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By Suzanne

Interview with Seamus Dever of "Take Two" on ABC 7/18/18

This interview came up very quickly, but it was well worth any extra scrambling to do it.  Seamus Dever, who played Kevin Ryan on "Castle," is guest-starring tomorrow night (Thursday, 7/19) on the fun summer detective show "Take Two," in its new time slot. I first saw Seamus on "General Hospital" when he played Dr. Ian Devlin in 2008. He's a very handsome and charming guy (and so was the character), but unfortunately, they made him into a bad guy, and then he was gone. It was jarring. But of course, then he went on to do "Castle," a great show that I love.  In fact, as much as I loved Castle and Beckett, I have to say that Ryan and Esposito were the best part of the show, in many ways. I wish they had done a spinoff of those two guys. I miss them.

I hadn't seen "Take Two" yet, but I knew that the Castle creators Andrew W. Marlowe and Terri Edda Miller had created it, so I meant to check it out. Also, it stars two actors I like, Eddie Cibrian as Eddie Valetik (from many shows) and Rachel Bilson as actress Sam Swift (from The O.C. and Hart of Dixie). Cibrian plays a private eye, teamed up with Bilson's actress (she starred in a cop show and tags along with him to learn how to play a cop more realistically) to solve mysteries.  I got to watch the episode this afternoon and enjoyed it. Dever plays Todd Garlin, who's life is threatened, and he wants Valetik and Swift to find out who's trying to kill him. I don't want to spoil it for you and give you more details. There's a lot of action and humor in the show. It will remind you of "Castle," I'm sure.  Check it out!

Here's the audio of my interview with Seamus. He seems just as nice as his characters on the two shows, and as he is on social media. He always cracks me up with his funny comments on Facebook!

Seamus: Why don't we just start, then?

Suzanne: Okay, that sounds good. Actually, I saw you years ago on "General Hospital", so I was already a fan of yours from that.

Seamus: Oh, cool!

Suzanne: And then ... And then --

Seamus: Good times that were on "G.H.".

Suzanne: Yeah! Yeah, well, I wasn't happy that you ended up being the bad guy but, you know, things happen. Isn't it ... That's always --

Seamus: Things happen like that.

Suzanne: Yeah, it's always a risk when you're watching a soap. You get some good-looking guy and you like him, and then you like them romantically with the other person, and oh, they're a serial killer or something.

Seamus: Yeah. Yeah, they were kinda [inaudible] for all of us, for myself especially.

Suzanne: I'm sure.

Seamus: I thought I was supposed to be a good guy on that, and then the writers' strike ended and the lead writer came back, and then I was a bad guy.

Suzanne: Oh, is that what happened?

(The PR person, David, had fallen out of the call, so we had to wait for him to come back in)

Seamus: Suzanne? Are we still there?

Suzanne: Yes.

David: Yeah, I'll put myself on mute. Go ahead.

Suzanne: Okay.

Seamus: Okay, perfect.

Suzanne: Anyway, I was saying it turned out to be a good thing for you that you had to leave "General Hospital" because then you ended up on "Castle".

Seamus: Yeah, it was fortunate timing and I'm glad every ... life's worked like that. Sometimes it does and you just have to kinda try for the, "Well, losing one job will lead to another."

Suzanne: Right.

Seamus: Yeah.

Suzanne: I can't even imagine what you guys do all the time, having to constantly change jobs and everything. Would drive me nuts.

Seamus: You get a little used to the instability of it all. But, fortunately, eight years of "Castle", we had stability, and that was really rare for anybody in this business.

Suzanne: Yeah. That's true. I guess you do share that soap opera background, though, with Nathan, and also with Eddie Cibrian.

Seamus: Yeah. Yeah, he was on "One Life to Live", I believe.

Suzanne: Yeah.

Seamus: For ... I think he did four years of that.

Suzanne: Something like that, yeah. And the Eddie Cibrian was also on "Sunset Beach" and "Young and the Restless" at the beginning of his career.

Seamus: Oh, that's right! That's right. I remember those shows, "Sunset Beach".

Suzanne: Yeah.

Seamus: [inaudible].

