Grimm Cast Talks Season 5 from the NBC Set

Grimm is the little show that could, as it has weathered a Friday night time slot that would normally signal that it was being dumped by the network. Instead the show has built a steady fanbase and is about to celebrate one of the biggest anniversaries a television show can have: 100 episodes, which generally signals that the show will be packaged for syndication. In Grimm’s case, the show is already airing in reruns on TNT, but the main cast, all of whom we got to talk to, were gathered for a cake cutting ceremony with one special guest that was unexpected: Bitsie Tulloch.

Tulloch was an important member of the cast, but her character Juliette was killed off at the end of Season 4. And yet, she was there with the rest of the primary cast to celebrate. She is also dating her former (or perhaps current) co-star David Giuntoli, who plays Detective Nick Burkhardt, but as a fantasy show, it’s possible her character could be resurrected, and her appearance raised questions that no one could answer directly.

That said, in the interviews it was made clear:

1. Juliette is dead.

When asked about Juliette’s possible return Bitsie Tulloch said “Juliette is dead.” While Silas Weir Mitchell, who plays the loveable Blutbad Monroe added “She’s six feet under.”

2. Bitsie’s involvement in Season Five will be kept under wraps.

When asked about her involvement with season five, Bitsie Tulloch left us with this: “I can’t say.”

3. It’s a dark road ahead for Detective Nick Burkhardt.

David Giuntoli: “Now... it’s dark for Nick Burkhardt, the inciting event of season five, the death of my girlfriend and the beheading of my mom, what? That really colored my performance for the early episodes of this season. I think he has come apart in the beginning of season five.”

4. Things will be getting crazy this season.

Reggie Lee, who plays Sgt. Drew Wu, thinks things are going to get nuts: “I think season four was big turning point. The first three seasons were more of a warm up, with season four we started to hit people’s personal lives. It’s very individualized. And now season five it’s all turned upside down, man, and it’s going to be turned upside down even more.”

5. Get ready for a whole new Trubel.

Jacqueline Toboni, who plays young Grimm Trubel, has only had small appearances in the season so far, but there’s more to come: “I come back wearing different clothes and you can tell something’s a little bit different about Trubel, she’s not that rag tag street kid any more. Something’s going on, and you get to find out about that this season. But I don’t know how much more I can say. If it was two episodes later I could say a lot. I’m a new Trubel. I do have a little bit more technique, more practice, and that’s exciting to work with as an actor, I get use new weapons and have new character traits, and it’s fun to see the character grow. Now I get to take a new journey and you get to grow up with her.”

6. Season 5 will be more Portland and history-based.

Sasha Roiz, who plays Captain Sean Renard, talked about the growing pains of his character: “I think he’s had more pains than most of the other characters, physical and otherwise, and he continues to evolve and change. For instance, they wiped out the entire royal family last year, so clearly they want to go in a different direction. I think it’s about to go there too, we are trying to be less global, and trying to bring it home, but have that reflect what’s happening globally. We’re also trying to – and I’ve loved this from the beginning – trying to tie things in to our true world. The more that they cross over with our human history and reality I find it’s a much more effective show. It’s chilling that way. It’s not just metaphor, it happens all around us. The Hitler episode is a great example of that.

7. Adalind is really trying to be human this season.

Claire Coffee, who plays former Hexenbiest Adalind Shade gets to play nice for a change this season, for the most part: “Adalind is trying to figure out how to be a human, and how to have feelings and how to care for someone really, so it’s a totally different path. She’s going to try her damndest, but that Wesen thing always creeps in, so we’ll see. It all depends if she gets her powers back. It’s something she has no control over, and she doesn’t know when it will come back.”

David Giuntoli: “Claire’s fantastic, and our characters have such a history that you don’t have to find new stuff. When they have us living in the same house together and sharing a sandwich, I know how I’m going to play that right away. It’s going to be as awkward as can be, you’re the mother of my child but you’ve tried to murder my aunt, I don’t know what to do with you, so it informs all my decisions as an actor, and she’s fantastic.”

8. Season 5 is going well.

Silas Weir Mitchell: “(Making the show) feels like putting on an old shoe. And it’s a rare thing in life when you get to be as comfortable in something that is really hard work, and that’s nice. It was an uphill battle for a minute, we had to fight for storylines, we had to figure the crew out, and we finally figured it out and now it’s a joy to come to work. It’s a well-oiled machine. And the writing is still interesting and they’re doing different stuff.”

