Mark Deklin – Devious Maids

Q) What are the recent projects that you are working on?

A) I don’t know what is next for me. I have a little indie film that I have been working on and I don’t know when it is coming out. It’s a smart little sci-fi piece that I quite like a lot. Right now, all of us on “Devious Maids” are in a holding pattern because we won’t find out for at least a couple weeks whether or not the show gets another season. Then, as individuals, we won’t find out if our contracts are renewed until around September. The axe can fall any time with a show like this.

Q) What have been some of your most memorable moments from filming “Devious Maids” this season?

A) The pilot was fun just because we were thrown into the fire, especially the new cast members. The first day of shooting was the middle of the winter, that horrible East Coast winter. We pulled an all-nighter. We were shooting on the bridge where Dahlia first fell off (I should say pushed). We were there at four in the morning and it was like, “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m freezing.” It was a nice trial by fire. It was great to see Eva Longoria again. I loved the second episode too because that’s when Ana Ortiz and I really began to cover what our relationship was. It wasn’t the most exciting episode for my character, but I thought for Nicholas I didn’t want him to just be this creepy guy who may have killed his first wife or more. It wasn’t because I wanted the audience to like me. I don’t mind playing an unlikable character. I felt that I didn’t want to do a disservice to Marisol, Ana’s character, because we have to believe that she is in love with this guy. And we have to believe he is in love with her. We have to catch glimpses of what she sees in him otherwise she’s a fool. Otherwise, we literally disconnect from her and think, “She’s an idiot for being with this guy.” So, Ana and I worked very hard to find what the very real aspects of that relationship were. What is cool is that now I think people look at Nick and think, “Yeah, he’s shady and he is hiding a lot and lying. But I get the relationship. I am not confused about that. I understand how much they love each other and I see that.” I like that and what we have found in that. I love episode five when Marisol was meeting with her editor Kim and I got to be jealous. That was really fun to show a different side to Nick and the dinner scene was really fun. I got to play it in this fun cat-and-mouse game where I want to win the bet. I want to catch him hitting on her so I can say, “Ha! Ha! I won!” So, it was a very playful episode, which I love. I also loved episode seven just because I love shooting stunt sequences. It was so much fun with that car crash and I loved our stunt coordinator and that whole team. That was an all-nighter, which are never easy, but it was fun and worth it.

Q) What did you add to the role of Nicholas that wasn’t originally scripted for you?

A) It was very important to me for Nicholas to be a three dimensional character. Sometimes when you are playing someone who doesn’t seem to have a dark side, you have to look for one. As an actor, you have to say, “What are this persons’ secrets?” I think all of us, as human beings, have things that we keep from other people. They aren’t necessarily evil, but they are things that are possibly embarrassing or something like that. With Nicholas, the darkness and the secret were right there at the beginning. When I signed on, all I knew was that he was wealthy, mysterious and may have killed his first wife. I didn’t know what his further backstory was, which we are going to find out in the finale. I only found that out maybe when we were shooting our second episode. His past is pretty bad. It’s pretty black. I realized I had to play against that, but I had to honor that. It had to be something that haunted Nicholas all the time, but he had to fight against that. When you are playing a tragedy, you can’t play the tragedy all the way through. That’s not how people live their lives. People look for the light. Even if they know they are doomed, they look for the lightness, humor and the love. Even a really simple trick as an actor is that the best way to play drunk is to play hyper-sober. Rather than giving into it by acting like, “Look at me! I’m so drunk!” The smarter way to act it is that you are really trying your damndest to be sober, but it is not quite working. I always enjoy that. I always enjoy seeing fighting against that tension. It gave me a template to look for and I realized that Nick is (if I can steal from “Breaking Bad”) a guy who is trying to “break good.” He is a guy who is trying to desperately be a good guy. That’s what he wants. I was always looking for those moments and always looking despite his horrible past for what his integrity was in the current moment. It was very important for me to have Nicholas’ love for Marisol be very pure, strong and real. That was very important to me. That was the spine that I built on. No matter what, he absolutely adores her and is completely devoted to her. That was something I could really hold on to through the crazy process and new scripts. Then, I tried to find moments (which I always try to do as an actor) where I could infuse some of my own personality into the character. Just in subtle ways. Obviously, I’m not Nick and my circumstances are very different.

Q) You have teased a bit as to what fans can expect from the finale for your character. What else can you share will be in store?

