Jericho fans in mourning for the show have a reason to smile again. For the second time this month, a former Jericho cast member is guest starring on the new CBS show Flashpoint! This week, Kenneth Mitchell appears as a wife-abusing cop taken hostage by an angry family member in the episode entitled “Asking for Flowers”. A bit of a departure from Eric Green, huh? Mitchell says he’s heard rumors of a Jericho film and he’d love to do it. Fingers crossed.
UGO: So for those who haven’t seen it yet, tell us a bit about Flashpoint.
KENNETH MITCHELL: It was a Canadian produced show at first, about a Toronto special unit. The pilot was successful and they brought it to CBS. It was during the writer’s strike and they were looking for some content that potentially might have to fill the airwaves. They took a liking to the show and picked it up, so now it’s kind of a co-production with Canada and America…story-wise, it’s about this Toronto unit…it’s pretty rare on American waves that you have a story that takes place actually in Canada. And coming from Canada myself I find that fascinating.
UGO: What’s your episode about? Who do you play?
KENNETH: So I play a wife abusing Pete. That’s my character. (laughs) I’m a cop. Right near the beginning of the show the audience finds out that I’ve been abusing my wife, and my sister-in-law is privy to this and she’s tired of it and wants to stop this from happening again. So basically she steals my gun…and holds me for ransom. She holds me hostage on my yacht, trying to get me to stop this. And she’s kind of confused. She’s dealing with whether or not to kill me or just threaten me. And then things take a bit of a turn when I eventually get the upper hand, and I get the weapon away from her. I kind of go into crazy, psycho abusive mode and seek revenge on her holding me hostage.
UGO: Have you ever played a character like this before? Someone this dark?
KENNETH: I did this film called Home of the Giants where I played a bit of a dark character. Nothing kind of abusive like that. It was kind of interesting. These characters are quite challenging. The other interesting thing about playing this character, is that I was drunk the whole time. That’s always kind of challenging to play. You can always overdo it and you really have to trust your director to keep you in check. Someone always told me, I think it was an acting coach, it’s really difficult to play drunk. Don’t act drunk. When they’re drunk, people often pretend not to be drunk…it’s something that kind of stuck in my mind while I was playing the character. And thankfully I had the director Clark Johnson (The Wire, The Sheild) on board, and he was great at kind of keeping me in check. And I think we found an interesting level of drunk throughout the episode. Going back to the original question, I guess Home of the Giants was probably a bit of a creepy character that I played. But this is definitely the creepiest of them all, so far.
UGO: Do you like playing heroes or villains? Do you have a preference?
KENNETH: Not really. (laughs) I guess, I’m not saying I’m a hero, but I feel like I’m your average guy, so when you’re playing the villain character, it’s fun to play something totally different…sometimes I have a lot more fun playing the villain.
UGO: Would you do a series again? Is that something you’re looking for?
KENNETH: Absolutely. I had such an amazing time on Jericho. It was a great family. I enjoyed going to work everyday. So I’m definitely open to doing another show.
UGO: We were just at Comic Con, and I heard people mention Jericho more than once. You’ve still got some pretty rabid fans out there.
KENNETH: (laughs) Yeah, I know. Things are still buzzing around. I’ve even heard rumors of a film and whatnot, but yeah, the fans are great.
UGO: A Jericho film? That would make the fans like me very happy.
KENNETH: Yeah, they’re just rumors at this point. You hear lots of things. At this point I can’t take anything to heart. I have to try and move on. But that’s something that I would jump on in a second because I love Jericho and I feel like there’s a lot more story to tell. And again, I love working with all those people.
UGO: What do you have in the works right now?
KENNETH: Well my voice is kind of groggy right now because I put in a long 14 hour day doing a mini-series called Meteor, which is kind of another disaster project. (laughs) You’ll probably get a kick out of this. I play a farmer, and the set of the farm is exactly the same as Stanley Richmond’s (Brad Beyer) farm. It was actually kind of trippy…some meteors come down and hit America, and cause havoc. And the whole thing is unfolding through this small town. It has very similar elements to Jericho, except this time I’m playing the farmer, saving my wife and my kids.
UGO: Do you know when that’s going to be released?
KENNETH: I don’t know. I’m guessing maybe sometime early next year or late this year, depending on how fast they can turn around all the special effects. It’s called Meteor: The Path of Destruction. There’s some really interesting people involved like Stacy Keach (American History X, Prison Break), Billy Campbell (The 4400, Once and Again), Jason Alexander and Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future. It’s kind of a neat ensemble they put together…it felt good to get back into Jericho mode too. Like yesterday I was bloody and my face was all dirty and I was running around. I save people. It was kind of reminiscent of my Jericho days and it made me happy.
UGO: Did you have a favorite episode of Jericho?
KENNETH: Yeah. My first favorite episode was “Rouge River”. I just loved going off with Skeet (Ulrich)…kind of getting down and dirty, and all that kind of “action-y” stuff with the guns. Doing something redeeming and trying to get medicine for our father. I always love that stuff…for emotional reasons I really enjoyed working on the death of April. That kind of spun things with my character’s direction, with the whole capture. And I guess the last three episodes of the first season were dynamite. They were great, action packed, the death of the father, the whole war. I love working with that stuff. And any episodes with horses in it.
UGO: Really?
KENNETH: (laughs) I love riding the horses. There was this moment, I think it was Jake (Ulrich) and I, where we were riding horses. We were chasing after that truck, and gosh, we were going so fast! I mean, here we are, riding these horses right behind this truck. They probably should have had stunt doubles doing this day, but Skeet and I were doing it. We were looking over at each other, pretty much with a “holy sh*t” face. (laughs) But then, you know, a big grin and a smile. We were playing cowboys and indians, like we were kids. I can’t believe I get paid to do this sometimes. It’s a lot of fun. It’s great! For Flashpoint, it was great to get back to Toronto. That’s where I’m from. And see my folks. It’s one of those moments where you’re like, it’s a great business. I’m having a lot of fun. I get paid to do this [thing] where I get to travel, meet people and hang out with my family. To go to work and get to play some creepy, interesting characters.
UGO: And play drunk.
KENNETH: (laughs) And play drunk…I’m really proud of what they were able to produce on the Canadian side. It’s one of the best shows they’ve ever done.