Suzanne: Yeah, so that's funny that you all did that. Tell us how your guest-starring role on this show came about.

Seamus: Well, I know Terri and Andrew, they've been looking for ways to link "Castle", the "Castle" world, to this new "Take Two" world, and presumably they take place in the same universes. But in this universe, I'm playing a different character, just so you know. Right of the top it's ... I'm not playing Kevin Ryan in this show. I'm actually playing somebody who's in distress, who needs their help in finding someone who's trying to kill me.

Suzanne: Right, yeah. I just watched it, actually.

Suzanne: Was that a dog in the background?

Seamus: Yeah, I'm walking my dog as we talk, yeah.

Suzanne: Okay. Oh, yeah, I've seen your dog. I'm one of your many Facebook friends.

Seamus: Oh, cool. Yeah, you've seen lots of pictures of Oliver then.

Suzanne: Yeah.

Seamus: He's really handsome.

Seamus: Yeah, in this episode, it was basically ... Terri texted me one night and said, "Hey, we got a part coming up. Can I talk to you about it?" So then we talked on the phone, and I knew if they were asking me to come up there to do something ... it's shot in Vancouver, by the way.

Suzanne: Oh, okay.

Seamus: It's not always easy to get American actors up there. There tends to be a lot of pushback when things are shot in Canada to hire Canadian actors, so I knew this was kind of a big deal for them to bring someone up. And so yeah, we spoke about it, and I knew the role would be good. I knew it was one of those kind of things that we had on "Castle" where it was like, "This is ... you're gonna get to do lots of scenes with everybody in the cast, and there's gonna be a nice arc to the character." And there definitely was. It was written very well.

Suzanne: Yeah.

Seamus: I was excited to go up there and work with them again. We're all family now, so it was like old home week. They share a costume designer in Luke Reichle.

Suzanne: Oh, wow.

Seamus: Luke was our costume designer for about six years, six seasons on "Castle". So, yeah, it was just seeing a bunch of friendly faces. Harley Dale was the director who directed a bunch of episodes of "Castle", so she understood the tone and the mixture of things that it takes to put together this particular type of genre. Yeah, it felt very familiar.

Suzanne: And Eddie was on "Castle" for a few episodes, too, if I recall.

Seamus: Who was?

Suzanne: Eddie Cibrian. He was on "Castle" for ...

Seamus: Did he come on?

Suzanne: For a few episodes, playing --

Seamus: He never ...

Suzanne: He was sort of a love interest for Beckett, but not very long. Maybe you didn't work with him. I don't know.

Seamus: I don't really remember him. I don't think I had any scenes with him.

Suzanne: Maybe you didn't.

Seamus: No, it was meeting him fresh in Vancouver with "Take Two".

Suzanne: Okay. What about the other actors on the show, had you worked with any of them before?

Seamus: No, no. A lot of 'em were Canadian actors.

Suzanne: Oh, right.

Seamus: And then, the ones who were from L.A., I had never worked with before. Friends with. It's one of those things that, you now, this is a pretty small town, small world, so everybody knows somebody who knows somebody else, and there was lots of connections or people who worked on other shows with.

Suzanne: Right.

Seamus: But, no, it was all pretty fresh as far as all the actors.

Suzanne: Cool. Yeah, I actually just watched the episode, and I enjoyed it. And you got to do a lot.

Seamus: Yeah! It's fun! I get to do a lot of interesting stuff here and there, so yeah, yeah, it was fun.

Suzanne: And it was humorous, too. I like that they got that aspect that you had a lot of on "Castle" with the humor.

Seamus: Yeah, and it's tricky because you have to have people who kind of trust that. If you don't trust that you can have a situation that is equally dangerous or scary and then still crack a joke or still find a little comic element for just a second, and then come back to the serious stuff, you have to kind of trust those people. You know, that's what we did on "Castle" for all those years, so that's what they're trying to do with "Take Two".

Suzanne: Sure. Oh, good, yeah. The actor who played your brother, I recognized him right away. He actually did a lot of humor on the Syfy show "Eureka". Nile was his name?

