Hornsby and Lee talk "Grimm"

By Karen Moul

On last week's episode of Grimm, Adalind and Captain Renard added a new weapon to their arsenal - the chocolate chip cookie. The tasty treat contained a Wesen love potion that piqued Hank's interest in Adalind and had an unfortunate side effect on the cookie-stealing Sgt. Wu.

This week, Scifi Vision spoke with actors Russell Horsnby (Hank) and Reggie Lee (Sgt. Wu) to get the lowdown on the poisoned pastry.

"That chocolate chip cookie had some magical wonderment in it," joked Hornsby. The result is "I'm falling deeper and deeper in love, and so we’re going to see Hank fall for Adelind Schade and they’re developing a relationship unbeknownst to Nick."

None of this is good news for Hank, said Hornsby. "I think there’s going to be some hairy situations between the two of them where Nick has to come to the aid of his partner because he’s in danger."

It's not good news for Sgt. Wu either. Remember when he ate the stuffing out of his couch cushion? Actor Reggie Lee told us "You'll see in the next few episodes how much more scenery I chew up."

"There’s a lot more to come, and I (do) more things. I literally chew more scenery."

And what's in store for this season's six remaining episodes? Lee offered a minor spoiler: "We’re shooting the episode before the season finale, and I can tell you that there are two cliffhangers going on. I think what they essentially wanted to do was close in on Nick’s world and the people around him, the people closest to him."

"He has to start making a decision as to how he’s going to live in these two worlds," added Hornsby. "And I think he’s getting closer to having to make a decision as to how he’s going to interact with Juliet and Hank, and deal with these two worlds."

"And so I think we’re left with a wonderful cliffhanger where I think some lives are in the balance."

NBC Conference call with Grimm’s Russell Hornsby and Reggie Lee
April 3, 2012

QUESTION:
Russell, earlier in the season you said that the longer Hank goes without knowing Nick is a Grimm is better for the show. Now that you've been into it, do you still feel that way?

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Yes, I do, with hopes that he will eventually come into the light. I think that the way the stories have been laid out, I think it’s a wonderful journey for the audience as well. And we’ll see how long it goes before Hank comes into the light.

QUESTION:
And Reggie, given (unintelligible) the series and where things are now in the season, how has Grimm exceeded your expectations from when you first tested for the show?

Reggie Lee as Sgt. WuREGGIE LEE:
Probably in a sense that they’ve been able to give us a slow burn of storylines. So we’ve been able to sit with our characters for awhile.

It’s exceeded expectations in terms of them being able to prolong this kind of series, even past the initial 13 episodes. I think they’ve done a great job in keeping the audience’s attention and keeping our attention as actors, because you know we get bored pretty easily.

So it’s great that they give us not just a procedural aspect of things, but the mythological aspect. So I think for all of us - you know, who knows when we’re going to find out anything? And I think the slower the burn, the greater it is for us to be able to sit in there and investigate our own lives.

QUESTION:
Listen, my first question is for Reg. What did you think when got the script for “Island of Dreams” and saw that you're going to be literally chewing up the scenery?

REGGIE LEE:
I thought, “Thank God!” Thank God I get to do something besides describe a crime scene. No, it’s been great.

Listen, even describing a crime scene and being amidst these two fantastic actors that I get to work with every week and - you know, every cop has their own story. Each one of us has their own story lines. But to go beyond that and go wild and crazy like that is what we live for. So I welcomed it and I welcome more things like that. Please.

QUESTION: Now was that just kind of a random weirdness, or is there a method to that whole thing?

REGGIE LEE:
A method to the madness of the storyline?

QUESTION:
Yes.

REGGIE LEE:
Yes. Initially when we were pitched our story lines, when we first tested for the show, blah-blah-blah,all that kind of stuff, we were given several story arcs and mine was one of addiction, which is why I think we all signed on.

We all like the mythological aspect of things. But as you know with a series, it kind of plays different. And as you go episode to episode, they don’t know what’s going to happen and things may change accordingly based on how we interact, our chemistry, blah-blah-blah - all that kind of stuff.

