Dillon Casey got a tough question about his tough-guy credentials.
On the TV series Nikita, which stars Maggie Q and airs Fridays on CW, Casey plays an ex-Navy SEAL named Sean Pierce.
So Casey (pictured above) was asked, do the people who know you in real life think that sounds about right? Or when his buddies first heard he was playing an ex-Navy SEAL, did they roll their eyes?
Casey was laughing before I even finished the question.
“I’m not really a tough guy by any means,” Casey admitted. “I’ve never actually been in a real fight.
“I’ve had people punch me in the face. And I’ve just kind of run away. A lot of people want to punch me in the face, actually. That’s the one thing that comes naturally to the Caseys, we’re all kind of smart-asses.
“That’s why I started working out so much. I was like, ‘I have a lot of people who want to punch me in the face, and I don’t like fighting back, so maybe I can put up a front that makes it look like I possibly could kick their ass.’ I had to look like I might be dangerous, but it’s all a lie.”
Of course, Casey also could have addressed the problem by being less of a smart-ass.
Naw. Where’s the fun in that?
Canadian TV fans know Casey from his previous roles on series such as Being Erica, MVP and The Best Years. Casey, who was born in the United States but raised in Canada and has dual citizenship, actually had moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and was back in the Toronto area visiting family when he auditioned for the role in Nikita, which shoots in Toronto.
“I don’t really think of it in terms of being American or Canadian,” Casey said. “I guess when I went to L.A., the goal was to get on a hot American series.
“But it’s funny, in Canada everybody thinks Nikita is a Canadian series, because it shoots in Toronto. So I have to go, ‘No, no, no, it’s an American series.’ But then I catch myself sounding like I’m being defensive, as if I have something against Canada, so I’m like, ‘No, I don’t hate Canada, but it is an American series, and I didn’t come home to get work or anything.’
“So eventually I just have to let it go and say, ‘Yeah, whatever, I have a cool job, it’s all good.’ ”
As for Dillon’s character on Nikita, Sean Pierce basically has been a conflicted soul – and to be honest, a bit of a candidate to snap – from the moment he appeared on screen.
“Sean and the others basically are working for an illegal operation,” Casey said. “These guys, at any moment, if they decide to go left or right, they’re pretty much terrorists.
“Sean has been trained to put other people’s lives ahead of his own. And now he works for this underground thing that basically he always has seen as treasonous.
“He always has stuck around because of love, actually. He loves this girl Alex (played by Lyndsy Fonseca). Sean justifies it by saying he has to keep Alex safe. But he’s so frustrated.”
Sean Pierce certainly doesn’t sound like the kind of character you’d ever want to punch in the face. But Dillon Casey?
Still not a great idea. After all, he has been working out.
bill.harris@sunmedia.ca
@billharris_tv
