Christian Kane

CHRISTIAN KANE SHOWS HIS MUSICAL SIDE ON ’LEVERAGE’

The actor talks Eliot, music and why Sunday night’s episode (9/8c on TNT) is close to his heart

On TNT’s LEVERAGE, Eliot Spencer is the “hitter” on the team – literally, he hits people if physicality is called for, but he eschews guns. Now Eliot is going to feature a completely different side to his personality.

Christian Kane, the actor who plays Eliot, is known to fans of ANGEL as duplicitous but courageous lawyer Lindsey McDonald and to fans of country rock as a much-respected singer/songwriter. This Sunday’s episode, “The Studio Job” (airing 9/8c on TNT) showcases Kane’s multiple talents and, he says, also cuts close to home on many levels.

Check out our exclusive interview below. iF MAGAZINE: “The Studio Job” is about the country music business. Did the producers just spring this premise on you, or is “The Studio Job” the result of conversations you’d been having with the producers about incorporating your musical talents into an episode?

CHRISTIAN KANE: This is something I’d talked to [show runner/executive producer] John Rogers about since Season One. It came [close to] fruition in Season Two, but they just couldn’t fit it in, because we had so many great stories we needed to break. So I think it was a little bit of me kind of jabbing him with the knife and saying, “Can I please do it?” And then I think the fans got hold of him – I’ve got the best fans in the world and I think they kept egging him on to do it, so finally he did it, and it made sense at the right time. And of course, [executive producer] Dean Devlin has always been behind this, so this is the second song [of Kane’s used in LEVERAGE – the first was “More Than I Deserve” in “The Two-Horse Job”]. This song is way more prominent than the song in the first season, but [executive producer] Dean [Devlin] has been a supporter of the music, and for him to allow me to play my own song on there was a generous, generous thing to do.

iF: Did you write the song for the episode?

KANE: This is a song that I I wrote a couple years ago. I really took a look at the script and I said, “Man, I think this song would be perfect. I think it’s saying exactly what we’re trying to say here.” And it worked out. “Thinking of You” is the name of the song. It will be on the [next Kane] CD coming out. But I’ve set it up with iTunes. iTunes was very gracious and very, very helpful in getting the song out for the night of the episode. So when the episode airs, the song is going to go up on iTunes, so you can get it on iTunes, which I think is great. You don’t have to wait. “L.A. Song” that I sang on ANGEL came out two or three years after I [the episode originally aired]. So this is really nice, because people can get the song directly after watching the episode.

iF: Do you think it helps that technology has progressed? Because I don’t know that iTunes existed in the form it does now in the first season of ANGEL …

KANE: It did not. And [technology is] definitely, definitely helping in a big way – it’s helping the artist and sometimes it’s hurting the industry. The hard copy’s almost a dead format. But then again, you were getting some of these people who would record a song and then just fill the rest of the album with a bunch of crap that you didn’t want. So I think this makes the industry and the artists take themselves more seriously. You can’t just put something out there because you’ve got a single that’s doing well. You’ve got to make sure that the whole album is great, or people are only going to get the single. So I think you really have to take a lot harder and longer look at your album as a whole if you want people to buy it. And I think that that’s great, because I think that artists are taken more seriously now and you get a good product out of it. I think in general, because I’m the artist, [that the Internet is] very, very helpful. I think it’s letting people get music out there who weren’t allowed to get music out there. I don’t know when we started making so much money in the music business that it really stumped some of the artists. [Before the Internet], what if you want to get a song out there? You can’t. Now you can. So I think it’s really helped the artist out a lot. iTunes definitely has helped that out.

iF: Your previous musical contribution to LEVERAGE was soundtrack-only. Do you perform the new song onscreen in the episode?

KANE: You see me performing it. I perform it, John Schneider performs it – we’re all singing it. It’s really nice to have John Schneider come in and perform the song. John Schneider is not only one of my all-time favorite heroes, I get to fight him. I get to fight Bo Duke. As a little kid, sitting in front of the TV religiously every night DUKES OF HAZZARD came on and watching this guy and just idolizing him, for him to come in and actually sing my song and get to fight Eliot [laughs] – it was a blessing, it really was. It was so much fun working with the guy. He’s a class act all the way across the board. It’s really fun when you meet your childhood idols and they really are who [you hope] they are. Tom Selleck was the same way. Sometimes you meet people and they’re nowhere near what you thought they were going to be and you walk away disappointed, but I’ve met a couple of people in my life who were the true deal and John Schneider is the real true sh*t, if I can say that, because that’s his Twitter account.

iF: You’re pretty handy with onscreen fighting. How is Mr. Schneider?

KANE: He hasn’t lost his stuff. He’s still got a really mean, mean right hook and a jab. He’s still in there. I don’t think he’s moving slower at all. He still knows how to do it. As a matter of fact, we went golfing a couple of times, just me and him, and he’s like – we were talking about his golf swing. He goes, “My golf swing’s kind of messed up because of the way I used to throw punches on DUKES OF HAZZARD.” And I was like, “That’s great, I’m gonna use that.” [laughs]

iF: You’ve sustained a few genuine injuries in the course of performing Eliot’s fights ….

