Sasha Roiz Interview – ‘Grimm’ Season 5 Gets Even Darker

Sasha Roiz Interview on Grimm Season 5
Sasha Roiz at the 2015 SD Comic Con (Photo by Mark Davis / NBC)

The cast of NBC’s Grimm made the trek to San Diego for the 2015 Comic Con, and once again the series’ fans showed up in huge numbers to listen to the cast talk about the upcoming season. All of the key Grimm cast members – Sasha Roiz, David Giuntoli, Claire Coffee, Bree Tuner, Silas Weir Mitchell, Russell Hornsby, and Reggie Lee – were on hand at the event to discuss season five during a standing-room-only panel. They also took part in roundtable interviews to provide a more in-depth look at the new season set to premiere on October 30, 2015 at 9pm ET/PT.

Kicking off our roundtable interview with Sasha Roiz, I congratulated him on the success of the Grimmster Endowment and the Grimm Gala which raised money to help the OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. “That was really special and all of us felt that. It was an incredible opportunity to give back to Portland, to give back as a show,” said Roiz. “It was a very unique thing. Not a lot of shows do that and we’re grateful to NBC for supporting us as well. We raised $300,000+ and now we’re probably going to stand to raise half a million next season. Fantastic.”

And speaking of next season, Roiz believes it will be getting back to the show’s roots. “We talked about this ‘reboot’…like I think after a few seasons you get off track a little bit which is normal for any show. You go in every direction and you test things out. Some things work and some things don’t work. And now you kind of revisit season one and go, ‘What was it originally that we were aiming to do?’ I think that there’s a lot of that return to season one. A lot of the darkness of it, the eeriness, that underbelly of Wesen – that danger that is looming everywhere,” explained Roiz. “I think we’re going to be coming back to that.”

How will that darker tone and an exploration of the Wesen underbelly affect Renard? “I’m not sure. I’m looking forward to it. We never know exactly what’s coming,” answered Roiz. “We don’t get the scripts until late in the game, but I hear that it’s going to some of that sort of political intrigue of Renard where he’s trying to control things, he’s trying to set himself up. There’s this whole underbelly of Wesen creeping up and he’s going to try to definitely gain a hand on. Everyone’s turning a little darker. Nick’s turning darker. We’ve lost Juliette. It’s going to affect everybody, I think, in a very interesting way.”

In season four of Grimm, Renard was possessed by Jack the Ripper and wound up killing innocent people without being aware of what he was doing. It was an interesting twist for the character, and Roiz said he enjoyed that little diversion from playing Captain Renard. “It was fun. I didn’t know where they were taking it, like all the possession from the other world, this pain. And then eventually it surfaced as a Jack the Ripper story. It was fun to completely dismiss Renard for an episode and play this other character which was really great,” said Roiz. That said, he does not want to revisit it in season five. “I hope not. I’m done with it!”

More on Grimm Season 5: David Giuntoli Interview / Claire Coffee Interview

Watch the full interview with Sasha Roiz on Grimm season five: