Currie Graham on ‘Murder in the First’ Season 3 [Exclusive Interview]

Chances are, you’ve seen Currie Graham on at least one or two of your favorite shows.

Now, he stars as District Attorney Mario Siletti on TNT’s Murder in the First, and this season means a major struggle for his character. (Spoilers below.)

I had the chance to speak with Graham about his character’s struggle and what we can expect from the rest of this season.

In the Season 3 premiere, as Mario is driving and arguing with the wife he’s been cheating on, he takes his eyes off the road. When he does, he hits a woman and kills her, and from there, everything in his world spirals out of control.

When Graham found out the plan for his character, Mario, on Murder in the First Season 3, he was excited about it. “It’s such great storytelling. It’s a very compelling story, and I feel like it’s very realistic,” Graham said.

“I love the idea that one mistake can cause a tsunami of trouble, because all it takes sometimes is one little mistake for your whole life to come apart. That’s kind of what’s happened to this guy.”

This storyline is also a way for us to see something new in Mario, which is another reason Graham was excited about the direction of Season 3.

“Stephen [Bochco] had told me that they felt like maybe I was written into a little bit of a box — written into a little bit of a corner. And Stephen wanted to open up that storyline, and get me out from behind the desk and let me loose a little bit,” Graham explained.

“I was very excited about it. And it is a great opportunity to take a look at someone who is sort of, you know, morally ambiguous and how they deal with trauma.”

And the way Mario reacts after this trauma is pretty revealing of his character. “It’s interesting. He kills that woman in the first episode, and he feels a lot of remorse for the woman and for his life and his family, and yet he is able to compartmentalize everything. And the next time we see him, he’s clearly okay,” Graham noted.

“It’s a guy who’s always been the smartest guy in the room, and he’s gonna figure out how to get out of this.”

Graham also discussed what it was like to get into that mindset of playing such a dark character. “I think that we have to look at ourselves and go, is there a part of me, is that a part of Currie, that could be that person? And I think absolutely. I think there’s a part of all of us that can do just about anything when pushed to it,” he said.

“I think all of us in a sense have moral ambiguity. Do we all pay our taxes, do we all go the speed limit, do we all stop at stop signs? On a smaller scale, we all get away with little things all day long. And we run into a situation with Mario where he’s not getting away with anything anymore.”

“There are times when I walk on the set, and I go, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe how dark this character is. I can’t believe how he’s treated people. I can’t believe how he’s justifying things,’” Graham continued. “But you just do it, and you fall into it, and you go, ‘oh okay, I get it. It’s life or death. What would you do to protect your own family, to protect your life, to protect your livelihood?’”

As for what we can expect to happen with Mario throughout this season, Graham said it will be emotional. “I think that we’re going to see my character go through a very, very painful transition. I think he’s going to have to lose some of his hubris and some of his arrogance. And I think he’ll have to get a little more real.”

More specifically, Graham teased a bit of what we can expect from tonight’s episode, “Black and Blue.”

“He sort of drops the veil for a few minutes, and we’ll get a look inside the man who is really there. You’ll get a real look at who he is,” Graham hinted. “He may close it back up, but he opens himself up for a couple minutes on screen Sunday night.”

Murder in the First is unique in the way it tells its story, following cases through an entire season rather than offering the “case-of-the-week” format. Graham explained why he thinks that format is particularly successful for the show.

“I think the way people watch television is much different now. I think the idea we’re all going to sit around the couch as a nation and watch a specific show, those days are kind of over. And I feel like this show is great for binge-watching,” he said. “It’s like a long mini-series or a long movie, and I think people enjoy that now. If you look at the shows that are really translating into after-air viewing, this kind of formula really works for people right now.”

Of course, social media is also an important component. “I think the way people market shows now is to individuals. It’s literally cell phone to cell phone,” he said.

“We want it to reach out and touch each individual person. I think that Twitter, and Reddit, and Snapchat, and Facebook — all these different social media platforms have allowed the fans to reach out to the actors and the artists and say, ‘hey, we’re fans,’ and then the actors get to interact with their own fanbase. And I think it makes for a more intimate viewing experience. The whole cast livetweets every Sunday night, and people come for that.”

Graham also shared how much he enjoyed that opportunity to interact with fans and get feedback from them. “With social media now, people will tell you right away, ‘Oh I loved it, I hated it, I hate your character, I hate your guts, I love you. It’s immediate. It’s almost like doing theater where people scream out of the audience, ‘you’re an asshole!’ he said. “I kind of find it exciting.”

In addition to Murder in the First, Graham can also be seen in the upcoming HBO series, Westworld, which is inspired by the 1973 film of the same name.

“We shot the pilot a while ago. It’s a big show. It’s a big cast. It looks amazing,” Graham explained. “I got really excited. One, I get to do a western. I get to carry a gun, and it’s this crazy town where anything goes.”

When it comes to watching television, Graham said he usually heads to Netflix. “I just finished watching Bloodline on Netflix, and right now I’m watching Happy Valley, which is fantastic,” he said.

“I wanna binge-watch like everybody else! The only show I don’t binge-watch is my own, because I livetweet it every Sunday night.”

Be sure to catch Currie Graham on Murder in the First, airing Sundays at 10/9c on TNT. You can also follow him on Twitter and join him for livetweeting: @curriegraham