Seamus: Yeah, yeah. He was a nice guy. Yeah, we chatted a bunch. He seems like a really seasoned guy as far as an actor, so he [inaudible 00:06:49] really nice guy, too. Yeah, we had fun.

Suzanne: Yeah, he starred in another Syfy show, too, for a while before that. I can't remember the name of it, but yeah, so he's done a lot. But he ... it's a shame he didn't get to do any humor on the show, but you got most of the humor.

Seamus: Yeah, he had to be kind of a serious guy who's ... My character got to be the bewildered one of, like, "How is this all happening to me?" And he's the one who's trying to figure out, "Why did you do this? What is all going on this way?" And then, of course, the switch at the end that we won't talk about.

Suzanne: Right.

Seamus: Yeah.

Suzanne: Yeah, so are there any special or funny stories you wanna share about making the episode?

Seamus: Yeah. There was one day for ... Rachel Bilson was on, I wanna say, death's door.

Suzanne: Oh, no.

Seamus: She was very sick. It happens from time to time when you're on a show every day.

Suzanne: Sure.

Seamus: It's sort of like, "Well, you can't really call-in sick." So she was a real trooper, and we shot this one graveyard scene outdoors, and there was like two and a half hours worth of makeup that I had to go and do with a fake beard and this old-age look. They did an amazing job. And then it rained all day, and it was cold. Despite the fact that it was in April in Vancouver, it was still rainy and cold, and poor Rachel was so cold and she was coughing in between takes. She really stuck it out. That was a tough day. And trying to stay out of the rain with me in the prosthetics.

Seamus: But despite that, I still had a really good time. I don't know why I had a really good time, but ... 'cause all the conditions were there for ... for me to be the complaining actor, like, "Oh, my God. I'm freezing. Oh, can't we just be done with this?" But I had a smile on my face at the end of the day. It was very rare for me to be in those kind of conditions and still have a good time, but yeah, it's a really good group they have up there, so I think that helps.

Suzanne: Uh-oh.

Seamus: There's another dog, barking. Barking at me and my dog.

Suzanne: Uh-oh.

Seamus: It's raining here in L.A. It's raining right now.

Suzanne: Oh, wow.

Seamus: Weird.

Suzanne: It happens.

Seamus: Well, it's not real rain.

Suzanne: Yeah, I know. I'm from San Diego, so I know how it is.

Seamus: Yeah, yeah. You know, where it goes and like, "Whoa, this is weird. Didn't expect this."

Suzanne: Yeah, well, at least Rachel had the big veil on at that point, so if she was sniffling or coughing or not looking so good, it was hidden.

Seamus: Yeah, we were supposed to be older, too. We had glasses and all these other things so that ... That was a lot of fun playing a character like that. They don't often ask me to do those kind of things.

Suzanne: Sure.

Seamus: It was fun.

Suzanne: That's kind of what people get into acting for, isn't it? You play dress-up when you're a kid, and you wanna do all those different characters and put all the funny wigs and stuff on.

Seamus: Oh, yeah. When you see actors like that, you kinda say, "Oh, something. That would be fun, wouldn't it?" And then you're doing it, and you're like, "Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, stay out of the rain. Stay dry or you'll melt."

Suzanne: Anything else you wanna tell us about the episode?

Seamus: No. Just it was a really amazing time to see all these old faces, and lend a hand to what they're doing with the show. It's a really clever show, and I hope people tune in and watch, and become fans of that show. It certainly has a lot of the same tone as "Castle". People are giving them a hard time about feeling like they're copying "Castle", or something, but it was pretty unique what they did with "Castle".

Suzanne: Yeah.

Seamus: It's not like you can't apply it to other situations.

Suzanne: Right.

Seamus: I applaud them for actually taking this very unique thing, that I've always felt is like old-fashioned television, like what we grew up watching.

Suzanne: Sure.

Seamus: Not afraid to blend genres, and have the romantic comedy, drama, crime, everything all in one basket.

Suzanne: Mm-hmm.

Seamus: And that's what they're doing with "Take Two". That's what they did with "Castle". So people should tune in and watch; not get so tied up into the identity and everything, because you can apply these to other situations. It's a genre in itself that can be applied to, certainly, other shows, so yeah, people should tune in and watch it.

