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Southland has had a tough time of things, getting booted off NBC, then starting over on TNT. But the gritty cop drama is finally back with its first brand new episode since moving to cable, and star Ben McKenzie, who plays rich-kid-turned-inner-city-cop Ben Sherman, couldn’t be happier (despite how broody he may look on television). He talked to EW.com about the upside of moving to the less-restrictive cable portion of the TV tuner, why he doesn’t feel sorry for NBC, and why you should watch tonight’s season premiere. (Namely, because it’s awesome.)
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So the move to cable means what, exactly? Will we see more risque content?
BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. If I have anything to do with it, there will be as much nudity as possible.
Any thoughts on NBC’s programming implosion since they canceled your show this season before it could even air to make way for the now-failed Jay Leno Show to air at 10 p.m.?
Just that now that NBC is in need of quality dramatic programming at 10 o’clock, I wonder where they’d get something like that…. I’m talking s–t, but why not? They said we could make the same show we made at 10 at 9. Then we started making the show and they saw the footage, and they were like, Oh my God, it’s so dark. So then they freaked out. But it’s a situation where you’re like, Why didn’t you freak out earlier? If you didn’t want to pick us up, don’t pick us up. It was one of the only hourlong shows they launched to decent ratings and decent critical response. But we caught the last lifeboat off the Titanic.
How are you feeling about your new home at TNT?
I absolutely think both sides want it to work. My dream is to actually make 13 episodes of this show in a row. I think TNT will actually let us make the show we want to make. TNT wants to get into grittier, edgier stuff.
What can we expect from tonight’s new episode?
The first one back is probably my favorite episode we’ve done. It opens on a riot in [a Los Angeles neighborhood called] The Jungle. The residents call it that, so that gives you a pretty good idea of the quality of life there. You don’t call where you live The Jungle unless you have a pretty dim view of things. [We had] 200 extras who were real residents who we paid to pretend they were upset with the cops, which was not too far off for them. It was pretty fun. They actually pulled a loaded gun off a woman 100 feet from where we were shooting. Luckily our extras are real cops.
So it’s a lot like shooting The O.C.
I knew we’d get around to The O.C. Yes, we hang out all the time. We have potluck on Tuesdays.
Okay, instead of talking about The O.C. we’ll ask, what’s coming up for your character on Southland the rest of this season?
There’s some drama involving my character’s childhood. That will come up and make me contemplate going to the dark side. I think the way I’ve always seen the character is his journey is learning to be a man in the world as it is instead of the world as he wants it to be.
For the most part, the stars of the television show “The O.C.” haven’t found life outside Orange County too welcoming. Rachel Bilson is doing the occasional guest star turn on sitcoms. Adam Brody last played an emo-rocker in the box office dud “Jennifer’s Body,” and Mischa Barton’s last series was cancelled after three episodes.
Ben McKenzie, however, who played troubled protagonist Ryan Atwood in “The O.C.” is still active on the air, playing rookie L.A.P.D. police officer Ben Sherman on crime drama “Southland.” The show, which was dropped by NBC before being picked up by TNT, returns March 2. Speakeasy talked to McKenzie and his series co-star Regina King, about the show.
The Wall Street Journal: What went through your head when you heard NBC was cancelling “Southland”?
Ben McKenzie: Any time you’re renewed for a second season with strong reviews, pretty solid ratings, are two weeks away from premiering, and you’ve shot half your order and they cancel you? That’s unusual. I thought it might have been a practical joke but the expression on [co-creators] Chris Chulack and Ann Biderman’s faces [when they told us] convinced me they weren’t joking. We were still shooting at the time; we had to do a week and a half of shooting [after the announcement] so that was strange. We’d been sitting in this limbo until TNT picked us up, and now we’re in limbo to see if they’re going to make more episodes.
How important are the next few weeks in terms of whether the series will survive?
They’ll be crucial. We need the fans now more than ever to keep episodes going. We’ve got a really solid show with a strong fan base that can survive what we went through with our prior network.
Do you think cable is taking more chances on edgy TV concepts than the broadcast networks?
I really feel like we were one of the last, if not the last, character-based, scripted, edgier show that network TV had at the 10pm hour. [The networks'] business model these days doesn’t have the time or the patience and maybe it’s also because of the FCC and Janet Jackson. Cable can make the shows networks used to make, like “Hill Street Blues” and even “ER.” Cable can do things content-wise that networks can’t do. I think all these shows are going to go to cable TV and network will be for soap operas and reality shows. But what do I know, I’m just an actor.
But as an actor you must have a good sense of what’s going on in the creative community.
Yeah. But I thought we were replacing “ER.” Here we were on NBC, in a cherished slot in NBC history, from “Hill Street Blues” to “LA Law” and “ER,” and it didn’t work out. It was a shock to me. I can’t imagine what a shock it must have been to folks who have been around [the industry] a lot longer than me.
