There have been many questions about Jamie in Found season 2, and Parker Queenan has done an excellent job of portraying the complexities of returning after being abducted. It seems like we’ve settled on Jamie’s identity in the series, but there are still arcs to come for Jamie, as he figures out his own mind.
We chatted with Queenan in an exclusive interview to get to know what it was about this role that he wanted, and when he learned who Jamie really was in the series. How did any of that affect the way he played the character?
Parker Queenan knew about Jamie’s identity from the start in Found season 2
Precinct TV: I adore seeing the complexities of Jamie’s character come out in Found season 2. What made you want this role as you auditioned?
Parker Queenan: Frankly, the fact that I got it was a really big part of the decision-making process. I would love to say that I have the luxury of choice. There are a lot of roles that you take because you get them, but I can say that this definitely wasn’t one of them. I really liked the audition, and I was really interested in the role as something that was already established in the world of the show. It wasn’t something that was being created; he already had a reputation that preceded him, which was cool.
It's somebody people anticipated coming about, and fans of the show made me excited about playing the character, because they were excited to see what happened. I was like, “well, maybe there’s something here that’s kind of cool.”
PTV: I feel like we’ve got the answers we needed about Jamie’s identity, but my mind still bounces back and forth a little. When did you know if Jamie was really Jamie?
PQ: I knew from the start. I would love to say that I pressed the writers to tell me, but they just told me right off the bat. They pulled me aside and said, “here’s everything.” They told me not everything in detail, but the majority of things that happened the very first time I met them. It was agreed that I wouldn’t tell anybody else on set, so no one else knew, which is helpful.
I’ve played things in the past where I didn’t know the answer, and that was exciting in its own respected. Because I did know, it made for a different process for me, because I was aware of the fact that I was acting very suspicious. I was crossing my T’s and dotting my I’s, and while they were scoping me out, I was trying to scope them out and understand who these people are that I’m now associating with.
PTV: As I said, I love the complexity of Jamie. There’s a lot of conflict that is so believable considering his backstory. What was it like for you to show something that isn’t all black and white?
PQ: Oh, it’s really cool! You understand both sides, but there’s a lot of things the character doesn’t understand either. He’s young, and I think that has something to do with him as well. I’m young, and I don’t understand it all, which is exciting for me, too. There’s a lack of experience, and there’s also very much a lack of perspective.
I think if it was something that he’s known about for 13 years — that’s how long he’s been kidnapped — if it was something that he was really aware of for a long time, maybe he’d have a better grasp over it, but it was kind of just thrown on him all of a sudden. He’s just realized that things are fishy, and there’s a lot of new information piled on. I think for him, the conflict is really what he’s always believed to be true and what he’s realizing is actually true. Those things completely go against one another, and now he’s stuck in the middle, and he feels indebted to both of them. That’s cool to play, but it’s tough to play.
PTV: My heart was breaking for him as he learned the story Kerry told him wasn’t true.
PQ: Right! Kind of cool!
PTV: We have a whole “Found family.” For Jamie, though, he has Kerry, his found family, then Margaret, his real family, and then a found family within that real family. How did you come into this show and decide how to play all those dynamics?
PQ: Mostly, just understanding where I cam from. I think the thing that I had to understand about the character is the fact that he’s really somebody without a home, and I think he’s looking for a home. He’s looking for people to trust, and he can’t really decide if he trusts anybody. He’s had a lot of things in his life that he believed to be true that were proven to him not to be true, and I think he’s just looking for a family, and I think when you have that desire, you also have a sense of the world.
He’s not naïve. He’s not just gonna fold. He has to know that where he’s going is somewhere he can really believe in. I think those things for myself were key to understanding the character, and also the different people within the story. Like you said, there are a lot of families.
PTV: Did you do any research into what other people have found coming off the back of something so terrifying? Sadly, it’s a real thing that’s happening in the world.
PQ: No, I didn’t. When I originally read that he’s kidnapped when first auditioning, I was expecting him to be skin and bone, like dirty and scared, like a stray dog or something like that. That’s what you expect for a kidnapped kid, right? But he’s a normal kid.
For myself, the understanding of the story was that the life I knew is suddenly completely false. It’s essential like somebody finding out that they were adopted, but a bit more extreme. He had a family for several years and he had abandoned them in a way, but he didn’t really know it.
I think understanding for myself was that this wasn’t an accessible place. What would this be like for me if I realized that suddenly the world that I knew to be true wasn’t true anymore? That the think I left behind is actually the thing I should have stayed with. It’s a tough thing to realize that you spent years of your life doing something and that they’re not what you thought they were. There’s that feeling of both regret and waste, and that’s tough, especially during adolescence. Those are pivotal years, and I think that I can understand a lot.
PTV: You get to work a lot with Kelli. Did you two run scenes together, or did you jump in and play it as it would seem in real life?
PQ: More so the section thing. It’s tough working with an actor that’s experience, because she doesn’t need to practice. If I wanted to, she’d probably do it, but she doesn’t need to. She’s been acting for a long time, and she’s a seasoned actor; you can tell on set.
There are things that I wish we did, but acting more is a lot of fun. There’s something very exciting about just going in and shooting the scene and not really knowing where it was going to go, and finding new levels of the scene within it. There were definitely scenes that we shot together that, while scripted, there was a lot of new stuff that we found in the shooting of them, which was fun and cool in its own respect.
PTV: Has there been anything surprising about Jamie the more you’ve got to know him?
PQ: Yeah, I mean, every episode there was a moment where I’d be in the perspective of the audience, and be like “what the heck? What’s going on now?” He was sneaking around, and getting up to things. I would say that 90% of the stuff that happens in the show was a surprise to me. I knew the background, but I didn’t know how they were going to come about, and I didn’t know all the details. They kept some stuff from me, which I’m happy about. It was pretty insightful as we went along.
PTV: Can you tease about anything that’s to come, such as the conflict with Jamie, Kerry, and Margaret?
PQ: Yeah! First off, when it comes to light to them and they understand who Jamie is, they understand where he came from and what’s been the process of getting to where he’s at. There’s more of showing him the ropes, and there’s a little more mystery.
There’s definitely more conflict of who he wants to go with and who he’s going to side with. There’s still al lot of internal conflict as to how he’s going to go about dealing with that, and what that means for him as a character, and how he’s going to move forward from there. He’s now seeing an entirely new world that is completely shifted for him.
Even though he’s made a decision, it’s far from settled and over for him. He’s still dealing with all the stuff that he has to deal with, and that’s going to continue for a while.
PTV: He’s in the right place for that with M&A.
PQ: I think that’s why he wants to be there with them. He understands that they’re people that understand what he’s going through.
Found airs on Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.
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