Theo Rossi Talks His ‘Luke Cage’ Character Shades And Binge-Watching

Theo Rossi has lived in both worlds: the world of episodic television, spending seven years on Sons of Anarchy, and now the world of binge-TV, with his new role on Netflix/Marvel’s Luke Cage as Shades, a cunning Harlem criminal Rossi appropriately calls “super shady”

During a photo shoot with WWD, he expounded on how television storytelling has changed in his decade of success on the small-screen.

My wife and I just banged out Stranger Things in [what] felt like four days, and we don’t usually have the time to do that, but we’re so obsessed with the show . . . From my last show to now, we’ve become a binge-watch society, so everything has changed. We’re watching this almost like a chapter in a book — it’s like you can’t watch one or two [episodes], you have to watch all 13. When I watch shows now on Netflix, I don’t know if a character was on two episodes or 20, I just know that they were in the story. It’s very different — I think it’s changed the game tremendously.

He called his part on Luke Cage a nice change from playing bumbling, tortured Juan-Carlos “Juice” Ortiz on Anarchy.

“He’s the ultimate chess player, he knows what he’s doing five steps ahead. He uses humans as pawns in a way — he’s got this giant plan and he’s always moving forward. To play someone like him is extremely different because he’s an extremely cerebral character.”

Originally from New York himself, he returned after that show ended in late 2014, landing the Shades role “like five minutes after so it worked out pretty perfect.”

All 13 first season episodes of Luke Cage are now streaming on Netflix, third collaboration with Marvel following Daredevil and Jessica Jones. The fourth, Iron Fist, had its release date (March 17, 2017) revealed this morning. In addition, The Defenders and The Punisher are both in production, presumably for summer and fall 2017 respectively. A third season of Daredevil and a second of Jessica Jones are also in development for release in 2018. A second season of Cage is expected but has yet to be announced.

SOURCE: WWD (via MCUExchange)