -- he's nothing like the hard-ass character he plays on the show. He gets the best lines. I'm very envious of his dialogue because he gets some really terrific stuff.
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NBC
6. Regina King and Tom Everett Scott both play detectives -- will we see your character with them at any point?
Yeah, there will be some overlap, but we're trying to keep it fairly realistic -- basically the patrol officers are with the patrol officers. I'll interact with my training officer, the character of Dewey, played by C. Thomas Howell, the character of Chickie played by Arija Bareikis, because we're all patrol officers. Our interaction with detectives is pretty minimal. They might come to the scene of a crime to do follow-up and start their investigation, and we'll maybe give them some information, but more or less we're not gonna be in a lot of scenes with them because we wouldn't have that much interaction with them in real life. But there'll be a little bit of a crossover, absolutely.
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NBC
7. Ben is a wealthy kid in a rough job, and on 'The O.C.', you played the tough guy in the posh neighborhood -- the total opposite. What's with you crossing over to the other side of the tracks?
[Laughs] Well, I think you'll see in future episodes how his life ... how his experiences as a young person in a rich neighborhood, but with a father who left ... he's got a certain kind of psyche. He's attracted to this life as a cop, and he's attracted to getting these real experiences and to getting that real rush and to sort of enforcing the law, unlike his father, who's in charge of getting people off for committing crimes. You'll start to see in future episodes how certain experiences in Ben Sherman's early life affected him deeply -- psychologically, emotionally -- and how he is leading his life in opposition to those experiences and, in some ways, in opposition to the way he grew up. He is dead set on making something of himself as his own man and not succumbing to the forces that were present in his early life. If that's a vague enough answer. [Laughs]
NBC/Fox
8. The show the same shaky, documentary camera style as 'The Shield.' Are you a fan of 'The Shield'?
First of all, I think that's a compliment. I think that 'The Shield''s a very good show. Stylistically it's similar in the sense that we're doing a lot of handheld stuff, but I think that the nature of the stories we're telling is slightly different. 'The Shield' is basically completely obsessed with corruption and fighting and everyone's screwing everyone else over, always trying to get more power, that kind of thing. That may be an episode here or there on the show, but what we're really trying to make is a human drama, a drama that happens to involve people who are members of the police department. And there will be a lot of action, but there will also be a lot of interaction between characters and long episode arcs that will play out, hopefully into future seasons. [Laughs]
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FX
9. You can't laugh about possibly getting more seasons. You realize that this is John Wells, the man who kept 'ER' on for all these years -- he doesn't mess around!
Yeah, no, I mean I kind of expect like, what, 15 seasons? Worldwide fame? That's kind of what I expect out of the whole thing. [Laughs] I mean, we'll see! Listen, I'm very, very proud of the show. I've learned through my previous experiences in this business that getting your expectations set on anything else is not a good idea. All I can say is that I'm very proud of the show, and I hope that people watch it because I think it's genuinely a very good show.
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NBC
