AX: Is Walter Clark your first American character?
JAMES: Yes.
AX: Is this also your first police officer character?
JAMES: Yes.
AX: How is it putting those two things together as firsts? Is it helpful that you’re playing an American cop, as opposed to a British police officer, or an American who has a more mundane job?
JAMES: Yeah, I think it helps. With cops, there’s such a specific swagger and movement to how they are as people that it kind of helps – especially inNew York, it’s very specific – there’s so much character you can draw on, I think it makes it easier. If I was playing an L.A. guy who went to Beverly Hills High School or something, I think that would have been much harder for me, but because there’s so much richness from a New York cop, then it’s easier, because you’re drawing on so many different levels.
AX: Was there anything you had to research or learn to do for the character?
JAMES: I had to learn how to aim a gun and tactics and that kind of stuff. Also, we had to learn the procedural elements of law, that kind of thing.
AX: In BEDLAM, Jed Harper didn’t have a complicated professional history, but he was extremely unhappy. Was it difficult playing somebody who is relatively depressed for a good portion of the running time?
JAMES: I kind of liked that in a way, because I liked his complexity and to make a firm basis in where you come from and where he’d come from. I really wanted to plot his course as a person and his mental state. Someone who’s been diagnosed early with schizophrenia when he doesn’t really have it, he’s been plied with drugs and had all this stuff happen to him I think makes for quite a complex person and so he probably wouldn’t be cracking jokes. And also the fact that he sees these visions. Me and the director had a discussion about it and we wanted to make sure they were physically painful, visually arresting and had a real effect on people. So as a result, I think he would be a fairly dark person.
AX: You went to Comic-Con for the UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING and BEDLAM presentations. Had you ever done anything like Comic-Con before?
JAMES: No, I hadn’t [laughs], and it was quite crazy. The BEDLAM stuff was really fun, but it was quite an experience. The good thing about Comic-Con is everyone’s so up for it and keen that you get a really positive vibe from the audience.
AX: When you first started out as an actor, did you think, “If I become really successful, I will get this sort of reaction,” or was Comic-Con sort of beyond what you’d envisioned?
JAMES: Ah, yeah, well [laughs] – to be honest, I’m a kind of new commodity, so it wasn’t like people were screaming their heads off. But it was just nice to have good questions and positive feedback.
(Kate: hmmmm I'm thinking next time he goes to Comic-Con things will be "slightly" different! LOL)
Check out Theo's FULL Interview With Assignment X HERE
