Exclusive Interview
‘Wild Cards’: Giacomo Gianniotti & Vanessa Morgan Reveal ‘Secret Sauce’ to Their Sizzling Chemistry (VIDEO)
Rom-com meets crime time? We are all in!
Perfect for fans of Castle, Bones, High Potential and other procedural dramedies featuring mismatched pairings with crazy chemistry, Wild Cards is a fizzy Canadian import about a con woman recruited to work with a Vancouver cop and it is having a, well, wild second season.
Centered on Max Morgan (Riverdale alum Vanessa Morgan), the pop-culture savvy, semi-reformed hustler who’s avoiding jail time by assisting the reluctant and relatively uptight Detective Cole Ellis (Giacomo Gianniotti of Grey’s Anatomy), the new season has already given us street-racing crime ring, a Western-themed case of attempted horse-icide, and guest appearances by Martin Sheen and Ally Sheedy.
This week, things get even more out-there when an amnesiac named Lorne (Kris Lemche) with a penchant for conspiracy theories draws Max and Ellis into the search for his missing wife, whom he is convinced has been abducted by aliens. Before you can say “Mulder and Scully,” the crime-solving odd couple is dodging bombs, bullets, and at least one dead body, as well as an explanation for Lorne’s predicament that is more scientific than fictional.
On top of all that, Wild Cards is dealing us a such killer hand of “will they, won’t they?” between Morgan and Gianniotti that we had to ask them about the slow-burn build up.
“That’s kind of the secret sauce,” notes the insultingly handsome actor. “It’s like the tension is all built from the wanting of these two people to be together. So a lot of that can break when they do get together. Then you go, ‘Well, why am I here now? They’re all happily ever after. Well, what’s there to watch anymore?’ So I think the strategy and the recipe in these shows is to try to prolong that as much as possible with still giving the audience satisfying moments along the way where there [are] moments of connection…but then always finding a way to break them back apart and add obstacles in their way of their relationship.”
For the comedically gifted Morgan, it’s about her Max gradually realizing that Ellis could be someone worth going legit for. “I feel like there is stability. You could tell that he has a good heart, honest, and very loyal, which I find is very attractive for Max,” she says. “So I feel like that’s the attraction. She needs real people in a world full of all the conning she does. I think she needs a real person in her life.”
The two also shared their takes on how each of their characters would want a first date with the other to go, who gets the giggles the most on set, love languages, working with that hairless cat Jonesy and, of course, what makes them personally swoon. And like a great hand in poker, their answers are both hard to beat.
Wild Cards, Season 2, Wednesdays, 8/7c, CW