9. David Giuntoli learned how to act over the last five seasons.

David Giuntoli: “I feel like I’ve been paid to take acting classes the last four years. I don’t know if you remember my work on the pilot, but now you could drive a truck through those two points.”

10. Bitsie found out early about her demise and was cool with it.

Bitsie Tulloch:“I got a phone call saying it was going to happen. And honestly it was sad to let go of a character I had played for eighty eight episodes and that I really loved, but also going into a fifth season, going into a hundred episodes you really need to shake stuff up and switch up the storyline and raise up the stakes and that’s exactly what they did.”

11. Hank’s not going anywhere.

Russell Hornsby doesn’t think he’ll get killed off: “I don’t think they’ve ever thought about that. I think everybody’s such an important cog in the show, and I don’t think you could justify it story-wise. I’d have to be a serious diva for that to be bantered about at all.”

12. The cast does refer to their Wesen hunting group as the Scooby Gang and everyone is working together this season, except Captain Renard.

Silas Weir Mitchell: “It’s great to have a team, but of late it’s all seven of us in every scene. So that takes seven times as long to shoot. A three person two page scene you can shoot in three hours, a seven person two page scene? Five hours. Now it’s all of us all the time. Which is fun because we all have fun together, but it takes much longer. We have to switch it up. The good news is the next big arc of the upcoming episode is mostly me and Nick.”

Sasha Roiz is not among those seven: “I don’t want to be a part of the gang. I did for a minute, but nah. I like being continually ambiguous and unpredictable, and I’m grateful that they’ve kept him such. And even though for about ninety percent of the show he’s been on the side of the good guys, no one trusts him, the audience doesn’t trust him, so keep it that way. I like this guy being unpredictable.”

Reggie Lee on joining the Scooby gang: “The cool thing is that I can help with the police side of things. It’s been really fantastic, but there’s been a learning curve, I still get freaked out, and hopefully there’s a ways more to go.”

Claire Coffee on also joining the Scooby gang: “It’s awesome. I always got to work with great people in Vienna (laughs), which we shot in Portland, but I think that now sticking around Portland for a while, it’s great to be with these people.”

Jacqueline Toboni is definitely in the group: “I think she definitely feels a part of the family, but I think that’s already been established. She had to take off for Philadelphia to protect Josh, but she already feels that brother/sister relationship with Nick. And she felt it with Juliette before things took a turn for the worst, and I think she feels it with Monroe and Rosalee. So when she comes back it helps her connect them to her world.

13. The cast are excited about hitting triple digits, but Bitsie knew it would happen from the get-go.

David Giuntoli: “There’s no amount of hard work and talent that can make something last a hundred episodes, there’s a huge amount of luck involved, you need that work and talent, but luck seems the bigger factor, so color me grateful. I consider it a pleasure to age in front of the American public in real time.

Bitsie Tulloch: “We were actually syndicated at the beginning of season four by TNT, we’ve been on since January, so it’s really not about the hundred because we were already in syndication, so hitting a hundred episodes is more about the triple digit milestone, it’s so crazy. But I thought we could do it from the beginning. I remember the day of the pilot episode it was me and Russell, Silas and David on the rooftop of The Nines having a drink and I told them that night that we would go a minimum of a hundred episodes and the boys were like “No, I don’t think so” and I said “Mark my words, we’re going to go five seasons.””

Silas Weir Mitchell: “Every year, at least the first three years, there’s always the question “Are we going to get renewed? Are we going to get renewed?” But after the second year you know you’re going to get three. And if you get three you’re going to get five. What I remember is when we were shooting, I think it was episode six of the first season was the night the pilot aired. And it was a Friday night and we were out at a quarry shooting some car crash. And during the episode we had all been refreshing the score of the baseball game because Thursday night was meant to be the game seven of the world series if there was to a be a seventh game and there was a god damn rain out. And so game seven would be Friday. And the game before the Cardinals had three times where they were up by two runs, but Texas kept coming back. I think that was the dynamic, but it was three times. And so when the team tied it to force a game seven on Friday I was like “Well, we’re done.” And so our pilot episode went up against game seven and we did pretty good so then I was like “we might be on to something.” Cause I really thought that we were done. And that was a lesson to me: different audiences. I wouldn’t have thought about that five years ago. It just happened again last Friday night. It was a game three, but I thought “If we weathered game seven for our pilot episode we’re going to be fine in season five going against game three.”

Sasha Roiz: “I thought we had five seasons, but that only became a reality to me at the end of season two. I think we might be here for a while, I’m not going to project another hundred, but that was what led me to buy a house in Portland at the end of season two, I thought we might stick around for a while.”

