The crime drama genre is one that never gets stale. Aside from long- running favourites, gritty pioneering offerings like The Bridge, Crossing Lines and True Detective are currying favour with fans. Debashine Thangevelo looks at where Those Who Kill slots in with Chloë Sevigny and James D’Arcy in the lead…
WHILE Chloë Sevigny’s career has been monopolised by the big screen projects, she has stolen time away to leave her mark on the small screen with Big Love, American Horror Story: Asylum among several other guest appearances.
This time, she is in the spotlight for her role as Detective Catherine Jensen in Those Who Kill, which is based on the Danish series, Den Som Drœber.
Her character lives in John Luther (Luther) territory; in that she is unrelenting on a case, is dealing with personal demons (involving her missing brother) and unforgiving to the point of crossing the line sometimes.
Meanwhile, Jensen ropes an initially reluctant Dr Thomas Schaeffer (James D’Arcy) into her investigations of tracking down serial killers.
In a chat with Yahoo TV, she sheds light on her TV work to date.
“I feel like a lot of the times it’s hard to get money to make movies now, so often that that kind of stuff ends up on TV. Those Who Kill feels like (American) Horror Story, being a darker, creepier drama. But the roles couldn’t be more opposite.”
Expanding on her character, she notes: “Part of the mystery of the show is Catherine and what’s revealed about her past and how she deals with it. She is in a very dark place and is trying to figure out how to climb her way out of it.
“She had something horrible happen to a loved one when she was smaller and now it’s her life mission to avenge his death. She’s very focused – although she gets distracted by some men.”
Sevigny continues: “Desmond Harrington, who was on Dexter, is one of my love interests, which is not too shabby. But what I like most about her is she comes from this kind of punk/rock background – she had grown up going to all these hard-core shows and you see her in a punk bar. It’s interesting that this girl who was such an outcast growing up then joins the police force.”
In the next episode, Catherine awaits clearance from the DA after killing her kidnapper. Meanwhile, Schaeffer looks into Judge Howard Burgess (Catherine’s stepfather) for her.
Her favourite episode in the 10-part series is the fourth one, when her character delves into her childhood and how that one incident has been haunting her since.
Sevigny used David Caruso and Dennis Franz from the first season of NYPD Blue as a sort of blueprint for this role.
She notes: “They were so brilliant. It was such a brilliant series. I was trying to mimic their performances on Those Who Kill.”
Meanwhile, D’Arcy, who has quite a manic movie schedule, chatted to Collider.com about his character’s influence on the storylines.
He points out: “Schaeffer is trying to juggle the fact that he has an area of expertise where his methodology of approaching it is very un-boundaried and that has an effect on him. But, at the same time, he has a family that he clearly loves. He’s trying to marry those things together. When we meet him, he’s made a promise to his wife that he’s not going to work on active cases anymore. He’s simply going to lecture on cases that are already solved. And pretty quickly, he is drawn back into the world that he has left. He finds Catherine a pretty extraordinary case study, but more than that, he’s instinctively protective towards her.”
To slip into the skin of his character, D’Arcy used John Douglas, a prominent FBI profiler who wrote Mind Hunters, as part of his research.
With movies like W.E., Cloud Atlas, Hitchcock and Let’s Be Cops on his long CV, D’Arcy clearly enjoys switching things up.
Dark, dangerous and intriguing – armchair whodunit fans will want to check out Those Who Kill .
• Those Who Kill airs on M-Net Series Showcase (DStv channel 113) on Mondays at 8pm.