A) I can tell you that we will get a big mea culpa moment from Nicholas. He is going to have a real “come to Jesus” moment. I don’t know how that is going to pan out for him, but definitely all the things you have been dreading and avoiding are going to come back to him in a big way. I think we all knew that. I think it was inevitable. I think Nick has been on that train for most of the season. We know he is headed towards the skeletons in his closet coming back and wrapping their boney arms around him. The cool thing though is that in my attempt to find what is human and what is actually decent about Nicholas…In spite of everything he has done, let me make it clear that I [Mark] do not condone what Nicholas has done, but as the actor I have to find what is human about him. So, one of the things that I tried to find was a journey of an attempt at redemption, an attempt at Darth Vader (which may be a silly template to use). In the first Star Wars movie Darth Vader was just this villain – the bad guy. But by the time all the movies came out, it became this journey of a guy who accidentally (through some bad choices) became evil and lost his soul completely; yet through the love of his son, he manages to become a human being again and get his soul back. He has to pay the price by dying minutes after getting his soul back, but he gets it back. So, in some ways, that is how I tried to look at my journey with Nicholas. This is a guy whose soul is crying out for some kind of redemption and he might have to suffer to get that redemption, but I think there might actually be hope for him in the story. He may lose everything and he may suffer horribly, but he may in the process regain his humanity. It’s going to be interesting where or if they can go on with his storyline after this.

Q) You also had some incredible scenes with Joanna Adler who plays Opal. What was it like working with her?

A) She is amazing! I adore Joanne. She is one of my favorite people. We hit it off immediately. We are both New York theatre people. That’s where we come from. So, immediately we had so many friends in common and we had common lexicon and reference points. We’re both sort of bookish, nerdy people. We would often laugh that we had so much of the same reference bank. I could make some obscure arcane pop culture reference from the early 1970’s and she would just grab it. So, we hit it off right away. It’s sort of saddens me a little bit that people think Opal is so creepy. Talking about mixing up characters with actors…Actually, I guess it doesn’t sadden me because it is a testament to how good Joanna is because she is supposed to be creepy. In real life, she’s not creepy. She’s one of the most delightful people I’ve ever worked with. She’s smart, clever and kind. I know that everyone from cast to crew really loved working with her. We just had a lot of fun. The first couple episodes, we had the template of “Rebecca” to work from (where she was Mrs. Danvers). We had that to work off of. Then, for me, part of my journey was humanizing Nick. So, when we first meet him, he is a little bit creepy because he has been living in this mansion with this creepy maid for fifteen years, cut of from all human contact. Part of what I did with the first few episodes was that I found ways to shake off those cobwebs and make him more coming back into the current world of humanity because of his love for Marisol. He’s becoming a human again. Like I said, we just had so much fun together and she is so fun to go head-to-head with. I can’t say enough good things with her.

Q) Was there anyone you didn’t get to work with much or at all that you would like to have scenes with in Season 3?

A) I also knew from New York the same scene Rebecca Wisocky. Again, like Joanna, we know all the same people and come from that same world. In fact, Rebecca and I were supposed to do a play together about twelve years ago. We were supposed to be touring Europe doing this riff on “Dangerous Liaisons,” but it didn’t work out. So, I’ve known Rebecca for a really long time and I just think she is tremendous. I only met Tom Irwin this year, but I’ve known his work and I think he is tremendous, too. The two of them together have created this fantastic couple. I would hang out with them a lot. We had a little group that would go out to dinner and have drinks. We became pals and we would always lament (Ana Ortiz, Rebecca Wisocky, Tom Irwin and I) that the Powells and the Deerings didn’t have more scenes together because we always had so much fun when we were out and were dying to see more interaction between those two couples. We will get a little taste of it in the finale, though. I’ll tell you that! Not enough though…I’d love to do more work with them. I can say that about a lot of people from the show. Gideon Glick, another creepy character, is really this wonderful guy in real life. Grant Show is a wonderful guy, but we didn’t have any scenes together. Drew Van Acker is a great guy and we didn’t have any scenes together. Susan Lucci is as lovely as can be. There are just so many different storylines that they don’t always intersect, even though this whole thing makes this tapestry. I didn’t get to work with most of the maids either. They are all so wonderful. I didn’t really get to work with any of them, but I would love to!

Q) Is there any chance we’ll be getting to see you in our mutual friend Jennifer Aspen’s hit webseries “Los Angeles: RIGHT NOW?”

A) I haven’t been asked. I don’t crash parties where I haven’t been invited! And if you’re quoting me, you can put that in your snootiest British accent. Would I if asked? Of course! I love Jen, she’s such a hoot! She is so much fun to work with and almost intimidating. When I first met her, I wasn’t sure I liked her (and I mean this as a compliment) because she is so sharp and intimidatingly funny that I had this feeling like, “Gosh, I don’t even know if I can keep up with her!” Then, fortunately, there is a lovely human being underneath all that and we became good friends. I adore Jen! If invited, I would RSVP promptly.

Q) What would you like to say to the Devious Army and fans of your work?

A) I really would like to thank the Devious Army. They are quite an incredible fanbase and I love live tweeting. It’s been so much fun and it’s so great. Thank you for embracing this character who on the page is sort of a charmless character. I didn’t expect him to be quite so well received. The fans have just been fantastic and it’s been a great ride. I hope it can continue. I don’t know where or if Nick’s storyline can go, but that is partly in the hands of fans. I hope they tune in, love it and enjoy it. It’s been a real honor to go on this ride with the cast, crew and fans.