David Giuntoli as Grimm's Nick Burkhardt. Photo copyright of NBC.
Working as a police officer is a tough and dangerous enough job, but what if you also happen to “moonlight” as a hunter of supernatural baddies? Three years ago, Portland, Oregon police homicide detective Nick Burkhardt discovered that he was descended from a long line of “Grimms,” an ancient order responsible for maintaining the balance between the human race and a race of mythological creatures known collectively as Wesen (the German word for being or creature).
For almost two years Nick managed to keep his other life a secret from those closest to him, although his job as a Grimm began to overlap more and more with his work on the police force, not to mention his personal life as well. His partner, Detective Hank Griffin, eventually learned of Nick’s secret after his own unexpected encounter with a Wesen. Nick’s relationship with his girlfriend Juliette Silverton was almost destroyed, too, by a Wesen. Now she and Hank work with Nick to help him navigate this increasingly dark and hostile world. Our hero also has the help of Monroe and his girlfriend Rosalee Calvert, both of whom are Wesen (a Blutbad and a Fuchsbau, respectively).
Last week, actor David Giuntoli, who plays Nick Burkhardt on the hit NBC police procedural/fantasy drama series Grimm, took some time out from Wesen hunting to talk with myself as well as journalists about his work on the show’s third season. The following is an edited version of the Q & A. Enjoy!
Most of the stories in Grimm are based on fairy tales and folklore, but recently you had the episode with the boy who seemed to be possessed (“Stories We Tell Our Young”). Do you like that they’ve done something different? Are you looking forward to more of that, or do you prefer the folklore-type stories?
David Giuntoli: Well, I think throwing a curve ball into what the audience is expecting is good for the show. Initially on Grimm, my character inherited this book with all these fairy tales in it, and that was what our episodes were based on. But as the show grows, as does the Nick character, you discover that some of these other phenomena that take place in the world haven’t yet been added to the book of fairy tales, but are now being added by Nick. So we’re taking other myths, folklore and stories that have been told and putting a little Grimm spin on them, and I enjoy that.
The first part of the mid-season finale (“Cold Blooded”) is about alligators in the sewers, which obviously kind of plays on a childhood fear in certain people. Is there anything that you were scared of when you were little?
DG: I was afraid of ghosts. I couldn’t handle the thought of them. But no, I didn’t have a fear of creatures like alligators coming up through the toilet.
What is the hardest thing that your character has been through or has to deal with so far in the series in terms of the Wesen and things of that nature?
DG: The creatures get more and more difficult to deal with. On every level, they just get stronger and stronger, and in season three, Nick deals with some over-the-top, resilient ruthless Wesen, like Krampus (Twelve Days of Krampus), which was pretty wild. We hired a gigantic guy to play this character, and when I walked onto the set and saw the actor dressed as Santa with these horns, I actually had like a visceral reaction to him. I was kind of frightened in a way and it was a disturbing thing.
I think some of the grossest things that I've seen on the show are the corpses. One of the craziest things I remember is walking on set in season one and seeing a “body” inside a car being eaten alive from the inside by live rats. The rats were pouring out of the mouth of this dummy. It was awful.
Overall, though, I think the most difficult thing for my character was the initial discovery that he was a Grimm and that there was this whole other world out there. It’s something we play on in the series a lot. Whenever anybody else finds out who’s not ready to find out about the Grimm world, it’s very delicate. Hank (Russell Hornsby) found that out last year, and later on this season, maybe someone else is going to find that out. You think you're going crazy, though, and that’s the most difficult thing for the character to deal with.
Nick, of course, kind of went through a big change at the beginning of the season with becoming a zombie and the residual effects of that. Are we going to see more of that in the second half of the season?
DG: Oh, yes. We’re going to be playing on this one for a little while. It’s funny, every time Nick gets harmed, he’s left with this kind of useful side effect, and we’re going to definitely be seeing more of that after the mid-season break.
Grimm seems to have gone from a niche show to a slow build. I'm hearing more about it just from people that I talk to. Have you sensed any of that growth at all in terms of people generally knowing about the show as opposed to just a niche audience?
DG: That’s a really good question. Yes. I have noticed that and I don’t know if it’s completely based upon the fact that the show has been on the air for two years now, so more and more people have encountered it.Our demo is staying more or less the same, but the total amount of viewers has been going up. Like this last episode that aired, it was the most viewers we’ve had since the pilot, which has been kind of a trend.
So I have noticed more and more non-Sci-Fi types, and I include myself in the Sci-Fi type, and more and more kind of middle-of-the-roaders coming up to talk to me and knowing about the show.
It’s been interesting watching everything that’s been happening with the Royals and Adalind (Claire Coffee), so as we move into the second half of the season, is there one person that’s sort of going to emerge as the villain?
DG: You know, the writers have done a very good job of what I like to call the slow reveal. Coming towards the end of the mid-season, we still have probably two or three contenders for the villain. A new character emerges and who is I’d say one of two villains, but we have another character who is one of the greater villains that we’re going to have on the show.I still place Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz), though, as a possible villain, and definitely Adalind, but again, there’s one more guy who’s showing up here soon.
