No one ever said marriage was easy.
Marriage is definitely not easy on television. Fortunately, Seamus Dever — who plays Detective Kevin Ryan on Castle — is up to the challenge. He will marry his longtime paramour, Jenny (played by Seamus Dever’s real wife, Juliana), in this week’s Castle episode, “‘Til Death Do Us Part.”
Dever recently spoke to BuddyTV about the episode, the character of Ryan and his TV wedding.
BuddyTV: First off, a basic question: Can you confirm that Ryan will actually be married at the end of the upcoming episode?
Seamus Dever: Yes! Yes, I can confirm that, yes. But there’s some bumps along the way, as with any wedding. So within a good, dramatic TV show, there are bumps and conflicts along the way.
BuddyTV: Bumps are good — on TV anyway. Where, in the wedding process, do we pick up at the beginning of “‘Til Death Do Us Part”?
Seamus Dever: Well, the lead-up to the wedding, I think we start like five days out before the wedding. Maybe it’s a week? I can’t remember the time frame. But, regardless, it’s the lead-up to the wedding, a few days before the wedding, and we’re investigating a case.
BuddyTV: How well will Ryan cope with both murder and an upcoming wedding?
Seamus Dever: Ryan and Jenny have decided to go on a cleanse before the big day, which causes Ryan to become a little bit edgier than he normally is and causes Esposito to taunt him with food — donuts, Chinese food at one point. Everyone’s sort of eating around him, and Ryan’s acutely aware that everyone’s sort of eating delicious foods around him, making him look even more edgy.
BuddyTV: Other than taunting Ryan with food, how will the other characters deal with the coming wedding?
Seamus Dever: Esposito and Beckett and Castle are all trying to figure out who their dates to the wedding are going to be. So there’s a lot of fun where Esposito’s trying to score a “hot one.” A hot plus-one to make Lanie jealous, ’cause they’re on the outs now. So that’s also a fun plot thing that happens.
BuddyTV: Will the wedding tie in to the crime-of-the-week in any way?
Seamus Dever: The thing that they did, it’s sort of revealed in the third or fourth act of the show, is that Beckett and Castle find out that Jenny is connected to the case that we are pursuing. And Ryan doesn’t know this. They’re forced with the decision about whether they want to reveal that information to Ryan because it might affect his decision to go through with it.
And, in the end, I think what happens is Ryan surprises them with how mature he is about some things, sort of, I think, schools them a little bit on a relationship.
And the rest, I can’t be specific about.
BuddyTV: Since the relationship between Ryan and Jenny has been going on for awhile now, what can you tell us about the origins of Ryan’s girlfriend?
Seamus Dever: Well, you know, good question. I don’t know. I know they introduced this mysterious “girlfriend” character in like the first season. And we didn’t get to meet her until the second season. I think one of the things that they were going to play with for the longest time was that, you know, he’s got this great girlfriend that he’s always talking about, and we never get to meet her. She’s sort of like Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street, where nobody ever sees this girlfriend.
But fortunately, we finally got to meet her second season.
BuddyTV: How did the casting of your wife, Juliana Dever, come about?
Seamus Dever: We had been hanging out socially with Andrew Marlowe and his wife, Terri Miller, and they really liked Julie. And Julie had actually auditioned for the show for different characters in different episodes, and they said it would be nice to bring Julie in for something that she could come back potentially recurring. So that was really nice. They really liked her acting, so they said, “Why don’t we have her be Jenny, when Jenny does appear?”
So she finally did. And she’s been on a couple times now. I think that was how it came about. It’s always when you work with someone and you get to know the people around them. And Julie’s a great actor, so it’s always fun to have her around, and I think it brings something cool to the show to see a real-life couple as a stable relationship on the show.
BuddyTV: Speaking of stable relationships, what is it like, playing the only Castle character to actually have any sort of stable relationship?
Seamus Dever: It causes Castle and Beckett to reflect on it. It’s nice that Ryan can carve this out for his own.
“‘Til Death Do Us Part” airs on Monday, January 9 at 10pm.
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(Image courtesy of ABC)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
Laurel grew up in Mamaroneck, NY, Grosse Pointe, MI and Bellevue WA. She then went on to live in places like Boston, Tucson, Houston, Wales, Tanzania, Prince Edward Island and New York City before heading back to Seattle. Ever since early childhood, when she became addicted to The Muppet Show, Laurel has watched far too much TV. Current favorites include Chuck, Modern Family, Supernatural, Mad Men and Community. Laurel received a BA in Astrophysics (yes, that is possible) from Colgate University and a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies and History of Science from Columbia University before she realized that television is much better than studying.