KANE: This is one of the reasons why I got hired – this is one of the reasons why John Rogers championed me into Dean’s office and obviously it continued on screen. John knows that I do my own stunts, he knows that I do my own sh*t, and he knew that I could fight, so that’s the reason why I got the role. We’ve had some mishaps – yeah, I’ve gotten hurt quite a bit, actually, but that’s just what you get. I wanted to be Steve McQueen. That’s what I wanted to be when I was growing up and so I’m getting a real-life opportunity to try to mimic some of the stuff he did and I’m very fortunate to have producers that let me do it. I don’t know any other show where they’d let somebody do all their own stunts, especially a lead actor. But they’ve been very supportive. Who knows if that’ll change – I don’t know. There are a couple of hospital bills every year, but they seem to pay them and look the other way, so we’ll be fine [laughs].

iF: Alona Tal, who guest-stars in “The Studio Job,” says she was struck by the fact that you were around all the time to be helpful, even when you weren’t working, which she said is very uncommon for a lead actor. Did you do that because you felt strongly about this particular episode or do you do that often?

KANE: There are two answers to this question. We all stick around to help people out. I stuck around a little more on this one probably because it is an important episode for me, I got to sing and my song’s up there and it has to deal with some personal stuff that I went through. This story is not out of thin air – John made sure of that. And so that’s one of the reasons. The other reason is, we’ve been doing this for a long time and it’s easy for us to show up and do our stuff. We know these characters now very, very well. But when someone shows up, we care about the show so much that the whole cast sticks around. We’re always willing to lend out a helping hand or give a story point and say, “Hey, by the way, guys, I don’t know if you know this, but a couple episodes ago, we did this.” And they’re like, “Oh! So this is [connected to what happened previously].” So it’s really not just me, it’s the whole cast. We just love the show. We love the characters so much that we want longevity with this program, and so we’re very eager to lend a helping hand. I just really cared about this episode, so I was around a little bit more, but I didn’t have to tell [Tal] anything about acting – she knew exactly what she was doing.

iF: What was one of your favorite Eliot-centric episodes?

KANE: “The Tap-Out Job” was a big episode. That was one that took a lot out of me – I was fighting a real-life UFC legend, Matt “The Law” Lindland. He’s got a couple of inches and a couple of pounds on me. I’d love to have come in there all ripped up and looking like Rambo – I had to gain twenty pounds just to be able to wrestle with him on the mat. He had to throw me and I didn’t want to look like a rag doll. A lot of it was muscle weight, but I gained a lot of weight for that, so that was a very important episode for me, just because that shows Eliot in the ring, so I took that seriously. We’ve got a lot of great stuff coming up – I wish I could really sit everybody in America down and talk to them about what’s coming up with me and Hardison [played by Aldis Hodge]. They’re absolutely hilarious and they’re heartfelt and you see two characters – I mean, it’s basically Murtaugh/Riggs [the LETHAL WEAPON buddies played by Danny Glover and Mel Gibson] and it’s fun. We’re not even going to lie about the fact that we stole a bunch of crap straight from LETHAL WEAPON. It’s fun stuff and I think the fans of the Eliot/Hardison realm are going to have a couple weeks of just pure enjoyment.

iF: Did you do anything during the last LEVERAGE hiatus?

KANE: [MINUTEMAN and GOOD DAY FOR IT] were the hiatus movies – I did those on hiatus between touring with the band. I ended up going on tour this last hiatus from LEVERAGE with my music. We were mostly in the Midwest. I’m getting ready to do a radio tour. The day LEVERAGE wraps, I’m actually leaving town immediately to go do a two-month radio tour. I’ve got a single coming out, “The House Rules,” coming out the first week of September, and with that at the same time, Tim Hutton directed my music video [for the song]. Dean was gracious enough to lend us the cameras, and the LEVERAGE crew came in for nothing and shot on a Saturday. These guys wrapped late on a Friday night and came in on a Saturday afternoon and filmed this thing. Aldis makes a guest appearance in the video – it’s a great, great video and that’s going to come out with the single. So I’ll be doing a lot of music this hiatus, just traveling. It’s going to be so much fun.

iF: Do you know where you’re going on the tour?

KANE: You name a place, I’ll tell you that I’ll be there. It’s a radio tour, so it’s going to be for the stations, but we’ll be playing out that night at local clubs and stuff like that. We’ve got to visit L.A., that’s where I live. So yeah, we’ll be in L.A. When we go to L.A., we’ll probably be playing the Viper Room, because that’s our old stomping grounds. I’m basically going to hit every radio station from New York to Seattle to San Diego to Miami and everywhere in between. I’ve done it before and it’s just a fun time.

iF: Anything else you’d like to talk about?

KANE: [laughs] Man, I’m so excited about this episode on Sunday night, not to mention my song being in it, with John Schneider being involved, I think it’s just a great episode. It’s really heartfelt. I’m excited about this season finale that we’re getting ready to shoot, Dean’s in town, and it’s big. I don’t think we’ve ever done a bigger episode than the one we’re getting ready to shoot right now. There’s a lot of great stuff in there for Eliot and I’m actually just gearing up – right now, I’m just looking straight forward to that episode, because there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve got to get done that Dean’s really trusting me on; I can’t drop the ball on this one. And other than that, I’m just so excited to finally get out there and get my music out there. We’ve been working on it for awhile. Bob Ezrin and Jimmie Lee Sloas are producing my album; Bob’s done Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” – I mean, he’s a rock ‘n’ roll legend and he came in and he did me a favor and helped produce the album, so I’m so excited about the music.

iF: Do you see yourself continuing to do both music and acting, or do you think eventually it’s going to be one or the other?

KANE: No, no, no. I’ll never stop acting. This is my love. I love acting. I love music. They’re two totally different monsters. This is the thing – I can play music whenever I want to play music. I can go out in the street and play music and maybe even make a little bit of money. If I went out in the street and started acting, I might get locked up [laughs]. The acting and the music are two totally different things, and I’m not about to stop either one of them.