The season four premiere of TNT’s hit show “Leverage” is gearing up to air this month and Beth Riesgraf and Timothy Hutton, who play Parker and Nathan respectively, are ready to give the fans what they are waiting on.
Riesgraf’s character, a cat burglar, provides her with chances to do exciting things that feed into Riesgraf’s love of adrenaline. “I like a little adventure [like Parker,]” she said. “I like action, I suppose… I love doing the stuntwork I get to do. I think I would be a good cat burglar.”
Hutton and Riesgraf gave a bit of insight into some of the episodes in the new season, including two episodes that tell two sides of the same story. “Fans are going to be pleasantly surprised,” said Riesgraf. “We do a spoof on ‘The Office’ called, ‘The Office Job’ and we do two episodes simultaneously. Basically one is called ‘[The] Girls’ Night Out [Job]’ and then the next week, ‘[The] Boys’ Night Out [Job]’ will air and both episodes will take place over the course of the same night. So it’s going to be kind of fun for people to…wonder what they are missing or they’ll be seeing bits and pieces of clues and then it will all kind of click in the next week’s [episode], which I think is fun. And we have a lot of fun guest stars on that one, too.”
Riesgraf also talked about the season finale. “[It] is just phenomenal,” she said. “Dead Devlin knows how to create an impact…explosions and fights…people who are die hard ‘Leverage’ fans I think are going to love the season finale because it also calls back to some of the roots of the show.”
“[T]he two-part season finale–there are some scenes that I like very much…I enjoyed doing some scenes with Tom Skerritt,” said Hutton. “There is also…a show called [The] Boys’ Night Out [Job] and there’s an actor named Drew Powell [who was in season 1 in ‘The 12-Step Job’]…and comes back in this episode,” said Hutton. “I enjoyed very much doing some scenes with him,” added Hutton.
For Hutton, the best part of the series is seeing how the characters come together to help people in need. “[Y]ou know, at the end of the day, the scenes that I like the most are when the five Leverage folks are together trying to figure out what to do when there is a crisis,” he said. “When Plan A doesn’t work and we have to shift into Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, all these different things start to come up and you see the characters at their best and at their worst all at the same time. And those I think for all of us are really very enjoyable to do.”
Riesgraf said that with her work on “Leverage,” she has seen how her character, as well as the show, have helped people during tough times in their lives. “I would say we have quite a few people approach us at…conventions, online, whether it’s walking down the street or wherever it may be between the writers, producers and the actors and the crew, we all have had someone come up to us at one point or another and say the show has somehow…affected them in a positive way,” she said. “I’ve heard families start to reunite by watching the show…[a]nd I’ve gotten messages on Twitter about people seeing some content on the show and [say] they were in similar situation whether it was trouble with a bank or their house…and actually were able to go find help and do something about it which is pretty major.”
Make sure to catch “Leverage” on TNT November 27 at 9 p.m. ET/ 8 p.m. CT. Also, if you’d like to support more of Riesgraf’s endeavors, make sure to check out another project she has been working on aside from giving life to Parker. “I was asked to be part of a short film series to celebrate a collaboration between two brands,” she said. “WeSC is one of the Standard Hotels. So they asked me if I would shoot a short in the Downtown L.A. Standard Hotel and somewhere in there just [to] showcase the products that we had made for that location. So I wrote and directed a little short film and screened it and it is a part of the series.”
“I would encourage everybody to see it,” said Hutton. “It’s really, really special.”
You can view that short at wesc.com/thestandard as well as below the post.