Russell Hornsby: “I thought we might get one hundred around season three. It’s strictly a technical thing, cause they say when you get to three you’ll get seasons four and five. But once the international buzz started hitting I realized we had something that could get us here, and I think it was the middle of season two during the holidays where I was travelling and people knew my first and last name for the first time in my career. It wasn’t just “oh you’re the guy.” It was “oh, you’re Russell Hornsby.” And I was like “excuse me? I’m in the public consciousness, I exist?” That was deep to me, and that was when I knew we had something.”

Sasha Roiz: “I never thought the show was going to get picked up, so I’m surprised we’re here. I consider myself very lucky, I think we all do, anything beyond this point is a gift. I can’t predict it at all. This is such a benchmark of television these days. This is unheard of. This medium is changing so quickly that I don’t anyone from the top to the bottom know what to expect. Even twenty two episodes is a dinosaur, so everyone is just holding on to their seats from the top brass to the actors, cause we don’t know what’s going to be the next big change, so the fact that we’ve weathered the storm this far is outstanding. Hitting one hundred episodes means we’ve left a legacy on TV, maybe a tiny one, but something. The show will permeate television for years to come and hopefully it will ring a bell to viewers and it’s left a little bit of a footprint, and that’s the best thing you can ask for, that your work is a little lasting.”

14. Grimm could be kicking around for years to come.

Asked about whether there’s talk of wrapping everything up, Reggie Lee said: “I want an end point that would be sufficient enough to tie up the story, I think if there’s no more stories to tell then we should end. I want the stories to be interesting and the characters to be interesting, but right now I feel like we could go for several more years at least. The way they’re taking stories in different directions, and turning stories around, I think it can really survive.”

15. Bree Turner and Silas Weir Mitchell figured out they had chemistry pretty quickly

We asked Silas Weir Mitchell about when he realized he had onscreen chemistry with costar Bree Turner, who plays his Fuchsbau wife Rosalee and he has this to say: “I think it was probably for me when we did the episode where she got scratched, it was a porcupine episode, and she attacked me in the spice shop and knocked me against a thing, and she was really getting into it. It was our first day and we did a picnic thing and it’s hard for actors to figure that shit out. “Do you work the way I work?” You’re being forced in this very unnatural way to break normal human boundaries. And we both handled it very well. She was unafraid and I was very cool with what she was doing and she was cool with what I was doing and that’s when you’re like “All right, this person is cool and we can work together.” And that’s all you can really ask for. No one’s throwing a hissy fit, no one’s getting super self-conscious, everyone’s cool and acting super normal.”

Whereas Bree felt it happened immediately: “I auditioned in LA, I was booked on tape, and I never met Silas, and day one was the fucking craziest professional experience of my life. I auditioned, and was on a plane within thirty six hours, there was a huge storm, it was January up here, and I landed and I went straight to costumes and then straight to set and then met Silas for the first time, morphed for the first time, discovered my brother’s dead body, and then was chased by Skalengecks... I couldn’t believe it was my first day, I thought it would be a walk through a scene kind of day, and it was most of the heaviest parts of the episode. It was also great because if I couldn’t handle that, there was no way I could handle the show because we are full throttle here. We basically shoot a feature film in eight days, we deal with extreme weather conditions and massive amounts of pages each day, so you got to be in it. So meeting Silas, I had not seen his work before, but he’s just so talented, such a presence, and we had a similar outlook on the work and that was apparent from the first moment, so I was like “okay I think this is going to work.””

16. The timing of David and Bitsie’s real life relationship coincided with their on-screen relationship falling apart.

David Giuntoli: “We started dating end of season three, we’d known each other for years, we both had relationships that didn’t work out for a myriad of reasons, and then started hanging out together, she was going to set me up with people, trying to buy clothing for me for my dates. But then we started snogging. Of course that’s when the relationship on the show started going bad, but that’s acting. It’s a crazy business, and then you turn around and we’re both having different relationships with other people on TV… there’s no answer for that.”

17. Claire Coffee didn’t know she’d be around.

Claire Coffee on the evolution of her appearances: “When I got the job it was potentially recurring, but I booked so many other potentially recurring parts that never recurred, so they say “we’ll bring you back” but have no timeline whatsoever, so I didn’t find out until a week before we were to shoot the next one that I would be back.”

