Mark Sheppard invades your DVR, on 'Supernatural' and more

There is a tie that binds 24, CSI, Battlestar Galactica, Chuck, Burn Notice, Warehouse 13, Monk, Firefly, White Collar, JAG, The Practice, Sliders, Silk Stalkings, Star Trek: Voyager, Charmed and V.I.P. His name? Mark Sheppard. Since the early 1990s, the British actor has been a guest-starring machine, appearing on shows big and small, hits, misses and everything in between. One can never tell when or on what show he’s going to pop up, but it’s always a welcome surprise. His recent recurring role on Supernatural as Crowley, a malevolent demon with constantly changing loyalties, has been one of his best, and he returns to the CW show Friday night on an episode directed by series star Jensen Ackles. When last we saw Crowley, he was helping Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Ackles) foil the apocalyptic plans of Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino), but still was in possession of their pal Bobby’s soul. Now Bobby, played by Jim Beaver, has called on the brothers to help get his soul back. I caught up with Sheppard to talk about Crowley and his busy career path recently, as he was in the middle of post-production on a movie he directed, Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island (which co-stars his dad, W. Morgan Sheppard), as well as moving homes in Los Angeles. “I just wish I had some of Crowley’s powers,” Sheppard quips. Read below for our conversation, where he’s as cryptic as he is entertaining.

Photos courtesy of The CW, Syfy

So, the fans are psyched you’re back on Supernatural. What can you spill about your return episode?
Well, it’s about 42 minutes. I’m in it. [Laughs] It’s fascinating. The biggest deal here is we’ve come from a Season 5 that had the feeling of an ending, and now we’ve moved into a Season 6 that, for me as a viewer, has the feeling of a very interesting beginning. Whether I’m in it or not, I’m fascinated to see how it unfolds because it seems to be leaving so many unanswered questions. We don’t have definitive answers as to a lot of things at the end of our season. We don’t really know what’s going on with Sam, with Dean, what’s happened time-wise. Each one of these early episodes fits a new piece of the puzzle in.

And we don’t know what’s up with Crowley either. His whole world is probably much different than a year ago.
Ah, but what’s the definition of his world? Ah ha! [Laughs] I think Crowley inhabits a world somewhat of his own fashioning, which is wonderful. I’ve been very lucky with this character. He’s been beautifully written thus far and seems to resonate with fans a lot. It’s very hard to pigeonhole him definitely as a bad guy. The most telling remark Crowley had last season was, “The worst thing about working with demons is they’re demons.” That’s what you get, working with demons.

He’s almost an anti-villain in that he has no problem doing the right thing if it serves his purposes.
It depends on your definition of “the right thing.” [Laughs] He does the Crowley thing. His answer to pretty much everything you can be sure is designed to please Crowley. A sexually ambiguous crossroads demon is an awfully fun thing to play.

There was that infamous smooch between you and Jim last season. Are Bobby and Crowley going to make out again?
You’ll have to wait and see. Jim said something funny, all the work he’s done over the years and the career he’s built, he might actually be remembered for kissing me. He’s just such a fabulous actor, and it’s great that he’s become a foil. It’s not just the usual situation where the “antagonist” is only dealing with the lead characters or situations. Crowley is [ticking] off everybody, really.

How much of Crowley is you and how much is the writing?
The writing is everything. There’s a wit and a drive in there, and it’s a clever character, He’s a very smart character to play. Anything that does come from me feels very natural – a natural extension of what is already written there. It becomes collaborative in that way. They write a set of dialogue and actions that happen around a particular set of circumstances, and the character fills itself in behind that. is an anomaly. He’s not like any of the other demons we’ve seen on Supernatural. I hope the fun I have playing the character translates to the fans. It’s an enormous character to play. He’s such a fun, bizarre morality buzzing around the Supernatural universe. Playing with the boys is so much fun and finding new insults we can come up with for Jared’s size. We’ve called him Gigantor. My favorite one is “Where’s your moose?” There’s a little more to come. Everybody knows I’m in this episode. It should be fun to see what they’re gonna do.

