NICE BOY OF THE WEEK: Brent Sexton

This week  our Nice Boy is Brent Sexton whom I had the pleasure of speaking briefly with last week. I’ve been a fan of his since Birds of Prey aired back in 2002. So with a little over use of the word “um”, a mid-conversation confession that this was in fact my first time interviewing an actor and his assurance, albeit while laughing, that I was doing just fine I managed to ask how he got his start.

Brent Sexton by Alexandra Dean Grossi Photography

Brent grew up in Missouri and after four years of college and a year at an arts conservatory he started traveling with a theater group. Acting being something he says he always wanted to pursue.
In the late 1990’s he chose to stop touring and start focusing on TV and movies, and he has excelled at it. Having starred alongside everyone from Tommy Lee Jones in The Valley of Elah to Timothy Olyphant in Justified he has made a name for himself as an excellent character actor.

Brent’s current role as Stan in AMC’s The Killing is a far departure from his recent roles as a lawman. Stan is an ex Polish Mafia Enforcer turned family man whose daughter Rosie is murdered; with the ensuing investigation being the driving force for much of the series. A series Brent mentioned has a good home on AMC.
Sighting a New York Times article about the difference between network and cable dramas, specifically The Sopranos and what they did for cable TV, Brent pointed out network dramas often have a crime of the week which needs to be solved before the hour is up. With The Killing being on a cable channel it is able to draw out the suspense and conflict over the course of an entire season, leaving many episodes with multiple story lines open.
When I asked him how he dealt with the strain of playing such an emotionally heavy part week after week he joked about watching Monty Python to lighten his mood.

Set in Seattle, WA but filmed in Vancouver, BC the grey rainy weather serves as a perfect backdrop for the conflict playing out on screen. As an actual Seattle-lite I find it interesting how often our weather plays almost its own character on TV and Brent sounded glad to be out of the rain and home in Los Angeles now that the series has wrapped its second season. Getting back to the sun, hiking the canyons and playing the guitar were on the “to-do” list before settling into his next role. A role he wasn’t able to talk about quite yet, but one I will be watching for.

Brent definitely deserves the title of Nice Boy.

Season Two of The Killing is currently airing Sunday 9/8c on AMC