Paul Blackthorne, what was your initial reaction when you were presented with the script for The Dresden Files?

Blackthorne: When I first read it I was immediately attracted to the character. He's a slightly reluctant hero, and he's the fellow who'd really rather just stay at home and watch a nice film with a nice lady, but he seems to have so many issues in his life pertaining to women, paying the bills, generally getting through a day unscathed that he never really seems to be able to quite stay home and watch a film with a lady, the lady. There always seems to be something going on.Can you talk a bit more about the reluctant hero end of it?

Blackthorne: He's just trying to pay the bills and make a living, and it's not all about going out there and trying to be heroic. He's got this wizard stuff going on, he's got these qualities, and (he's thinking) "I suppose I'm the man for the job, then, and I'd better get on with it."Not too long ago, you completed an indie film entitled Special, about a man [Michael Rapaport] who has a strange reaction to his medication and thinks he's a superhero. How's that coming together, and what do you play?

Blackthorne: It's a good little film. Rapaport is hysterical and tragic at the same time. It's a film that's kind of fairly hard to quantify, really. I remember reading it and thinking, "Well, I don't know what genre this is, but it's good." The filmmakers did a terrific job on it. It's a classic little indie filmmaking venture, and off we went to Sundance and did all that stuff. It's got its deal. That's a really interesting little film. The drugs, these little forms of happiness that supposedly come in packets of little white pills, are really what it's all about. Michael takes the pills and they create the illusion in his mind that he is of another world, shall we say. I'm the head of the pharmaceutical company whose drugs he's taking, that are giving him a few issues and, shall we say, embarrassing my character. I wouldn't say I'm the good guy. I'm rather antagonistic. I'd say I'm a person forced into doing some fairly nasty things as a result of his behavior.We'll be talking to your Dresden Files co-star Valerie Cruz in a few minutes. Anything we should be sure to ask her?

Blackthorne: Just ask her if she should stop at stop signs. Ask her if she should stop at stop signs when she's doing her stunt driving.

Valerie Cruz, what ran through your mind as you read The Dresden Files script?

Cruz: Actually, I really fell in love with it because it was so different than anything that's on the air. My take on it was "Wow, it's a mixture of CSI with The X-Files, with Moonlighting thrown in a little bit." The relationship between Dresden and Murphy is kind of reminiscent of that odd-couple pairing.

So that was my initial take on it. I just thought it was something pretty special, that you don't see every day.Give us your sense of Murphy, who she is and how she fits into the story.

Cruz: She's a woman of integrity. She's a woman who does her job in a male-dominated environment. I think she's tough. I think she's got a lot of heart. I think she's got a lot to prove. And, I think, in addition, and this comes from my research, most cops, and particularly ones who are working on special investigation units, they have a lot of heart, and they really care, and they want to get the bad guys off the street. Essentially, they think there's really not that much difference between them and the bad guys. It becomes very superhero-esque. One is fighting for good, and one is fighting for evil, and they both have pretty driven agendas. So I think that's kind of who she is, and they're throwing some interesting stuff in there with her personal life, which is always interesting because you see someone at work and how they operate, and then you get to see behind the door. She's got a daughter. We just found out in a script that she's got a father who hasn't made an appearance yet. He's wayward and was on the force, but left on not-so-great terms. Apparently he's living with a hooker in Florida, so that might get interesting.What do you make of working with Paul?

Cruz: Love him. He's great. He's a crazy Englishman. He's just fantastic. We have a lot of fun together. We work, interestingly enough, very similarly, and our approach to work is very on-point. So we're having a good time exploring who these people are individually and who they are when the come together and deal with this world. Paul is just a great guy, a lot of fun, and it's very important on a show like this, because he's there a lot. So he definitely sets the tone for how everything will be. And he's lovely. He comes to work and laughs and has a lot of fun. He also puts a lot into it, a lot, a lot into it.You've been around a while as an actress and have worked your way up the ladder. What's it like being number 2 on the call sheet?

Cruz: I'm like, "Yeah, I'm number 2 on the call sheet." When I did Nip/Tuck I was number 5. That was a huge deal. I was like, "I'm number 5!" And on this I said, "Now, I'm number 2!" I have to say, it's great. There is some pressure, and there's a little more pressure because I'm actually doing another show concurrently. I'm doing Kevin Williamson's new show, Hidden Palms. That and Dresden Files are both for Lionsgate, and out of the goodness of their hearts they saw fit that I could work on both shows. It kind of all came at once, and I'm trying to handle it with grace. But I'm ready for it. I'm excited. It's fun and it's work, but nothing worth having is easy.How ready are you for a long run on The Dresden Files, if it comes to pass?

Cruz: I'm ready. I totally have faith in this. From the minute that I read it I was just fascinated by the script, and there are so many elements in place for it to be great. Paul is great. Paul and I work together well. Our other cast members are great. The writers are great. I'm definitely ready for a long run. It's something that's exciting, and every week is something different. I'm always excited to see what's coming next. So I'm definitely ready for it.Last question: Paul told us to ask you if you're supposed to stop at stop signs.

Cruz: Oh, my God! Those are Murphy moments. Paul has coined the phrase Murphy moments, and those would be moments I choose to say something really retarded, but not in jest. So, yeah, we were doing a sequence where we were supposed to speed around a corner and into a driveway, and I was supposed to realize that there's a stop sign en route. But I looked at Paul and was like, "Am I supposed to stop at the stop sign?" He just burst out laughing. It was a Murphy moment. I tend to have a lot of those, and we've decided we're going to keep a journal and monitor those. So I have a feeling all of my Murphy moments will be coming back to haunt me, probably at the wrap party.

