James Spader: The bald face of crime

SINGAPORE — On Oct 6, actor James Spader will make his debut in a new television series, The Blacklist.

He plays a notorious criminal Raymond “Red” Reddington, who gives himself up to the FBI and wants to do a trade: He gets safe conduct if he provides the FBI information on how to catch nefarious criminals. But he has one condition: He will only deal with a rookie FBI profiler, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone).

Red, like many characters Spader has played, isn’t quite a straight-shooter. But that’s what appealed to Spader. “I like to look for real dichotomy in a character. I like characters that are very difficult to pigeonhole, that really have a great deal of conflict in their life and in their temperament,” he said over the phone from New York. “This guy is that. He’s definitely a very bad guy! But he seems to have a plan afoot (and) he may turn out to be righteous.

“There’s a strange honesty and truth about him, even though he lives in this very nefarious world, especially when dealing with the young woman Elizabeth Keen. And I’m intrigued by that relationship. And the dichotomy of that relationship with the rest of his life.”

This unique relationship between cop and crook is the crux of the series. Just don’t ask Spader what it’s all about - he isn’t giving away any spoilers. “That requires viewing the shows!”

In fact, Spader said he didn’t actually know where the relationship will go. “How that (relationship) is going to unfold in the series - I don’t know,” he said. “A lot of it has been unfolding as we go along. I told the writers, ‘I want to have as much information as I need to be able to do the performance for each of the episodes, but beyond that, I expect to be surprised along the way.’ That’s the fun of doing TV. So just as long as I may be two or three steps ahead of the viewer. I’m very comfortable.”

He’s also very comfortable debuting his new look: A bald pate. Yes, gone are the locks he sported in Pretty In Pink, Sex, Lies And Videotape, Boston Legal and more recently, the American version of The Office. And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that he’ll be playing a rogue robot Ultron in the coming Avengers movie.

“Nothing to do with that! I didn’t know I was going to play Ultron in the Avengers until long after I cut my hair off!” he said. “It really had to do with this character: His life is such that he has to move very swiftly and travel light, and it seems very practical that he could cut his hair off himself – all you need is a pair of clippers!”

It also had to do with the juxtaposition he loves. “My hair had been very long prior to that, and I sort of liked the idea that in that first scene, when he gives himself up to the FBI, my hair was very long ... in that surveillance photo in the FBI lobby. That was my hair, we took that picture and then they cut it all off. And I liked that juxtaposition of that photo with the long hair and then to him kneeling in the lobby looking entirely different.”

Read the full interview online on Stargazing (http://tdy.sg/stargazingblog)

The Blacklist premieres on Oct 6, at 10pm, first and exclusively on AXN (StarHub TV Ch 511). Subsequent episodes air on Wednesdays at 10pm.