Star of ‘100’ finds role in latest series via his fans
Few fans of Hollywood actors go to the lengths that Ricky Whittle’s admirers do.
The British actor’s supporters — who have enjoyed his work on “Hollyoaks” (2006-11) in the United Kingdom and “The 100” (2014-16) in the United States — helped him land the lead role in his latest project, “American Gods.”
The series, based on Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel of the same name, will premiere tonight on Starz.
“I have such a great affinity for my fans, and it’s my fans who made me aware of the project,” Whittle said.
After seeing a lot of Twitter exchanges about the drama, the actor dug into the book — almost 800 pages long. He hadn’t finished it when the show producers told him to stop, lest he be overly influenced by the book version of the story’s protagonist, Shadow Moon.
The producers planned to tweak Shadow into a more charismatic character.
“Once the casting was announced on social media and media across the board blew up, that’s when I truly knew just how huge this project was,” Whittle said by phone from Los Angeles.
Shadow is an ex-con hired as a bodyguard/chauffeur by the mysterious Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane).
Mr. Wednesday, it turns out, is the god Odin, and Shadow unwittingly finds himself amid a brewing war between gods old and new.
In addition to Whittle and McShane, the cast features, among others, Emily Browning as Shadow’s late wife, Laura; Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney; Crispin Glover as Mr. World; Kristin Chenoweth as Easter; Jeremy
Davies as Jesus; and Gillian Anderson as Media.
When viewers first meet Shadow, he is in prison. Thus, Whittle reasoned, the character is a shadow of both the man he was and the man he’ll soon become.
“Shadow really is blinkered,” Whittle said, “and he’s almost relieved after his wife passes away in a fatal accident. He basically has lost everything in his world and is drifting. It’s a story about his evolution from cynic to believer, as these fantastical things happen to him.
“He’s on a journey,” the actor continued. “When he meets Mr. Wednesday, he’s very much a cynic. He’s closed off. He has nothing to live for. He’s merely a leaf in a stream, drifting and being carried along by all these things. It’s really his journey to try to find himself, to grow as a person both religiously, in his faith, and in awakening to what’s
actually going on in the world.”
Such will be Shadow’s struggle — “that there’s too much going on in front of him that he can’t explain,” the actor said. “It’s basically, ‘How long will it be before he awakens?’ “
For many viewers — particularly Americans who don’t watch cult TV shows such as “The 100” — Whittle will be a fresh face.
He started as a model and made the leap to acting with “Dream Team,” a long-running British sports drama in which he appeared between 2002 and 2007. From 2006 to 2011, he appeared in “Hollyoaks.”
Venturing to the United States, he played recurring roles on “Single Ladies” (2012) and “Mistresses” (2014-15) before landing the role in the sci-fi drama “The 100,” which paved the way to “American Gods.”
Despite various bumps in the road, Whittle said, he considers himself blessed.
“How many people get to be a warrior, an FBI agent, a god? And you get paid for it.
“It’s unbelievable.”