The Point Radio: Tony Denison Plays It Tough
Tough guy actor, Tony Denison, has made a career out of playing the heavies in CRIME STORY, SONS OF ANARCHY, NYPD BLUE and more, but for there past few years he’s been comfortable on the other side of the law in the cast of TNT’S MAJOR CRIMES. We talk about how he makes both types of character believable and the role of the anti hero on TV today. Plus we begin our exclusive first look at MARCO POLO, the new action series coming only to Netflix and set it debut in just a few days.
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The Point Radio Hey it's Mike Raub. We sit down with tough guy actor Tony Denison to talk about how it is to still get badass roles even in a world where everybody loves the antihero. Plus we start our first look at Marco Volvo, the new original series debuting on Netflix in just a few days.
Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Tony Denison is an actor who likes to keep his roles close to home and craft them pretty carefully. Playing a variety of tough guys over the years including in the critically acclaimed Michael Mann drama crime story. Parts on Sons of Anarchy and NYPD Blue and Rolls is John Gotti and Joey Butafuco.
Lately he's been part of the right side of the law on the TNT drama Major Crimes. So in being a bad guy and a not so bad guy all of his characters have had a believable edge. And I ask him how he managed to accomplish that. I remember when I one of my favorite movies of all time is The Godfather. You know I wanted to. And if you look at those characters in The Godfather you know obviously Brando Kahn Pacino Robert Duvall even even John Cassell.
Every single one of them is obviously you know a gangster and they all bring to their their roles some individual you know aspect of them playing you know a heavy. I mean when you know obviously Al Pacino does that switch over from being a war hero to being actually the head of the family and killing those people in the restaurant. But you know the thing that I found interesting was also like Robert Duvall when when Tessio says hey Tom can you let me off the hook for old time's sake. And he looks at him with this cold blooded look and he just goes no play can't do it. You know and he just says to the guy you know take him away.
There was just a cold bloodedness to that. And I thought OK you know he doesn't get a chance to take a gun out and shoot people and bang people over the head. But when he when he's called upon to be involved with something which is considered very arch you know he delivers. So when I looked at that I said so behooves me to find something that uniquely me that's that I can connect to to do one of those kind of characters. And as far as his role on Major Crimes.
Well a major crimes Andy Flynn. He's one of those like you know by the book kind of kind of detectives you know a lieutenant detective who is is very intense. But at the same time incredibly loyal when somebody does something that's in support of him and or he does something in support of the other person and then they turn around and they acknowledge that. And forever Andy has got their back and who doesn't want to have a friend like that in their life. They don't want to have a friend when you know you're in a jam. You call them and they don't say to you know what did you do now. They just say what can I do now to help you.
Major Crimes is actually a sequel to a previous TNT drama called The Closer and Tony's played the same role in both shows something that doesn't happen all that often in TV. I talked to him about how his characters evolved between the two different series. Well when actually when when Andy got to the show in the first year I was in an adversarial position against Kira and the audience has really liked me a lot. So James Duff said you know I want to try to use these words but I'm sure handing it here. He wanted to sort of rehabilitate my character from this adversary to someone who was a teammate.
So he created this scenario which dealt exactly or directly with Andy's philosophy about you watch his back and you know you got him as a friend for life. And so we created he created that scenario for Kira's character to do that with Andy and then along the whole Andy became you know her loyal you know devoted supporter. And and it's been great to play that to play that particular bent the whole time of the closure. And now it's evolved even more because with Mary McDonald's character who wasn't again she came on the show as an adversary to this whole squad James again very very cleverly through the character of Rusty has shown you know how loyal and and and so Mary can be in terms of taking care of a witness who she then winds up adopting. And you see what a caring fellow but loyal character she is that's like right down you know that's in Andy's wheelhouse.
So it made sense that you know Andy would become even friendly with her and then ultimately her you know most enthusiastic supporter shows like The Walking Dead Sons of Anarchy and of course Breaking Bad have made this the year of the antihero. So there are any really good roles for bad guys these days. You look at Brian Cranston's character on Breaking Bad. I mean he could sit around all the live long day and try to come up with the justification for what he's doing. And I think Brian is such a wonderful actor and like myself you never play a character to have people like you. You just play a character and have people understand you so that they get an eye to get a glimpse into your psyche and your you know your age so to speak find out what's trying to make you what makes you tick at least thinking they know what makes you tick.
And that's that makes for really good characters I think whether they be you know the cop the white hat guy or the black hat guy. And that's what Brian Cranston did in Breaking Bad and God rest itself you know James Gandalfini the same thing with with his character Tony Soprano again it's like I make no excuse his character makes no excuses for what he does and what he believes. But this is what he does this is what he believes and he's just playing that particular thing without asking people to like him just wanting people to understand them and God knows you definitely understand what Tony Soprano is going through. And what you know welcome Walker going through on Breaking Bad and so on and so forth down the line with you know more villains when I played Ray Luca and crime story that was my foremost you know objective was I don't want people I don't want to I'm not really that bad a guy you know I was like no no this is what you do when you choose this particular life. And I played it without any kind of excuse you know I played it explaining instead of excusing you know excusing excuses of the kids explanations are for adults and that's what I did I tried my best to just do my work explain that this is what I want to do.
