Shemar Moore The star of new kickass action series S.W.A.T. talks to Donal O’Donoghue about bringing his A-game to the screen
Listen up, stand back and sound the trumpets, because here comes Shemar Moore! On the red carpet at the Monte Carlo TV Festival, with fans brandishing phones and bellowing his name, the former fashion model-turned-actor strikes a pose. He points his finger, shoots some ‘bullets’ and breaks some hearts. The star of S.W.A.T., a TV reboot of the ’70s show and 2003 movie, is the man and he knows it. In the nightclubs of the principality, he doles out hugs and kisses, lifting up the ladies and taking over the decks. On the dancefloor, people hold their phones aloft clicking ’til their fingers ache. Shemar is in town, Monaco, and all bets are off. We meet at lunchtime. Shemar struts into the conference hall in a combat green t-shirt and bullet-proof shades. He pauses to watch the preview of S.W.A.T. running on a loop on a big screen. “I’m here!” he calls as he assesses images of himself and co-star Jay Harrington do their thing, which involves lots of shooting, running and hanging out of helicopters. “Jump!” you cry, just loud enough to be heard. Shemar laughs. “HAHAHA!” he booms. “That’s funny!” And then he’s at the podium, saying “Bonjour!” and holding the microphone like a gun, cocked and ready. But the only person he’s likely to shoot is himself.
“I pinch myself sometimes,” says the 48-year-old. “I did 11 years on Criminal Minds and before that I was on The Young and the Restless. I look at my acting career like school. The Young and Restless was high school and then I knew that it was time to graduate, to take another step and Criminal Minds was college. Now I have the opportunity to be part of a really cool show, to be the lead in a show, to be a leader, to show the industry, to show myself, to show the next chapter and to dig a little deeper in what I am capable of doing.”
Shemar doesn’t just look the part, he talks it too. Beside him co-star Harrrington is largely a bystander as SM fields questions, every answer as big as himself. It’s not his fault that people are mostly quizzing him, it’s just the way the world is. Currently, he says, he is the only African-American lead in a major TV series (Shemar’s father is black, his mother white). He refers to himself in the third person. He shows us the tattoo of an American Eagle on his arm. “S.W.A.T. is my dream job, so much that I got it tattooed on my arm,” he says. He loves S.W.A.T., in which he plays tough LAPD cop Daniel ‘Hondo’ Harrelson, selling the show with the zeal of an evangelical preacher.
“We’re talking about Black Lives Matter, we’re talking about human trafficking, we’re talking about immigration issues,” says Shemar. “We’re talking about the Donald Trump years without talking about Donald Trump. We don’t care if you like Donald Trump, we don’t care if you don’t like him, that’s not what S.W.A.T. is about. It’s not a political show, but it is about what is happening today and about how the real S.W.A.T., who we are pretending to be, deal with dire situations. They have real bullets and real bullets are coming back at them. So if you want to have a good time and see a cool show, watch S.W.A.T.”
S.W.A.T. is Moore’s first lead role after 23 years in the TV trenches. “People asked me ‘Why would you leave Criminal Minds?’ It was because I wanted to grow. I wanted to see this eagle on my arm. I wanted to see how high I could fly. When I left Criminal Minds, it was all about ‘What’s next?’ I like comfort, I like money, I like all that stuff but none of that means anything at the end of the day. I need to feel challenged, I need to feel inspired, I want to learn new things, I want to try new things. And I landed on S.W.A.T.”
Shemar says he’d like to be as big as Washington (the actor, not the state) or Clooney. For Shemar, who doesn’t lack in ambition, this makes perfect sense. “I’m not saying I’m like them or that I am them but I don’t know what I’m capable of unless I try,” he says. “Once upon a time George Clooney was on ER and he was a big deal, really popular. So why would you leave all that money and fame? He took a chance because he believed in
whatever his next chapter was. Now look at him, one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Denzel Washington was on St Elsewhere so why would he leave that security?”
In 2016, Shemar left Criminal Minds. “When I left, my mother gave me a card that sits in my living-room to this very day, which reads ‘Leap and the net will appear’ and that is how she lived and lives her life. That is how she raised me. So in my life and in my career it’s always about taking chances. It’s always about growing, always about running through walls of fear. I just needed a break. I’m very proud of Derek Morgan (his character in CM) very proud of the 251 episodes of that character’s evolution. I grew as a person, I grew as a man and I grew as an actor.”
He is asked about the MeToo movement. He sighs, pauses and speaks. “What I don’t like is that it used to be innocent until proven guilty,” he says. “But now there are people, not just women because I don’t want to go down that road, who could say something about me, put it out there on social media and whether it is true or false, you’ve planted an idea in somebody’s head. So it’s tough to know what’s real, what’s true or what’s false because people have agendas for money, for fame. So for all the women who have been victimised, I’m so sorry and you deserve better. What is messed up is that you don’t know who is telling the truth and people are losing their careers, integrity and respect.”
Shemar outlines a possible scenario. “A woman can come to my house and have a cup of coffee at one o’clock in the afternoon. We can have a nice conversation, a fully dressed conversation, nothing sexual. But if she chooses to walk out of my house and call 911 and say that Shemar Moore raped her or whatever, the cops have to come to my house and take me to jail until they figure it all out. In the meantime it will be all over social media. Even though I prove it all to be false, people are going to think I’m a rapist because of the world that we live in right now. So in that way, the MeToo movement is scary. It’s very scary.”
Suddenly, you see Shemar differently. What he says about social media makes sense. How he says it, perhaps less so. Most people in Hollywood would not stick their neck out like that, except perhaps Shemar Moore, an actor in the prime of his career, who believes in where he came from and knows where he is going. “I know that I will act for the rest of my life because I love telling stories and entertaining people,” he says. “I need a balance though and I’m still striving for that. So the next chapter of my dream is a wife, children and balance.” He is the man and nothing’s going to stop him now.