Exclusive Interview with Eddie McClintock
Interview by Jamie Ruby and Charli Holbrook
Written by Jamie Ruby

Warehouse13 is about to enter its third season. The series, returning on Monday, July 11, starts with the team still upset after Myka Bering's (Joanne Kelly) departure. New agent Steve Jinks (Aaron Ashmore) is brought in and the team, including Myka's partner Pete Lattimer, played by Eddie McClintock, is not happy with the change.

Eddie McClintock sat down with SciFi Vision and Media Blvd for an exclusive interview to talk about the upcoming season.

There isn't much that McClintock can reveal about what's coming up this season, but believes that the best is yet to come. "This season is going to be the best of the three. I think we all kind of share that same feeling. The scripts are more fun and they're funnier. I think that they are more exciting. I think every year the writers zero in on what the show does best. The show just grows from year to year. So I think it's normal that the shows would be better this year than last year, and the year prior to that even.

"You know the guests we have this year are some amazing guest stars. Some of the great Syfy names of the past few years. So it's going to be really exciting, and what this show is, at its core, is it's a family show, so that's pretty strongly emphasized. It's just going to be a lot of fun."

The actor was able, however, to reveal some of the great guest stars of the upcoming season. "Jeri Ryan...was amazing to work with; we had a blast. She's an old pro and she walked on the set and basically made herself at home which was great.

"..."Kate Mulgrew is on the show this year. She's fantastic and we get along great. We've had some really fun scenes together.

"...That's kind of a thing about our show, the personalities here, is that we're all pretty welcoming. There are no overly inflated egos here, so when an attractive talented girl comes on, Joanne doesn't get all territorial with her. She welcomes her and does anything to make the show better. I feel the same way with the guys that have come on the show. If they're good and they enhance the show, then I'm all for it. I'm not all territorial about the show either. I feel pretty comfortable. I think I do a good job on the show and anyone that comes on that wants to make it better, then I'm all for it."

McClintock loves doing comedy and is good at it. "If you look at my resume before I did the show, I had done nine sitcom pilots, and this being my fifth series, the previous four were all sitcoms. And I've done guest stars on other shows, where I [did] more, I guess you could say "acting" because it wasn't a sitcom. To me a sitcom is more about timing than it is about acting. I think it's a completely different type of art. So I've always been pretty good at the comedy. I've been used to it.

"I guess I'm kind of silly, but Jack Kenny (executive producer), he makes me funny. He takes my silliness and then exploits it by writing me funny lines, and that's why Pete is as funny as he is. Granted I do have to manipulate the lines and make it work, but it's not that hard when the writing is as good as I think that it is.

"...That's what I really love about this show, one of the things, the fact that we don't take ourselves too seriously and the fact that everybody can watch the show pretty much. Some of the stuff for little, little kids probably isn't appropriate, but the teens can watch the show, and adults can watch the show and they don't get bored because it's overly juvenile. I think we walk a really nice line. It speaks to the writing and Jack Kenny's ability to know his audience."

This year there is also a new addition to the show, who has more than a guest star role. This season, Aaron Ashmore plays the role of Steve Jinks, the new agent brought in during the absence of Myka. He has the ability to tell when others are lying. "Aaron came in in some pretty odd circumstances - the lead in the show is supposedly not on the show anymore, and a lot of fans were saying, "I'm not going to watch the show if Myka's is not on," so that had to be a little weird but he came on and has done such a great job and he's so incredibly likable as a person and as an actor. I think the fans are just going to attach themselves to him immediately, and the fact that he's a good actor; he's got good comedic timing, so he just fit right in."

Jinks' ability, however, won't be used to cause problems within the team. "I think he uses it more in his work than in his private life. Although it's an ability that helps him, I think it also can be a curse. I think he tries not to use it in his personal life too much."

McClintock reveals that his character does miss Myka. "Pete thinks of Myka as his sister. So it would be the same as if your sister just picked up and walked away and left and didn't say anything to you. So he's hurt by it. It bothers him a great deal, and I think that that's reflected in the story at the beginning of season three."

Regardless of her future on the series, McClintock talks about one of his best memories of working with Joanne Kelly. "There are a lot of memories that are good with Jo, but the one that sticks out the most is when we were casting to?get the job and what we had to go through to get that job. I was really stressed out and just had my second son, I hadn't worked for a while, and it didn't look like I was going to get this job either, and I started freaking out in the lobby. She tried to talk me down off the ledge and after we had been talking for a while, they called us both in together and we had this great audition together. When we walked out, Mark Stern, the head of the network, looked at everybody and said, "That's the show right there, those two." And that was pretty much it, so that's kind of the one that sticks out the most to me."

McClintock is able to talk about his favorite scene of the season, which will be the opening scene of the finale, without spoiling it. "Last night we filmed a scene that was a very emotional scene for everybody and our director has basically been here since the beginning in season one, and after we were done he said that was his favorite scene, ever. And this is guy who's been directing for years and years, so for him to say that, it's nice to hear. We worked twenty hours that day, so that was just a nice reward to hear that and to know that the things you are doing in front of the camera are coming across."

