Just like Castle itself, Seamus Dever has built a devoted following of fans for his work as Detective Kevin Ryan. Tonight’s episode of Castle, Till Death Do Us Part airing tonight at 10PM Est on ABC, is not only a Ryan-centric episode, it also gives the actor a payoff few actors get to enjoy: Dever will be marrying his real life wife, Juliana Dever, on the episode; in character, of course. We had the opportunity to speak with Seamus about the episode, and as the conversation went on snagged some pretty cool hints on what is to come from the remainder of this season of Castle.
TVOM: If most folks brought their wife to work it would be pretty forgettable, you actually get to renew your vows in a fictional setting as characters — that has to be pretty unique memory-making for you guys.
Seamus: Yeah, it’s one of those weird situations that actors go through, like when life starts inter-meshing with your character’s life. It’s one of those things that actors have to deal with. This is trippy, this is really meta. And you know, our show has never been scared of being meta. I know that was a word that Andrew liked to throw around in the second season a lot, when we started bringing out those books, the Richard Castle books, and all of a sudden Richard Castle was writing New York Times best sellers, and that was a very weird thing. I think it’s totally in the realm of what our show’s good at, by being very meta, and allowing real life to sort of be like part of the show. I think it’s sort of a fun thing, and a pretty brave choice and I’m glad that we did it, because I don’t know that anybody’s ever done that before on TV, where a real life couple is getting married, is playing husband and wife on TV, and we’re getting to see them be married.
Did the fact that you guys were married off-screen influence this, or did the story just call for it?
I have theories, so all I can do is posit theories with you. It, first of all, I think somebody has to have a stable relationship on the show, and my character is the only one with a stable relationship. Everyone else has broken up and Castle and Beckett are trying to figure out how they feel about each other, the will they/won’t they – that eternal question on our show. I think that other than Captain Gates with the precinct, I think Ryan and Jenny are the only ones that are actually married. So I think they have that stable relationship that they’re looking for, because they’re causing everyone else to think about their relationships.
I think the other part with it is that Andrew Marlowe, he had to deal with two weddings last year. He’s our series creator. He had to deal with his two children getting married. So he knows how that causes some things in people’s life, and there’s a lot of material there. So I can only guess that he was like, wouldn’t it be fun if we dealt with a wedding? And so for the last part of this season, for the first part of this season, we’ve been dealing with Ryan heading down the road to marriage. That he’s making decisions and doing planning and doing all these things and knows exactly how that affects someone. I think that’s how it came about. I don’t know the germination of it. I know this has been sort of a long march that we’ve been going on in the last couple of seasons with Kevin Ryan.
So on a show like Castle, thinks like this rarely happen in a straightforward manner. Should we expect any twists, or is it really just going to be a marriage?
Well, everything that happens on our show has to sort of interweave with the mystery that we’re trying to solve. With the murder, in this case, that we’re trying to solve. So it’s one of those things that, what ends up happening, is that at a certain point, Jenny, they discover that she’s involved with the case, and then some information comes out that might be damaging to Ryan’s decision-making about going down the aisle or not. So Castle and Beckett have to decide if they’re going to reveal this information to Ryan and maybe jeopardize his wedding. And in the end, something fun happens and Ryan gets to prove to them how childish they are about relationships. I think it’s a nice sort of modern twist, and a very clever, bold decision that they made with that. It really surprised me when I first read it. I was like, oh my god, really? It’s neat, and I think the audience is going to like it.
What else are you guys working on for this season that Castle fans might look forward to?
We just finished up a really cool film noir episode, where basically we find an old murder is sort of dug up, relating to a body that we find, and there’s a journal of a private detective from the 1940s, and Castle sort of becomes obsessed with this journal, because it’s like a mystery. It’s like he’s reading a mystery novel. As he’s reading it, we get to see life through his eyes as he’s reading this journal in a really Raymond Chandler-esque way, where he’s a gum-shoe, he’s like a Sam Spade type character and we get to see his life and all the people that he deals with on the show. It was sort of like Opposite Day. I got to play an Irish thug gangster, Esposito gets to play a Cuban thug gangster and Tamala Jones gets to be a torch singer and everything, so it was really cool. I think the audience is going to look at that as a real interesting fantasy episode, because it’s so different from anything we’ve done. So we just wrapped that yesterday, and now we’re heading onto our two-parter which is going to be a big one. Our two-parters are really big, and usually we work really long hours, and there’s lots of explosions and lots of accidents – purposeful accidents – but lots of things and lots of twists. So we’re just starting that one right now. We have Jennifer Beals who’s coming on to guest star for two episodes. She plays a CIA agent that Castle knows from his past, so it should be interesting to see what happens with that relationship. It’s going to be a big one. I read the first episode yesterday, and it’s got a nice cliff-hanger at the end of the first episode that fans are really going to like.
Don’t forget to Tune In to Castle “Till Death Do Us Part” at 10:01PM EST, on ABC. Click here for photos from the episode, and here for a few sneak peeks!
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It appears that Kevin and Jenny are the only couple in this series who talk to one another. How refreshing for them and how sad for our DD. Movement on the C/B relationship is on its' way, however incremental. I can under-stand why fans are upset; the slow movement becomes monotonous, like we've been down this road before. It becomes increasingly difficult to buy into the DD"s inability to communicate, its' like beating a dead horse.
That said ,if you ignore the C/B stuck in quicksand aspect, the episode was fun and entertaining. But is that where AWM really wants to go.
I hope you get a special wedding.
and always happy.
I always support you jenny