Were you a fan of the show coming into acting on it?

Yeah, I was. I haven’t seen every season, but I think one of the things that was great for me was convincing my parents that I was finally a serious person. The only show that they ever watched, and I’ve been able to watch with them, is 24. My parents are Italian and they have this extraordinary ability to fall asleep within three seconds of watching anything on television. I’ll be watching television with them when I go visit them and then they’re immediately out. Yeah, 24, we watched the whole first season, the whole second season together, that’s all though, when it comes to television and my parents. So, when it comes to asking if I’m a fan of the show, absolutely, because that’s the only television show that I could talk to them about, that’s the only show that they understood.


What’s it like getting tortured on camera?

I’m not gonna say I like it, I’m not a freaking masochist, but the point is that as far as the performance goes, you’re really able to wrap up your performance. When you’re in the torture scene and, I can tell you, at the end of the day you feel like you’ve achieved something. There’s a lot of stuff you do on TV, you could waste a whole day on the set, while all you're doing is walking up and down the corridor, and you're on your phone, you really don’t feel like you’ve achieved something at the end of the day. You may have had a great time at the set, but performance wise, it’s nothing you’re gonna write home about. When it comes to being tortured, if you really want to perform a good torture scene, you’ve got to be ready to go there, you’re ready to go places you wouldn’t normally go any other time and I found it to be…I mean, I’ve been tortured in a number of shows I’ve been in, and, funny enough, I find it gratifying. That sounds really odd. I’m being a weirdo but it is a gratifying thing to do it and do it in like four takes. So, hopefully it works out.


Especially this season, there’s been a lot of discussion in the media about the politics of 24 and the torture stuff too. Do you think the writers are trying to make some sort of political statement or are people just reading way too much into a TV show?

I think the show was definitely a show that was conceived in a way that was close to the bone when it comes to things happening around the world. You know, it’s a post 9/11 show, the paranoia that exists because of that ridiculous event, that horrible event, which permeates the society. The show draws on it to a certain extent but I think what’s most important about the show is that the fantasy...very few people, if anyone, climbs that wall and comes around and likes that show in a way that it would make a political statement. I mean, it’s not…the producers of that show come from all kinds of political leanings and I think that it’s something that people tag onto the show. It’s not something they think of and write in the show. Does that make any sense?


Of course, anything could happen to Morris in the last few episodes of the show but have you gotten any indication whether you’ll be back for season seven or not?

I cannot say. I mean, they don’t tell. I’m not informed of that until…and I really won’t know for about a month or so. It seems like maybe, but anything can happen in that show, anything. And you know, at this point, I haven’t got a clue whether I’ll be back next year on season seven. I hope I am, I mean I really enjoyed doing the show. There’s been no direct indication to me.


I know you’ve got some other projects going up on in Canada right now. Do you want to speak about those?

Yeah, I’m up here shooting in Canada a very interesting and unusual sitcom. It’s called Little Mosque on the Prairie. It’s all about Muslims in the prairies. It’s about how they fit in in the small, made-up town called Mercy and the townsfolk, how they view these colorful minority. It’s shot like a sitcom and, you know, I play a Lebanese guy by the name of Yasir Hamoudi, and I have a wife, she’s a convert and we have a beautiful daughter and they’re out there, along with the other characters. One hopes that hilarity ensues on the show. We’ve recently shot eight episodes in Canada and they got a lot of attention worldwide. The show’s actually very popular in Canada, it got a lot of audience in Canada. It’s a very sweet show, you know, it’s a way of…the nice thing about it, I think, is that when it comes to Islam, it’s just such a huge diversity, there’s just a diversity of people in that religion and this gives a little bridge into that world for people in the west or in North America. We hope it’s funny, because it’s supposed to be a sitcom.


Is there any way that we can see that here in the U.S.?

People have been watching it all around the world over YouTube and it’s downloadable. The producers are very keen for people to see it because they really hope to sell it. It’s a difficult sell, especially in the U.S., because of its subject matter, but it’s really a very innocent and sweet show. It’s possible to see it, you can see it on YouTube, unfortunately it has such a small screen but they’re hoping to sell it. They’re hoping to sell the show either directly into the States or as the format of the show. One or the other.


Alright Carlo, I appreciate you stopping by and thanks for the time.

Hey, thank you very much.