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Paul Gross On 1970s Nostalgia and Playing a Mountie Again on the New Series āCaughtā
Mike Crisolago | March 16th, 2018
Photo courtesy of CBC
What was it about Caught that lured you back to television?
Paul: Itās actually really simple. When Allan (Hawco) asks me to do something I usually just go and do it, because it has to be a reciprocal arrangement that if I need him heāll just come and do it, if heās free.
Itās hard not to like Paul Gross. The 58-year-old has a charm about him that exudes from every character he plays, be it a Canadian theatre actor in the early-2000s Canuck TV comedy Slings & Arrows, aĀ shellshocked sergeant in the 2008 war film PasschendaeleĀ or on stage as a philandering husband in the 2015 Canadian Stage production Domesticated. Try as he might, you just canāt hate him. Then, of course, thereās his do-good Mountie character Constable Benton Fraser on the hit 90s Canadian crime seriesĀ Due SouthĀ ā arguably his most famous role. Itās what comes to mind when he greets me at the CBC building in downtown Toronto one recent morning, his red jacket calling back to that breakout part even though his hair is whiter than when he last suited up 19 years ago, and the scuff on his face more telling of his latest foray into playing an RCMP officer.
The actor stars in theĀ new CBC crime drama Caught, based on the book by Lisa Moore, where his grizzled RCMP detective character is on the hunt for a jail-breaking drug dealer (played by Republic of DoyleĀ star AllanĀ Hawco). Set in Newfoundland circa 1978, the show features vintage costumes and classic rock tunes that call back to Grossā youth, while boasting a creative and aesthetic edge normally reserved for crime shows south of the border. By the end of the first episode the plotās already turned upside down, with more twists and turns ahead, while Grossā character, Roy Patterson, brings with him far more demons than his previous Mountie incarnation. And yet, you still canāt hate him.
MIKE CRISOLAGO: What was it about Caught that lured you back to television?
PAUL GROSS: Itās actually really simple. When Allan (Hawco) asks me to do something I usually just go and do it, because it has to be a reciprocal arrangement that if I need him heāll just come and do it, if heās free. But ⦠whatās funny about choosing to do things and not do things ā itās just a kind of an instinctual reaction and I felt really positively about the character. Plus, the world it was set in, and the other characters and the time period. Itās a big thing that was interesting and fun about the show ⦠itās pre-cell phones. We forget how cumbersome everything was.
MC: Absolutely, youāre waiting by a pay phoneā¦
PG: āOh, my God, I have got to find a pay phone and I donāt have any coins.ā And just simple things like, āHow do I get somewhere? Oh, I have to look at a map.ā So itās fun to actually return to that world and live in it for a while ⦠I think thereās a funny kind of thing about a show set in the 70s that has a weird sort of nostalgia to it that you start to think of disco. Except this is actually a gritty story where the stakes are very high and there is lethality in it ā people get killed. So I think thereās something really interesting about the collision of those two things, our sort of soft focus view of the 70s as a simpler, more innocent time and in actual fact it was in many ways just as rough as our own. And I think that maybe distinguishes it because usually [youāre] ⦠dressing up the period as being lovely ā a simpler, gentler time.
MC: When youāre around those characters, and the hair and the fashions, does it bring back memories of your youth?
PG: Yeah, it does. But I think one of the strengths of the show in production design, which I think is wonderful, is that it muted the kind of disco quality of the 70s into clothes that people actually just wear. The hairdos though were really spectacular ⦠[The wigs]Ā really are pretty horrifying. But there are photographs of Allan from a long time ago. He was a big mullet wearer in his youth, so I donāt think it was that strange to him to put it on.
MC:Ā Aside from a return to the 1970s, this show also sees you return to playing an RCMP officer 19 years after wrapping Due South. How does it feel to join the Mounties again, so to speak?
PG: I think the strange thing about the Mountie in Due South is thereās no Mountie ever in the history of the force that was like this guy. This was an urban fable. And so when I take on say, [the character] Patterson in Caught, it just doesnāt feel the same. And every part has different challenges that make it really captivating to do. Certainly had a lot of wonderful memories and a wonderful time doing Due South but this character was just very different. And one of the great perks of acting is you do get to put yourself into other peopleās shoes for a while, you get a sniff of what it would be to be somebody else, what that other life might be like. And with this guy whoās so haunted and heās, kind of, propelled forward by some need for atonement thatās even vague in his own mind, it was a wonderful challenge to take on.
MC:Ā Tell me about working with Allan, because youāve acted alongside him before, including appearing on his TV series Republic of Doyle.Whatās it like to star alongside him now?
MC: It looks like you guys hated every second of it.
PG: [Laughs] Itās wonderful. Heās built such an extraordinarily sound and robust business in Newfoundland and the group that he has around him that he works with are all wonderful. So itās like going back to a family.Ā And we together, as actors, really are pretty complimentary and help each other out. So itās very easy. We have an easy relationship and a kind of shorthand.
MC: And at least you didnāt have to wear one of the ridiculous wigs that he wears in the flashback scenes.
PG:Ā [Laughs] The really big mistake I made, in terms of clothing, was that we started shooting in St. Johnās. And it was covered in ice, in June, and it was still surrounded by icebergs. So it was cold. And I had this suit with a trench coat on. I thought, well, Iāll just keep this when we go and shoot in the Dominican Republic which was doubling for Mexico, except that in the Dominican Republic it was 40 or 42 (degrees Celsius) every day and this was a polyester [suit]. I never sweat so much in my life. Just 12, 13, 14 hours of non-stop sweating. And it was my own stupidity that allowed that to happen. Everyone else is wandering around in these breezy outfits and Iām just layered up in rayon.
MC: I guess, as an actor, you make good choices and bad choices.
Today was different. Today was the day everything would change ā hopefully, for the better.
Fraser missed Ray's call in BDtH and waits for him at the train station.
Hmmm ... ask and you shall receive, it seems. š„µ
Unfinished Business (7,650 words) by wishyouwashhere
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Republic of Doyle
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Kevin Crocker/Jake Doyle (Republic of Doyle)
Characters: Jake Doyle (Republic of Doyle), Kevin Crocker (Republic of Doyle), Original Character you might recognize if you are wearing your glasses (for C6D reasons) - Character
Additional Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Episode: s02e13 Family Business, Smut, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Enthusiastic Consent, Light Dom/sub, Attempts to write a Newfoundland accent
Summary:
Crocker was still a dick, sure, but ⦠Jake liked a dick. More than he was willing to admit, usually.
itās so special to me that so much of fan culture is textual analysis for the love of the game. like thank god there are people in my phone who are also thinking about this thing i love so much that they are writing transformative fiction as character studies and setting clips of the show to music with theme-relevant lyrics and writing long text posts analyzing every line of dialogue like!! yay!!!
this is going around twitter rn but im also super curious: please tell me your topĀ four comfort movies that youāre always down to watch bc my friend thinks mine are ridiculous and now weāve realised everyoneās version ofĀ ācomfortā is hilariously different
Allan doing Q&A with Nominees at the Canadian Screen Awards (31 May 2026, Toronto)
What is a piece of advice that has stayed with you throughout your career?
"Don't go back and try to fix everything you're doing until you reach the end."