Nick’s relationship with Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) had so many rocky problems in the first two seasons and it seems to be going just maybe a little too smoothly this season, except for the whole zombie thing. Are we about to see some more problems between them or are they going to live happily ever after?
DG: There is no way that they’re going to live happily ever after. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I can guarantee there’s going to be something thrown into the works here.
Earlier in the season when Nick was starting to deal with the aftermath of the zombie period, Captain Renard made a very interesting statement or question where he asked what the problem was with killing a human being versus killing Wesen. Is that going to ever come up again?
DG: Yes, It will come up again. It’s a very good point that somehow Nick never really thought of, but, again, it is a theme that will be addressed.
With Nick’s new-found super hearing and his ability to appear dead, do you think that this is something he will learn to control over time, or is it something that you think may put his life in danger?
DG: At this point he does not control it at all. He certainly can use his hearing to his advantage, but I don’t think he knows where this dead thing comes from yet. It’s not something that Nick can kind of just pull out of his bag of tricks at his whim. So it either helps him or it hurts him at this point.
You kind of touched on it earlier, but what’s it like now that everyone knows Nick is a Grimm. Is it nice that he no longer have to hide this from Juliet or Hank and the whole gang can work together now?
DG: I think the show is better for having several more people know about Nick being a Grimm. There are still some people in the dark that I don’t want it to be revealed to just yet. The show can never become a big happy family. There are responsibilities and dangers that come with knowing about this world, and as far as those who have found out and who are not either Wesen or Grimm, there are dangers that come with that, and that’s going to be explored in this season.
There’s a reason that Nick doesn’t tell everybody. It’s not safer for him, the more normal human beings who know about this. But I am happy that a couple more characters are in this circle, so to speak. I think it opens up a lot of new character dynamics where different people can interact with each other for the first time. And I love those big dinner scenes where we’re looking at gory, bloody pictures and drinking red wine and kind of discussing it from all these different points of views.
My question is one of those circular logic ones. The Wesen decide to hide from the humans, so were they shape shifters before they decided to do that? How did that come about?
DG: The Wesen rarely ever throughout history, and to this day, want to be seen by humans. They will, however, show their true form when it behooves them to be seen, such as when robbing a bank and they’re trying to scare the bejesus out of a normal person or threaten them. The Wesen Council governs such irresponsible behavior.
There was an episode in season two where the Wesen Council heard about bank robbers using what ordinary people perceived to be masks to rob banks. These were, I believe, Blutbaden doing this, and the Wesen Council got involved because if human beings start to find out about these creatures – remember the Salem witch trials – there would be slaughter and/or upheaval of some kind. So the Wesen could always be seen by humans, but it is for their health and safety to not be.
To follow-up a little bit on one of the previous questions, can you tease a bit about what’s ahead in the European side of the story?
DG: There’s going to be a big plot line that’s going on in Europe. Nick is not too involved with it, at least through mid-season, although that will start to change soon. So we have the Verrat and the Royals. These are all bad guys. The Verrat I see as kind of the SS, and the Royals, such as Captain Renard, and his cousin, Prince Viktor, who’s being played by Alexis Denisof, a great actor, will be having a major conflict overseas. Viktor wants to get Nick and have access to him, and he comes very close very soon.
Then we have the resistance. A kind of rag-tag group trying to overthrow the Royals, and we’ll be meeting some new characters overseas who are involved in that movement.
This season we’re starting to see increasing tension between Rosalee (Bree Turner) and Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) concerning loyalty to Nick, and you eluded to the Captain as well. Are we going to see Nick eventually lose two members of his support team?
DG: You'll see some wavering, I'll say that. I don’t want to say Nick loses them all together, but things are starting to get questioned, you know? For example, is Nick using Monroe? I just shot an episode where that’s like the central theme, and there’s a big falling out between him and Monroe. I think it’s kind of cool that this type of stuff is coming to the surface in season three.
How have you seen your character further grow and develop this season, and with that growth, what new acting challenges have you maybe also discovered with the character?
DG: Well, I think he’s become far more confident. I kind of decided this year that Nick is not afraid of Wesen anymore. They’re not something that’s going to scare him. What does, however, scare him to this day is what happens to his loved ones if he doesn’t stop the Wesen. That’s where the real struggle comes in. He also sees himself now as the only person who has like the “rare blood” to solve some of these cases. So the stakes are raised in a different way now. Nick is not afraid of these creatures, but he knows it’s on him to take care of these types of cases. No one else can figure this thing out because they can’t see anything that I can see.
I don’t know if there’s an acting-like struggle that’s comes with all that, but you have to make the decision of what is keeping my character so highly invested in each one of those cases, and that’s a decision I made. So the newest thing with Nick is that now is he’s very confident, but even more than that, he’s settled into his role. There’s no reluctance there anymore and, if necessary, he’s willing to go kind of rogue more often.
As noted above, photo copyright of NBC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