The actor says that there is a lot of himself in the character he plays on Warehouse13. "I think for me, what you see, is what you get. I don't do a whole lot of acting on the show. I'm there for too many hours to try and pretend that I'm someone else. That's pretty much me, I mean, it's someone else's words but I'm not trying to play a character, I'm just trying to say the words the way that I would say them in life sometimes. When you're playing the same guy twenty hours a day, day in and day out, for me, it's just easier to be myself."

There are always some scenes that McClintock and the cast film that have to be cut for time. "It's just something that happens; it's just the nature of the beast. Specifically, there was an episode, last year I think, I can't really remember, there was a scene with Tia Carrere and we were at a cemetery, and we had a really nice scene that didn't make it into the show. But I don't know, maybe it will make it into the deleted scenes on the DVD set this year."

McClintock loves his job, but it still has its challenges. "The biggest challenge is having to leave my family and my home in Los Angeles for six months. I have two small boys. I have a four year old and a five year old, and last year, they were too young to really realize that I wasn't there, but this year they're more aware that I'm not around, so it's harder on them and it's harder on me, so that's been the biggest challenge.

"As far as like my acting is concerned, the biggest challenge is basically when they set up a green screen and they tell you what you're supposed to be seeing. We call this "schmacting." That's the most difficult."

The actor also reveals that he sometimes has embarrassing moments on set. "I generally embarrass myself two to three times a day. It's hard for me to pick out a specific moment from the avalanche of self facing events that have occurred to me everyday."

Since starting the series, McClintock has learned that he is confident, but he doesn't let it go to his head. "I show up on time, I don't phone in my work, I try hard, and under circumstances that I think tend to warp people's perceptions of the world, because acting is such an unnatural thing.

"You walk in and people give you things and you get treated like you're special, and different, and all that, and I think that if you don't keep it in perspective, it can turn you into a monster (laughter).

"So the fact that I haven't become a complete d**k (laughter) I guess that's a plus.

"Again, the thing that I'm most proud of is that I've been able to successfully develop a character that people have decided that they like and want to watch."

Aside from Warehouse13, there are other shows McClintock has worked on that he has enjoyed. "I had a lot of fun playing Sully on Bones because I really enjoyed working with Emily Deschanel.

"I just did a guest spot on this show Love Bites...and that was great; that was amazing. But I guess the role for me that is kind of the biggest sore spot was when I played this character, Jake Donovan on a show called Stark Raving Mad back in 1999. It was Neal Patrick Harris and Tony Shalhoub and myself, and I loved working with Tony and Neal; both of them are so talented. I just had so much fun on that show. It was really hard when it got canned. I was just shocked."

He also adds that "working on CSI with Lawrence Fishburne, that was amazing and awesome. Apocalypse Now was one of my all-time favorite movies, and getting to work with him was just so kickass...[and] doing Monk, that was great because I got to go work with Tony [Shalhoub]."

McClintock also has a movie coming out on Syfy. "[It's] called The Boogeyman. It's kind of a horror film, but we don't take ourselves too seriously. Bruce Campbell is one of my favorite actors. I loved Evil Dead 2, so I kind of wanted it to be along the same lines of Evil Dead 2. I guess it will be out around December or the first of the year."

The actor talks about some of the parts he'd love to have in the future. "I'd really like to do Modern Family...I'd like to do How I Met You Mother so that I could go work with Neal again."

There are also other actors McClintock would like to get to work with. "I'd like to work with Ricky Gervais. I'd like to work with Zach Galifianakis. I'd like to work with Robert Duval. I'd like to work with Gary Oldman."

McClintock may also consider writing or directing in the future. "I'm just so terrified of writing because as long as I don't attempt it, no one can say that I suck (laughter). I would like to write; I have some ideas, but again, I'm so terrified of it.

"...Before I became an actor, I was a PA for years and I thought that that was what I was going to do, direct. So I would like to do that as long as I feel that I'm not just a figure head director that's yelling "action" and "cut," I'd like to learn the process. I'm kind of watching the directors here on the show as much as I can."

McClintock is also an artist, which some people may be surprised to know. "I studied to be an artist. I was going to be a graphic artist. The reason I say that is that some of my artwork made it into the show and some of the people on the set were like, "did you do this artwork?" And I said, "yeah that's mine," and they were like, "wow!"

The actor has sold some of his artwork in the form of Warehouse 13 t-shirts. "I sold like 350 at Dragoncon in three days. I wanted to do more with the t-shirts, but I'm actually going to do a whole new design this year...this is like a season three shirt."

For more on Eddie McClintock, be sure to visit his official site and stay tuned to SciFi Vision for another upcoming interview with the Warehouse13 cast. Also, besides Comi-Con, fans can see McClintock at the convention Shore Leave 33 in Baltimore this weekend.

Season three of Warehouse13 premieres Monday, July 11, on Syfy.