So when this story line came about, they decided to infuse that whole addiction part into my character. And now how it plays out beyond that, you'll have to check out in the next couple episodes because there’s a lot more to come, and I (do) more things. I literally chew - I chew more scenery.

QUESTION:
Listen, Russell, I was wondering if you found it more challenging to have to play a character who’s been out of the loop of the bigger mythology as an actor?

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
No, I haven’t. I actually enjoy it. First off, it’s just fun being on the show. It’s fun working with all the other actors and collaborating with the writers and whatnot.

And I don’t really see it as a challenge in so much as in a negative way. I just feel like the work itself - coming to work every day is the challenge that you're ready for, that you're working with open arms. And, it’s been a lot of fun. You know, it has.

I think just continuing to be able to use our imaginations in such a way. And the whole notion of I love my character just being in love with love. I really have enjoyed falling down that rabbit hole up to this point. And whenever it’s time for my character to peel back the curtain, I'm going to enjoy that time as well.

QUESTION:
Do either of you have any special hopes for Season 2 for your character? Any things you'd like to see them grow to?

REGGIE LEE:
I really hope for myself to be more involved in the mythology aspect. Now, how they’re going to spin that and where they’re going to go with that, who knows? And I think they go story-by-story. So I'm hoping for more of that.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
And I have to piggy-back on Reggie. I do hope that Hank is involved in more of the mythology going forward. I think it’ll make for a more interesting dynamic for the show and a more interesting character dynamic as well and relationship with Nick/Hank, and Monroe as well.

REGGIE LEE:
Yes. I have to echo that too - well, another echo is that you know all our characters somehow at some point have to be involved in each other’s personal lives. And I hope maybe all of us are finding that that might happen in Season 2, and we’ll see how far they take that and how far that goes.

SCIFI VISION:
[Reggie, how much do] you know about Sergeant Wu’s back story, where he comes from, how he got where he is? And I don’t know his first name. Does he have one?

REGGIE LEE:
I'm pushing for Lou. I'm pushing for Sergeant Lou Wu. That’s what I'm pushing for. I think my first name at this point is "Sergeant." As a matter of fact, we were all at dinner the other night and we were teasing about that, and we were like, “Oh, yes. He doesn’t have a first name,” so I put that in the hat.

This character was kind of created along the way, this wasn’t intended at the beginning of the show. So I've had to create on my own from what I've been given in terms of lines and in terms of the little bit of back story that they’ve given me, which isn’t much. And, I don’t think any of us really have that much.

Certainly, I think the other characters have more to go from, but I really kind of had to go from the several lines that I had in the pilot. And I took that and I ran with it because I think you can’t - for myself at least, and I can only speak for myself - you can’t go episode to episode without knowing your life in some way, shape, or form.

Now, whether that is congruent to what they have in mind for you, I just kind of talk to them episode-to-episode if I have any question and go, “Are we in alignment? Are we on the same page?” And basically they’ve said, “Yes.”

And I think we’ve built, as series do build from episode to episode and see how your character goes and see what you bring to the table. And so I've created along with them this kind of sardonic character which I really love. And I think that sarcasm - all this kind of stuff has to come from somewhere, so I've created that for myself.

So to answer your question, we didn’t start with a lot, but I think we’ve fortunately come out with a pretty solid character.

SCIFI VISION:
I think you guys must be just about finished shooting the season, or maybe you have already, and I was wondering if you both could tell us what you planned for your upcoming hiatus?

REGGIE LEE:
Russell, what are you going to do in the two days you have off?

Russell Hornsby as HankRUSSELL HORNSBY:
The two days I have off? Well, in the first six hours… No, my wife and I, we’re planning our vacation. We’re going to Vietnam for about a week. And I think we’ll spend the first three days of that on a plane.

