CraveOnline: Are you currently in season on “Hell on Wheels?”
Anson Mount: Oh gosh, no. We shoot in Alberta which makes it impossible to shoot in the winter, although we did do the teaser of the first episode of last season. We went up for a few days in the winter to shoot and I don’t ever want to do that again. We usually start the season in late April which we’ll probably do again. We get picked up towards the end of the year, they staff the writers in December, start writing in January so it times up pretty well to be when we’re ready material-wise and when the weather is right.
What’s in store for Cullen when you go back?
Oh dude, we have no idea. I think sometimes good TV writing is about painting yourself into corners and then figuring out how to get out. So we definitely have that and now we’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do.
How far along is the railroad at this point?
Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Three years in, how close have you gotten to your costar, Common?
Oh gosh, Common’s one of my favorite people I’ve ever worked with. I think of him like a brother. I would do anything for that guy. We’ve had a really, really good time getting to know each other and working on this show.
Didn’t a storm come through the set of “Hell on Wheels” last season?
Oh yeah, yeah, that’s right. We had a really nasty flood, probably the worst in Calgary’s history. So the whole county that we were shooting in was evacuated. Much of Calgary was evacuated. We were lucky because we had planned a week-long hiatus around that time so we ended up only missing about five days of actual production.
Where do you think “Hell on Wheels” is going?
All I know is that by the end of the fifth or sixth or seventh season, we’re going to be nailing the golden spike at Promontory Point. That’s all I know. We’ve laid out logistics for a five season show, a six season show and a seven season show. It’s going to be up to AMC to make the decision about what they want and it’s really hard to get a network to make a decision like that. If the ratings are good, they want more. If the ratings are bad, they don’t. Right now we’re picked up for a fourth season. We’re trying to get them to give us an answer on really how long they would like this to go because you can’t tell a story otherwise.
What new layers of Cullen have you found along the way?
Oh dude, you’d have to write a book. I don’t really normally think in terms of layers. You live in the boots of a character for a while and after a while you can show up to work and throw those boots on and you’re there. For me, I had to go and really do a little bit more research in the reconstruction era and the building of the railroad. I read a great book by Stephen Ambrose called Nothing Like It In the World which is about the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. I looked at a lot of Civil War photos and I just kept returning to the script. In TV, the writers and the actor kind of find the character as you go along.
Are you shooting anything during this hiatus?
I just finished shooting The Forger with John Travolta and Chris Plummer up in Boston and it looks like I’m going to be doing something else in the winter that I have not completed negotiation on so I shouldn’t really talk about.
What do you play in The Forger?
I play a small time Boston criminal who used to pull off jobs with John Travolta’s character. He’s in prison at the beginning of the movie and finds out his son has terminal cancer, so he gets me to spring him and as repayment I ask him to forge a famous Monet and then steal the real one. That’s the setup.
Has the industry started to see you differently since “Hell on Wheels” has been on?
Yeah, I think so. For the first time in my career I’m starting to get thrown a lot of action roles, or considered for a lot of action roles. So yeah, definitely. I think I used to get a lot of roles, the good looking corporate guy that either she should she with, or the good looking corporate guy that she shouldn’t be with. I was just so fucking bored of all that. I made a decision a number of years ago that led me into doing Cook County which I still think is my best work. I wanted to start getting ugly a little bit. I was just tired of the beauty pageant that’s constantly going on in Los Angeles. So I moved to New York and started growing out my beard.
Do you keep the beard between seasons of “Hell on Wheels?”
I don’t normally cut my hair or shave too much until I go to a job and I’ll let them do what they feel like they need to do to me. I haven’t paid for a haircut in four years. In terms of shaving, I hate shaving. I really, really hate shaving but if I’m going to be going to any kind of event where I don’t want to be recognized, then I’ll shave and that keeps me from being recognized too much.
Why is Cook County your best work?
Oh man. I was really invested. It’s the first movie I ever produced and it’s about a very important issue. My part of the world, where I’m from in the south, is getting eaten alive by meth addiction. You should watch it. It’s on Netflix.
Hopefully we can turn some of our readers onto that too.
Oh, that would be great. I really am proud of it.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
