THE BLACKLIST at TCA: Live-Blog

NBC is placing a lot of hopes on its new drama, THE BLACKLIST, and comes fall, it will get the cushy post-THE VOICE time period on Mondays.

The cast and producers are about to have their Television Critics Association sessions, and I’ll be live-blogging everything James Spader and company have to say about the new series…

2:36 PM:  James Spader says he wanted his character to have a specific look. He said it worked backwards, due to one specific scene in the pilot.

2:39 PM: Executive producer Jon Bokenkamp says the show is a strange hybrid because there is a new criminal each week, but what excites him is the people and those relationships.

2:41 PM: Why Spader’s character has set his sights on Megan Boone’s character, Elizabeth, won’t be revealed immediately, Bokenkamp says. Why this man has come back and introduced himself to her now, “there are many reasons.” They’ll be addressing aspects of that mystery along the way, and “ultimately it may be a singular thing [for why he’s focused on her], but it’s a whole meal. There’s a lot of intricacies we can dip into.”

2:45 PM: “I would say we are all fans of that movie,” executive producer John Eisendrath says of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. However, Red is not a psychopath, he wants to clarify, and his journey is a lot more murky and uncertain at this point.

“The basis of their relationship is real — there is a past between them…that she is not aware of,” Spader says. “I think as the story unfolds and that becomes the driving force of what their relationship is, that issue is so invoked in a viewer’s mind…based on imagery more than anything else.”

2:48 PM: “I’m still recurring on HOMELAND,” Diego Klattenhoff says of his role of Mike on the Showtime series. As for his character on THE BLACKLIST, he’ll have some tension with Elizabeth because of his frustration with Raymond and the curiousness of him requesting only to speak with Elizabeth.

2:52 PM: Spader reflects fondly about his time on THE OFFICE. His participation in LINCOLN ended up derailing his arc a bit, which he feels led to them taking the character of Robert in the way they did.

2:54 PM: “She’s complicated and dynamic, and that’s not common in female characters, especially on television,” Booone says of what drew her to play Elizabeth.

2:56 PM: Bokenkamp says, “None of the people in this show are who they appear to be. Liz’s husband, that holds true for him as well.”

“In the end, there will be a journey for Liz to decide whether she wants to trust her husband,” Eisendrath adds of Ryan Eggold’s character.

2:59 PM: “There may have been a few too many buzzers,” Eisendrath says of the opening sequence when Red gets himself caught.

3:00 PM: And we’re done!