chicagonow.com 12/05/2010

TIM KANG TEASES SEASON FINALE OF 'THE MENTALIST' by Curt Wagner

Tim Kang estimates that he's smiled a total of two times onscreen during two seasons of "The Mentalist."

Kimball Cho, Kang's character in the CBS hit from creator Bruno Heller, takes his job as an agent for the California Bureau of Investigation seriously, focusing on the task at hand--busting criminals.

"He's cracked a smile in the past," Kang told me during a recent interview, laughing at the question. "But any time he's in the work environment, you're never really going to see him smile."

Cho is the polar opposite of the show's main character, Patrick Jane (Simon Baker), a rule-breaking, wise-cracking mentalist who can read people so well he closes cases that stump others, which is exactly why Cho puts up with his shenanigans. As the CBI team's chief interrogator, Cho wants to gain Jane's powers of observation so he can apply it to his own work.

 

Jane, Cho and the entire team made up of characters played by Robin Tunney, Amanda Righetti and Owain Yeoman, will have to muster all their crime-fighting abilities in the May 20 season finale. Jane's nemesis and the serial killer who murdered his family, Red John, returns to taunt Jane by ruining his first date with supposed psychic Kristina Frye (Leslie Hope), who returns in Thursday's 9 p.m. episode, called "Red Letter."

The Red John storyline has resulted in the series' most dramatic and surprising episodes, and Kang says this season-ender is no different.

"It's going to be a lot of fun," Kang said. "We get to see who he is in a way that we haven't seen before, and it's fairly shocking."

And just in case you were worried that Kang, like the pragmatic Cho, doesn't smile much during the 16-hour days of filming "The Mentalist," the actor says he's having a great time.

"It's really fun," he said. "It's like hanging out with friends. The five of us enjoy each other's company."

Kang talks more about what's coming for Cho and Jane in the finale and Season 2, and how well he can read people in real life.

Tell me about Kimball Cho. How many times do you think we've seen him smile?
[Laughs.] Twice ... He's at work; he's not getting to the bottom of things very quickly, efficiently, responsibly. And so that doesn't leave a whole lot of room for grins.

Twice, yeah, I'd say maybe. How did you want to approach him and what did you want to make him be?
It was pretty apparent in the script. Bruno did a wonderful job of kind of giving us enough to [work with]. He wasn't giving us any sort of choices, but enough to where we could sink our teeth into it and actually make something, make a little bit of it our [own decisions]. I kind of went with that. And I just kind of took the ball and ran with it.

To answer your question directly, I think ultimately, he's the kind of guy that just is driven to better himself and always keep moving forward, just like he does with these cases that come across his desk. What's the fastest, most efficient way of clearing these cases? In this show that happens to be Patrick Jane, you know? That's it in a nutshell, sort of.

What are your thoughts on psychics or mentalists?
I know enough to know that I don't know everything and I'm not going to discount the supernatural because there is a lot of crazy stuff out there and I've seen a little bit of it. But as far as, do I believe in it, well I'm actually just going to kind of sit back and observe. I'm not going to say one way or the other, whether they exist or whether those kinds of powers exist or they don't exist.

OK. Well, Jane's deal is really not psychic, but he just knows how to read people, right?
Exactly, exactly. When we were just starting the series, that question was posed to us quite a bit: Do you believe that Jane has these super powers?

Jane keeps saying constantly, "There's no such thing as psychics." I think that kind of bridged the gap between Cho and Jane in terms of the way that Cho can actually relate to this weird guy. He is a self-admitted sort of observer of men, and this is something that I can use directly in my work to solve cases. So what I'm going to do is observe Jane and see if he figures something out, I'm going to see if I can figure out how Jane figured that out. And in doing that, that makes me a better investigator, that makes me a better cop.

I think there is a tremendous amount of respect for Jane, obviously not his shenanigans or his antics with the way he handles himself with suspects. But observing the things that he sees, the things that he accepts, things that he chooses to discard, I think was very valuable to Cho and I think that he kind of sees it that way.

Cho probably has a little bit of that ability to read people because if he's the good interrogator, he has to be able to read people somewhat.
Correct, yes, absolutely.

So how well can you, Tim, read people?
Yeah, I can't read shit. I'm about as gullible as they come, but I think it's gotten a little bit better. In doing this show every day, you start to kind of pick up on things, but I'm in no way hypersensitive now to anything like that.

Right.
But just as a person, as Tim, I think I have a pretty decent people meter, you know?

The most shocking episode, I think, was "Red Right Hand," with the attack in the CBI building. Can you tease a little bit of what's coming in terms of Red John?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. In the upcoming episodes, especially in the finale, it's Red John kind of toying with Jane. He can reach out and touch Jane any time, any time he wants, it looks like, and in fact, that is true. But he's such a formidable adversary that Red John's just not going to do away with Jane, because that'll be the end of it; it won't be any fun any more.

So he's going to rear his ugly head again and kind of tease him a little bit more. There will be a lot more about Red John that we will learn in the finale ... It'll be fun to watch.

