4400's Gretsch Under Pressure
Joel Gretsch, who plays federal agent Tom Baldwin on USA Network's SF series The 4400, told SCI FI Wire that his character gets pushed to the limits in the upcoming third season. "There's extremes," Gretsch (Taken) said in an interview during a break in filming on the show's set her last week. "I think Tom's getting pushed to his limit. There's only so far you can push somebody, and when you do get emotionally involved with the people you care about, you will go to extreme levels to make sure that they're safe and that they're OK. I think Tom is getting pushed to that level. To his breaking point. Like, 'OK, f--k you all. I'm going to take this into my own hands. You can only push me so far.' And ... what ties us all as humans, when we love somebody, you will do extraordinary things."
Gretsch was referring to the upcoming two-part third-season episode "Gone," in which Baldwin and his partner, Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie), deal with what appears to be the disappearance of her adopted daughter, Maia (Conchita Campbell), one of the 4,400 people returned from the future with mysterious powers. Gretsch was shooting the episode when SCI FI Wire caught up with him at Lions Gate Studios.
"There's never boredom as an actor on this show, that's for sure," Gretsch said. "They give you so much to do. ... The original thing about Tom, he's been given this burden to find out what's going to happen in the future, and what we're going to do about it and ... how [the 4,400 are] involved in that. So that continues. He's still dealing with his personal life with his son [Kyle, played by Chad Faust]. Last season, [Kyle] gets put in jail for committing the crime [the assassination of 4400 leader Jordan Collier, played by Billy Campbell], so [Tom's] dealing with that dilemma, and the relationship that he has with Alana [Karina Lombard]. So there's a lot of stuff happening. He gets up in the morning and has a busy day."
Does Gretsch know what the big secrets of the show are? (Producers have hinted that some answers will be forthcoming this season.) "No, no, I haven't been told anything," he said with a smile. "Which is great, because, look, I play an investigator, so it's easy. I'm investigating. I just go, 'Oh!' I read the next script. 'I didn't know that's where we're going.' So that's nice, as an actor, to not fully know. I mean, there's good and bad about that. ... But I think the writers, [executive producer] Ira [Steven Behr] and everybody, are very in tune, especially [in the] third season. They know us as actors. They know us. We understand more of the characters now after three seasons. They understand us and the characters more in the third season. So that's quite beneficial." The 4400 returns with new episodes this summer in its Sunday timeslot.