Suzanne: Right. I agree with you. It seems like they had some of those shows in the Eighties, with "Remington Steele" and "Heart to Heart" and "Moonlighting".

Seamus: Yeah. Those are the things we grew up watching.

Suzanne: Right.

Seamus: Yeah.

Suzanne: And then they came along later, and they made "Castle", and there was a few other shows like that where they had the man and the woman and the romantic thing, and they were working together and solving crime. I love that kind of show.

Seamus: Yeah. And it was a tricky balance, it really is kind of a tight rope you have to watch ... you have to walk, where you're kind of not getting too serious, not getting too heavy, not getting too light, but finding somewhere in the middle ground.

Suzanne: Yeah.

Seamus: And we certainly spent a lot of time doing that on "Castle".

Suzanne: Oh, yeah, it was a good blend. You had --

Seamus: [crosstalk].

Suzanne: It was a good blend on that show. You had a lot of some really heavy, dramatic stuff at times when you thought somebody was dead or whatever. But other times it was just fun. That's a perfect kind of show, I think. I'll have to watch "Take Two" more. This is the only one I've watched so far, but I'll watch more.

Seamus: Alright. Good.

Suzanne: I see that you're gonna be in "Titans". Is there anything you can share about your role in that?

Seamus: Yes, I play a really cool character. I play ... I play a ... What am I allowed to say? I'm allowed to say ... I think I'm allowed to say that I'm playing a character that no one's ever played before.

Suzanne: Hmm.

Seamus: And that was what, actually, was something exciting for me, because I don't have the ... I don't have to walk in anybody's shoes. I don't have to worry about some imprint ... Oh, we just go thunder! That's great. I don't have to walk in anyone's footsteps. I don't have to worry about someone having an impression of this character, so it was fun. And we had a good time on the set. It was a nice ... How do I say this? It was a nice rate at which we shot.

Seamus: When you work in network television, it's like fast, go-go-go, we're cranking out eight pages a day. And "Titans" was a little bit slower, and that was nice as a change of pace. It was ... We were allowed to spend some time doing that, doing the extra take, making it right. I think they really want a nice-quality product out there to watch.

Suzanne: Sure.

Seamus: DC Universe is the platform, so yeah, I think they did a really good job. It looked beautiful, and all the actors were really good, and so I'm pretty excited to see what they came up with.

Suzanne: Do we know yet when it'll be debuting?

Seamus: I hear, the fall, but that's really vague.

Suzanne: Yeah.

Seamus: Yeah, I hear, the fall. They're still working on it. They're still pruning more things to pick up and clean up, and everything, but yeah, I hear, the fall. That's what the rumor is. I think all those guys are gonna be at Comic-Con. I hope they are, 'cause it's right for Comic-Con.

Suzanne: Right, yeah.

Seamus: They'll all be there next week.

Suzanne: Probably. This week, actually. This week.

Seamus: This week?

Suzanne: Yeah.

Seamus: Yeah, I'm so out of it.

Suzanne: Yeah, that's okay. Have you been up to anything else, lately, that you can tell us about?

Seamus: Yeah, I've been doing a bunch of ... so many different things. Some things that I used to do; some things that I've never done. I've been working on a lot of radio plays lately. I work with a group called L.A. Theaterworks, and so I just got done doing a radio play that was about the creation of "I Love Lucy".

Suzanne: Oh.

Seamus: Written by the creator of "I Love Lucy"'s son, so I actually played his dad, Jeff Oppenheimer. And I'm doing a workshop right now for a musical about Doc Holiday, and I'm playing Doc Holiday.

Suzanne: Oh.

Seamus: And so I'm in the midst of that. I got done, two months ago, with a video game. I played the character "Jon C." in the video game FarCry 5, which I think is the best-selling video game of this entire year, so that's kind of one of those things that I didn't think I ... I guess I thought I would do, and then I got to do a really good one, so I was pretty happy about that.

Suzanne: Did you say it's a musical? Do you sing?

Seamus: Yeah, I sing. Yeah.

