Warning: This interview with Sasha Roiz of Grimm contains spoilers.
For almost six years, Sasha Roiz has spent his days playing Grimm police captain Sean Renard. He thought he knew that power-suited half-Zauberbiest and occasional Scooby Gang ally like the back of his hand. It took filming the fairytale-meets-cops series’ final season to figure out how wrong he was.
“Sean has always been a morally ambiguous character, but watching him go to new villainous lows in season 5 and 6 has been so surprising and rewarding to me. I don’t want the show to end, but since I have no say in that matter at this point, I like that I can go out in such a good way,” Roiz says. “I don’t think many actors are lucky enough to be as challenged in the sixth year as they were in the first.”
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This week’s “Oh Captain, My Captain” episode certainly asked a lot of him as he played Renard and Nick trapped inside Renard. He even had to strip down more than once and beat himself up. And you better believe we asked him about all of that as well as his thoughts on working with David Guintoli as a first-time director (he helmed this episode), being the big bad after Bonaparte’s demise at his hand (sort of), the Meisner haunting, leaving Portland and the people he has grown to consider “family,” and the impending finale in an exclusive phone interview from earlier this week, which was scheduled to be his last on set before Jack Frost made other arrangements.
What were your thoughts on Renard becoming one of the big bads?
It was very much something I not only wanted, but was petitioning for for a good season or two. I like keeping the audience guessing. That’s where the fun lies for the audience and for me as an actor. The second be becomes too predictable the fun is gone. I love the fact that he turned on Nick and the gang and has become in many ways the darkest we’ve ever seen him. It is really just a pleasure to play him as an antagonist and nemesis to David.
I almost had a hard time believing it. I thought he got swept up in the wesen revolution and running for mayor in a sort of “can’t beat the, join them” way. But, nope, he just doubled down.
I think a lot of fans were holding out hope that he would come to his senses after killing Bonaparte. That it was somehow all a ruse to undo Bonaparte’s command. But I think it triggered something in him that we haven’t seen since the first season; a ruthlessness and callousness that he has certainly always been capable of. That is part of who the character is. He has always been a survivor and when he sees a way to leverage a situation in his favor or a way to gain a more powerful position, he is going to do so.
It appears he is being “haunted” because of what he did to Meisner. Can you tease what happens with that?
I can’t say exactly as it would give too much away. It is definitely Renard’s Macbeth moment where he is haunted with everything from guilt to a literal ghost. It is very open to interpretation. Even I myself can’t say with any certainty if it was a literal haunting by a spirit or just something brought upon by his sense of guilt and subconscious. It was definitely something he was struggling with within himself. It goes back to our discussion of Renard giving in to the darkest tendencies of his personality. This is what offsets it. This brings him back to neutral.
Well he really did do Meisner dirty, given that the guy is one of the reasons his daughter is still alive and not with the royals.
True. There is a tremendous amount of guilt over what he did in shooting him. Renard is he is not a one-dimensional villain. He does his best to suppress his moral side, but he feels a lot and you see that when he is with his daughter and certainly through this haunting from Meisner. At that point, Meisner was going to die and Sean shooting him did limit his suffering. There was nobility in that decision to end his misery. Of course, some would argue that he could have also turned the gun on Bonaparte. But he’s complicated. Sean agonizes over and struggles with the decision.
Talk about working with David, who is usually your peer, as a first-time director.
At first, I had my apprehension because it is very difficult to suddenly perceive your peers as your director or boss. But that was gone after we sat down for breakfast and went through the script to make sure we were on the same page about the characters, their motivations, and how we perceived the scenes. We both felt very much at ease after that and by the time we got to set, we were very prepared and there was a wonderful shorthand between us. And then I realized at some point, I was worried about nothing. This is someone I have worked with for five years, who knows me personally, who knows the crew and the cast and the characters and the tone as well as anybody else. And he certainly knows it all more intimately than any other director we’ve ever had save for the producers. He was also very receptive to ideas. I had a few thoughts on shots or things I wanted to do and he always entertained them. And the truth is this would have been an especially difficult episode for anyone, let alone a first-time director as we had to rely so heavily on green screen and had to double my character in several scenes.
I was surprised that they put such an important and technical episode to a rookie. It appeared to be no walk in the park for you either.