Have you been keeping up with your role in case TNT produces new episodes?
I’m becoming a private detective in my off time to stay sharp. That, and drinking heavily, like something out of a Raymond Chandler novel. Now it’s just a question of if we get the ratings we need. I’m ready to go at the drop of a dime.
He graduated from The O.C. to a serious dramatic role as rookie cop on the critically praised Southland, which was canceled last fall to make way for Jay Leno. Now, with Southland returning to TV on TNT, Ben McKenzie speaks exclusively to Uinterview here.
Q: What was your reaction when you heard about the cancelation of Southland by NBC. – Uinterview
A: My reaction was ‘WTF OMG?’ And I said it that way. I honestly thought someone was kidding. I didn’t understand. I thought it was an elaborate gag or something because why would you renew a show, order 13 episodes, give it a time slot, wait until two weeks before it was about to premiere and then cancel it? Very peculiar. It was a bit of a frustrating situation. In part because shooting the show was a fantastic experience. I think the entire cast feels that way, but the drama behind the scenes has been bizarre and never-ending. No matter what we did, we needed to bear the brunt of a lot of changes in corporate strategy at NBC. But now that we are back on a different network, on TNT, I hope that it’s going to actually work out.
Q: Will the show be different now that it’s on cable? – Uinterview
A: TNT bought the episodes from last year that aired on NBC and the new episodes that we had shot before we were canceled that were still ordered under the contract. We haven’t shot new episodes for TNT yet, but it will all depend on whether the ratings are good enough for them to renew it. In terms of the different content, well, part of the reason we were canceled is because of a disagreement between the network and the producers over what the show is and when we had to move to 9 o’clock to accommodate Jay Leno, they promised we would be able to write the same show, but as we got closer and closer to it and they started seeing the show put together. They started having a lot of problems with the content.
I recently got a chance to speak to Ben McKenzie, who plays Officer Ben Sherman in TNT’s Southland, which premiere its second season on March 2 at 10pm.
Ben McKenzie talked about the big movie from NBC to TNT, what’s coming up for his character, some possible new romantic interests for his character, and more. So enjoy the interview and don’t forget to watch Southland on March 2.
Lets talk about the big move from NBC to TNT. How do you feel about that?
Ben McKenzie: It is exciting. We’re excited to be on and to have a nice home at TNT where they really want us to succeed and are great about promoting the show. So far so good and we’ll just see what happens. We have to see if people tune in March but if they do then hopefully we can be on TNT for a long time to come.
It seems like a really good fit compared to the other shows on there.
Ben McKenzie: Yeah.
Any other differences you’ve noticed, maybe in shooting an episode, with TNT versus NBC?
Ben McKenzie: Well, we haven’t shot new episodes for TNT. TNT bought what aired on NBC in the spring of ‘09 and then the new episodes that we shot before we were cancelled. So we haven’t shot anything for TNT yet but if we do, when we do I think it’ll be great. I think they’ll let us make the show that we always wanted to make and never really could on network TV. But that remains to be seen, whether we get to do that or not.
Both Southland fans, and the show alike, have had a rough go of it since the police procedural hit TV screens late last spring. Created by Ann Biderman, Southland erupted like a short blast of gunfire in a crowded gymnasium. Meant as a thematic follow-up to NBC’s popular hospital drama ER, the show quickly amassed a huge fanbase throughout its initial seven-episode run. It was set to return in the fall with a leaner, meaner set of storylines. During production on Season Two’s sixth episode, NBC pulled the plug on Southland, leaving its fate in limbo as producers hurried to find a new home for it. TNT quickly stepped up to bat, nabbing the unaired episodes, as well as the first season for re-air.
With newly added footage and less censored dialogue, TNT began airing the repurposed episodes in January. Now, with the series gaining new admires and reigniting the passion of older fans, the network is ready to debut those six all-new episodes NBC had originally slated to run back in September. Starting March 2nd, the further adventures of the Southland crew will continue with S02E01: “Phase Three”, which finds Officer Ben Sherman (Ben McKenzie) completing his probation period before being pulled into a riot alongside his drug-addled partner Officer John Cooper (Michael Cudlitz) and the troubled Chickie Brown (Arija Bareikis). This intense installment will be followed by S02E02: “Butch and Sundance” on March 9th, which finds gangland Detectives Nate Moretta (Kevin Alejandro) and Sammy Bryant (Shawn Hatosy) joining a stake-out while Detective Lydia Adams acclimates herself to the idea of accepting a new partner into life after the shooting injury of Detective Russell Clarke (Tom Everett Scott).
We recently caught up with Ben McKenzie to find out more about the upcoming Season Two episodes, as well as the fate of the series, which has still not been picked up by TNT for production at this time. Here’s what our favorite O.C. alum had to say:
