CASTLE: Tamala Jones Talks Lanie, Romance & Season 4

Castle is one of our favorite shows here at NiceGirlsTV, and it’s not (only) because Nathan Fillion is so darn charming. The women on the show have a lot to do with us tuning in every Monday night, so when we had the opportunity to interview Tamala Jones, you know we jumped on that! Tamala talked to us about what’s coming up for her character in season 4, why she thinks Lanie should start carrying a gun, and what she did on her summer hiatus.

NGTV: How does Beckett being shot affect Lanie? What’s the emotional fallout for her?

Tamala Jones: I talked to Andrew Marlowe and told him that with Captain Montgomery being shot to death and then at his burial we have Beckett getting shot, I think think Lanie is seriously on the defense right now and very concerned for her friend. I did pitch a storyline about Lanie possibly starting to carry a gun. She’s not going to cower down, she’s a strong person, so she would go to the defensive side where she says, OK, this is happening, so I need to arm myself. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but it’s a strong possibility.

NGTV: Now that Captain Montgomery is gone, you have a new captain. I remember watching Penny Johnson Jerald on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, did you ever watch that?

TJ: I did. I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, even before What’s Love Got To Do With It. I think she’s an amazing woman slash actress. I’m really excited to be working with her. I’m learning so many new things about acting from her, because she’s from the theater world as well. As far as her being the new captain, she is a very strnog entity in that bullpen now. She’s not like Montgomery at all. She’s strictly by the book. When you see Penny you’re going to be in shock, but you’re gonna love her.

NGTV: How does she react to having Castle hanging around all the time?

TJ: She doesn’t get it. She’s like, he’s not a police officer. I don’t give a damn if he was helping you solve a murder to begin with and he’s writing books about you, I don’t care. He doesn’t belong in the station. It’s giong to be a battle between her and Beckett, so we have to figure out how to keep Castle around. She’s hard core. She doesn’t have any affiliation with the mayor or any of those guys, she’s here to run a police department.

NGTV: So are the characters walking on eggshells around her?

TJ: A little bit, and there’s some rebelliousness in there. It’s like, OK, you’re the captain, but you’re new so you don’t know how things work around here and it’s up to us to show you. So you get a nice mix of you’re the new boss, and we don’t care. [laughs]

NGTV: How’s it going with Lanie and Esposito?

TJ: We’re good. You’re gonna see some regular relationship blues in the beginning, but it gets more intense later on. But it’s just regular relationship stuff. In the scenes we’ve had so far, there’s a murder victim who’s famous and pulls a Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton where you get out of the car we see you have no underwear on. We are surrounded by this and I think Esposito forgets Lanie is there and makes some, ah, comments. She has to get on him about that.

NGTV: It’s nice to see some characters having a relationship while Castle & Beckett do the will they/won’t they thing.

TJ: [laughs] Yeah, it feeds that hunger that you’re longing for somebody to get something done on that show. We’ll also see more about Ryan’s background and his engagement to Julie. There’s best man drama between Castle and Esposito, and there’s the question of do Beckett and Lanie get along with her, since she’s kind of the new girl being introduced to the group. We’ll see how that goes.

NGTV: Is Lanie out in the field more this season?

TJ: She’s definitely out in the field more. I just recently shot a scene where it was just Beckett, Castle, Ryan and Lanie. They’re starting to put her out there and have her more involved not just in the crime scenes, but in the whole detective work behind because it does kind of intermingle with the medical side a lot more this season.

NGTV: We haven’t had a good Lanie cliffhanger yet. Don’t you think it’s time for one?

TJ: I think it’s coming this season. I don’t want to say what, but Andrew, prior to starting the season, he said that was in the works and that they were going to be focusing a lot more on Lanie and her backstory this season, along with Ryan, Esposito and Alexis.

NGTV: Who else in the cast would you like to work with more? I’m thinking Alexis could use some more Lanie in her life.

TJ: That’s something Molly Quinn and I have both gone to Andrew and spoken to him about. All these things are going on with Alexis – she’s hormonally changing, she’s got boyfriends, she’s getting ready to go to college – and it would be great to step over to the sassy side and talk to Lanie about what’s going on in her life. I think that’s a strong possibility this season. And I would like to see if Lanie knew the new captain before she got there, where no one else knows who she is. You think it could be a problem to have these two sassy women run into each other, then you find out that they’re pretty much old buddies! I think that could be great, but let me tell you, they’re like ninjas in the night over there. We never know they’re around or what’s going on until we get the script. They’re amazing.

NGTV: Which shows would you like to do a crossover with, or just as a guest star?

TJ: I would love to do Dana Delaney’s show [Body of Proof]! She was on Castle last year and I loved her. That would be great to crossover as Lanie with her, but just to guest star, I would love to be on True Blood. Anytime I run into anyone from that show, I turn into the biggest fan. [laughs] I would also love to be on Game of Thrones. I’m not reading the books ahead of time, but Nathan Fillion is, so I have to tell him not to tell me anything.

NGTV: What other projects do you have coming up?

TJ: I did do an independent movie this past hiatus, and I really loved this project. It’s called Things Never Said, and Shanola Hampton (Shameless) plays an abused woman, and I play her best friend who is a single parent. You get to see the different dynamics of these women’s worlds.

NGTV: It sounds like a moving story.

TJ: It really is. You see a woman struggling to become something and being held down by this abusive man, and then you have a woman who had dreams, who had aspirations, and they all kind of left because everything is about raising this child now so she doesn’t feel that she has the same opportunities that Shanola’s character has. She pushes her friend to leave this man and pursue her dreams. I think it will reach a lot of women who go through that experience of being abused or who are a single parent, and uplift them to pursue their dreams.

NGTV: I know you work with children’s charities, helping give underprivileged children opportunities to pursue their dreams.

TJ: Yes, I do. Right now I’m working with Oxfam International. I just did an auction with them for a chance to visit me on the set of Castle and it went really well, so I’m really excited about that. I wanted to raise money for children starving in Somalia, and inspire other celebrities to do the same. I’ve seen what’s going on and it’s just horrific. Oxfam is working hard to help those children.

Castle returns tonight at 10/9c on ABC.