Tommy’s Rich Ting ‘so proud’ of his memorable guest appearance

Rich Ting guest stars in tonight’s episode of Tommy, and told Precinct TV why his role on the CBS crime drama is one of his favorite performances.

Thursday’s episode of Tommy is the new TV crime drama‘s most intriguing story yet, and right in the center of it is Rich Ting. The Warrior alum guest stars on the CBS series as Li Chang, whose life is upended when his baby is kidnapped.

What happens next in “The Ninth Girl” sets it apart from your standard crime drama, and so does Rich’s performance. He spoke to Precinct TV ahead of the episode to talk about how he feels that Tommy is different from other cop shows, and why he’d say this was one of his favorite roles in his entire career.

Learn more about Rich Ting in our interview below, and then make sure to catch him on Tommy tonight at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

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Precinct TV: What do we need to know about your character on Tommy?

Rich Ting: My family is a very powerful political family and wealthy family in mainland China, and I have relocated to Los Angeles. I am a gay Chinese man who’s married to a Caucasian man, and we have pursued our interest in adopting a baby from an unfortunate situation in China.

She’s everything we’ve ever wanted. One day we leave and our baby gets kidnapped and abducted under the babysitter’s watch. So a full-out investigation is launched.

This gets escalated to the mayor of Los Angeles, as well as Edie Falco’s character Tommy, because of just the fact that it was a huge kidnapping in the Los Angeles area, but [also] they find out who my family is in China. So because of my socio-economic [and] political status, my family’s status, the case gets elevated to a high priority.

PTV: That sounds like a lot of storyline for one 42-minute episode.

RT: It’s so highly political, it’s crazy. Everything from Tommy’s background—the fact that she’s a white Caucasian, a mother who has come out as a gay woman, who has a single bi-racial daughter, [and she] is the first female Chief of Police. It’s so much right there. You add the whole international Chinese element, you add the whole sexuality of the gay community, and it just keeps getting more and more elevated. It’s so loaded for an episodic on network television.

PTV: You’ve previously appeared on other TV crime dramas like NCIS: Los Angeles. How does  Tommy compare to the past storylines you’ve played?

RT: The main difference is the amount of depth that it really investigates, I would say. Every primetime network television show has the time constraint, which really limits how deep they can venture in per episode on the issue. Usually it’s a robbery and you bust the robbers. Or it’s a gang situation and you arrest the gang members at the end of the episode.

This one, each episode kind of rolls into the next one and it’s not a stop and go. I think they did an excellent job in really maximizing the amount of time and the amount of detail that they’re able to portray per episode. You have issues that are coming from episodes one, two, three, four, five. You have issues that are starting to be created in episode six that are going to influence and foreshadow episode seven.

So in that way, I thought they were very strategic in creating this extra space, if you want to call it, to really give the viewers multiple issues and multiple solutions, [while] at the same time leaving open the possibility of new crimes and new issues and new things to discover and investigate in the next episode.

PTV: What did that mean for you from an acting standpoint, and how you were able to portray Li Chang?

RT: It was a very unique experience. My personal character arc was probably one of the biggest arcs I’ve done on an episodic. I’m actually the alpha male in my relationship, and I go from this stable, strong alpha position to a vulnerable position at one point, where I completely blow it and break down. So right there, the time I’m given to convey this character is obviously tough because of the amount of time we’re allocated for each episode. But at the same time it was probably one of the craziest arcs.

PTV: You get a considerable amount of screen time with Edie Falco. What was your experience working with her and how did that inform your character?

RT: To share the screen one-on-one with Emmy Award-winning, Golden Globe Award-winning, Sopranos cast member Edie Falco, that was just unreal. I’d heard so many great things about her off-camera…When I booked this, everyone was like oh, my God, you’re going to love Edie. She’s phenomenal. A lot of my fellow actor friends and coaches, they’ve been on projects with her. They had already hyped her up enough to me [and] her resume speaks for itself. So I was already just excited to be on camera with her. But, wow. What a professional.

She’s one of those actors that you can just tell due to her professionalism, her kindness on set, her interaction with other actors. She’s been doing this a long time. She’s completely grounded in her craft and as Edie Falco. She’s so welcoming and she really allowed me to drop into my character.

This character was a very big deal to me, because it’s the first time that I was able to do such a crazy arc from beginning to end. And I’m so proud that I was able to be the most vulnerable I’ve ever been on camera in front of her. She sent me a lot of great off-camera emotion that allowed me to get to that place I needed to get to. It was such a privilege and it was so much fun to work with her. I would love to work with her again and I can’t say enough [about her].

PTV: For people who want to see more of Rich Ting after Tommy, what have been some of your favorite other projects?

RT: I was on Cinemax’s Warrior, which is a period piece written by Bruce Lee that premiered last year. I played the character of Bolo. That was a dream role, just because I grew up idolizing Bruce Lee. To honor him and bring to life something that he wrote and created before he passed away in the 70s, that was an honor.

And to play the character of Bolo, who’s notoriously known throughout the martial arts world and throughout the action world was also a dream of mine that I never even dreamt of, to be honest. As a kid I dreamt about making movies, being on television, being an actor in Hollywood. But by no means did I ever dream about helping to prolong Bruce Lee’s legacy. I just never thought of that. That was definitely one show I’m super proud of.

And another one is the fourth and final season of Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, where I played the new Japanese Kempeitai officer that is introduced. That one was awesome as well for me, just because I was a fan of The Man in the High Castle from season one.

Those are two things that I definitely am proud of. And to be honest Tommy, even though it’s one [episode], would be the third thing. I’ve gone from gangster to gay husband. And that’s an arc I’ve always wanted to show on television. I’m now getting to show people what I actually do train on when I’m not filming, what I train on in my actor’s studio, what I train into my theater in L.A.. I train for softer roles, for more romantic roles, for relationship roles.

To be cast as a gay Asian-American alpha male in a prime time network television show on CBS, that was epic to me. I’ve been waiting for this role. I’m just really happy to represent the gay community. I’m obviously happy to represent the Asian-American community. But more importantly to my fans and my followers and everyone that’s supported me, I just want them to see a whole other part of what I’m about.

I think I’ve kind of developed this reputation of being a strong character. And yes, I do have a martial arts background and yes, I’ve done a lot of actions and stuff. That’s only part of my career. The other part of my craft that I actually train on a lot, I get to showcase it next on Tommy. So I’m super proud of this show.

Tommy airs Thursdays at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.