You’ve played so many good characters on so many good shows that us geeks love.
There are a lot of shows I want to be on. I’ve been very lucky that the writers on those shows have allowed me to play characters. From Firefly to Dollhouse for Joss Whedon was a lot of fun, and Leverage for me, I know both John Rogers and Amy Berg and, of course, [series creator] Dean Devlin. They’re are all fans of Battlestar, so it certainly didn’t hurt that they knew who my character was from there. It stems from the writers and the creators. I really believe the geeks have inherited the earth. We have a really cool set of jobs around this business, because we’re the people who nobody would employ if you really think about it. We’re the interns, you know? We’re the people who are supposed to go catch coffee and to whom people go, “Wash my car.” That’s what we were supposed to be 20 years ago, and now we’re running networks and making television programs. [Laughs] I’m honored and blessed to be a part of a new intelligent era of television. That’s all it is. You’ll find a lot of actors who are around this that tend to do a lot of work, There’s an ability to handle that kind of work. You’re watching really good actors like Mark Pellegrino that bring so much to something that if it was a series 20 years ago would be very different. If you’re going to play the devil on a TV show 20 years ago, it’s very odd, very big or it has to be a notable guest star as a cameo role. Now it’s geeks writing for geeks. What’s really interesting is the actors who get it are so good. One day recently I ran into Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton. That’s a really fun thing to do. Talk about a geekfest. And Corbin Bernsen. It was a triumvirate.

Your dad’s been known as a character actor for many years. Did you look at his career as one you could emulate?
I looked at him and refused to do anything he did. [Laughs] I just directed him in Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island down in Baton Rouge. My dad was playing Captain Nemo. Between the two of us, we’ve hit most every genre. He’s working more than I am right now. It’s kind of scary. We’ve done two projects together: an NCIS episode about a year or so ago, which was real fun and I played him 30 years earlier; and we did this movie together as the same character 30 years apart. It’s fun to play with him. We have a similar love of the language.

Do you prefer all the guest-star appearances over a series regular role?
Oh no, I always want to turn down regular money. I’ll just come and guest-star on your show! [Laughs] I’ve decided I’ve become the Jack Cassidy of this century. That’s what I’m aiming for: the ubiquitous guest star. There’s been shows I’ve been a series regular on, and one could say that most of the shows I’ve done certainly in the last few years, the characters have recurred, which is a wonderful thing. And some of the characters have been a little too big or a little too dangerous to be reuglar characters. So it tends to afford me the luxury of some spectacular television rather than necessarily being somewhere week in, week out. But yeah, I’ll take a regular paycheck from any of my friends.

In general, are you mainly known for Crowley these days or somebody else?
I was walking down the street with Saul Rubinek and Jack Kenny, the showrunner for Warehouse 13, and we were in Toronto. Saul had observed that depending on the age of the person who comes up to him and says, “You’re Saul Rubinek,” he knows exactly what it is they’ve related to and what he’s done, whether it be Star Trek: The Next Generation or whether it be True Romance. There are a lot of periods of his life. It’s getting to that stage: Firefly fans are just as prevalent as Supernatural fans. But as a fan myself – I was a fan of Battlestar before I was ever on it – we tend to like a lot of the same things. A lot of these shows are shows I would watch. I don’t look at this as a job – I tend to like to do things that I enjoy or bring me pleasure. I’ve done some I haven’t enjoyed, I guess, but I haven’t gone into work expecting to have a bad time or not to enjoy the show. I always go in very optimistic and hoping something wonderful will happen, and I tend to gravitate toward those shows. We tend to watch more than one. How much can your DVR take in a week?

I’m sure you’re on many people’s DVRs as we speak.
I was looking at the bottom of my IMDb page the other day because I was thinking about changing my picture, and somebody had written, “That’ll do, pig. Haven’t we seen enough of this guy?!” [Laughs] I read it and I was like, “Holy crap! This is about as offensive as you can get.” Somebody was literally offended that I was showing up on too many of their shows. “He keeps doing the same thing over and over again…” “There are so many British accents!” Yeah, you can’t please everybody, but I’m trying. I’m doing the best that I can.

What do you have coming up? And are there plans for more Crowley this season?
It’s Crowley. Who knows?! [Laughs] I have like four shows that I’m on that are popping up right now, but I hate to tell you what I’m doing because you never know where I’m going to show up next.