James Spader

James-SpaderAt the beginning of the 2013-2014 TV season, the few hits on broadcast networks were talent competition shows and procedurals. In the scripted realm, all the buzz and novelty were coming from character-driven serialized dramas and comedies airing on basic and premium cable channels. Then came The Blacklist. Centered on Raymond “Red” Reddington, a criminal mastermind who turns himself in to the FBI, claiming he will help the Bureau apprehend the most nefarious and hard-to-catch criminals, the series represented a unique blend of a procedural and a serialized show—a new hybrid for broadcast television. James Spader, who gives a one-of-a-kind performance as Red and is also an executive producer on The Blacklist, talks to World Screen about his involvement in the show and the appeal of his character.

WS: What initially appealed to you about The Blacklist and the character of Red?
SPADER: I had a lot of criteria for what I was looking for, especially because this was not going to be a cable series with shorter seasons, it was going to be a network series. I really wanted a premise that could be sustained over a [long] period of time, with flexibility in tone: funny at times and very dramatic and intense at times, with action as well as emotion. I was looking for something that I felt would be commercial as well and that, over the long haul, would have a lot of flexibility in its story lines and in the development of character and relationships, so that if it was a commercial success and lasted for a few years, it could continue to surprise me—and therefore surprise an audience.

In terms of character, I wanted to find somebody who was complicated and enigmatic enough that it would take me a long time to figure him out, [laughs] but also somebody who’d give me the chance to play with humor and intensity, drama and emotion. So it was a tall order. I also wanted to find a show that shot in New York. It had come time for me to move back to New York City. At first I wasn’t really interested in doing a network series that was going to be 22 episodes a year because I had an active film career and I’d just finished doing a year on Broadway. I was originally looking for something that would accommodate those other things as well during the course of the year, but The Blacklist came along. When I read it it seemed to have limitless possibilities in terms of what it could be and how it could develop and where it could go, and the tone of the show could vacillate, even over the course of an episode. As it turns out, I’ve been able to continue to do film work. I have not been able to continue doing theater—that requires a little more time. But the show seemed to be just the right thing in terms of timing.

WS: Beyond the description of Red in the pilot, what more did you bring to the character?
SPADER: When I read the pilot, I saw the possibility of bringing a sort of quirkiness and a sense of humor and an irreverence to the character and therefore to the proceedings. I loved the fact that even though you’d spent a certain amount of time with him and he had revealed this and that, you actually knew less about him at the end of the pilot than you knew at the beginning. I like the idea of a character about whom the more you learn, the less you know. The things you learn just pose questions and make you curious about something else that has arisen. That has developed during the course of the series. It’s a tricky thing, but I think it has been a success on the show. I like the idea that this is someone who will be very revealing about very personal tidbits about his past and so on, but ultimately they tell you nothing. They only give you a sense of character; all the facts and figures are left out. So we’ve been able to play with that a lot and continue to and I like that. He’s still very enigmatic to me, and I like that.

WS: Is that part of the tension that a long-running TV series has to balance—how much to reveal about characters or the plot, and how much to hold back to keep viewers coming back for more?
SPADER: Well, in a serialized show, like ours is to a certain degree, that is a very important part of it. A procedural gives the audience everything right up front: every week, it’s going to be these characters in this setting, but with a different set of circumstances. Procedurals can last for years and years and years using the same basic equation for every episode. It isn’t a matter of character development, it’s a matter of being relevant in terms of story from week to week. But for our show, [since it is partly] serialized and since the relationships are at the forefront, [for the part of the show that is a procedural] we do have to be very, very thoughtful about what is revealed when and to what degree. Sometimes we’ll adjust a sentence just to make sure that the tone of a line doesn’t tell you too much about something that may come later.

WS: You have an executive-producer title in the show as well. What’s your involvement beyond being the star of the show?
SPADER: It’s been a collaborative partnership with [executive producers] Jon Bokenkamp and John Eisendrath from the very beginning. The credit is just a retroactive acknowledgement of my participation and contribution to the show. We talk every day about all different aspects of the show. Sometimes it’s the nuts and bolts of an upcoming episode and other times it’s three episodes away. Sometimes it’s an arc for the year or an arc for a specific character, and sometimes it’s for the back half of the season. But I’m not conceiving of story lines on a week-to-week basis with the writers. I talk to them in general terms. Then during the actual conception of the story lines, I start getting involved in the outline process. There have been plenty of times when they’ve called up and said, We’re thinking about doing something along these lines, what are your thoughts about this? And we’ll talk about it. If there’s a specific story line that they want to discuss before they break it, we’ll discuss that, and I’ll put in my two cents and then we continue on to outlines. My involvement is much more concentrated once we get to script form, from draft to draft, from revision to revision. So it’s fairly comprehensive, but I’m certainly not in the writers’ room. The writers’ room is in Los Angeles; I’m not on speakerphone breaking stories and such.

WS: How would you describe Red’s moral compass? Is he a good guy who has to do bad things? Or is he a bad guy who sometimes does good things
SPADER: I think that depends on the day and the circumstances, and I think that should continue. That is a question that is compelling to watch unfold in front of you. I don’t think one should be so sure about [Red’s moral compass] and I’m not sure I am. It doesn’t really matter which he is—a good guy who’s capable of terrible things, or a terrible guy who’s capable of very good things. I’m not sure whether that is important. What is important is that the question about his character is compelling to watch.

WS: Earlier in your career, was it harder to cross over from film to television than it is today? What has changed in the industry?
SPADER: I think the economy of the business has changed quite dramatically. With the explosion of cable and internet [outlets], the programming has grown so exponentially; there’s just so much more of it, and competition is high. If you’re a great writer working in film and going through a years-long process to get a film up and going, only to have it be rewritten and have little control over the outcome, you would be hard-pressed not to look at television and say, Well, if there’s a place for me in television, that’s a place where I am in control. In film, the directors and the producers are the bosses—the creative bosses—and in television, the writers are the bosses. With the explosion of programming, there’s a place for everybody in television. So there has been a huge migration of writers to television. But it’s a seasonal migration, and therefore everyone else will follow suit. In the way that films or television shows or plays all start with the written material, it’s the same with the job descriptions. The writers are the first to make the migration and cross over between film and tele­vision and theater, and everyone else follows suit. Because ultimately, directors, actors, producers, production designers and everyone else are all following material. Ultimately, that is the currency that everybody is trading. Everybody is going to show up wherever the material is. And the material on television has become much more vast and varied in terms of content and quality. People are moving around a lot. A lot of directors and writers and actors are working in film and television and theater and going back and forth.