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Tell me about your character, Shane…
he was a hardass on the show; are you anything like him?
No, I wouldn’t say I’m anything like
him really… [laughs] I don’t think I’ve ever thrown a punch in my life. He’s a lot more short-tempered
than I am. He’s the kind of guy who starts bar fights, you know… [laughs]
How would
you get into character then since you’re nothing like Shane?
This show was interesting – I
had to just play it scene by scene, and the character sort of developed from that because we had so little information.
When I first spoke to the producers about it; they basically said “Ok, so you’re a local guy, you’re a fisherman…
Jimmy’s your buddy and you don’t like anybody else” – and that’s basically what I had to go
with. I guess I just tried to figure out why doesn’t he like everybody else.
Was there ever
a time when you thought you could be the killer?
To be honest – because the way the contracts were
done… I was pretty sure that I wasn’t the killer. [laughs] But then again, you never knew – because
the finger was pointing at me, but to me I thought it was too soon to point a finger and have it actually be me. You’ve
got thirteen episodes – you look at the standard mystery setup and it didn’t really seem to me that I would be
the killer. It would be too obvious too fast… because I’m such a jerk in the beginning.
What
was it like shooting your final fight scene?
That was fun – we choreographed it… the stunt
coordinator was there and we choreographed the fight. Callum [John Wakefield] and I went outside and practiced it a
few times – walked in there and did it. It was a fun one – it was a rush.
 After the fight scene we see you hanging from the ceiling in the bar – how was that shot?
They had
me on a harness – so I was kind of dangling from that… but then they had my arms tied back over the paddle…
they had them tied back and I thought “Wow, that guy is crazy… Wakefield is crazy”. [laughs] Because
in a way it was like my arms were up, and at first we looked at it and it almost looked like a crucifix… which wasn’t
going to work – so they brought my arms down. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but it
wasn’t bad either – the harnesses take good care of you. But I’m there for a while though [laughs],
it took a while to get everything done.
How long were you hanging?
I don’t know
– I had to have been up there a couple of hours. They were adding blood… doing it from this angle…
doing it from that angle. The funny thing is, when you watch the show it’s maybe a half a second that you actually
see me. I think maybe on the DVD they’ll hold longer on most of the gore. Because a lot of the gory stuff
they shot was pretty graphic stuff and I didn’t think CBS was going to show it.
One thing that I was hoping you’d have a little insight on – during
your fight scene with John Wakefield, Trish is seen with a shotgun. Why didn’t Trish just shoot Wakefield instead
of leaving you alone with him?
You know… [laughs] we blocked the scene and we were just about to
shoot it and I said “Wait a second, why don’t I just hit the deck and she fires the rifle?” … then
there was a pause, and then there was “Don’t ask questions, Ben, just do it”. [laughs] I don’t
know why she wouldn’t have thought about it.
I just thought that maybe he had such a big ego that
he felt like he could handle Wakefield himself without getting the girls involved.
Well, yeah…
that’s what I ended up thinking… that I wanted to take this guy; it’s because of Wakefield that I lost
my girlfriend [Kelly] and he’s caused so much trouble that maybe I wanted to take him myself. And then also maybe he’s really
thinking of the girls… thinking that they only have one shot… get out while you can. Maybe, I don’t
know… [laughs] I don’t know if he’s that much of a hero, but I had to think of something for that scene.
What was your favorite scene to shoot?
[pauses] Oh, man… that’s a good question.
A lot of them; the whole show was a really good time. I think one of the first scenes I shot was in the bar, it may
have been the first one if I recall… in the bar when I fight with J.D. That was really fun because I didn’t know what the tone was going to be; I didn’t know what they’d let
me get away with in the terms of how over the top could I go with this guy. We were really kind of feeling it out.
That was fun because it kind of set the tone for Shane. And the fight scene between Shane and Henry was a trip because
we shot it over three days… not three full days. The director of that episode… his background was in stunts…
so he was really into getting the fight and making it look great – it took a long time. It’s fun because
you shoot those things for so long – they’re really not that long when you watch them, but I think it looks really
good. It was fun; three days of throwing yourself around.
I saw you were at Comic-Con recently; were
you there promoting?
Yeah, I did a movie last year called Stan Helsing. Stan Helsing basically spoofs all the major movie monsters, and it’s written and directed by a guy named Bo Zenga who was one of the producers for the Scary Movies. I was playing the spoofy version of Freddy Krueger; that was
fun… the burnt makeup and all that, it was nuts. Leslie Nielsen is in it… Steve Howey and Kenan Thompson.
It was a fun shoot. So I went down there [Comic-con] and they were doing a panel – I went down for that…
and also promoting this new web-series I’m doing called “Riese”. I can’t tell a whole lot about
it yet, but it’s sort of a sci-fi fantasy series. There’s a website for it; www.riesetheseries.com.
Was this your first Comic-Con?
Yeah, that was the first time I’ve been.
I was never much of a comic book fan – I like my superheroes here and there, but it’s unbelievable… there’s
thousands of people and they’re all dressed up as The Incredible Hulk… then there’s a guy dressed in a
Darth Vader outfit, but the real Darth Vader outfit; and it’s like a hundred and five degrees outside, it was nuts.
People are diehards; it was pretty fun to see.
Did you run into any Harper’s Island fans there?
Yeah, I did. There was a lot of them; it was interesting… people wanting autographs and photographs…
I’ve never experienced that before. I think I wrote on one of them “I’m not sure what to write”.
But yeah, there was a lot of people who knew about it. Some of the producers were there doing a panel for a comic book
for Jericho, which is a show they did before Harper’s Island. I think a lot of the fans knew that those guys were
there. A lot of Stargate fans too.
What else are you working on besides the couple things you mentioned?
I’m doing something coming up for the movie of the week called “Trace of Danger” –
and then basically I’ll do “Riese” for a while. I think after that I’ll be a bum again for a
while [laughs].
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