Jack Stehlin Interview: There’s Nothing Clichéd About “Weeds”’ Gay DEA Agent

Warning: This article contains important plot spoilers about Monday night’s episode of Weeds.

Weeds, Showtime’s break-out series about a housewife-turned-drug-dealing and her band of eccentric friends and family, definitely likes to try to shock its viewers.

First there was the shock last season when we learned that gritty, foul-mouthed Captain Roy Till was secretly gay and involved with his DEA-agent-partner Phil Schlatter. Then, a few episodes later, Schlatter was killed and Captain Roy was vowing a particularly vicious revenge.

On Monday night’s episode, Captain Roy’s plans for revenge came to a grisly, unsuccessful end.

Recently we chatted by phone with Jack Stehlin, the actor who plays Captain Roy, and who viewers might also remember for playing Dr. Angelman on the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. [Editor's note: This interview was conducted before we had seen the episode which has genreated some controversy among viewers.]

AfterElton.com: Captain Roy is a fascinating character. It seemed like the death of his partner Schlatter changed him into something very different from what he was before. I'm wondering what you think about this character?
Jack Stehlin: He's so unusual in that there's nothing cliché about him. Even before the writers took it to the relationship with Schlatter, Till was already off the wall and unpredictable and cutting against the grain of the cliché idea of the straight, hard, law enforcement guy.

Which he kind of is, but at the same time, he's very unconventional, and that happened even before he basically came out. And then it got even more interesting, because the way we were doing it, I think, really went against all possible clichés.

AE: It's definitely in keeping with the spirit of the show in that you've got the lovable drug dealer. JS: Duality. It's the duality and irony.

AE: At what point did you learn that the character was going to be gay?
JS: Just right before we shot that episode. They called me about three days before, one of the producers, a friend of mine, Rolin Jones, whose idea it was. I think it really came from — I mean you never really know, because they keep such good secrets in the writing room — but I believe they wanted to think of something interesting for Till.

They were enjoying the character on the show, and if you're not really part of the nucleus, it's not easy to keep the plot rolling. By making that move and making it such a deeply felt hurt, it made energy for the character. It's just a really neat thing to do. I'm really happy it went that way.

I'll never forget when Rolin called me I was out on a headshot shoot, going out to get my actor headshots one day, and I get the phone call, he says, "Yeah, we got this idea. It's really off the wall. Really risqué." And I'm thinking, "Okay. Cool. Love scene with Elizabeth Perkins." And of course, it wasn't. It was making Schlatter my lover. Then we did the scene, which for an actor, gay or straight, doing a love scene is challenging. I don't know if you saw it, but we wanted to make it look like it was really happening.