“I think in the real world you can’t really believe in heroes,” says Tom Weston-Jones in a soft British accent. “It’s nice when people have contradictions.” That theme is clearly central in BBC America’s first original scripted series “Copper.” Weston-Jones plays the lead role of Kevin Corcoran, a detective—or “copper” in the vernacular of the day—who’s recently returned to New York City after fighting in the Civil War.
Corcoran’s true passion is caught up in the mystery of his wife’s disappearance and his daughter’s murder, which took place while he was away. But he spends his days fighting crime and solving murder cases with the help of two scruffy partners, the intelligent proprietor of Eva’s Paradise brothel (Franka Potente) and a few old buddies from the war.
One of those buddies is African-American doctor Matthew Freeman (Ato Essandoh), who conducts a forensic examination of a murder victim on the sly as a favor to Corcoran in the pilot episode. That scene played something like a 19th Century “CSI,” but Weston-Jones was quick to distinguish “Copper” from the typical network-TV crime drama. “It’s not a procedural … the overall story will draw you in,” he said. “The writers want the audience to be interested in the people rather than titillation of a new murder every week.”
Relatively unknown on this side of the Atlantic, the 25-year-old actor grew up in Dubai and moved to the U.K. for school. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which legendary actor Laurence Olivier established in the 1940s. We chatted with Weston-Jones about the help he had developing his near-flawless American accent, what it was like to work with Potente (“Run Lola Run,” “The Bourne Supremacy”) and an oddly-named band he frequently mentions on Twitter. The following is an edited transcript.
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