CBS has become the (nearly official) home of the hour drama. From CSI to The Mentalist and countless other hits in between, the Eye has perfected the art of the procedural and prospered each and every season by bringing audiences new characters to love and narratives to follow. The network's latest project to garner a huge fan-base and critical praise is Person of Interest, a crime drama with a touch a science fiction that becomes more intriguing as each new episode unfolds.

I recently got the chance to chat with one of the show's principle players - Kevin Chapman, who plays Detective Lionel Fusco, an unlikely ally of Reese (Jim Caviezel) and Finch (Michael Emerson) who aids them in their crusade to prevent violent crimes from happening. We talked about the joys of working with executive producers J.J. Abrams and Jonah Nolan, his take on his character and what it's like to be the everyman in a story filled with superheroes.



Let’s talk Person of Interest. I’ve got to tell you: in terms of hour dramas, it’s really, I think, the best one that has come out in the last television season. So let me just start out by congratulating you for being a part of it. We love the show. I think it has got a long life ahead of it.

Oh, thank you! Thank you very much. It’s got the right pedigree. It’s got J.J. Abrams. Jonah Nolan, who I think is just brilliant. His movies—Memento is just fabulous…

Memento is just unique. There’s nothing else like it.

I’ve never seen anything as unique as that film. That movie had me hooked right from the beginning. You just kept wondering, ‘Where is this going? Where is this going? Where is this going?’ You know? But yeah. To work with Jonah, and of course J.J. Abrams, and Greg Plageman, who I worked with on Cold Case. Greg...was a fan of mine from a Showtime series I did called Brotherhood.

Which didn’t have a long enough life, might I add. That was a great show.

You know what’s funny? I have more people approach me—more specifically in the eastern region of the country—they come up to me, and they’re like, ‘I just saw it online! When is that show coming back?’ And I have to tell them, ‘Watch my new show now!’

Right! And that’s interesting, because that brings me right into one of my first questions: you’ve played cops and detectives and these kinds of law enforcement roles before. Part of the question is, do you enjoy doing that? And also, what was it about Person of Interest, when it came along, where you’d be playing another New York City cop, that attracted you to it and made you say, ‘This is the project that I want to do?’

I’ve never played a New York City cop. You’re the second person who has said that to me—the second person who has interviewed me—who has said, ‘You play cops all the time.’ And I started to think…I did it on Rizzoli & Isles, I played a cop. It actually wasn’t even a cop, though…

You were an agent, or I think a detective, something like that.

But then I was an FBI agent on Criminal Minds…On The Practice, I think, years, ago, I played a cop…but I haven’t really done a lot of it, I don’t think. Anyway, regardless, the thing that brought me to this role, first of all, was the pedigree. You’ve got J.J. Abrams, Jonah Nolan, Greg Plageman, who I worked with on Cold Case. David Semel directed the pilot. April Webster, who has been a fan of mine for quite some time, and had been looking for something to put me in. When I read the script, I just fell in love with the character. And then I talked with Jonah Nolan, and he kind of laid it out for me. I enjoyed the sense of duality that Lionel Fusco has. I love to play characters—whenever I work on a piece, I never judge the characters that I play. I feel that, in my process of work, if you judge the character you play, it’s a recipe for disaster. And Lionel had such a sense of duality that I felt that this was something that I could play and leave to the viewer. You know? Let the viewer decide whether they thought he was a good guy or a bad guy. Because there are times that he does things that are on the wrong side of the law, and then he does things that are on the right side of the law.

What’s interesting about that is that he operates in this grey area, in this morally grey area.

Exactly! It was that grey area that drew me to the character of Lionel. At times, he’s kind of the comedic element of the piece. There are other times you kind of feel bad for him. It’s a character that has so many different levels. That was the thing. And as I said before, the series has the right pedigree.