Paul Gross is a Canadian TV and film icon. He’s created, executive-produced, written, acted in and directed such Canadiana as Slings & Arrows, Passchendaele and H2O. He even starred in the ‘90s dramedy Due South as Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable Benton Fraser.

So why would Gross set his sights on the lead role in the new ABC drama Eastwick, which films in Los Angeles? And why would he take on a role that many regard as untouchable – that of Darryl Van Horne, made so memorable by Jack Nicholson in the 1987 feature film The Witches of Eastwick?

The character of Darryl, the mysterious new man in town, fell into his lap, the affable actor says. And the fear he felt when considering the part was exactly what made him say yes to it.

Gross spoke to the media about Eastwick, working with director David Nutter (Dark Angel, Smallville, Supernatural, The Mentalist), and the daily meltdowns that plagued the set of Due South.

For those who haven’t read the book or seen the movie, what can you tell us about why Darryl is really there and what he’s really after?
Paul Gross: I don’t think I could probably reveal too much because that’s really going to be the motor of the entire series. Suffice it to say it’s very involved and involves all three women and probably involves some — how would I put it? — continuation of his spirit. Let’s say that. But we don’t get to it very quickly because it’s going to take a while to get these extraordinarily powerful women all to fall within his sphere of influence and have him draw them into his orbit.

What kind of trouble will he cause in Eastwick?
PG: We’ll start to see that his hand is very often at work in behind the scenes of things that are questionable or even terribly dangerous or end in tragedy, and he’s probably lurking somewhere in the background. But it’s all a large chess game. He moves pieces around to slowly draw these women closer and closer to him. And he loves them, so, you know, it’s all to a good cause.

The character of Darryl was made famous by Jack Nicholson in the film. Did you have any apprehension about taking on the role, and how did you approach playing Darryl?
PG: Well, I’d be psychotic not to have apprehension about that. It was quite a performance from one of the great iconic actors in the history of cinema. But I have to say also, sort of perversely reading it, I thought two things.

One, you’d be crazy to try this. This is Nicholson’s part. And then secondly, I have no idea how to play this, so it seemed like a reasonably good challenge. And to be honest with you, everything has its own particular and specific demands. So when you pick up a script, it’s not the same script. It’s not the same setting, it’s not the same set-up. It’s not even the same format. It’s an unfolding series as opposed to a closed film. It didn’t seem to be that present in my mind when we started working on it …

But now that it’s been running and I’m getting questions about it, it brings me back to the beginning of it, when I first read it and [thought], you’d be nuts to try this. Well, then you should, you know?

You’re surrounded by some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. How does that feel?
PG: As you can imagine, it’s horrible. No, it’s fantastic. I think we’re very lucky that three women, yes, are extraordinarily beautiful. They’re also really terrific actors and they’re great; they’re just great people and very down-to-earth. So the chemistry between the four of us, I think, is really strong …

The only problem I have is that these women all seem to have fallen hopelessly in love with me, so I’m being hounded now and stalked by them and I’m not sure what to do. I did approach the president of Warner Brothers Television, Peter Roth, and ask him to intervene to help me, because they’re camped outside my house. I don’t know what to do.

As far as people who were fans of the book [The Witches of Eastwick] and the movie, are there going to be little Easter eggs or homages to that for those fans? 
PG: Yeah, I think bits and pieces of that stuff will find its way in; certainly I think the spirit of [John] Updike’s novel is captured in many different ways in the series, and in more kind of specific or concrete ways, we do — there are some throwbacks to the film. Veronica Cartwright has an ongoing character [Bun Waverly] and she appeared in the original film.

Whatever the spirit was that Updike first laid down and the film captured, I think continues in a re-invented version – a version that’s maybe more for our time in an unfolding series, you know. If you look around on the town square of Eastwick, there’s something on the theatre marquee that I think you’ll enjoy.

