A new private eye series comes to Alibi on April 29 – Stumptown, based on comic books written by Greg Rucka. The show stars Cobie Smulders as investigator Dex Parios, whose life in Portland, Oregon, is never dull! Dex’s closest friend is bar owner Grey McConnell, whose own past catches up with him during the run of the show. McConnell is played by New Girl star Jake Johnson, who chatted to Paul Simpson during lockdown…

[NB This interview has been edited for clarity and length]

 

How did you get involved with Stumptown? Did you know anything about the property before you got involved?

No, nothing really. I got involved because one of the executive producers, Dave Bernad, is an old friend of mine. I’ve known him for about a decade and we’ve tried to find work together for years. They, I guess, had submitted Stumptown to me through my agent but it didn’t really get to me. Then Dave called me up one night and said, “You know, there’s a part – it’s not the lead but it’s a really fun show. It shoots in LA right near my place. Your character is somebody we can really invent as we go – let me just send you the script for the pilot.”

There was just something about it. I thought Jason Richman, the writer of the pilot and our showrunner, I thought he had a nice take on the material and I really enjoyed it. I liked the idea of a story about a woman battling PTSD from the war and dealing with it. So I just decided to jump onto the pilot and see what happened.

Did you go back to the comics at any point and have a look at the original version?

I actually got to meet with Greg Rucka the creator of the comics and we had a big talk. What he basically said to me about, at least my character, was that Grey was underdeveloped, that he had a great take on Dex but he said that with Grey, especially for a series, we needed to do a lot of inventing, to play with it and have fun with it. So since I had that talk with him I didn’t go back to the material much, it was more in the writers’ room.

In the comics, he’s Dex’s next door neighbour and he’s got a bit of a crush on her; Dex uses him and that’s about it. In 30 odd issues that’s pretty much who he is so…

That’s kind of what Greg said. He said, “We know a little bit about Grey. We know that Grey is really great with Ansel and we know that Grey has a little crush on Dex. Outside of that you guys just have some fun with the character.”

And you certainly have. In many ways he has as much development as Dex has in the show.

Yes, I think the writers did a really good job. Obviously it’s always going to be Dex’s show, that’s the nature of it, that’s what this is. I think in order to make a show like this work you then want your B stories and your C stories – like with Michael Ealy’s character Hoffman or with my character – to be very rich and very complicated and for the characters to be very multilayered so that the whole show works better.

I thought they did a nice job with Grey in season one.

How much input did you have yourself into where you went with it? We know a lot about his background but we also get family issues and other things…

Quite a bit actually. Jason Richman, our showrunner, he’s got a very clear point of view but he’s also very collaborative, so we would have a lot of meetings where I could just go up to his office and we could sit and talk and spitball. He and I are constantly texting ideas.

We’ve got a great writers’ room but they’re very open to me throwing out ideas and directions which I would like to see Grey go in.

I thought the idea of him owning a bar and being bartender was a great starting point but if the show is successful and gets to do multiple seasons, I think Grey outside of that bar is more exciting that Grey in the bar. I think the secrets Grey’s keeping ae way more interesting than what’s on the external of Grey.

Yes, Grey cares for Dex, and yes Grey cares for Ansel, but what makes Grey interesting is that he’s always got a bunch of secrets and he’s got things he’s not telling anybody. I’ve just continued to ask the writers to keep pushing in that dark world of Grey and to keeping pushing in the mystery of Grey – as well as playing the sweetness of him because we have that inherently.

This is not a show about a P.I., this is a show about the characters whose lives intertwine with the P.I.

That’s exactly right and the lead character happens to be a screw up P.I but if we are all essentially becoming aides to help the P.I, the show dies. We’re not doing Magnum P.I. We’re doing a show about this group of people up in Portland and their strange lives.

I know that Greg Rucka has said that The Rockford Files was quite an influence on him for the comic book but there’s also, the way that we’re talking about the TV show also has that feel doesn’t it? That you care about the people around Jim is what made it work.

Yes. Also, Portland, Oregon is a really unique city and Oregon as a state is unique, so the deeper we tap into that well there’s just a lot of great stories that has come out of it, in my opinion.

Have you been tempted to pitch to write an episode?

To be honest, the genre is not something I know well, it was one of the reasons I wanted to do Stumptown. I don’t really know the film noir genre, I don’t watch a lot of it, I don’t know it. The one hour drama format in terms of network television is really new to me as well. So, I enjoy being an actor on it.

It’s not a show that we improvise on a lot either: it’s not like we go in there and do a bunch of improv, which is something I like to do on comedies a lot or indie movies. This is more, “get there, say the lines”. So no, I don’t have a big inclination to do that, I feel pretty happy just to act on this one.

So what for you is the biggest challenge in playing him?

I think the biggest challenge of playing Grey would be to help continue to make sure he stays interesting.

One of the things I talk to Jason about, and Dave Bernad our executive producer, is when I’ll get a script before I even read it I’ll just say, “Please keep Grey interesting and unique” because Grey as a character could very easily just be the guy in the bar who hears everybody’s story and he gives them advice and longingly looks after Dex when she leaves.

He can be a great sounding board for other characters but I feel that what happens on something like that is the character becomes so boring that as soon as he then tries to drive forward with an idea, the audience has already turned on him and nobody cares. So even if we swing and we miss with ambitious stuff with the character for me it’s always about trying to keep him interesting and trying to be bold with it.

Anything that can be done, I feel like with a character like Grey is worth trying because Dex is such a pillar of the show that you don’t want to do that, if you’re the lead character. You don’t want to reinvent in episode 9, because the audience needs something to hold onto. So if Dex is the rock of the Stumptown family, I feel like Grey is the weird uncle. You’ve got to make sure he stays the weird uncle, have him come in with a new thing he’s excited about, that the audience didn’t know was building.

As soon as you, the audience, knows who he is, now you’re going to need a guest start to come in that’s really interesting because Grey’s not. And we have the ability to make Grey a wildly interesting character.

It’s always a challenge for me to figure out ways to do it as an actor.

There are a few things that happen across the season that have made me think, “This is a network show?’

That was kind of what Dave Bernad pitched me. The thing that finally got me to agree to do the show was Dave promised we’ll always be ambitious even if that means we get cancelled, because we would rather be ambitious and fail than be mediocre and stay on TV.

Over the years others have talked about preferring to “fail gloriously” but gloriously is the operative word.

I think that’s right and I think that’s this era of television: if you’re going to do it at least try to be ambitious. Sometimes it’s easier said than done, and sometimes ambitious can be explained in a lot of different ways, but at least try things because you could stay on TV right now and be on TV for 5 years and no one could ever know you were on television because there’s so much content.

If you’re going to make something at least try to be bold and I appreciate as some kind of win that our writers do that – there have been moments that really tried and it’s kept it, at least from my end, fun to keep doing it.

 

Stumptown begins on Alibi on Wednesday April 29 at 9 pm

 

The second (spoiler-filled) part of this interview will appear later in the season. Thanks to Gem Pinkney for assistance in arranging this interview.