But no, that’s pretty much it. My wife - we were at a - in one of those gift bags you get, and we got a free trip to Vietnam. And so my wife is very good at putting things together - putting free stuff together to make everything free, so it’s free air fare, free hotel, everything. So we’re just going to have some fun. And, I think that’s about it. That’s all we’ll have time for.

SCIFI VISION:
So you're not going to have much time? You're going right back to work?

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Going right back (unintelligible)...

REGGIE LEE:
Well, there’s very little time.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
We have 30 days. We have 30 days off between seasons.

REGGIE LEE:
Yes. So we’re all scheduling each day accordingly.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Yes.

REGGIE LEE:
See what we can get in. The upside of that I think is that we’ll have - close to Thanksgiving, I believe we’ll have like two months off going into January. But it’s nice. You kind of had a little time off and you don’t lose too much of the story or your character, so you go right back into it.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Yes. The energy and the momentum. And the truth is - I mean, it would be nice to have a lot more time. We don’t really need - a month is really a lot of time, you know.

REGGIE LEE:
That’s true.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
And the good thing about that is that when we come back, we’ll be working a lion’s share of the season in the summer months, which means it will be a lot warmer. It’s a lot nicer outside.

REGGIE LEE:
Yes. And for us - listen, Portland is a vacation. This is like a really great town. So having...

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
I agree.

REGGIE LEE:
..it in the summer is going to be even better.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Absolutely.

QUESTION:
Russell, I loved you when you were on Lincoln Heights.? And, how does it feel to play a character who is so different from your Lincoln Heights character who’s very responsible and family-oriented, and now you have this more player type of detective?

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Well, this is the alter ego of Eddie Sutton.

No, actually I love it. I welcome it. I think that Hank is a little closer to Russell’s sensibility, I guess. This is like the me before I got married in real life maybe, where I get to just have some fun and actually, it’s sort of engaging being what I like to call “real police.” Sort of going from Father Knows Best, on Lincoln Heights, to coming into more of a real world sensibility with Grimm. We’re dealing with more procedural elements, which I appreciate. But, I also love dealing in the fantastical and the mythological aspect of the show.

And I really enjoy playing the character and discovering the joy of Hank, and having fun and having the sarcasm, the wit, and the bantering back and forth - between Nick and Hank, David Giuntoli and myself. It’s just a lot of fun. It’s just a lot more fun.

And I don’t have to deal with kids all day, which is great. Because when you're doing TV shows with children - you know, I was never one with “kids go first.” So you have to wait until they get out of school and get out of class, and we have to break now for 20 minutes because they need to go finish a chapter. All of that stuff.

QUESTION:
Reggie, you talked about addiction for your character…and I'm kind of intrigued by this addiction focus. How are we going to see this part of the character play out? Are you addicted to TV or your Turkish wall hangings in your apartment, or...?

REGGIE LEE:
You have paid close attention to my apartment, haven’t you? There’s tons of stuff in there that’s interesting, because they really have done such a great job with that apartment.

This addiction that we talked about was pitched to me initially by David Greenwalt when we started the show, and it was part of what intrigued me about this character. And now they’ve decided to parlay it in a different way into these episodes in terms of me...

If you saw this last episode, you know I decided to steal that cookie and ate it and all these things started happening where I would eat different things. Well, you'll see in the next few episodes how much more scenery I chew up.

So from then on, I don’t know - I don’t have any idea how they’re going to parlay this into the bigger picture of the whole addiction story. And I hope they do more of that, but we’ll have to see how that plays out, because that is certainly part of my character that has been hinted to me.

So your guess is as good as mine, and I hope it keeps going further.

QUESTION:
All right. Now I have to go back and re-watch all the previous episodes to see more of this addiction.

REGGIE LEE:
Yes.

QUESTION:
What’s it been like to see the show take off the way it has? Is it hard to walk down the streets of Portland now without getting mauled by fans?

RUSSELL HORNSBY: Well, I'll say my late night adventures have diminished quite a bit. It’s surreal, to be honest. I've, as Reggie, been in this business quite a number of years, and now people actually know my name for the first time ever, you know what I mean?

