Rock Bottom Interview: M.C. Gainey

I've heard that there will not be a second season of Happy Town...

Yeah, you know... I think we made it for the wrong network. I'm not sure ABC knew what to do with it.

Yeah, I've noticed that they're not promoting it.

No, once they put it on Wednesday nights at ten-o'clock with Cougar Town as the lead in. Cougar Town is the lowest rated sitcom that they have... so after two hours of sitcoms... and now they're going to throw this show at you. I don't know, I'm not a professional scheduler, but I watch a lot of TV. But I'm real proud of the show, we had a great time making it and I think it was a worthy investment in my time and energy. I think one out of eight series that get on the air actually make it... one out of eight pilots rather.

Of course you got real luck with Lost...

Yeah, I was a real fan of the show. I went in on the last show of season one and I went in because I was a fan.

What first attracted you to Happy Town and the character that you play?

The thing that attracted me was Scott Rosenberg, he's a friend of mine -- he wrote Con Air. I was in the first movie that he produced called Highway, and I did Going To California -- it was a series he did before that. We're personal friends... so I got a call from my representative saying Scott Rosenberg had a pilot... I told them I was in without knowing what the story was or anything else. I knew nothing about it except that he had written it, and that was enough for me. [laughs] It's really simple. And once I read it and got into it -- there was a lot that really interested me about it and the character. I've been playing bad guys for a long time, you can count the number of good guys on one hand. He's [his character] kind of like an Andy Griffith guy; he's not even carrying a gun around with him. My image of him is that he was elected, and so he's a little bit of a local politician -- he knows everybody's names and is nice to the old ladies and kisses the babies -- does all this stuff that a small town sheriff does that doesn't involve hardcore police work. So that's the way that I approached it, he's a guy that everybody kind of liked -- but for me it was just a challenge to play an honest guy with a son and a granddaughter. This is new territory for me, Tim. [laughs] New territory completely.

After you got your hands on the first script, how much of the show did you know?

I didn't know much, I didn't know where it was going. But after Lost I stopped worrying about what was going on. [laughs] Just trust somebody else to do that and just play the moment to moment reality of it. I had a challenge in the first episode - to go from this really happy go lucky guy to being a guy who cuts his hand off with a tomahawk. That's a lot of work for forty-four minutes in the entertainment world. So I had so much on my plate starting out that I was just trying to figure out a way to get there without really knowing everything about why he was there. And then by the end of these eight episodes you'll have a much clearer picture why he did what he did. Once you find out who the Magic Man is.

So we will know why you went crazy...

You will know why I went crazy my friend... and when it's all done you'll cry for more episodes... but I think ABC stopped listening.

Well, maybe another network would want to pick it up...

You know, that would be a lovely thing. Ordinarily I wouldn't really care -- I just go onto another job -- some people have a thirty year career and only do three shows, I have a thirty year career and I've been on three-hundred shows. But this cast was so spectacular, we bonded from the first night that we were on location... we all went out for dinner -- in a way that it doesn't usually happen. But it's a different dynamic too, when you go do a movie you go off to Toronto with twenty-five actors and you know you're going to be there for twelve weeks -- you know that there is an end, but with a TV series you don't know. You may be with these people five or ten years from now. We bonded as a cast, we'll always be pals -- and Happy Town will always sting a little bit that it didn't get sold the way we wanted it to -- it didn't find the audience.

I know it has a pretty solid cult following online...

Well, I'm glad to hear that - I'm not a computer guy, but I've been told that there were people on there on the internet talking about it. I'm glad to know that somebody is watching it -- I'm delighted to hear that. Maybe that's because all of the smarter culture go online. [laughs] Clearly that's what it means, Tim.

Did you have any guesses early on who the Magic Man was -- or what it is?

That would be a who. I didn't really - I didn't pay much attention to it until maybe episode six or seven. There was a pool going around where everybody in the crew was betting who they thought it was going to be. I started giving it a little thought then, and it turned out that I was wrong. [laughs] I didn't get it - I don't know if anybody got it.

I spoke with Peter Outerbridge last night and he said that one person guessed it.

Well there you go -- but not him?

Nope, he said it wasn't him.

[laughs] That's funny. Boy, was he [Peter Outerbridge] good in this thing or what? A great cast, great directors and the writing - it's just -- it's just so different. I'm know knocking these shows that I've mentioned because they have their appeal, the CSI's and the NCIS' -- they're shows that you sit down for an hour, you get your adventure and it wraps up. And that's it, to some people that's what television drama is, but to me after Lost... I think Lost changed all that. I really think that people are going to want more from their hour longs shows in the future, and I'm not sure that they're going to get it.

Speaking of Lost, I don't want to go off subject, but what were your thoughts when your character [Tom Friendly] turned out to be gay?

That was my idea. Yeah, my thoughts on it -- the first episode of the third season when I was trying to get Kate to take a shower and I say "You're not my type". I decided then that if she wasn't my type then Sawyer is ... or Jack is. I mean, she's a perfect woman. I didn't have a clue where the character was going - I would try to do things and they'd say no you can't do that. For instance, let me back up -- the second season where I'm running through the jungle barefooted and then in the next script Kate finds my beard in my locker, and I get this script and I'm reading it and I'm like "what a minute, I have a locker? What the hell am I doing running barefoot? And why is my beard fake?". So I was clueless, completely clueless to what was going on, but I decided that if she wasn't my type - so from then on whenever I would look at Sawyer or look at Jack... put them in the cages or take them out of the cages I looked at them as if I were looking at a beautiful woman. So nobody notices, nobody noticed at all - and then in another episode I was throwing a football with Jack... one of the producers asked me why I was so bad at throwing it, I told him that he was gay... he's never thrown a football in his life and he's only doing it because Jack wants to do it. If Jack wants to do it then it's what he wants to do. So they got a laugh out of that, and then sure enough a few weeks later there was a script that came in and I was there with my boyfriend explaining to Michael how the plane came to be on the bottom of the ocean, and that was it... that was the payoff. The funny part was that the kid that played my quote unquote boyfriend - we were talking before we were about to shoot and he asked what the dynamic of our relationship was... and I said "Wait a minute, wait a minute... relationship? I'm on an island fifty-one weeks out of the year that you've never heard of and you don't know where it is... this is a cash relationship... you're not my life partner. Look at you, you're a handsome young man and look at me." So he was really glad to hear that, he thought it was interesting that he was a male prostitute... it made it a lot more fun than just trying to pretend.

Since there wont be a season two, I've heard rumors that some of the mysteries aren't going to be resolved at the end.

I would say that there certainly are mysteries that aren't resolved, but it's not like you're going to say... really, it's about the Magic Man... that's what it is about. I just can't tell you too much - because I can tell you're really a fan and I don't want to screw it up for you... but you call me after it's over and we'll talk about the other mysteries. What else can I answer for you, brother?

With only a few episodes left, is there anything you can tell me?

I can tell you that I will be back out of bed and with full steam by the end of it -- and that's all I'm going to tell you. And before the last episode is over - you will see Griffin Conroy [his character] back on his feet and kicking asses.

What else are you working on right now?

I just finished half a season on a TV show called Justified, that's a show that just ended last night - and they'll re-run it. It's with Timothy Olyphant. I also have a movie coming out called Love Ranch with Joe Pesci and Helen Mirren as the couple from hell - that's coming out at the end of this month. Other than that - I'm just loafing.