Talking With The Cast Of Mob City! Milo Ventimiglia! Ed Burns! Robert Knepper! And More!

Mob City is one of the shows, I’m really excited to see. It’s a noir tale of gangsters and classic bad guys looks awesome. And, like Erica says, when Frank Darabont does a show you have to check it out. I’m hoping to give it a spin myself.

Check it out below!

_____________________________________________________________________________

When Frank Darabont does a TV show, attention must be paid. The man behind The Shawshank Redemption and The Walking Dead turns his attention to LA gangsters with the event series Mob City on TNT.

Some of the stars came out to New York Comic Con to talk about this project and why they couldn’t wait to shoot someone!

Robert Knepper, Ed Burns & Milo Ventimiglia

As Robert points out, “Gangsters are universal. New York, LA, Chicago…” To give this story an original voice, Frank Darabont took his inspiration from the non-fiction book LA Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City by John Buntin. Darabont’s leadership on this project was the big draw for both Ed Burns and Robert who mentions “Darabont knows his stuff.”

The result is a noir tale that is darker and less glossy than other stories. Ed Burns, who plays “Bugsy” Siegel, prepared by doing a lot of documentary research since the overall tone of the show is “realistic, but also fun.”

Picture this: Los Angeles 1947. Infamous gangsters like “Bugsy” Siegel (Ed Burns) and Mickey Cohen (Jeremy Luke) and their associates, wily lawyer, Ned Stax (Milo Ventimiglia) and enforcer Sid Rothman (Robert Knepper) make their bid to control the city. It’s only the police and mayor (Gregory Itzin) who can stand in their way — not that their own motives are necessarily pure. But even within the police, there are all sorts of power plays.

Los Angeles Police Detective Joe Teague (Jon Bernthal) is assigned to a new mob task force headed by Hal Morrison (Jeffrey DeMunn) and under the jurisdiction of Captain William Parker (Neal McDonough) who aims to be the Chief of Police.

Yes, it’s an impressive cast of characters and actors to play out this layered tale of ambition and corruption. Simon Pegg makes a welcome appearance with an American accent in a dramatic role. As Milo puts it: “It’s such a grand ensemble, you don’t have to act. Just show up.”

It also helps if the men behind the mobsters get along. Ed certainly agrees and reports that 
they “clicked immediately which doesn’t always happen.”

Of course, they all are excited to be playing such anti-heros. Milo is pretty much resigned to playing darker characters “I’m always bad. I just look like trouble.” Robert, no stranger to playing bad guys, points out “bad guys don’t think they are bad guys.”

And Ed? Well, his response was pretty clear: “I’ve done so many romantic comedies I couldn’t wait to shoot somebody.” Playing a gangster is “a little bit of wish fulfillment” for him. “We wish we could act as a gangster does…that makes for great drama.”

While there are guns aplenty in Mob City, the focus isn’t on endless violence, but more about how the different factions make their power plays – which inevitably end up with dead bodies.

While Robert believes that airing this tale of treachery and violence right “before Christmas and it could spoil Christmas,” many may consider a new series from Frank Darabont with a great cast a Christmas gift.

Milo sums it up with “Let me just enjoy the hell out of this.”

Mob City airs in two hour blocks for 3 weeks starting Wednesday, December 4th on TNT.
My thanks to the cast of Mob City for taking the time to chat at New York Comic Con!

Comment below or email me at Erica@MikeTheFanboy.com.
For more adventures, follow me on twitter: @Cambear