Before when people would look at you and they’d point and they’d go, “You're that guy on that show,” and now they go, “Hey, Russell - Hank, what’s up baby?” And it’s a lot of fun. It’s surreal. And you know, my wife just keeps telling me, “Don’t let it go to your head.”

REGGIE LEE:
Well you know, as Russell will attest, you don’t know what’s going to happen to a series from day to day. You really don’t know what the fans are thinking, what the network’s thinking, what anyone’s thinking, so you stay in this world where you're kind of protective of your feelings. You don’t want to get too excited that it’s going to get great reviews and keep going. Yet you have your hopes that it does.

We’re so fortunate that people have tuned in and we’ve gotten this cult following. And people have gotten a little bit nuts. We were talking yesterday, people make T-shirts. They make little cartoons. We’ve gotten so many cartoons Tweeted to us.

This morning I went to breakfast and people just recognize you and it’s great. Who doesn’t like that? It’s awesome.

Like Russell said, you got to keep your feet on the ground because you got to work and that’s essentially what it’s all about.

QUESTION:
Can you guys give us any hints on what’s going to come up in the season finale?

REGGIE LEE:
Russell?

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Season finale? Well...

REGGIE LEE:
We just got that script, so we’re actually...

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Yes.

REGGIE LEE:
Yes. We’re shooting the episode before the season finale, and I think the season finale will probably be something that - I can tell you that there are two cliffhangers going on. I think what they essentially wanted to do was close in on Nick’s world and the people around him, the people closest to him.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
(Unintelligible) He has to start making a decision as to how he’s going to live in these two worlds. And I think he’s getting closer to having to make a decision as to how he’s going to interact with Juliet and Hank, and deal with these two worlds, this Grimm world and this police procedural world.

And so I think we’re left with a wonderful cliffhanger where I think some lives are in the balance.

QUESTION:
Reggie, you told us some of what’s coming up for you. What about you Russell? What’s coming up for your character?

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Well, talking about that cookie that I ate last week. That chocolate chip cookie had some magical wonderment in it. And I think I'm falling deeper and deeper in love, and so we’re going to see Hank fall for Adelind Schade and they’re developing a relationship and unbeknownst to Nick.

And I think there’s going to be some hairy situations between the two of them where Nick has to come to the aid of his partner because he’s in danger.

QUESTION:
Yes, I think that’s going to be an interesting relationship there. So what are some of the creatures we might meet in these last few episodes before the end of the season?

REGGIE LEE:
Russell? All the creatures have blended together for me. I'm like...

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Yes.

REGGIE LEE:
I don’t even know anymore.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Yes. Because I don’t interact with any of them, they’re all just names on a page and they’re made up fictional names…we don’t even get a chance to see them.

REGGIE LEE:
I was thinking that instinctively because both of us are out of that loop.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Yes.

REGGIE LEE:
When you read the script - especially when I read the script, I gloss over that part because it’s something that you don’t really want to know about. You don’t want to know what happens.

The Nick and Monroe character for sure. I'm sure they look at that and they pay more attention to the details. For us, it’s like something we have to shun.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
Right.

REGGIE LEE:
But yes. All that stuff will close in more I think towards the end of the season.

SCIFI VISION:
There have been I think two episodes where Sergeant Wu was not at the crime scene and Franco covered for him.

REGGIE LEE:
Correct.

SCIFI VISION:
And there’s been speculation as to where he is. Are fans seeing too much into that? Were you just on vacation that day, or is there something there?

REGGIE LEE:
I was on a cruise. I was on a cruise.

RUSSELL HORNSBY:
A cruise with a (unintelligible) drink in his hand.

REGGIE LEE:
I think it was on a bigger level, yes. I was on vacation for those two episodes. So it wasn’t anything bigger than that. Nothing more than that. And I don’t believe I'll be on vacation anymore.

SCIFI VISION:
Great. Well good. Now we can stop worrying about Franco. Thanks a lot.

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