Terrence Mann, how much, if anything, did you know about the Jim Butcher books before you hooked up with The Dresden Files?

Mann: Nothing. I knew nothing about the novels. I think when I heard The Dresden Files, I probably remember looking at it when I was in the bookstore and maybe brushed by it. But I didn't know anything about the novels.What was your reaction when you were approached about playing the role of a spirit who lives in a skull?

Mann: I went, "Oh, that sounds funny." And then I got a little more information about it. They thought it was going to be a voice-over and just this spirit in a fire and a glow of some kind of light. Then they realized they had to personify it and make it into a person, so they had to scramble to get it cast. So it all kind of happened very fast, within a couple of weeks. It's one of those things where you hit the ground running and find your way and developing the character and who you are and what your relationship is to everybody on the go, on the fly. That's exciting because you've got to make some choices and just kind of go with it. But playing a 500-year-old wizard named Bob who lives in a skull, that's a challenge. It's not like doing The Odd Couple.Give us a sense of the character and his relationship with Dresden.

Mann: Well, I would say he's very intelligent, and he's got an ego, and he knows what he knows. He was very powerful at one time; that's why all the other wizards took him down. The great thing about it is that he and Harry are really a good match for one another. They go at it with each other, and that makes for some good conflict and good chemistry in doing what they do in the episodes.How's Paul as a sparring partner?

Mann: He's amazing. He's fantastic. He's got a lot of energy and is very smart and a good actor. It's always great to get in the room with him and the director and the writers, because once [you] add the actors to the mix, their input and the way that they approach things starts to inform the writing. And Paul is always great about being specific about what he wants, but then being open to the idea of creating these things as we go.

Robert Hewitt Wolfe, you've got noir, drama, procedural, romance and magic in the mix. How tricky is it to put so many elements into one storyline?

Wolfe: I don't find it that tricky. Obviously, there is a balance to strike, and you can go too far in the procedural direction or too far in the magic direction. Especially in the first couple of months, the writing staff got together and spent some time finding that balance. Also, Hans and I, when we wrote the pilot, were continually tweaking things to find the balance. You know, Jim's books tend to be more magical than the show. They tend to go bigger. They're very cinematic, which is something we felt wouldn't play as well on television. So we tried to scale back some of the more cinematic elements and tried to focus on this great, quirky character and this world he inhabits. We really tried to make it our world that he sees in a different way. He sees the magic we don't see. It is a juggling actor or a balancing act or a tightrope walk, however you want to put it, but it's not insanely difficult. It's not as difficult as it sounds. A lot of genre shows have a lot of detective elements in them, and even some detective shows which you think of strictly as detective shows, sort of creep towards horror and suspense. So it's not a marriage in hell. It's a fairly natural meshing of these elements.What will viewers see on a weekly basis?

Wolfe: Essentially, every week you've got a case that has some sort of supernatural elements that get Dresden involved, whether it's a client walking through his door or the police bringing him to the scene of a crime or something happening to Dresden himself, that sort of sets him on a trail. But there's a case he gets involved with from week to week, and he doggedly starts pursuing these cases and unwinding the various convolutions of them all using not just magic, but his understanding that there is such a thing as magic, which gives him a unique insight. He'll say something like, "Oh, maybe it's a werewolf." Where other people might not make that leap of faith, he will make it. And in his arsenal, in his bag of tricks, he's got his wizard set of tools. It's nothing huge. It's not like he's doing anything you can't normally do with technology. How's a wand different from a pistol at the end of the day? But he's unusual in that he's got that particular extra set of tools, too.What is your cast bringing to the table?

Wolfe: Paul is just amazing. He's got a great, really quirky but very real and charismatic approach to the character. He's a terrific actor. I think a lot of people know him from 24. The first time I ever saw him was in this Bollywood movie called Lagaan, which was a period musical about cricket in which he played the evil British colonial captain. But he's a really talented, classically trained actor with great chops, and he's just bringing a tremendous amount of humanity and vulnerability and interest to the character. I'm told by the women on our staff that he's also very good-looking. So he's certainly attractive. But the big thing for Hans and me when we were casting him was that he brought these layers to the character that you really look for in a leading actor. Terrence is infusing Bob with a really interesting personality, and it's really hard to get the mix. Bob sort of has a mix of protectiveness and care towards Dresden, but at the same time he feels a little bit hostilely dependent on Dresden. His life is very much bounded by what Dresden lets him do or doesn't let him do. So there's a little bit of an edge in that relationship, and Terrence has been able to find that edge without losing the affection. He can play those two sort of contradictory impulses at the same time. Valerie Cruz is doing a really great job as Murphy. She's a big part of the show, too. Murphy doesn't believe a word that Dresden says, but her practical side just can't turn him down because he gets results. She's bringing a lot of fun to that character. So we've got a terrific cast.What does Jim Butcher make of the show, and how involved, if at all, is he?

Wolfe: Jim saw the pilot and was very happy. He was up for the shooting of the pilot. We've been sort of running so fast right now. I mean, we just finished the very first cut of the first episode, so we're really early in the process. So he's not seen any cuts of that. Honestly, I haven't talked to Jim in a couple of weeks, but I talk to him as often as I can. But he was very happy with the pilot and was very happy with the stuff we were talking about doing for the series. And I actually owe him a phone call so I can bring him up to speed.