Campbell Scott enjoys upside-down world of Damages

While it doesn't seem possible that actor Campbell Scott's career is almost 30 years old, looking over his credits he's truly done a little bit of everything. From his turn as the bear-loving young man during the onset of AIDS in the film Longtime Companion to co-directing the film Big Night with fellow thespian Stanley Tucci to his stage work in productions such as Long Day's Journey Into Night, Scott has always been ranked as a high caliber talent. It's no surprise, then that Scott is currently a series regular on FX's thrilling Damages working with the likes of Glenn Close as well as Lily Tomlin, Ted Danson and Martin Short.

As Joe Tobin, Scott is the son of a Bernie Madoff-type who is trying to do the right thing but somehow ends up on a not-so-right path, falling off the wagon at times (he's in AA.) He also may have more secrets than it originally seemed. Scott recently talked to journalists about his experience thus far on the drama series and EDGE's Jim Halterman was there.

It’s all personal

Having been a fan of Damages, Scott said that in choosing any role, he has a criterion he relies on. "I only do things I'm interested in doing, something as a change for myself; it's all personal, I guess. When I met the three guys who created the series (Todd A. Kessler, Daniel Zelman, Glenn Kessler) I got excited about it only because I had watched the first season and it seemed like a 13-episode movie to me and that seems to be a cool way to go about it."

Since one of the structures of Damages is to tell the stories out of sequence and to shift gears and change direction in the course of production, Scott says he was warned off the bat that this would be an unconventional environment. Scott said he was told by the producers: "'We don't know. We want your input. We change our minds a lot. We get excited about developing an idea and then watching it change as it goes,' which I thought was relatively brave and crazy and that's exactly what has happened."

In fact, Scott said that things definitely happened at sometimes the last minute but the offspring of actors Colleen Dewhurst and George C. Scott loved everything about it. "Literally a couple nights before," he explained, "you get a piece of information about your character that doesn't throw off what you've laid the foundation for but definitely - just like real life - throws you a curve in the immediate circumstances and that's fucking fun."

Bad is good and good is bad

Another thing that's fun for Scott is the grey area of details with not only his character but with the other characters on the series. "The great thing about Damages is that bad is good and good is bad, let's face it, and that's a little more accurate for real life."

Case in point, Scott knew from the beginning that his character "was obviously going to be one of the perfect examples in that he starts out as a relatively unknowing, innocent character but because of his relationships and because of his desires he becomes something else."

Actors often get tired of playing the same types of roles throughout their career and Scott was very vocal with the producers about what he wanted to do with Joe Tobin.

He said that they "are very good about asking 'What do you want to do?' and my answer repeatedly was 'I just want to do what I haven't done before.'" Scott feels Joe isn't dumb but "he's not necessarily quick, not necessarily sharp. I often play those kinds of characters, characters who already know the end of the sentence before they start it. That's Joe and that really fascinated me and was difficult to act. My kind of default setting is if I don't know what to do or if I know where to go, where I'm comfortable, it's to be sharp and on top of it. I have to know what I'm doing and what I'm going to say, and that's definitely not the way with Joe."

With his character more often in the dark about the events around him, many of the scenes in Damages are filled with tension and great layers of guessing who knows what and what people are going to do if and when they have vital information. Scott said, "You mix that up with Lily [Tomlin] and Marty [Short] as people who assume to know more than they're telling it makes for a good group together in the same room."

As an actor, how does Scott find the balance with his character when either he doesn't have all the information himself (just like his character) or things shift and change on a dime? "I don't think I find the balance [and] that's what's so interesting about playing it," he said. "There's a scene where [Joe is] with his sponsor from AA and this is the perfect setup from the writers on how Joe is trying to do the right thing. He's talking to the right guy and the wonderful actor who played the sponsor was full of common sense, and yet [Joe] leaps to almost making the wrong decision. That just keeps pointing back to the center of Joe... he's not mature in any way and acts off of immediate kind of desires or fears or whatever. It's pretty fascinating playing somebody like that."

Next up for Scott is the Disney feature film Beware the Gonzo with Jesse McCartney, 30 Rock's Judah Friedlander, Zo� Kravitz and Amy Sedaris.

Damages airs every Monday at 10/9c on FX.