Smallscreen News

'Lights Out' Head Games, Holt McCallany talks Eamonn Walker and what's to come

By April MacIntyre Feb 27, 2011, 15:34 GMT

Tuesday, March 1, we are in for a real treat in the episode "Head Games" as actor Eamonn Walker appears in the next two episodes as Ed Romeo, a reclusive trainer who once was the only family a street urchin named Richie Reynolds had.

FX drama "Lights Out" is smoking in the first season, and frankly is one of the best television shows airing right now.  

If you aren't watching, catch up on FX and HULU and see for yourself.  Superb above and below-the-line crafts, editing, direction, lensing, writing and pacing make it a real edge of the seat ride to tune into every week.

The cast of this series hums like the perfectly tuned engine of Patrick "Lights" Leary's muscle car, the 1971 SS Chevelle. A tough American classic, just light Lights and his Irish-American working class family, resilient.

If you want to read a wonderful recap of the last episode "Crossroads," please check out Kevin Key's "Lights Out" coverage from a true boxing fan's perspective here.

Tuesday, March 1, we are in for a real treat in the episode "Head Games" as actor Eamonn Walker appears in the next two episodes as Ed Romeo, a reclusive trainer who once was the only family a street urchin named Richie Reynolds had.

Well, Richie grew up to become Death Row, the heavyweight champion of the boxing world.  He shed Romeo after a fight, and it broke Romeo's (and his now deceased wife) heart. Romeo never recovered from the rejection, and poured his soul and energy into rehabilitating wayward youth in a rural mountain farm setting, forgetting the rest of the world.

This episode we learn Reynolds' fascinating backstory and see what happens when Leary takes a totally different approach to training than the one espoused by his father.

“Head Games” is episode 8, and airs March 1, 10:00 pm e/p – and was written by Bryan Goluboff and directed by Phil Abraham.

In our ongoing conversation with star Holt McCallany, we discuss the upcoming episode, and get some wonderful insight into the action that transpires this Tuesday.

Holt tells Monsters and Critics, "My character 'Lights' Leary has just come off a second round KO of 'El Diablo' Morales in my first fight in five years. I want to proceed straight to a rematch with 'Death Row' Reynolds, the man who took my belt, but my father (Stacy Keach) doesn't think I'm ready, and refuses to train me for the Reynolds fight.  This conflict has been brewing for a long time as my dad feels partly responsible for the loss to Reynolds that cost me my title. I had him hurt in the final round and could have finished him but my father didn't want me to take the risk. He thought I was ahead on the cards, or should have been."

The Morales fight of last week's episode was revisited by Holt. "In training camp for Morales he pushed me hard, too hard. I suffered an eye injury in sparring and was underweight from over-training. I was lucky to get past Morales and we both know it, but an older fighter has to be realistic about where he is in his career. When the money is on the table you have to take it, especially if you're in my position. I'm fighting Reynolds next because I have no choice."

The relationship between Pops and Lights suffers, and Johnny seemingly comes back closer into Lights' inner circle.  Holt says, "In the opening scene I try to convince my dad once more to train me but he won't. He doesn't want to see me get hurt. It's a wonderful scene for Stacy Keach in which we see the father's love beneath the gruff exterior. He leaves me with no alternative but to get a new trainer, so I head to the Catskill mountains to find an eccentric boxing guru named Ed Romeo."

Ed Romeo (Eamonn Walker) is one of several key guest-starring roles that make this series so addictive. Holt continued. "In a spectacular performance by Eamonn Walker of HBO's OZ, Romeo was 'Death Row's' first trainer... but they long ago parted ways. I'm convinced he's the perfect guy to help me prepare to face his former protege. There's just one problem... he's not interested.

However "Lights" doesn't give up easily, he talks Ed into taking a chance on him. Holt says, "That's not my style. I offer to spend the day helping train the young amateur boxers in Ed's gym and by day's end I've persuaded him to come with me to Bayonne on a trial basis.  I learn quickly Ed is a 'my way or the highway' kind of guy. The writers took a lot of inspiration for this character from legendary boxing trainer Teddy Atlas, our technical adviser."

"Teddy lived in Catskill and trained fighters, notably Mike Tyson among others, and like the Romeo character he emphasizes the psychological aspects of the sport. Romeo's line 'Every step a fighter takes toward me is a step toward his ultimate betrayal of me' is an Atlas quote," says Holt. "What he's saying is that in order to make a fighter truly strong a trainer must first show him that he's weak. He has to see his own weakness before you can build him up. Then when he wins and become powerful he won't want you around anymore. The trainer is a witness to something that the fighter would rather forget - his weakness."

The role was well-researched by Holt, and he shared his vision of Ed Romeo with Eamonn. Holt says, "On our first day of rehearsal I gave Eamonn a copy of Teddy's biography which I thought he'd find valuable. There's a certain power dynamic between boxers and top trainers. The trainer is in charge and runs the camp, not the fighter. Hence the unorthodox training sequences in this episode, like when Ed makes me stand against a wall and whips a rubber ball at my head to test my reflexes, and his insistence we train at night, or when he takes me on the roof to shadowbox away from everyone while he delves into my psyche. It's been said that 75% of fighting is mental. Ed is trying to show me that the key to beating Reynolds is not my body, it's my mind."

A schism occurs when Ed takes his intense training a bit too far for Light's comfort zone.  Holt says, "The problem comes when Ed tells me to distance myself from my family - not Theresa and the girls, the Learys. I let him know in no uncertain terms that my family is everything to me and he better back off, but inside I understand that the constant conflict with my father and brother have been an emotional drain for a long time. Romeo is afraid that if he commits to training me, and invests that much of himself in me, that in the end I'll betray him like every other fighter has, like "Death Row" did. Ultimately he decides to take the risk, and I'm willing to follow him into a different kind of training that challenges all my preconceptions. When my father offers to take me back I decline. I've been seduced by Ed's unorthodox style."

A pivotal scene for Holt in episode 8 to watch for?  Holt reflects, "The most intriguing sequence in the episode comes when 'Death Row' shows up at my gym to warn me about Ed's unstable mental health, and I finally see Ed's scars, the physical as well as the emotional ones. I know where they come from. The great old-time trainer Whitey Bimstein, who cornered Dempsey, Tunney, Braddock, Marciano, and Johansson put it this way 'A lot of fighters break a lot of trainers hearts.' "

Be there with us Tuesday night for this no-miss episode, and heart-stopping performances between Eamonn Walker and Holt McCallany in "Lights Out."