James Spader (c.) as Raymond Reddington in "The Blacklist," with Megan Boone (r.) as Elizabeth Keen and Harry Joseph Lennix as Harold Cooper
James Spader says he doesn’t know if his character in NBC’s “The Blacklist,” Raymond (Red) Reddington, is the father of a young FBI analyst in whom he has taken an intense and mysterious interest.
“I don’t think so,” says Spader of Reddington’s relationship with Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) in the well-received new drama. “It would be too easy.”
That would seem to shoot down much of the early speculation among fans about their relationship. Or not.
“I can’t say for sure,” adds Spader. “Maybe we’re seeing an elaborate way of circling back to what was obvious.”
He does say the two-layered nature of “The Blacklist” is one factor that drew him to this show after a long, successful run on “Boston Legal” and a year in relief on “The Office.”
“You have new cases and you also have this larger thread of the relationship between Reddington and Elizabeth Keen,” he says. “They weave together and that makes it more interesting, I think, than just a police procedural.”
TV viewers, so far, seem to agree. The premiere last week drew more than 12 million viewers.
Spader’s Reddington is a supercriminal, a former FBI agent who disappeared to the dark side for 20 years and has now resurfaced, promising to help his old colleagues apprehend some of his more recent colleagues.
His main condition: He speaks only to Keen, with whom he seems very familiar and who seems to have a dodgy past herself.
While the relationship has already been compared by some to Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, Spader says that’s not where it’s going.
“I can see where people would raise the comparison,” he says. “Partly because of the visual imagery of the first episode, where he’s shackled in a chair talking with her.
“But starting with this week’s episode, that goes away. He moves freely about. And we’ll see he has a genuine relationship with her, though at first it’s one-sided.”
He was drawn to “The Blacklist,” Spader says, because it had the same balance as “Boston Legal.”
“It can be light and fun and just entertaining, and then it can get dark and serious,” he says. “As an actor, you enjoy that. It’s a nice luxury to play roles so different from your own life.”
Spader will soon portray another kind of life on the big screen, as the title villain in 2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
“I had talked with [Marvel Studios head] Kevin Feige a while ago and said I’d love to come into that world at some point,” he says. “Then this opportunity came along.
“I talked with Joss Whedon, and he said he really hadn’t considered anyone else. It’s a chance to step into another place that’s completely foreign to me.”
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