He started out as the suspicious and seemingly evil uncle of Robbie Amell’s Stephen Jameson on The CW’s “The Tomorrow People,” but as Mark Pellegrino’s character, Jedekiah, was fleshed out, it turned out he wasn’t easy to hate.
Sure, he ordered Ultra hit squads, stripped Tomorrow People of their powers and was part of a program that taught some of the advanced species humans to go against their DNA and kill, but recently, fans of the show found out he wasn’t all bad.
He’s looked the other way a couple of times during incidents involving his nephew, his fatherly-like love for John (Luke Mitchell) was revealed, and there was even a big shocker when it was discovered that Jedekiah’s heart belongs to a Tomorrow Person he’s kept off of the grid.
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But, after his accidental kidnapping in last week’s episode, a chain reaction brought Simon Merrells’ The Founder fully into the picture, landed John in the hands of Ultra, put Jedekiah’s girlfriend Morgan on the group’s radar and revealed Stephen’s betrayal of his uncle (the fact that he didn’t really inject Cara with Ultra’s serum). Mark told AccessHollywood.com about how those things come into play in tonight’s mid-season finale after we asked him about a recent cast dinner, where he landed in the seat opposite “The Tomorrow People” newcomer Simon (The Founder).
AccessHollywood.com: I want to hear your perspective of the cast dinner where you and Simon somehow managed to sit opposite each other and laugh bad guy style throughout the event.
Mark Pellegrino: Oh yeah! Yes. Boy, you’ve got your ears really close to the ground there. Yeah. We ended up sitting across from each other and talked the entire night and drank wine and laughed and bonded and have become friends.
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Access: What do you think of his bad guy laugh? He was, of course, Marcus Crassus in ‘Spartacus,’ and was horrible to our poor Sparty.
Mark: Yes, of course. He was the guy that brings the rebellion to an end. Yeah, Crassus was a very bad man, and The Founder is turning out to be a very bad man as well, isn’t he?
Access: He sure is! Are we going to get to see more of the relationship between Jedekiah and The Founder?
Mark: Oh yeah. That’s coming around the pike. I think we’re doing Episode 13 right now and rounding the bend to 14, if I’m not mistaken, and The Founder and Jedekiah get into it pretty deeply, so you’re going to see some very interesting dynamics between the two.
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Access: John chose not to kill your character in last week’s episode. How does Jedekiah feel? His ‘son’ shot all the way around him.
Mark: You know, I wish John would acknowledge that he loves me as much as I love him. He’s in ‘rebellious son’ mode and he just seems to be saying that he hates me, but I think what he did or couldn’t do that day pretty much shows that his feelings for me go a lot deeper than he admits.
Access: And what does that mean to Jedekiah going forward with John now in custody?
Mark: It’s very precarious, obviously, because I have The Founder looking over my shoulder, so it’s not like I can protect him if I have to. I have to present the most loyal of fronts to Ultra and that’s very dangerous and there’s even more of a pickle you know because now you’ve seen I’m in love with a Tomorrow Person and she can likely become a bargaining chip or a tool to use against me, to blackmail me.
Access: When did you find out about that twist — that he had a Tomorrow Person girlfriend, Morgan?
Mark: I find it out as I read the script, literally (laughs). So, it’s just a little bit before you guys find out.
Access: And when you saw that, did it make you think differently about Jedekiah?
Mark: To me it just rounded him out more and made him even more dimensional and human, you know? I was hoping something like that would happen actually, because it puts him in a much more conflicted place to be consciously following one philosophy, but to be kind of hypocritical and going against it in your private time. That’s a great conflict for a character to have.
Access: At the end of last week’s episode, Morgan narrowly escaped… This has got to put a heavy burden on Jedekiah at this point. Can you talk about what we’re going to see with that going forward?
Mark: Well, definitely Jedekiah’s in the middle of a struggle between Ultra and The Tomorrow People and the two chips in the game are John and Morgan and so I think Jedekiah has to figure out a way to work with both sides.
Access: We learned about Jedekiah’s relationship with Dr. Crick in last week’s episode. Are we going to see more about ‘Dr. Death’ as he’s been dubbed?
Mark: Oh yes. … He does reveal more about the relationship between Roger and Jedekiah and the plot thickens (laughs). I think that’s all I can say without revealing anything, but you’re going to see Dr. Crick again.
Access: It’s tough to keep secrets, isn’t it? Are your castmates the ones you turn to when you need to talk about this kind of stuff?
Mark: Oh yeah! That’s who you vent to — your castmates. You’re just, ‘Oh my God! I gotta say that. I wanna say this!’ because you can’t tell anybody.
Access: Who do you turn to the most?
Mark: I talk to Robbie a lot. Robbie reads many episodes in advance. He sneaks into the makeup trailer and gets their copies and reads [them], so [I’ve] kind of always got my ear close to him… And he sometimes won’t even tell me. He knows quite a bit more than I do and he’s only hinted and I’m like, ‘Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!’ (Laughs). I cornered one of the writers, Dana, [earlier this week] who was like, ‘Oh my God! You’re gonna love what happens next!’ I’m like, ‘OK, what?’ ‘Hmmm… Not gonna tell you.’ ‘Come on! You can’t do that to me, man!’
Access: So finally, Jedekiah saw in the last episode that Cara has her powers. That’s gotta be pretty upsetting (considering he watched Stephen ‘take’ them away)…
Mark: Well, you know, these things are upsetting when you find that the person that you’ve devoted so much of your time to, who’s betrayed you already is going to betray you again. But it’s complicated you know? Stephen’s my family and that lends itself to a wider range of forgiveness and I need him, so it makes me feel untrusting, it makes me… watch him more closely and test him more to see where he stands, but our ground is very precarious.
“The Tomorrow People” airs tonight at 9/8c on The CW.
— Jolie Lash
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