Sons of Anarchy - Season 5 - Kim Coates Interview

Thanks to maplewhite1912 for the heads up.

TVLINE | What was your reaction when you first read the premiere script?
I saw [Kurt] Sutter in New York at the end of March. He came up to me and said, “You might want to sit down.” I said, “No. I don’t want to sit down. I want to stand up.” He goes, “Well, this is what’s going on with Tig.” He started telling me about the scene and about Pope and about what he does… and I got such tingles; I almost started to tear up a little bit. It was very emotional for me. I have two beautiful daughters myself. It was so epic in a streamlined, f—ed up way. I was so thankful I hugged him. But I was like, “How in the world am I going to prepare for something like that?”

TVLINE | How did you prepare for it?
The first thing I did was I went and talked to my really close buddy, Dr. Sam Alibrando. He’s a therapist. He’s just an amazing, amazing [resource about the] human condition. I told him about [the scene] in strict confidence — as a doctor to a patient, even though he’s not my therapist. We spent four hours discussing the human condition. Sam freaked out when he read it. You could just see his mind going. What he told me about the human condition when it comes to fight or flight, adrenaline, shock and numbness was undeniably the greatest thing I could listen to.

TVLINE | But then you had to go shoot it.
It was two nights of filming at that incredibly dusty, dirty train yard. Harold hit it right out of the park. I didn’t want to meet him before [we shot it] and he didn’t want to meet me. It was as fresh as you saw it [in the premiere]. The props guys saved my hands. I’m an internal actor — I mean I’m in it. I would’ve ripped my hands right [out of the handcuffs] had the props guys not gotten this incredible rubber leather strap for each wrist that the handcuffs were able to go over the top of. It allowed me to scream like a trapped animal and not worry about ripping my fingers off.

Source: Full Interview @ TV Line