Network 24/The Ehrlichman to Logan's Nixon

"The Ehrlichman to Logan's Nixon" is the thirty-second blog post on Network 24. It was posted by Geoff Aull, on May 10, 2010, at 8:22pm CST.

The blog was an interview with Reed Diamond.

Blog

Many will recognize him for his role as Terry Crowley on The Shield. Some will recognize him for his role on Dollhouse. On 24, we know him as Jason Pillar. He is Reed Diamond! Shauna and I caught up with Reed in his trailer while we were shooting on location.

[video transcript]

• Reed Diamond: In television, they start out, and you don't know and they have a very two dimensional idea of the character because of who the actor was. But then it becomes something else. I knew it had to be more than my first script 'cause in the first one it had in brackets after my character "non-speaking", and I was like, this can't last forever. I'd just met Greg a couple of weeks earlier - Gregory Itzin - because we'd just done a BBC radio play together. I hadn't seen his seasons of the show and he's so different from his character. He's basically the polar opposite of Charles Logan. To do the scenes with him is a blast. This show isn't like other shows. Everyone here knows exactly what they're doing and they're on their game. My first day of shooting was a three page scene of chunky dialogue as most scenes on this show are with him. I'm used to other shows when people ease into it and learn their lines as it goes. I don't necessarily always come prepared but we went into this scene and, boom! I loved it. It was so great that I get to act with someone like Greg who is so on it but just comes with tonnes of stuff, so I don't have to do anything except sort of react to him. When I first had to go to CTU I was like, I have to redefine myself!

Reed Diamond talks about working with Gregory Itzin on 24

• Reed Diamond: There are a couple of things that, in my opinion, are very unique to the show. First of all, half of your scenes are on the telephone so you're doing half your scenes, not to the other actor. Usually in those telephone scenes they have Marci Michelle and she's awesome. Say I'm on the phone with Greg and he's already shot his scenes, she'll tell me exactly how he played it, when he got upset, and I sort of gauge myself to that. You have to do a lot of phone, and a lot of recap. So, I've had a couple of those scenes at the top of an episode where you're moving the scenes forward but at the same time you're reminding an audience kind of what happened, so you'll be like "Meredith Reed the reporter, he's escaped with her, and I remember you told me earlier you didn't want to do anything with her..." But, you know, your job is to make it seem like things are moving forward and you're not recapping but it's important because so much happens on the show.

Pillar’s a character who represents both brains and ability, but all of it gone to the dark side. He’s dangerous. And he’s steadfastly loyal to Logan. Yet perhaps the best source of interpretation and analysis of Jason Pillar comes from the actor who plays him.

What’s been the most fun thing he’s shot on 24?

[video transcript]

• Reed Diamond: It's all been really, really fun. All the actiony stuff, I love that. Running around and being ten times more macho than I am. Being in charge of these real ex-military guys with their machine guns. I think for me the highlight so far - I haven't had the chance to work with Mr. Sutherland yet - but the highlight has been all my scenes with Greg just because the directors and producers here are really smart and really generous and really just let us do what we wanted to do. So we're in these scenes with all this humour and disgusting frat boy behaviour and it's just delicious. No-one said "Oh no, do it like that". All my scenes with Greg have been so much fun just because... what's enjoyable about acting is that I'm only responsible for my half and the two of us together make it something more than it was ever going to be. He's great to listen to and I never have to worry about what I'm doing.

Background information and notes

• After the second block of text there is supposed to be a video in which presumably Diamond talks about his personal influences on the character, but instead the video that plays is the final one in which he talks about the most fun thing he has shot on the show.

External links

• "The Ehrlichman to Logan's Nixon" at Network 24.