EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: PERSON OF INTEREST Star Kevin Chapman Discusses People's Choice Win, Second Season & More

I recently caught up with Person of Interest star Chapman, who plays corrupt police detective Lionel Fusco. The TV series created by Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight) and J.J. Abrams (Star Trek) recently beat out massive competition to win 'Best New Drama Series' at this year's People's Choice Awards.

Person of Interest centers around an ex-CIA hitman (Jim Caviezel) and a scientist (Michael Emerson) who team up to prevent crimes before they happen. The duo utilize a surveillance system developed initially to track terrorist threats, but instead solve crimes outside of the law in which the 'machine' deems less important by tracking down and either saving or stopping the 'Person of Interest'. Co-starring Taraji P. Henson and Kevin Chapman, Person of Interest is created by Jonathan Nolan and produced by J.J. Abrams. It airs exclusively on CBS.

Kevin Chapman has co-starred in many film projects including Clint Eastwood's Academy Award winning Mystic River as the menacing Val Savage. Chapman's also had memorable runs on the TV series Brotherhood and Rescue Me. His recent portrayal of the flawed detective Fusco, who may or may not be seeking redemption, on CBS' Person of Interest is his latest venture. The series is currently well into it's first season and is receiving critical acclaim due to it's clever premise, amazing cast and strong production team which includes Jonathan Nolan and J.J. Abrams.

Keven: What was it like receiving the People's Choice Award for 'Best New Drama Series' in a year that was absolutely stacked with great shows?

Chapman: It was great, we were so excited. We had a feeling that something was up when they had us make this acceptance video on set but what happened (on air) was Adam Sandler read that three page thank you to his teacher that chewed up everybody's time and that's why we got bumped (on the live broadcast).

They contacted us a couple days prior to the show and we were like, 'how can you be contacting us now?' They said 'you are so far ahead of everyone else that mathematically there's no way anyone else can win'. That was pretty cool to hear.

Chapman mentioned on Twitter that everyone who works on the show should get the award for two days, just like The Stanley Cup, although he laughed off that possibility by saying he's not sure the award has left the hands of CBS executives. He also went on to reveal that the show received an extra episode, bringing the first season's total to 23 and that they were filming episodes 16 and 17 during the time of our conversation.

Keven: Do you consider this show one of the finest achievements in your career?

Chapman: It's a tough call... I've been in some pretty successful films. Mystic River is a tough one to top. Being directed by Clint Eastwood and both Sean (Penn) and Tim (Robbins) won the award that year for leading and supporting (Oscars).

Keven: What was it like working with Clint, was he a quiet guy?

Chapman: He's extremely quiet and I've never worked with a more quiet director in my life. His philosophy is he hires actors from tape; he doesn't have them come in and audition for him. He said the reason that he does this is that he's an actor first is that he would never want to give an actor a false sense of hope to have them think that because they met him, they're getting the job. That's an experience that'll be etched in my memory until the day I leave this earth.

Keven: When you're working with Jim Caviezel, no matter what that man does, most people will always remember him for his role in Passion of The Christ... I was wondering if it was ever strange to be in these intense action scenes with the guy who played Jesus?

Chapman: I had known Jim in a casual way (note: both actors had roles in the film Unknown, but shared no scenes together). I think Jim's great for the role it's just that if you've ever encountered one of those guys who live in that world of Interpol or Black Ops or CIA – they're the type of people that if you say to them, "you've won a million dollars" or "your house is on fire", you get the same response. That's pretty much how Jim plays the character. They never get too high or too low, they live somewhere in the middle and that's definitely how Jim's performance comes across.

Keven: Because this show is so complex and has so many layers, do you think it has a decent shelf life so that it could potentially last five or six seasons?

Chapman: That's really a tough thing to answer, I mean look at CSI for instance. Whoever thought that CSI would last eleven years? Whoever thought Lost would last so long? I'm willing to bet that if J.J. Abrams wanted to keep doing Lost he probably could have done it for another couple years. With Person of Interest, this is a fabulous cast and that's one of the things that really interested me in the show and a great pedigree with J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan. I've been a fan of his [Nolan's] films for quite some time like Memento, The Prestige and of course the last Batman. That guy's gonna have a long, long career. The cast is great with Jim Caviezel, Michael Emerson and Taraji P. Henson. If you line the four of us up shoulder to shoulder, you have four very different individuals and I think it's a really unique and very believable cast.

Keven: Your character on Person of Interest is a bit more vulnerable compared to some of your past roles like Brotherhood [NOTE: he previously stated one of the reasons he was hired for Person of Interest was because of his run playing a mob boss on Showtime's now defunct series Brotherhood, as Nolan was a huge fan of the show], was it a conscious decision to go that route before filming?

Chapman: The character I'm playing now on the show is a far departure from the one in the pilot. The character in the pilot was more dangerous and mysterious but we felt that we needed to play the character with more of a sense of duality. You have Reese whose this badass and Carter whose this badass so I felt Lionel had to live somewhere in the middle of all that. He had to be conflicted but also he could be dangerous at times and be a follower as opposed to being a leader. We had to make him a bit silly and dopey just to ground everything. He's a guy that you can identify with maybe not on his morality but just his day to day existence. I mean you're talking about a futuristic show that's not so futuristic. Drive to an intersection and look around, see if you see a camera, they're everywhere. That is growing at a rapid pace and far more than people actually realize.

There are some people that feel their privacy is being encroached on and there are people like myself who operate from a place of 'if you're not doing anything you have nothing to worry about'. (laughing). It's a topic you can go back and forth on all day long and I think we're just bringing it to the forefront. It's a fictional world but there is some reality to it too.

Keven: At this time Person of Interest has not yet been picked up for a second season, do you know when you could potentially hear that kind of news?

Chapman: I have no idea but we're doing 15 million viewers a week, so I would be surprised if we weren't picked up. Les Moonves has been very successful for a very long time so I don't question his philosophies or approach to running his network. I'll show up when they tell me to show up and I'll go home when they tell me to go home.

Keven: I gotta bring this up, I noticed a while ago that there's a photograph on your Twitter of you, Kevin Bacon and one of my favorite bands – Steel Panther. What the hell has to happen to get a photo like that one night?

Chapman: (laughing) Paul Geary, who is a friend of mine and is a friend of Irving Azoff, used to be the drummer for Extreme and he's their manager. So Paul's in New York and Kevin and I have been friends since Mystic River and we both have a huge passion for music. There was also another individual with us, Jack Douglas. Jack produced John Lennon's last album and the first four Aerosmith records – he's a pretty legendary music producer. So the four of us go to dinner and Paul wanted us to see the band so we go to check them out and man what a great time we had.

Those guys gave us their numbers, T-Shirts, CD's – it was just a magical night. What a funny-ass band they are huh?

Keven: Oh my god, they're disgusting but they're so good. (laughing)

Chapman: Oh man, he (Michael Starr) said something so funny. We were sitting up in some VIP booth and he looks up and he says, "Is that Kevin Bacon up there? I would suck Kevin Bacon's d*** to taste Kyra Sedgwick's p****." (laughing). And I went "OK!" (laughing).

Follow Kevin Chapman on Twitter @POIFUSCO