You have an established career here in Canada. Was Eastwick a conscious move where you wanted to go to L.A. and you were actually pursuing something in L.A.? Or did this just kind of fall into your lap?
PG: No, it kind of just fell in. I guess it coincided with a couple of things. I’ve obviously been working really hard the last few years on Passchendaele, it was such an all-consuming project that when it was finally finished I thought that I didn’t have anything that was sitting on my desk that I immediately wanted to go and do.

And I also felt like I needed to shake things up a little bit. I needed to spend a little bit of time where I wasn’t carrying the weight of all of it, of whatever production, you know. And every year I’ve been asked to do since Due South, I’ve been asked to do pilots. And this year I thought, well maybe I’ll read them a little bit more seriously, and to be honest with you, it was a lot of terrible stuff that is made into pilots. But this particular show I thought was just intriguing. I liked the nature of the part.

One of the things I like about playing Darryl Van Horne is that it’s similar to, in some ways, to other parts I’ve played that are very, they’re kind of wide open, like — I don’t know how to put it. The character in Slings and Arrows is so unbound so that playing something like that is very liberating. Almost anything you do as an actor, as long as it’s relatively true feels quite legitimate, you know. Whereas if you’re in a procedural, you can’t be too crazy because you have to find more DNA and pass that on to the DNA guy.

So this part had lots and lots of room to move in it. As I said earlier, it’s also one I just thought I don’t know how to do this, and that challenge is always very attractive. And I kind of needed to just shake things up a little bit. So it seemed fortuitous that it has worked out almost so far that I’m able to commute. So it’s as though I fly down here and shoot for four days or so, and then go home. It was a little bit like being a merchant marine.

What was it like working with a guy like David Nutter, a guy that comes in and is known for directing pilots that quite often find success?

PG: Quite often the guy is absolutely unbelievable. He’s like Goldfinger. Fifteen for 15. I think it’s the most bizarre record, the more I understand it, the most bizarre record in Hollywood. He’s got some extraordinary touch. He has a finger on some pulse that most other people can’t see, I guess.

It was fantastic working with David. I loved it. It’s interesting working with David because he doesn’t really speak English. I’m not sure what his language is. He calls it sort of Nutter-speak. It’s very quick and it’s sort of has a lot of vowels but not much in the way of words. Like he’ll say, ‘Good, good, Paul, Paul, sure, sure, good good. And be-be-be-be?’ And somehow I would know what he was talking about, and that happened really early on. So his direction was hilarious, really.

But because I’m not even remotely as experienced as most of the directors we have on the show, starting with David, it’s also a lot of fun for me to watch that and watch what their process is and see where they figure the camera ought to be pointed. I’m enjoying sitting back on it. I mean, once in a while I think, boy, this is goofy. Why don’t you shoot it from here. But that’s very, very rare. I find myself a little bit more critical of production, but it’s a very different system.

The focus in Canada is so tight to the money because we never have enough of it. There’s a lot more give here, and they seem to be more willing to spend more money. So sometimes I watch things and I think, well, that’s goofy, but really that’s just from the perspective of what we would be doing.

How is the shooting going so far?
PG: It’s going really well, actually. I think for the most part it’s terrific. But with any new show, it just takes a little while to iron the bugs out on it, and but I think we’ve slid into a groove in the last little while and everyone was quite cheered and buoyed up I guess by the results from the debut …

So anything that’s been creating kind of confusion is sort of coming from other forces that aren’t directly related to actually being on the set. I don’t want to overstate that. It’s not like — this is nothing like Due South. When we started Due South it was an absolute, complete meltdown every day, and I remember one week shooting four 20-hour days back-to-back.

I would shoot, I would stand there, the crew would leave, the next crew would come on, I would keep going. This is by comparison effortless. And I think it looks to be so for the rest of the time. It’s a very lovely crew, a great group of people pulled together. And everybody has gelled quite well.


Eastwick airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on A/ABC

 

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