Interview: Andrew Marlowe Talks About Meeting Castle's Father

Things have gotten pretty intense on CASTLE: not only has Alexis been kidnapped, but she’s being held inParis. And as if Rick hasn’t had enough family drama, his long-missing father comes back into the picture in tomorrow night’s episode, “Hunt.”

I spoke with CASTLE creator Andrew Marlowe about Castle’s dad, why the time was right to introduce him now, and more…

ABC has been pretty upfront about the fact that James Brolin is playing Castle’s dad. Was that something you wanted the viewers to know before they watched “Hunt” or were you hoping it would be kept quiet?
Andrew Marlowe: If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t reveal it, but ABC was pretty adamant that they wanted to reveal that to the viewers. And so that’s part of the delicate dance we do — how much information do we get out? I’m more of a fan of playing coy. Having people speculate: is it possible this [is it], is it possible that [is]? But I have to trust in my partners across the way that they know what they’re doing.

Does James get to share scenes with anyone aside from Nathan Fillion (Castle)?
AM: I’d rather not answer that.

I’m not sure if you’ll want to answer this either, but does Castle go into the meeting knowing this man is his father?
AM: No comment!

For something you can talk about, you’ve stated before that you really wanted to wait until the right time to meet Castle’s father. What made it right to do this storyline now?
AM: The kind of story we were telling lent itself to it. And it allowed me to confront some aspects of who Castle is in a way I think will uncover some aspects of his character for the audience. So for me, it was a way of revealing yet another layer of Castle.

Will we learn if Castle’s father is CIA?
AM: I don’t have any comment on that. It’s absolutely possible, it’s certainly possible ever since that moment with Sophia Turner, where she said, “When your father reads about your death, I’m sure he’ll be proud of you.” So was she lying? Was she not? It will be interesting to find out.

Interesting, indeed. Looking elsewhere, will Senator Bracken return before the year ends?
AM: We’re not sure yet. One of the things we love about it is how Beckett’s mythology has morphed from ghosts that haunt her in her past to this ongoing dance she’s doing with the devil. And this notion of him owing her a favor, because do you ever call in a favor from the devil? Because it inevitably will have strings attached, but is there a moment in the future when you need to? It feels like a really wonderful, delicious card to play.

So it’s something we’re talking about internally — how best to deal with that. Assuming the TV gods smile on us and we keep going forward, I can tell you I don’t think we’re done with Senator Bracken. And [Jack Coleman (Bracken)]‘s such a good actor, and he really brings it in the episode. We really love that.

How important is it for you to have those underlying themes and cards to play? For so many years, you did have Castle’s father as this big unknown, and now we’re about to meet him. Beckett’s mother’s case was unsolved, and now she knows what happened. Castle and Beckett danced around their feelings, and now they’re together. At this point in the series, do you find it important to lay the groundwork for new multi-season arcs? Or are you happy to be free of that?
AM: I think part of the challenge is finding new ones. You never want to get stale, you never want to fall too much into a groove, you want to shake things up. I think people enjoy being in the comfortable groove for a while, and then they enjoy things changing and staying the same, if you know what I mean.

I don’t think anyone out there in universe would want us to fundamentally disrupt the show, but I think there need to be new elements, new secrets, new complications in order to keep the show fresh and interesting for us to write it, for viewers to see it, and for our actors to play the characters. And that’s the hope.

Source: GMMR