18. Originally Sgt. Drew Wu wasn’t going to know about the Wesen world until Season Five.

Reggie Lee was initially hired because they liked the actor, which may explain why his character also felt severe growing pains. As the actor said, ”Can my character have a first name?” As for learning about the Grimm world, he had this to say: “I remember it very clearly because I was with (co-creator) Jim Kouf and we were talking about the response to the Aswang episode and how I put myself in a mental hospital and the fans outrage at Nick and Hank to the point that there were pictures of the two with assholes on it on the internet. And so I brought that up to Jim, that maybe Wu should know and he said “We’ll think about it, but we’ll probably wait until season five.” That’s where their heads were. And this only came to pass because I happened to be in Nick’s house when the captain got shot and I was going through all the stuff. And they were like “well, he’s going to have to see the book and so when he sees the books he’s going to have to start to question. And the way they write – they write very organically – they don’t say this is going to happen here, that is going to happen there, he’s going to start to question, but they strung that along for the first eight episodes of season four, to the point that I was in distress. Once it finally happened, that episode I had to go to Russell to ask “were you this tired when you found out?” because emotionally, you’re a wreck.”

19. Hank may be around, but he’s not dating.

Russell Hornsby: “I think early on it would have been fun but now it would just convolute things. There’s so much love going on, and so I’ll just step out between Monroe and Rosalee and Nick and Adalind. So much mushiness.

20. Captain Renard is bad at relationships

Sasha Roiz talked about Renard and Nick often date the same women: “Nothing makes you lock horns faster than women. I can do things with the key and his aunt, but god, you take a guy’s woman… I think every time Renard gets involved with someone it’s highly dysfunctional, and every time Nick gets involved we see something grounded and honest about it, so I think it’s a reflection of the characters for sure.”

21. Grimm’s got a surprising fanbase of kids

Sasha Roiz: “It’s wild when kids recognize you, it’s the one thing I didn’t expect. Kids come up to me and say “I’ve been watching your show since I was ten.” They grew up with it, it’s such a part of their lives. It’s really beautiful. There’s disemboweling and beheading, and not kid friendly things, but the amount of families that watch this, it’s a Friday night family show all of a sudden.

22. Russell Hornsby thinks Hank should have been kept in the dark

Russell Hornsby: “I think we could have drawn it out a little longer. I think we could have gotten into the second season with him not knowing. It could have made for something interesting, but now that I’m here I can’t go back.”

23. The cast isn’t told in advance what’s going to happen in the season

Reggie Lee: “We have a general sense of the first six episodes of the season but after that it’s about going through the script to check if I’ve been killed off. It’s a world where so many things exist, where people can come back, but like I said they write organically, so they may have an idea but it may veer off from that first thought.”

Claire Coffee: “We don’t even what’s going to happen week to week. I get episode one and that’s it. Now it all hinges on if I get my powers back. I like working this way, I want to know, but it’s better for my character not to know.

24. Bree Turner didn’t think she’d become a series regular

Bree Turner: “It was really a five episode job at the start. It ended, and I saw where the character was going so I thought “Oh I see where they could bring her back.” But I became pregnant, my second child, not planned. And I thought “Well, that was a good run.” But they called me about a month before they went into production and said I might be taken on as a series regular, and I said “you know I’m going to be really pregnant, right?” and they said “yeah, we’ll work with it.” And that’s just one of the examples on how this is really a family, and that goes from the top down with Jim (Kouf) and David (Greenwalt), they create the environment that is nurturing and loving and supportive, so real life comes first, we’ve had a lot of monumental things happen in our personal lives since we came on the show, and there’s just so much support and so much love. I think we’re all collectively come with the same point of view, no one’s trying to take the ship offshore.

25. For Bitsie, the best seasons have been the last two.

Bitsie Tulloch: “With season one I felt like the character was very passive, but she needed to be, but that was the whole point, he needed to be able to hide the secret from me, and then in season two it was really fun drama with Juliette’s memory loss, and the love triangle, waking up from a coma, but when I really felt like this was fun was season three when I was brought into the fold, the Grimm gang, where she was doing a lot of geeky research , just really into it and that was a blast. And turning dark and evil, that was really fun too. I found pretty early on in season four she was going to go really dark and I was like “that sounds really kick ass.” I got to really play two different characters on the show.”

Bonus Thing We Learned: Silas doesn’t mind being shipped.

When poked about how fans often ship characters, and that fans probably were shipping Monroe and Rosalee long before their characters got married, Mitchell had this to say: “That’s what we’re here for.” And then he laughed.

Grimm airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on NBC. Check out some pictures from the set below:

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