Mark Deklin has been around the proverbial television block. With an acting career that has spanned more than two decades, he has seen many of his shows come and go. Now, hes starring on the new ABC hourlong comedy, GCB, which is attracting a solid audience so far. But, Deklin will be the first to tell you that he's well aware that the wind can change direction quickly in TV.
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Doing this show now, theres a part of me thats a little bit jaded, because Im not as young as I used to be, Deklin, 44, tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Ive been on shows that have gotten canceled, he continues. I know what that is, but Im optimistic. I feel like the people that are watching this show are loving it. Were getting great fan response. Ive been really touched by the response that Blake and Cricket are getting. People have really embraced this relationship in a way that I didnt expect and its very moving, very touching. So Im hopeful that were going to be around for a few years.
Decklin plays a complicated character on GCB. Blake is gay and in the closet, but his wife Cricket (Miram Shor) is in on the secret. And what weve learned in recent episodes is that the arrangement isnt unheard of in the South and even has a name: A white marriage.
I dont know where things are headed, but I do know in this season what people have really been fascinated by, he says. Because the truth is weve seen gay couples, weve seen gay lifestyles on TV. Thats not new. But seeing a closeted white marriage on TV, thats new. And I think people sort of feel like, Oh we know what hes doing up at the ranch, we get that, we all understand what that is, but what is this marriage between these two people?
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Deklin is no stranger to complex characters that challenge an audience to think outside the box. On the critically acclaimed, though hardly watched, 2010 Fox series Lone Star, he played Trammell Thatcher who was alternately the antagonist and moral compass of a drama, which had a con man as its hero.
Lone Star was a show that probably should have been on cable and not a network, Deklin says. It was an interesting concept, it was a nuanced concept, and kind of a hard sell even though it was very smartly written and Id like to think smartly executed. It just never garnered the big numbers that it needed to for network TV and people got nervous and pulled out, which was a real heartbreaker because we all really believed in that show and believed it had the potential for greatness.
As for GCB, Deklin is happy to see that the audience quickly accepted his character -- something he mistakenly thought would take several episodes to accomplish.
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What Ive been shocked by is how from the very first episode people have been embracing this character, he says. And by the second episode -- especially when we learned that hes not this deceptive guy deceiving his wife and leading her on -- that allowed room for a lot of, I dont want to say forgiveness, but a lot of acceptance.
On Sunday, ABC will air two back-to-back episodes of GCB from 9-11 p.m.
Email: Jethro.Nededog@thr.com; Twitter:@TheRealJethro
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