There was a lot to contend with technically. It was one of the more challenging episodes we’ve ever done including for me. Often, I was acting opposite a reader who was delivering lines at me because I was essentially playing two characters. I don’t think I ever had a full day off during that episode’s shoot. And just having to figure out how to inhabit Nick’s body and make his Sean different than the actual Sean. I had to maintain a certain honesty about the fact that it was Nick inside the captain. I had to keep at the front of my mind how Nick would say something versus how Renard speaks or how Nick would move in this suddenly larger body. I would exaggerate things. I would make Renard far more still and precise than usual so that Nick would look even more animated and lighter in his body. Nick is generally more expressive and I strived to find a real juxtaposition. One of the best parts of this plot is that I got to play a levity and comedy that you don’t normally associate with Renard.
It was actually quite fun and helpful to have David around all the time because I could ask him questions. ‘Don’t you do this thing with your face?’ How do you hold your gun again?’ I think it was fun for him too because he saw how we all see him as Nick.
You guys nailed his go-to hands-on-hips move.
I don’t think he ever realized just how often he does that until it was in there. You’d see this moment on his face where he was wondering, ‘Do I really look like that?’ And then you’d see the realization. ‘Yeah, I guess I do..’ I hope audiences didn’t get sick seeing so much of me in one episode.
I think fans will forgive Captain McChesty given how much time you spend shirtless. They even got bonus half-naked Guintoli.
When we were rehearsing for those naked scenes, we were waiting in the wings passing dumbbells back and forth and doing pushups side by side. It was really quite adorable. He was trying to get the shots together and I was getting the performance ready, and yet there we were sweating it up in a last minute attempt not to embarrass ourselves.
Now that he has a tentative peace accord with the Grimm, how do you proceed from all that has come to pass? Can you really go back to the way things were?
I had my concerns about that too. How would they ever get anything done at work? But then the writers get really creative and introduce something that is far more dangerous and far more life threatening to all of us that it forces us to work. To protect themselves is the conceit through which we bring the group back together.
I saw on Instagram that you had the wrap party last night. Does this mean filming is complete?
We were supposed to finish yesterday, but we’ve had a snowpocalypse in Portland and it has halted production. Today is yet another snow day. Five days have been canceled so far in the last three weeks so we have had to extend to another week of filming left. Right now, I am looking out the window and freezing rain is covering all of Portland on top of the foot of snow we already had. It has caused so much difficulty for production.
I think Oregon is clearly angry that Grimm is leaving.
That’s what I tweeted the other day. The universe is clearly trying to keep us here. It is definitely going to be hard to say goodbye to this town. It’s a good life here. Some of us are already wrapped. Bitsie’s last day was yesterday.
Do you think this is a good time to end?
So far we’ve had Russell, Reggie and Bitsie wrapped and every time it is very moving and sad. Speeches were given. Drinks are had. It is hard to grasp that it is truly coming to an end. I think for most of us it will not really kick in for a few weeks. Then all the sudden it will hit us that we are not going back to work and that we will no longer see each other on a regular basis.
For me, one of the greatest joys of this job is all the smiles of the cast and crew I see when I roll into work and the friendships I have made. I love these people so saying goodbye to that is going to be very difficult. We’ve had so many great times here both on and off screen and the city has really been welcoming to us too.
Do you think viewers will be satisfied with the finale? Are you content with how Grimm comes to an end?
That is a very hard question because there is always going to be a sense of dissatisfaction that it is ending in the first place. I feel like we probably have more stories to tell and we could happily continue. But I think there will be some since of contentment among the fans as to how we end it. It has a certain sentimentality. Some of your favorite aspects of the show will be very much present in the finale. It will be a bittersweet farewell for sure.
Did you figure out how it would come to a close or did they catch you off guard?
Both. Some things happen that I assumed would happen. But somewhat surprised. It gets pretty dark at one point, darker than I would have imagined it going, but like it always is with Grimm, there’s this beautiful sunshine that comes out after the rain. That’s very much a signature of our show. It ends in line with what the fans have come to appreciate over six years. There are definitely some shocking moments. It was hard to read that final episode. I got very sentimental reading it.
Grimm airs on NBC on Fridays at 8 p.m. Watch clips and full episodes of Grimm for free on Yahoo View.
