Flood is ‘Crossing Lines’ for NBC
It’s a beautiful June day in Richmond, Va., and Dublin-born actor Richard Flood is hard at work, playing Kenneth O’Donnell, boyhood friend of President John F. Kennedy (Rob Lowe) in National Geographic Channel’s “Killing Kennedy,” airing in November.
But American audiences haven’t had to wait that long to get a look at the dark-haired, blue-eyed Flood, since he’s one of the ensemble cast of the NBC’s “Crossing Lines” starring Donald Sutherland.
Flood plays Tommy McConnel in the Sunday drama about an elite international team of crime fighters going after transnational bad guys.
“He’s Northern Irish,” says Flood during a break in filming on the grounds of the Virginia governor’s mansion, “but his background is he’s a Traveler. The na- ture of their lives is they travel all over.
“He’s interesting because he’s a bare-knuckle boxer. He’s run into a lot of trouble and ended up being coaxed to join the police. But his own background – his family are unsavory to say the least.
“So, yeah, he’s got some issues there in his background. He gets brought into this team, because he’s totally estranged from his family. But he finds a way to operate within that team, as a family. He’s totally out of his comfort zone, but he finds his level and finds a lot more than he thought he would.”
Flood also wanted to be believable as a boxer and a gun-toting law officer.
“I had to put on a bit of weight,” he says, “and do boxing training. My character is a specialist in weapons and tactics, so there was a lot of gun training, a bit of fighting.
“(Boxers have) a certain fearlessness, a physical fearlessness anyway, with anybody you come across or anybody you talk to. You feel physically comfortable in front of anybody.”
As for his gun skills, Flood says, “I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but they’re all right. I can do righthanded, left-handed, two-handed, two guns. It was fun.”
Birthplace: Dublin, but has lived in London and is now based in Los Angeles
Film cred: “Three Wise Women” (2010), “Solo”
TV cred: “Titanic: Blood and Steel,” “Deirdre of the Sorrows”
Stage cred: “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Lobster,” “Vantastic,” “The Rubenstein Kiss,” “Starving,” “Don Juan,” “The Freedom of the City,” “DruidSynge”