New episodes of major crimes every Monday on TNT and you can see more Tony's work with episodes right now TNT drama dot com. No time to waste let's get into the latest in pop culture more Marvel casting news starting with the Netflix series Jessica Jones and the lead role in that going to Kristen Ritter who you know from series like don't trust to be an apartment 23 and Breaking Bad. I don't know it looks like that everything is almost confirmed for Ryan Reynolds to also be Deadpool one more time at least according to a tweet that Reynolds let out late in the week. This will be the first of the new Fox features that will be part of the Marvel shared universe by the way. And one thing we do know is that the Deadpool film is scheduled for release in February of 2016 TNT has ordered a second season of the series legends starring screen actor Guild Award winner Sean Bean you also know of course from Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings.
There'll be 10 episodes in the second season and the premiere next year on TNT graphic novels selling in the bookstores during the month of November were pretty much almost the same titles that did the same in comic stores with DC having four titles in the top 20 belong to DC three of those belong to Marvel as well. Of course there were plenty of walking dead volumes in there. However at the very top of the chart again this month was Ms Marvel volume one from Marvel best selling graphic novel in bookstores in November Hulu continues to be the home of the comedies that have been abandoned by network television so far in this new TV season ABC selfie found a home there with the remaining episodes of that series being put up one at a time every Tuesday on the Hulu network. And now it's being joined by Manhattan love story with new episodes of that every Thursday on Hulu by the way again these are not brand new episodes but they are the ones that were not shown on network television because of each of these series being canceled early in the TV season. Geek Nation has announced a slave of brand new television material that will be available online in the new year including some interesting things like kamikaze comedy with Jamie Kennedy girl on girl with Danielle Harris and the Shavo show with Shavo Guerrero junior. These are all part of the new platform being rolled out by Geek Nation which by the way is headed by CEO Claire Kramer who you know from Buffy the vampire Slayer to get a full lineup and some previews of what's coming in the new year from Geek Nation you can check it out a geek nation dot com.
The point. The greed betrayal sexual intrigue rivalry and a couple of names you might remember from that history class you took so many years ago. It's Marco Polo a new 10 episode series exclusive to Netflix and featuring a global cast that includes actress Olivia Chiang. I played me Lynn. I describe her as kind of a girl from the wrong side of the tracks just 800 years ago in China.
She's an imperial concubine when we meet her and she's also the sister of the character played by Chin Han Chancellor Jassy Dow. She's super kick ass and I hope audiences relate to her tenacity and resilience that she shows you're some incredibly vulnerable situation in the series. Many major and supporting characters are based on actual figures from history. Actor Chin Han explains. Yes these are actual characters in history and it's well documented that.
Melyn was a well well known concubine in the courts and that that to her just that I had risen the ranks and then became very powerful in the Chinese court. So it's historically based and just now basically is the last bastion of the song. Dynasty against the you know against the invading Mongols met by a coup by Khan. The same for actress Joan Chen. My character does come from history.
She was a real empress and she was Kula's favorite wife and she was known for being a Buddhist having compassion and a conservationist who reused materials. She was very thirsty and designed the war years for their truth. You know sketchy facts that's all we know about her so which is in a way good. There were some liberties taken with some roles as explained by former MTV host Ju Ju. She's she's historical but but then we made we also wrote a fiction and more dramatic characters of her in the story that we're shooting.
But she is Mark of all those love interest Olivia Chang explained that being multilingual did help with her role. It did for one particular scene where I sing a lullaby in Mandarin. I think what's so cool about this project is it's the first Chinese historical epic done by Hollywood in English. So being multilingual it definitely doesn't hurt you know. And I think what I love about this is it gave all these English speaking Asian actors a chance to dig into material like this.
As with any historical drama costuming plays a big part and sometimes while it looks great on screen it's kind of tough for the actors and the actresses. I asked Olivia did she have a costume challenge. I did. You know Kim Yip who's the Oscar award winning costume designer behind Crouching Tiger and hitting Dragon. He did such a fantastic job designing my outfit and everyone's outfit and it really helped inform how I moved inform how I carried myself. And sometimes you know I love how it helped me artistically on a practical level is actually sometimes my hair that was a bit of a challenge in the Malaysian heat because we shot in Malaysia Kazakhstan and Venice.
And for me in particular I was in Malaysia. It's incredibly hot and humid. And when you have a 10 pound wig on your head that's curling from the humidity I kind of joke that it was like having a pet attached to my head every day. We got a lot more on Marco Polo coming up in the meantime. Don't forget the entire 10 episode series debuts this month exclusively on Netflix.
That does it for the podcast but we'll be back quick with more on Marco Polo our exclusive backstage visit just in time for the finale of Sons of Anarchy and so much more. You can catch us of course on websites like ComicMix dot com Michael Davis World dot com. Get the point radio dot com and the iTunes podcast directory and keep in touch on Facebook Twitter and Instagram under the point radio. See you right back here real soon. Get the point radio dot com.
