FULLY LOADED
DAMON WAYANS AND CLAYNE CRAWFORD FILL US IN ON THE LETHAL WEAPON FINALE…
though I know what I’m doing!” Although it’s an action show, Trish and Maureen have mostly been kept away from the major dangers – but Jordana and Keesha are hoping they can kick some ass in season two. “We keep pitching for us to do our action piece!” chuckles Keesha. “We get ‘action envy’, and I don’t know how they’re going to work it in, but we want them to. We’ve been coming up with ideas – today alone we came up with 10!”
Turning movies into TV shows has been a bit of a trend in the States of late, and while some of them have struggled to make an impact, we’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the adaptation of Lethal Weapon.
Not only has it delivered a small-screen action movie experience week in, week out, but it’s also put a lot of warmth and heart into the process.
One thing that has helped the show to break through is the easy chemistry between leading actors Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans, who play detectives Riggs and Murtaugh. Inside TV was lucky enough to snag an interview with the stars during their recent visit to the UK, and we’re happy to confirm that they’re just as full of jokes and banter off screen…
“We’re lucky – we just get each other,” grins Clayne. “The same things made us giggle, and we’d get to laughing where we had tears running down our faces, like genuine, ‘I can’t do anything, just for a minute’ kind of laughter, then we knew that was it. That is chemistry, that is friendship, that’s, ‘Hey, let’s exchange numbers, we should hang out sometime’.”
“I came on to the show first,” recalls Damon, “and I did some readings with other actors who were trying to do, to some degree, an impression of Mel Gibson. And then, at the last minute, they told me about this guy and we had a meeting and I was like, ‘He’s a great actor’. We just kind of hit it off and went to a basketball game, and the rest is season one!”
One of the big ongoing plots of the first season has been Riggs trying to come to terms with the death of his wife Miranda back in the pilot. This week’s finale brings that story full circle as Riggs thinks he’s found the man responsible for what happened to his wife – and Murtaugh is worried about what his partner might do.
“What’s really exciting is that the last three episodes are all tied together,” Clayne tells us. “Each episode of the show can stand alone, but the last three all really play together and it’s a nice build – and the unravelling is really exciting to watch.”
The show hasn’t scrimped on the stunts – but how much of what we see of those stunt sequences actually involves Clayne and Damon?
“We have the opportunity to do as much as we want,” reveals Damon. “Clayne chooses to do all he can. I have a limit, which is if I think I’m going to get hurt, I’m not going to do it. I’m too old for that!”
OTHER ACTORS TRIED TO DO AN IMPRESSION OF MEL GIBSON” DAMON