We've met Cho's girlfriend and we learned that he was a former gang member, which I loved seeing. Are we going to learn more about his back story?
Yeah, yeah, I think in Season 3 we're going to be able to flesh that out a little bit. We only got a very, very basic introduction to his history. Even though the episode was sort of centered on Cho, it was a very basic sort of look at his background. But I think in Season 3, we are going to find out quite a bit more about his military career and his going from the gang into the military. What's the way to put it? The steps that he took to go from A to B to C. In my mind, he goes from the gangs into the military and he becomes a police officer and then ultimately, Lisbon recruits them to join her unit. I think we're going to see a lot more of that in Season 3. [We'll get more background] for all the other characters as well, so it should be a lot of fun.

And we're going to see more of his girlfriend?
I believe, yeah, that's definitely been talked about and will be addressed again.

How did you prepare for playing the role? Did you get weapons training, time with real CBI agents?
We all got rudimentary weapons training and [training about] to clear a room, that kind of thing. But as I said, we were allowed to do a lot of our own stuff and create these characters the way that we saw fit.

But the basic research, as for my character, he's the chief interrogator of the group--the chief interviewer, I should say--so I read up on the "interrogator's bible." There's a standard sort of text out there that in any law-enforcement entity, somebody that interviews or interrogates reads this book. I went out and grabbed the book and read that. [And I did] the most basic stuff, like researching CBI and researching the FBI. Other than that and the physical stuff, along with our technical advisor, most of it was just sort of done on the fly, because Bruno did a great job of kind of letting us go.

It was clear from day one on, when I read the script I was like, "OK, there's only really one way to play this guy." There's only one way and it just was kind of screaming out at me, it was this guy Kimball Cho.

It's always fun to see him and Jane together because you're never quite sure if Cho is annoyed or amused by him.
Right. And take that one step further: Cho's focused on his work and he is efficient in the way that he handles himself and the things that he talks about and how he talks about them, but there is a flexibility [to him]. It's interesting; there is a flexibility to that kind of a personality with the rest of the unit.

He's very flexible in the sense that he can have the same kind of conversation with Van Pelt as he does with Rigsby as he does with Jane as he does with Lisbon. Do you know what I mean? There's no personality clash because--I don't want to go so far as to say that Cho doesn't have a personality, because he certainly does. But he's without all that excess baggage. He is able to kind of be a little bit more tolerant and accepting of other personalities ... He has no hang-ups; what you see is what you get.

It does seem like he treats everyone the same, but whether it's equal disdain or equal respect I'm not sure.
[Laughs.] That's exactly right.

Did you expect the show to be such a big hit?
Not at all. In fact, when we were shooting the pilot, I was already kind of going, "OK, so we're done shooting the pilot next week, what do I need to do? I need to contact my agent, get one more audition." And then we found out that we were picked up for the first 13 episodes and that was a great surprise. I was like, "OK, so after we shoot these 13 episodes, I need to call my agent and make sure I got auditions lined up." And then it just went on and on and on.

When it started airing and we started to get the audience response; that just kind of blew us away. Not in my wildest dreams did I think that we were going to be in 15, 16 million households every week. So, it was a fantastic and lovely surprise and I'm absolutely thrilled.

Why do you think it's done so well?
I'm going to first of all say that the premise--it's Bruno's idea to begin with--is a big, big reason for that. And I believe another big reason is the chemistry between all of us. We genuinely appreciate, respect and like each other outside of shooting the show, and I think a lot of that kind of translates on screen. I think right off the bat we all got along.

Those two factors did it, because there are some good ideas out there that have just been dead in the water. Then there have been some awful shows that have done great because of the chemistry and the dynamic between all the characters. I think we are the best of both worlds.

Cho drinks tea and Jane drinks tea, but I'm guessing they don't drink the same kind of tea? Do you know what they drink?
[Laughs.] The tea thing was kind of dropped on me very abruptly in terms of, "OK, here you go, you're going to be pouring tea." I'm like, "Pouring tea? I guess he's a tea drinker. OK."

But yeah, I think the stereotypical look at it is, "OK, Jane probably drinks Earl Grey and Cho probably drinks green tea." And I'm going to stick with that.

What else does Cho like or like to do?
He likes to ride motorcycles; he likes cars. He likes motor sports, likes things that have to do with a fast vehicle, and we are going to get to kind of visit that a little bit in Season 3. He enjoys reading too. It's not all about kind of running around and chasing down criminals, although that's another aspect. On the physical side of things, it's like an organized chaos that I think he enjoys--busting into a house and chasing down a suspect. But at home, I think it's a little bit quieter. You know, sit back with Elise, with a good book, a glass of wine or something. Well, actually, he's not really a wine drinker; he's not a drinker at all. But, you know, just kind of kicking back and being quiet and relaxed.

Do you have any plans for hiatus time?
Yeah, I've got just relaxation plans. I'm going to just go on trips and kind of kick back. You have no idea the sigh of relief that came out of me and Owain on Friday when we were wrapped. It was a welcome hiatus; we were just all very tired. My plan is to kind of sleep; catch up on nine months of missed sleep. It should be good.

So, no work plans?
No, not at this point. There were a few things that were sort of on the backburner but they kind of fell through ... If something comes my way, if Scorsese is knocking down my door, of course, I'll do something like that.

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