Lethal Weapon

Season 1 M-Net (*101) 19:30 Action

Move over, Mel Gibson – there’s a new Detective Martin Riggs (Clayne Crawford) taking on the world of action cop comedy Lethal Weapon (2016-current, based on Mel’s Lethal Weapon movies with Danny Glover between 1987 and 1998). But it turns out 38-year-old Clayne almost passed it, saying that “I told them [the producers] that they should leave the franchise alone. But as soon as I read the script, I was hooked”.

Alabama-born Clayne swapped 1

farmlands for the big city when he moved to LA in 1997, but instead of acting, he did construction work. “I just wanted to get out of Alabama and LA was the furthest place. I got out there, met a girl doing a play and a guy doing a play. He got flu and she talked me into replacing him. I fell in love with it then and there,” he says.

Having played football in school, 2

Clayne knows a thing about taking bumps and knocks, not that his new TV bosses let him do all of his stunts. “I do 100% percent of the stunts. Except the car jumps. The producers told me that I couldn’t do those ones,” he adds.

He changed his first name from 3

Joseph to Clayne in 2001 and says that it’s a “really strong and original” combination of his hometown of Clay and a warrior ancestor named Clan.

TV fans know him as Mitchell in 4

thriller series Jericho (2006-2008), bad guy Kevin Wade in action show 24 (2001-2010) in 2010 and manipulative Teddy in drama Rectify (2013-current).

Clayne, who keeps his private 5

life under lock and key, has been married to shoe designer Sunshine Kiki Brown since 2004. They live on a farm in Birmingham, Alabama with teen daughter Abby and sons Joey and Colt, who’re both under the age of 10.