Chris: Let's
switch over to Clay. Clay's a villainous prick and sometimes we forget how
miserable a bastard he really is, but the actions this season cemented his
place in the TV bad guy hall of shame. It was amazing to watch and I can tell
that even though it was so brutal, Ron Perlman was probably having the time of
his life. Did you feel that Clay needed some more menace? Having him hit such
lows is much more powerful when Jax was forced to keep him alive. Clay had to
go to save SAMCRO but now he's the only thing keeping it alive. It's awesome.
Kurt: It's very
funny, I know what motivates Clay. I know his backstory and I understand who
Clay is and his ability to compartmentalize that soldier/killer mentality. I
know he's done some despicable things, but even I was surprised at the reaction
of fans that everyone just wanted this fucking guy dead and I was like "oh wow,
yeah, I guess he is pretty despicable." Again, it's like as Ron would tell you,
you never feel like your character deserves to die. You always have the
justification; you always have what you think you're motivated by. As the voice
of the character, as I write it I do feel that way. I understand why he does
the things he does and as despicable as they are, there's a method behind the
madness. There's an underlying pain that motivates everything he does. Ron made such an interesting choice. It
wasn't in the script that he and Gemma were across the lot that way in Episode
11 or 12 and she shuts the door. And he walks back in the club house and Ron's
crying. I realize that was such an interesting choice because the sad part is
for Clay he just doesn't have the self-awareness or the skills as a human being
to even fix things now if he wanted to.
Like, he just doesn't have the capacity to go "You know what? I really
fucked up. I'm sorry." It's just not who he is and there was an interesting
sadness and vulnerability that he played in those moments and to me, that
humanized him and just makes sense. For me, in terms of what happened with he
and Jax, it was such a huge reveal for Jax and such a huge betrayal that to me,
it was a waste to have Jax get that information and then 4 or 5 scenes later,
kill Clay. You have this great moment
and you ultimately put out the fire before you really allow it to burn. If Jax
avenges his father's death, that story really is over. And I know I didn't want
to do that. I keep using the example that in The Shield, Season 6 or 7 we had Vic find out that Shane was
responsible for Lem's death and we got to play out a whole season with both of
them aware of that. They wanted each other dead but they had to suit up and
work with each other every fucking
day. And nobody could know the secret. To me, I want to borrow a little from
that and play that out for a couple seasons. What does it look when these two
guys now have to sit at the other end of the table of each other and they're
the only ones that know the secret. How does that play out? What happens when
they're out on something and they need to have each other's backs? Do they
trust each other? To me, that's really fertile ground for story that I just
didn't want to waste by putting a bullet in the guy's head.
