Seamus Dever plays homicide Detective Kevin Ryan on ABC’s beloved, CASTLE. Through the years we’ve watched his character work alongside Castle and Beckett to help solve some of New York’s most interesting and dangerous homicide cases. I caught up with Dever about his initial reaction to reading the Pilot, his favorite scenes over the years, and what we can look forward to when Castle returns with new episodes on April 20th.
What was your initial reaction to reading the Pilot? What do you remember about those early stages of the show?
Seamus Dever: The circumstances when I got on the show were that the show already got picked up and that they had already shot a presentation Pilot, which was like a 32-minute version of the Pilot of CASTLE. The show was very committed to being on the air, so for me, knowing this was there was even better because you don’t have to go through that whole silly process of waiting for it to get picked up and all of those things that happen in Hollywood. (Laughs) We basically finished all ten of our episodes for the first season before we ever aired, so the idea of are we going to be a hit and are we going to premiere that was still very nerve wracking, because we did it and now we have ten of them. (Laughs)
Looking back at those early seasons with Beckett (Stana Katic) and Castle, (Nathan Fillion) did you think they would end up where they are today?
Yeah, didn’t everybody! (Laughs) I mean that’s where they where headed it was just a matter of how long would it take. I think everyone thought they were headed in that direction.
How was shooting the dance number with Jon (Huertas)?
It was great, I feel a little bummed because the audience didn’t get to see the entire routine, they did some tricky editing where they show a little bit here and there. The whole thing was about a minute and ten seconds and it was good. It was fun to do and Jon had a good point, when we finished it he said, “How many one hour shows are there with guys our age who could have pulled that off?” So we felt pretty proud of the fact that we did something kind of cool. It was tough; it was not easy and had been quite a while since I’ve done any kind of dance. It was fun and I’m glad we did it.
You and Jon have so many great scenes together, what have been some of your favorite to shoot?
There are so many of them! The doughnut-wrestling scene was pretty good. There was a great scene that we did in the café in “The Wild Rover.” Originally Stana was supposed to be in it but she was sick that day and couldn’t film and so we did this whole thing where we turned it into a scene that was just me and Jon. We made it work and it actually turned out a little bit cooler than if it was the three of us, so many scenes. I was watching all of the stuff that we did with the 70’s episode, the little scenes with Jon Polito were pretty damn good.
What can you tell us about CASTLE’s April 20th return?
I think we finally find out about where Castle was. It’s revealed a little bit more what Castle was doing and why we haven’t heard about it. It’s very interesting, the audience is going to keep guessing the entire time and they are not going to know where it’s going, I think they’re going to be surprised. I was surprised; I was like, “What? Really?!?” That always happens in CASTLE, there’s a lot of twists and turns and this episode is no exception.
If you could put Kevin on any other show on ABC what show would you put him on?
(Laughs) I would put him on MODERN FAMILY. Maybe he’s a neighbor that moved in next to Steve Zahn’s character and maybe he’s a cop who catches him dealing pot. I don’t know, we’ll see. (Laughs)
Catch Seamus on CASTLE at 10PM EST on ABC. New episodes return April 20th