‘STRANGEST MAN ON TELEVISION’
How James Spader immersed himself in his role on The Blacklist.
Two summers ago, as he was about to hit a career high, James Spader found himself in a surprisingly gloomy place. He had just wrapped filming on the first season of The Blacklist, his hit NBC series, and only two days later was on a plane to London to play the titular baddie in the Avengers sequel, Age of Ultron. Arriving at his hotel, Spader had a sudden dark moment of clarity. For the first time in ages, he didn’t want to work.
“I wasn’t convinced that acting was exactly what I felt like doing right at that time,” he recalls. “But then I got over there and suddenly I remembered. Everything was so new.”
The episode, while relatively minor, is indicative of Spader’s mentality. He doesn’t simply show up to work — whether on a difficult low-budget shoot, chaste network show or bigbudget superhero film. He must be tested and, in doing so, better understand his reason for being there.
On a recent overcast New York afternoon, Spader, who Rolling Stone recently (and lovingly) referred to as “The Strangest Man on Television,” considered why he is the way he is.
After a long, pregnant pause in which he mentally formed his paragraph, edited it, then spit it out in perfect New England prep-school diction, he offered his answer. “I don’t know,” he blinked. “Somebody’s who’s a great thinker doesn’t know how they think, they just do.”
Regardless of the reason, it’s undeniable the 55-year-old is on a roll unseen since his Brat Pack days. Over two seasons on The Blacklist, one of only a handful of certified hits for NBC, as well as his marquee role in the summer’s biggest blockbuster, Spader has proven his unique formula works.
It’s not always been easy (Spader’s propensity for spending lavishly has certainly landed him in some less-thanstellar films in the past), but when he finds a reason to sink his teeth into a role, his bite thrills audiences.
For Ultron, it was finally making a film for his comic-book-obsessed son; on The Blacklist, it was his dedication to the show that sparked him. Spader is, by no small measure, the most hands-on star in network television. Stories of demands for set changes costing hundreds of thousands of dollars have made him a legend in the industry, but it goes much further than that.
He works with the show’s writers to develop plot lines from the outset. Months in advance of shooting and before any episode goes to air, Spader must first give it the green light. Spader describes his input as “a collaborative amount.”
“I felt it was constructive for the show,” he says, stiffly crouched onto a desk chair on the show’s ersatz FBI bunker. “I just thought it was.”
It’s with this in mind that, when the show’s second season started slipping in the ratings, Spader and his writing team decided it was time to flip the script. The result: In the second season’s final moments, Spader’s Machiavellian baddie calls upon the world’s leading investigative journalists, shows them The Fulcrum and gives away the Blacklist’s entire plot before ending with his control-freak protagonist on the run.
“The nature of the show right from the start was don’t get too comfortable with who and what we are,” he says. “I think it’s healthy for a show to turn things on their ears.”
To understand the move, it’s important to understand Spader’s attachment to the role. Throughout his career, Spader has played a wide swath of sociopathic bros (Pretty in Pink, Less Than Zero, Boston Legal), deviants (Crash, Secretary) and eccentric geniuses (The Office, Avengers: Age of Ultron), but as the Blacklist’s Americanized Bond villain Raymond Reddington, he is finally able to combine them all in a glorious, hammy pulp.
“There are times where I feel he’s a good person who is capable of very, very bad things, and there are other times where I think he’s a bad person who’s capable very, very good things. But I’m not so sure whether it matters ultimately,” he says of Reddington. “That gets into a level of morality that I’m not so sure I’m interested in.
“This show has been able to successfully capture, in many different ways, a lot of what I was looking for in a television series that came next,” he says some seven seconds later. “I still see the capacity for surprise, for real questions that you have a compulsion for an answer and, to me, that’s what I think is important. I’m still interested and I’m still curious. I feel like I’ll still be interested and curious as long as the audience is and vice-a-versa. That’s my litmus test for the show.”
Put in the context of feeling that moment of doubt on his trip to London, Spader says he views his role on The Blacklist as one with a greater purpose than his own comfort level.
“Doing a television show, I don’t think (in terms of my enjoyment); I think of a television show as accomplishing something. Some of it is fun along the way, but what I’m trying to say is that doing a television show is an undertaking.
“I used to think that doing a film was, but then I did a couple of television shows and I realize that’s what a television show is, and I find that undertaking compelling. Maybe I’m a masochist.”
I feel like I’ll still be interested and curious as long as the audience is