Get on James Spader’s Blacklist

MANILA, Philippines - “Welcome everybody! Thank you for coming,” was how Emmy-winning actor James Spader warmly greeted our group of journalists when we visited the set of his worldwide hit television series The Blacklist two weeks ago in New York.

The Blacklist is set in Washington D.C. but the actual filming takes place in a converted storage inside the Chelsea Piers in Lower Manhattan. On the day we visited, the cast was in the middle of completing episode four of the current season that premiered last week.

A recap of the Season 2 premiere: James’ character Raymond “Red” Reddington continues his pursuit of his nemesis Berlin. Harry Cooper, the FBI head, is still trying to recuperate from the wounds he sustained in the previous season while Donald Ressler is trying very hard to maintain a sound composure despite the obvious trauma he suffered from Season 1. Elizabeth Keen, meanwhile, is slowly moving on from the death of her husband, Tom, and was even granted an annulment of their fraudulent marriage. A Mossad agent was introduced to the story and so was one explosive plot twist: Red’s wife is alive and Berlin has her in captivity.

You have to tune in to AXN every Tuesday at 10 p.m. to follow what’s going to happen this season to Red, Liz, Harry, Donald and all your favorite characters of The Blacklist because I can’t tell you anything more than James shared with us during our interview.

Here are excerpts:

Are we going to find out this season if Red is the father of Liz?

“No, you won’t find out about that. I mean, what you will find is you are going to get closer and closer, and what you’ll find are the things that once we’ve reached the inevitable end of the series you will be able to look back and realize that there were things that you found out along the way that you weren’t sure how to process them in terms of that issue and, all of a sudden, those things will connect. It’s almost like a puzzle and we are giving you pieces as we go on and eventually you sort of put them together and they fit!”

By the end of Season 1, the blacklist is connected to Berlin and that everything is somehow interconnected. Will Season 2 play all that interconnection?

“Berlin is definitely intertwined in the greater story of the show — not in its entirety but he is and becomes even more entwined coming in to Season 2.”

What kind of Red are we going to see this season?

“We are just shooting episode four right now and already he’s faced with some circumstances that have not come up prior to this. How he responds to those circumstances allows for different aspects of his behavior that I hope will be, in different turns, surprising and also revealing about certain aspects of him. It’s a very delicate balance when you have a character that is very enigmatic and that’s part of the compulsion of the character. That’s what makes him compelling, what makes you curious.”

How did you compose Red, are there inspirations from real life?

“No. I tend to work from script and imagination. I read the pilot and I recognized something that I can hold on to and extrapolating on that, I realized that I could bring a lot here with that.”

What is it about the character that initially attracted you?

“I was looking for something that was dichotomous in its tone: One that is, in turns funny, other times not at all. The character has to be serious yet irreverent so that there will be a lot to play because you have to sustain it, it has to hold your interest and curiosity for a long period of time. So, I was looking for something where there was a real complexity in terms of playing that character but also I was very drawn to the fact that I knew nothing about what direction it could go in and what direction this character might take by the end of reading the pilot script.”

Many are saying that it is your acting that makes the show so successful.

“I just do the best I can. I wanted to work and if I don’t think that I can make a character work then I turn it down. If I really don’t think that I can bring enough to it, I turn it down. If I sign on for a piece of material, I know that I am going to be able to do a job with it. It’s an hour-long broadcast network television show that swallows you whole and chews you up — you are just in it! And that’s great! I like that, I like that. I really don’t take the time to reflect about those other things, I’m really concentrating on the show.”

How does it feel when a show is marketed as a James Spader?

“I think that’s the function of the character, really. Any actor who has been around long enough has a baggage and a reputation that they are bringing with them and therefore it is a Sisyphean feat to market anything. Therefore, whatever advantage they can have in terms of marketing they are going to take advantage but, I think, in the case of this, of course, they are using the opportunity to have someone with a name that’s recognizable and a face that’s recognizable and so on and so forth. But ultimately, if you see the show, it’s really marketed on Reddington because he is provocative and that has worked for them and they continue to do that.”

Is Hollywood itself kind of a “blacklist” environment in terms of how you operate as an actor to get roles?

“I have been doing this for decades and I still have no idea how to ‘operate’ in the business. I just read scripts and decide what I should be doing. I have been very lucky in the last five years. I have been really able to work. I finished doing a television series, came to New York and did a play for a year on Broadway, then was working on film and then visited for a year in another television series, took a break then shoot the Lincoln film and then started this and did another film with Tommy Lee Jones (The Homesman) — it’s becoming all one business.”