CASTLE: Seamus Dever Teases ‘The Wild Rover,’ Episode 100, and the ‘Little Bit Different’ Extra Episode

Viewers may have spent the past five seasons getting to know bits and pieces of CASTLE‘s Ryan, but thanks to next Monday’s brand new episode, “The Wild Rover,” a whole lot more about his past will be revealed.

To find out a little bit more about Ryan’s past, I spoke with CASTLE star Seamus Dever (Ryan) about his big episode, the milestone 100th hour (airing on April 1st), and the intriguingly different episode they’re currently shooting…

You have a big episode coming up on Monday!
Seamus Dever: It’s exciting! I hear good things about it. Everyone’s telling me how great it turned out, so I’m really excited to see it. I’m going to get a copy [of the episode] I think tomorrow to take a look [at it] — I’m going to be live-tweeting on Monday, too. So we will see!

You know, a lot of these episodes are a proving — I like to think of it as a challenge for either like Jon Huertas (Esposito) and myself to break out of our everyday roles of information-gather on CASTLE and actually delve into real…I wouldn’t call it real acting, but more personal acting. A more lyrical journey emotionally for our characters. So that was a test and I wanted to make sure I was battle-tested and up to the duty.

That’s fair. And while we’ve certainly had Ryan-centric episodes in the past, this one seems to be one of the more serious hours he’s had. What can you tease about his journey?
SD: Ryan has a past as a narcotics cop and he was undercover with the Staten Island mob. And while he was there he met a lot of people, gained a lot of trust, he was undercover for like 15 months. So while he did that, there was a woman he was involved with — personally, romantically — and then he suddenly left because the job was done. And they took down about half of the mob.

Now there’s a murder that resurfaces for our gang, and this woman is involved. And actually, the Staten Island mob is involved and Ryan’s old adversary is the suspect. So realizing he can go back undercover, he talks to the Feds and gets a deal done where he goes undercover to get a piece of information that will take down the rest of the mob. Ryan goes back to sew up loose ends with this woman he was romantically involved with, and help her and her future. And also to finish the job of taking down the rest of these mobsters, because they’re dealing drugs and things like that, and Ryan’s feeling a little sense of justice hasn’t been done.

And in the midst of that, that throws a little bit of chaos into his plans to have a baby with Jenny. And it confuses her with this life he never told her about. And I think it also surprises the gang. Surprises Castle and Esposito and Beckett that Ryan was up to this [in his past].

And that was a lot of this episode: surprises. Terence Paul Winter — who is one of our writers from day one on CASTLE — was like, what can we do to surprise people on CASTLE? What has Ryan been hiding this whole time? So he wrote an episode that is going to surprise a lot of people with Ryan.

Since at that point you were 99 episodes into the series, what does it do for you as an actor to still be learning stuff about your character’s backstory this far into the run?
SD: It’s cool, because there are so many things to mine. It deepens the show, as a whole, that we’re getting to character development land with all of the characters and seeing that they didn’t just show up on day one when Castle showed up at the precinct. [Laughs] Or Beckett as well; these are real people. There’s plenty of opportunity to mine that, and I’m glad our writers are doing that. I’m glad [CASTLE creator] Andrew [Marlowe] is taking the show in that direction. Makes it feel more like an ensemble show and it gives us all something to do.

Well, in terms of getting something to do, since Ryan and Jenny are trying to have a baby, would you like to see him be a father sooner versus later?
SD: Yeah, because I think it’s one of those things where Ryan represents…a stable relationship, and we haven’t really represented that on the show — what’s it like when someone’s spending 12 hours a day investigating murders and crimes and dealing with all these really dark, icky things about society, and then also trying to have a normal, stable — quote-unquote — family life. So I think that’s an interesting place to go on the show, and yeah, I’d like to explore that.

Understandable! Looking ahead to the April 1st episode, what can you tease about hour 100?
SD: Well, Ryan is helping assist the mystery. [Laughs] As he usually does, he’s usually very good at that.

It’s a fun episode, and I think the audience is going to like it. It’s a little bit different in that Castle is sort of removed from the mystery because of a broken kneecap. I think it’s [a] skiing [accident]?

I believe you’re correct.
SD: [Joking] What an idiot, right? [Laughs] He goes a little stir-crazy, and a la Jimmy Stewart in REAR WINDOW, he starts investigating crimes around him because he’s bored and stuck at home. And then he makes us run around a lot, trying to investigate these things for him. And in the end, the mystery hits a little closer to home than we think. There’s a nice thing that happens.

That is a good tease. Before I let you go, you’re filming episode 21 now, correct?
SD: Well, 21, which is actually — this is very confusing…

It’s episode 24 on the script order, even though you’re filming it earlier and it’s airing earlier?
SD: Yeah, exactly! It’s confusing because we start [the actual] 21 on Monday, but [what we’re filming now as] 24 is going to air as number 22.

So we’re doing an episode that involves…I think they call it wrap around episodes — I don’t think they’d call it a bottle episode — but we’re doing one, and they’re doing it in a very clever way. And they’re doing it in a way that something happens in the episode that progresses the storyline of Castle and Beckett a little bit further. So, it’s not just a throwaway episode. They wrote this one really quickly — I think they got the assignment like a month and a half ago, and they were like, oh crap, how do we fit that in our schedule? So, they’ve done something very interesting with it.

One of my favorite directors is directing it: Bill Roe — who’s been our cinematographer since the very beginning and is responsible for a lot of the look for CASTLE — is directing it. And he’s doing some neat stuff with it. And it’s going to look a little bit different, and I think the audience is going to like what happens in it.

And what’s Ryan’s role in the episode?
SD: Ryan is assisting progressing the mystery. Actually, there’s something that happens — and this is all I can tease — that Beckett and Castle are stuck together, and that Esposito and Ryan are the ones that have to investigate the case. So there’s a lot of leg work that happens while [Castle and Beckett are] completely still.

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So, feel free to speculate away on that!

Are you excited to get more insight into Ryan’s past with Monday’s brand new episode?

Related:

CASTLE Episode 100: ‘The Lives of Others’ Photo Preview
CASTLE: Andrew Marlowe Teases ‘Scared to Death’
CASTLE: ONCE UPON A TIME’s Raphael Sbarge to Guest Star

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