'Sons of Anarchy' returns with a broken Clay Morrow

Published: Monday, July 30, 2012, 5:00 PM
Dave Walker, The Times-Picayune

“I cut out all bagels,” he said, probably joking. “I kind of dig it. It’s the same guy, but completely different set of circumstances, so I consider myself, as an acting challenge, very, very fortunate to be able to look at somebody that I’ve been looking at for four seasons with a completely different set of parameters, and the challenge of trying to physicalize that and realize that and find some sort of spiritual place where that has left him and a platform from which he will emanate outward going forward.”

Kurt Sutter, the show’s creator, builds that platform. It’s probably not safe to[..]ume that his motivation is to build a more likeable Clay. It’s just not that kind of show.

“For me, that’s the interesting narrative challenge this season,” he said. “From the storytelling perspective, I can’t think of it in terms of how am I going to make people like Clay again or how am I going to get people to embrace him again? But what I can do is try to honestly put him in those circumstances and have a character who has been broken and, perhaps for the first time, has a deep sense of, ‘Wow, I really (messed) up.’

“What does Clay look like broken? What does his remorse look like? What is his desperate need to try to correct the damage? What does that look like from an alpha male, you know, narcissistic, Machiavellian character like Clay Morrow? So I don’t know. I can’t predict if the response to it will be ‘I can embrace Clay again’ or ‘I’m letting him back in.’ I just try to do it from the truth of the character and the truth of the circumstances that he’s created.”

So it was an obvious question: Is “Sons of Anarchy” possible without a Clay? Or, for that matter, his wife Gemma (Katey Sagal, Sutter’s wife) or her son Jax (Charlie Hunnam)?

“Wow. So many people want to hear the answer,” Sutter said. “I will say this: My sense of where the show will end up definitely includes Jax and perhaps Gemma and Clay. I don’t know.

“I don’t think the show continues without Jax, because I believe it’s his journey. But I think as we come into season five -- I’ve said this before -- it’s really the first season I’ve had to have a very clear sense of what my end game is, because I realize that (starting with) this season now, I have to write to that end game.

“I think the stakes get higher with each season. The circumstances get more dire. The wreckage gets deeper, and I think as a result of that, things will change. And I know that sounds ridiculously cryptic. I don’t quite know how that all will fall apart, but I know that eventually it will. But the show is the prince’s journey, so there is no show without Jax.”

'Sons of Anarchy' returns with a broken Clay Morrow | NOLA.com