Mehcas Brooks : ifmagazine

TRUE BLOOD fans know actor Mehcad Brooks as Tara’s loving, angst-ridden and usually shirtless boyfriend Eggs. This season, Brooks can be seen more clothed, figuratively and literally, starring as lawyer Malcolm Bennett in ABC’s new legal dramedy THE DEEP END, along with Billy Zane, Clancy Brown, Tina Majorino, Nicole Ari Parker, Matt Long and Ben Lawson as members of a Dallas firm.

 

When Brooks is asked about going from TRUE BLOOD’s swamps to THE DEEP END’s suits, one might surmise he’s got an in with a wish-granting genie. “My last day of shooting TRUE BLOOD, I was trudging through the swamps in between Lafayette and Baton Rouge,” Brooks relates. “Horrible. It was about 103 degrees, probably 110 heat index. They called ‘Cut!’ and I said, ‘Next job I have, all air conditioning, all suits.’ Not a joke. It’s wonderful.”

 

We caught up with Brooks at the Television Critics Association press tour to talk about his jobs past and present.

 

iF: Congratulations on getting to consistently wear a shirt.

MEHCAD BROOKS: [laughs] I know. I was like, ‘Oh, all the buttons, huh? Interesting.’

 

iF: Have you played a lawyer before?

BROOKS: I haven’t, actually, but my father is an attorney and so I worked at his law firm in high school, so it brings back old memories.

 

iF: Good memories or bad memories?

BROOKS: Good and bad. Funny, entertaining, dynamic memories, but also, working at my dad’s law firm also let me know that I didn’t want to be a lawyer in real life.

 

iF: Has that experience helped you with the legalese dialogue?

BROOKS: You know what? It became kind of second nature for me in the recesses of my mind. I’d said [the phrases] all before, I’d read them all before, I’d heard them all before. I don’t pronounce them all correctly, but that’s what [technical advisors] are for and also dictionary.com is a resource.

 

iF: What’s Malcolm Bennett like as a character?

BROOKS: He’s somewhat guarded as a person, but he’s also glib and unapologetically dynamic. He’s always got the right answer, even if he doesn’t sugarcoat the pill, so you have to go to him and deal with him, even if you don’t like how he puts it. He’s very blunt. Perhaps it seems like he ignores feelings.

 

iF: And how does Malcolm fit in with the others at the firm?

BROOKS: There are only supposed to be four associates coming into the firm, and I’m the fifth associate. I come in a day late, which is unheard-of. Billy Zane’s character Cliff actually does all the recruiting for the firm, so he actually has to approve who’s coming in, but Hart [played by Clancy Brown] is the managing partner, so Hart decided to bring me in, because I was working a clerkship but my judge died, so there was a job opening, so I came in to fill the slot.

 

iF: Was there anybody in the DEEP END cast that you were particularly excited about getting to work with?

BROOKS: Oh, yeah. In particular, Tina Majorino, Billy Zane, obviously, and Clancy Brown I was familiar with prior to coming on to work. And Nicole Ari Parker, of course. I’ve seen her for years and her husband and I are friends, so it’s really good to be familiar with some of the cast before you get there and be fans of their work before you get there. But now I’m a fan of everybody’s. I mean, Ben Lawson – I think he’s our generation’s Vince Vaughn. This guy’s hilarious and also he can pull off a multitude of different emotions and characters. The guy is amazing. Matt Long is incredible. I’m really, really happy with the cast and glad to be part of it.

 

iF: Your character Malcolm comes in sooner than originally planned. How did that come about?

BROOKS: I begged and pleaded. No, we were shooting episode two or three and they were doing pilot reshoots. I wasn’t in the pilot, so I was planning on a nice little day off, and they told me, ‘Hey, Mehcad, we’re going to add you to the pilot, because you’re doing a great job and we really want to see you in the beginning.’ And I was flattered by that, but there went my day off [laughs].

 

iF: Did you have a good experience on TRUE BLOOD, overheated swamp notwithstanding?

BROOKS: [laughs] Swamp notwithstanding, I had an incredible experience on TRUE BLOOD. It was an amazing show to be a part of, very well-received, and it’s always a nice thing when people really appreciate the hard work that you put into something, so I could not have asked for a better run.

 

iF: Did you know Eggs’ character arc when you initially got the job?

BROOKS: I did. Actually, it was less complicated than that – he was only supposed to be there for three episodes, but after I auditioned, they asked me to join the show, so I said, ‘Sure.’ [Eggs is in the books TRUE BLOOD is based on] only for about three chapters, though. So he’s barely mentioned. He definitely exists, though, trust me. [Novelist] Charlaine Harris called me – it was lovely to speak to her as well. But the character wasn’t all that defined in the literature, so we got to make him up as we went along and I had a lot of input, and [TRUE BLOOD creator/show runner] Alan Ball is a wonderful person to work with, because there was a template for him but no back story, we got to create it and that was a lot of fun.

 

iF: What’s it like going from Eggs to Malcolm?

BROOKS: Turn off one light and turn on the other one. I’m a lot more like Malcolm than I am like Eggs. Eggs is not as smart as I am, Malcolm’s smarter than me, so I’m somewhere in the middle [laughs]. I’m nowhere near as responsible as Malcolm, but I’m more responsible than Eggs. They’re completely different characters, but that’s what you want as an actor, to go try your hand at something completely different and see if you can stay afloat.

 

iF: Any final thoughts on THE DEEP END?

BROOKS: THE DEEP END is my favorite show that I’ve had the pleasure of working on. It really is.