A performer who's just as comfortable on stage in Shakespeare plays as he is in front of the camera, Castle's Seamus Dever is preparing himself for a busy summer. Maybe too busy.
Before the craziness really hits, Dever touches on finally playing a nice guy after a veritable cornucopia of TV guest shots as the antithesis of salt-of-the-earth material, as well as his affinity for shows of his childhood and how they compare to Castle.
What Rick Castle and Jonathan Hart Have in Common
AH: Would you consider this a throwback show in some respects, because there’s such a buoyancy to it with the moments of levity and snappy dialogue?
SD: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve always maintained that our show is a lot like the TV that I watched growing up in the '70s and the '80s, before everything became very serious with the Law and Orders and the CSIs. There were shows that were allowed to mix genres and people didn’t excoriate them for it. People wanted to laugh at the same time they wanted to be surprised or thrilled or scared. I think there was a lot more leniency for that back in the ‘80s, and those were the shows I grew up watching.
I loved shows like Hart to Hart, shows like Kolchak: The Night Stalker, where there’d be a mystery combined with a crime combined with a lot of comedy. I’ve always maintained that it was a throwback show.
AH: The thing I particularly enjoy every week is how Esposito and Ryan look up to Rick in a way, and how they treat him like one of the guys in the department.
SD: That’s a fun dynamic. Here’s my prediction: Next season, there’s going to be a lot more of that. Every time it’s a scene with just the three of us, we get some great feedback about how hilarious that scene was.
There was a scene where we’re breaking into Demming’s locker. We ended up calling it the Three Stooges scene, not because there was slapstick, but because there was no talking. It was all just about coming in there and physical stuff we were doing and being on a caper together.
Advising Kevin Ryan
AH: We saw an Esposito-themed episode in Season 2. Will we see a similar episode for Kevin Ryan in Season 3?
SD: Yeah, there’s a lot of talk about it. And it will happen. Because we’re all itching to do a little bit more, and I think the show has sort of found its legs now that we can expand beyond that. It’s in the works.
Andrew Marlowe, who is the series creator and one of our executive producers, he has a great mind. He is a good organizer of thoughts as far as creativity. He’s actually sort of rallied all his writers around the idea of choosing one character from the show – and it’s a great idea, because I’ve never heard of a show doing that – basically having an advisor or a guidance counselor where each writer is taking a different character.
I met with my advisor, and we talked about some ideas. And it’s also like getting-to-know-you, what we can do, secret talents that we have that have yet to be exposed that we might be able to exploit on the show.
And it’s getting familiar with past work, because I did nothing but drama before I came to Castle. It seems that a lot of my stuff [on the show] turns towards comedy. Andrew Marlowe maintains an incredulous look when I tell him I used to play nothing but bad guys. And he says, “Really? You’re such a nice guy. Really?” Yeah, I played heroin addicts, I played rapists, I played murderers on all those crime shows. I did nothing but that.
I was like, you’ve seen my past work, right? You’ve seen my reel before you hired me? No, no, we hired you based on your audition. I’m like, Oh my God! [laughs] I used to do all those things. I think things are gonna pick up on some of our ranges. It’s interesting, because we’ve all done a lot of different stuff. Jon [Huertas, who plays Esposito] did a ton of stuff before this that was very serious, and all of our stuff turns towards comedy with Jon, but it’s nice to expand the palette.
Appearing in King Lear
AH: What play are you currently rehearsing?
SD: I’m doing King Lear right now. I’m playing Edmund, the bastard son of Gloucester. I’m in a company called the Antaeus Company, and we open in June, so I’m in the midst of rehearsals for that.
AH: Is that going to occupy the majority of the summer?
SD: Yeah, it will. I get regular phone calls from theatre directors around town, some of my favorite directors that I’ve ever worked with, who are always calling me about doing a play, and I’ve turned down eight or nine plays in the last two years. It’s been hard, because some of the plays are ones I really wanted to do, and I haven’t been able to do it.
Now, the opportunity came around from the theatre company I belong to – Susan Sullivan’s [Castle’s mom, Martha] actually a member of my theatre company as well, and Arye Gross who plays [M.E. Sidney] Perlmutter on the show, so I’ve known them for a little while – and it’s a good production of King Lear. The two leads have played King Lear. My show double-cast it. They’re amazing.
It was one of those things I couldn’t pass up, even though I’m in the midst of remodeling a house. My wife is gonna kill me because I’ve volunteered to tile and put in floors and things like that. And I’m also going to be rehearsing a show and doing it at the same time as Castle comes back in July [for shooting], but that’s just until the middle of August.
Alex Hoffman - Alex Hoffman is a graduate of the University of Kansas' journalism school whose credits include Midwest Commercial Journal, Lawrence ...
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