Suzanne: Oh.

Seamus: You don't know I sing?

Suzanne: I don't remember.

Seamus: [inaudible]. Jon and I sang on "Castle".

Suzanne: I had a vague memory of that, but I couldn't remember.

Seamus: [crosstalk]. Jon and I have a group called "Shay-Jean", Jon Huertas and I, that we've put out a few songs ...

Suzanne: Oh, neat!

Seamus: ... and an album all recorded that we're gonna launch at some point to let everyone finally hear it.

Suzanne: That'll be great! I wanna hear that. Now, this is probably a dumb question, but a lot of people will wanna know this who are "Castle" fans. Do you ever hang out with or see the other "Castle" actors? Like, socially.

Seamus: Yeah! Of course. I've done a bunch of the ... A couple of the radio plays I've done with Susan Sullivan now, 'cause we're both involved with that group. I see Jon all the time, socially. I see Nathan all the time, socially. I'd like to see Tamala; I haven't seen her in a while. I've seen Molly. I haven't seen Stana in a little while. I need to reconnect with her. I know she's abroad, shooting and stuff like that.

Suzanne: Yeah.

Seamus: But, yeah.

Suzanne: I think she ... I think she was doing some other series up in Canada, but I'm not sure.

Seamus: She was shooting a show called "Absentia", and I think they went overseas for that.

Suzanne: Right.

Seamus: I never quite know when she's in town or not. But, yeah, I keep up with everybody.

Suzanne: Cool.

Seamus: They're ... We spent all those years together, so it's like family.

Suzanne: Yeah, I can imagine. Alright, well, I really appreciate you talking to me.

Seamus: Sure.

Suzanne: And I'll try to get this up by tomorrow, and I will see you on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter.

Seamus: Okay. Sounds good.

Suzanne: And make sure, check out my dog because I post a lot of pictures of my dog.

Seamus: It's good. You gotta get 'em up there, otherwise you're just like, "Why am I taking these pictures of a dog?"

Suzanne: That's right.

Seamus: [crosstalk] how cute they are.

Suzanne: Well, thanks a lot.

Seamus: Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Suzanne: Thank you. Bye-bye.

MORE INFORMATION:

This Thursday night (7/19), 8pm ET/PT (NEW TIME), ABC’s TAKE TWO creators/EPs Terri Edda Miller and Andrew W. Marlowe present a “Castle” reunion by bringing one of their favorite stars – Seamus Dever (“Castle,” “Legion,” upcoming DC Entertainment series “Titans”) – to the show.  Seamus will be playing an all-new, guest star role in the July 19th episode, as he plays a distraught husband and father who turns to private eyes Sam Swift (Bilson) & Eddie Valetik (Eddie Cibrian) to help stop a hitman from fulfilling a contract.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Osu_taofY

From Terri Edda Miller and Andrew W. Marlowe, the creator and executive producers of ABC’s highly popular series “Castle,” comes this upbeat detective series starring Rachel Bilson (“Hart of Dixie,” “Nashville”) and Eddie Cibrian (“CSI: Miami,” “Rosewood”). Set in LA, the series follows Sam Swift (Bilson), the former star of a hit cop series whose epic breakdown is broadcast to the public and sends her to rehab. Desperate to restart her career, she talks her way into shadowing lone-wolf private investigator Eddie Valetik (Cibrian) as research for a potential comeback role. Though Eddie resents the babysitting gig, high-spirited Sam uses the skills she learned as an actor playing a cop and proves herself to be surprisingly valuable. The cast also includes Xavier de Guzman, Aliyah O’Brien and Alice Lee.  Jordan Gavaris (“Orphan Black”) is a recurring guest star.  "Take Two" airs every THURSDAY (NEW TIME - 8:00 p.m. EDT), on The ABC Television Network, streaming and on demand.

Studiocanal TV’s Rola Bauer and Tandem Productions’ Tim Halkin also serve as executive producers of “Take Two.” The series is produced by Tandem Productions and MilMar Pictures in co-production with ABC Studios and was co-developed and co-financed by ABC, VOX and France 2.

Interview transcript from Rev.com

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