Josh Henderson landed the coveted role of playing John Ross, J.R. Ewing’s son, on Dallas that airs Mondays at 9p on TNT and recently I spoke with him on a conference call about it. When I was on the call with him, I couldn’t get over how nice he seemed. So I wanted to know how does such sweet sounding guy, play someone so evil so well.
I asked him what it is like to play a bad guy. He said, “If I had to describe it in one word it would be fun. And because I’m actually a very kind of laid back nice person in real life and I kind of put everyone else before myself which is kind of how I was raised and who I have always been and that’s just who I am. But being able to kind of step out of that and play a character that is like so conniving and scheming and willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants, it’s something that I’ve grown to have fun with.”
So how did he learn to have fun playing someone so bad? He explained, “That’s something that Larry taught me in the first season. You know, he said if I can tell you one thing about being not only a Ewing, but John Ross or someone like his father is that everything he does, he has fun in it. Larry had fun with everything he did.” Then he added, “And not just playing anger all the time which John Ross was always backed into a corner season one and he was always like trying to backpedal and figure things out so he was always kind of frantically, you know, hoping to not screw up. And now season two he has chilled out a little bit and he’s kind of – he is taking his father’s advice and I’m having fun with it.”
And Henderson doesn’t take playing the role of a lifetime lightly because he added, “I just think I’m so fortunate to have this role and to have been able to kind of watch Larry in the role of J.R. And the fact that now that he is gone, you know, I can hopefully kind of have J.R.’s spirit living through me. And continuing to grow into what might be a new, you know, basically not the new J.R. because no one is J.R. but fearing that role of my father is gone and I’m going to be my father’s son and no one is going to stop me. So I’m having the time of my life and I feel very fortunate to be able to be a part of the show.”
And after watching him give a tear inducing performance during last week’s tribute to the late great Larry Hagman from the beginning of the episode until the end, I think we can all agree that Larry Hagman is looking down on him with pride. Seriously I think that Josh Henderson has grown a lot with the role, and I enjoy watching him every week on the drama. He has sincerely blown me with his portrayal of the part and I can’t wait to see what he does next on Dallas. So tune tonight and every Monday at 9p to watch Josh Henderson have fun being bad!
