Mark-Paul Gosselaar: The CSI Twins
Sunday is the second of a four-episode arc on CSI, featuring Mark-Paul Gosselaar as the serial-killer twins, Jared Briscoe and Paul Winthrop. Fans of Gosselaar — who grew up on Zack Morris or watch him on Franklin & Bash or even think of him as John Clark from NYPD Blue — may not be ready to see how dark the actor gets in these roles.
In the season premiere, an old case came back to haunt Russell and Finlay (Ted Danson and Elizabeth Shue). Five years prior, they put away the Gig Harbor Killer in Washington state, but now a copycat is recreating those murders in Vegas. They discover the killer, Jared Briscoe, has a well-to-do identical twin, Paul Winthrop. The brothers use each other to cast doubt on the old case and work to get Briscoe free.
Yahoo TVspoke with Gosselaar about why he's willing to take on such grim roles, how much of it he takes home with him, and whether his twins could take Mary-Kate and Ashley in a fight.
How has the experience been?
Great! Great cast. I've known Ted [Danson] for a while, but to work with him is a joy. He's such a professional, genuine actor. Yeah, great crew, and the scripts have been really good, so I can't complain.I think these guys know they're bad, and they actually don't mind being bad. There's obviously something wrong with them, but I think they truly enjoy what they're doing. They're sociopaths. It's kind of fun for me, maybe because you make a lot of different choices; some of them you get away with, some of them, the director says no, that's not going to work.
One scene we just played last week, which will air probably in thethird episode… was a scene between both Paul and Jared. They're both twins in the same room talking together — that was kind of a challenge.
[Laughs.] Nah. It's probably a release for me. I go on set, and I get to take out all my aggressions on the victims and on Ted. The only thing I take back from this are probably the tattoos they put on me because they're kind of a pain in the ass to take off.
Out of the two characters, I think Paul — the brother who's not incarcerated — is probably the harder one to play because he's more calculated. He not an in-your-face killer. Whereas I feel with Jared, he truly believes he is the killer and he deserves to be where he is in jail. He's a little bit more of an on-the-nose sociopath. Paul is the one that I think is more of a challenge.
Most of your roles have at least a little bit of humor in them. Is something this dark a challenge for you or is it fun to just be all bad?
I'm having fun. Again, it's not a character I've played too often. But you always try to find the good in the character and it seems kind of fun with these two guys.
No, naw naw naw, not at all. It's work, right? We do our work, then the minute the camera cuts, we're cracking jokes and keeping it light. There's honestly no difference between when you're working on [a drama or a] comedy, where you think everybody on set is goofy and messing around. The camera cuts, and Ted and I are cracking jokes and playing with his rubber gun. You gotta keep it light; we're on the set for so long, you want the experience to be good.
I'd love to do more directing. There's nothing new for me — I've always been a very technically driven actor, so I understand the camera, and I understand the lighting and all the technical aspects of the set — that component of what we do. For me, I've always had that but never took the opportunity to use it, which I should have done a lot earlier, but I really didn't think about it.
Yeah, eventually I'd love to produce, direct. I'm not much of a writer, but I'd definitely love to produce a show of my own.
OK.
Oh, yeah, we'd win.
That's a tough one. Well, they were younger, so we have more adult brains. So I'd say us.
No, we'd totally lose. They can turn into a bucket of water, we're always gonna lose.
[Laughs.] I think we'd lose because anybody that's been smoking that long, they obviously have strengths you don't.
Oh, that's a tough one. I'd give it to them because I'm such a fan.
Oh man, I'd love to say we would beat them, but they're so tiny! They're so spritely. I dunno. They could be evil, I don't know. That might be a draw.
Every actor who plays a villain says, "Yeah, but they don't see themselves as a villain." But the guys you're playing are tearing out people's guts and making CSI tools out of them. So… maybe they think they're a little bit bad? As an actor, how do you play that?
But with characters like this, you just throw things at the wall and see what sticks. There is no right or wrong way to play these guys because I can't relate to anything they do. So, you kind of just play around and leave it up to the director to cut together.
What's the most fun you've had shooting so far?
Is it something you take home with you? Have you had any nightmares, or can you leave it all back on the set?
Is there a physical thing you do or a vocal tic? Some trick for you as an actor to differentiate the two characters?
There's nothing vocally that I do. They adopt a certain cadence in their speech. Paul is very confident, whereas I think Jared is less so. Jared is very confident with his victims, but he's not so confident around his brother, he's not so confident around other people. I think Paul's much more put together. So there's a lot less movement in Paul, and there's a lot more movement in Jared.
I think you start to understand why Jared is the way he is around his brother by the third episode — hopefully it comes across. But Paul, I'm still trying to figure out what has made him so evil. It's still evolving. With the scripts, we'll do two, and then we'll do three, and then four. We know how to wrap it up, but we left every episode open-ended just in case it doesn't work out.
Is the vibe on the set of a dark procedural different from a comedy? Do people walk around, shoulders slumped and muttering?
Every show I've been on has been extremely professional and very generous. I'm working with some great actors; Ted has been great. It's a well-oiled machine. I think 15 seasons they've been chugging along? They definitely have their s--t in order.
Do you come onto a show now with a different perspective now that you've done some directing [Gosselaar directed an episode of Franklin & Bash last season]? And is that something you'd like to do more of or would you rather stick to acting?
It's the sort of thing where after four years, you try to find ways to challenge yourself and invent things, so that's why I did it this year. But hopefully, I will do some more directing.
Are there other challenges you'd like to take on? Any other aspect of the industry that excites you?
We're going to throw some twins at you and you tell us if Jared and Paul could take them in a fight.
The twins from The Shining?
How about the Menendez Brothers?
The Wonder Twins from Super Friends?
Patty and Selma from The Simpsons?
Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia?
And Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen?
“The Twin Paradox” episode of CSI airs Sunday, Nov.16 at 10 p.m. on CBS.
Source and credit, Yahoo TV
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