Greetings,
Last month, something wonderful happened. After an excruciatingly long wait, Leverage has returned to me. I am happy. Since its 2008 debut, I have come to love this show, along with each and every cast member and the characters they portray. Now, of these five cast members, there were three, Gina Bellman, Aldis Hodge and Beth Riesgraf, about whom I did not know. Of course, I knew about the Leverage leader, Timothy Hutton, and had been a huge fan of his for years. Though I had heard of this show in passing and gave it a solid maybe, it was the fifth member of this little crew who was the bait to lure me in completely. And that number five who is number one in my heart is Christian Kane.
Like a lot of people, my exposure to Christian Kane began when he had a recurring role on Angel. Fun Fact#1 - He and David Boreanaz are the only two cast members who were in the pilot and the finale. Fun Fact #2 - That pilot also features, future Sawyer himself, Josh Holloway as a vampire . . . for, like, a minute. So, in that one episode, you get Christian Kane, David Boreanaz and Josh Holloway. Go ahead, ladies. Dive on in and take your pick. Back to the subject.
Christian played a lawyer named Lindsey McDonald. Now this character certainly had a boat load of ups and downs. He could be pure evil, or a man trying to seek redemption, or something right in the middle. To say the least, he really kept our minds active and entertained for his entire time on the show.
Another great thing about his time on Angel was that we got to experience some of his other talents, namely singing. Initially, I thought, "Oh, great. Another actor who wants to be a singer". But, as it turns out, music is actually as equal a passion for him as acting, maybe even more so. In fact, a role he got before Angel was as a country singer on a short-lived show called Fame: LA. A part of me wishes that show would have made it. Anyway, I'll get into the music stuff in a bit.
During and after Angel, Christian had roles in several movies. For example, he was Ashton Kutcher's competition (really?) for Brittany Murphy in Just Married, a half-white/half-Lakota railroad worker in the star-studded Steven Spielberg mini-series Into the West (moving up, aren't we?), and as one half of a scary killing duo in Hide, a movie that was nothing like Natural Born Killers at all. One of the biggest moments in his acting career, I think, was when he was cast as a young Robert Duvall in Secondhand Lions. Hmmm. I've seen a young Robert Duvall. We all have, in To Kill a Mockingbird. I couldn't really see a visual connection there, but Christian still did a fine job, even when acting in the vicinity of legends like Robert Duvall, as well as Michael Caine. I suppose if he ever felt intimidated by Michael Caine he could have just thought "At least, I was not in Jaws: The Revenge".
As far as TV goes, Christian did make appearances on Dawson's Creek and Las Vegas. Hey, why the heck not? He also had a regular role for the first season of a show called Close to Home. I actually liked the show, and thought it deserved more of a chance than it got. But his most significant TV role since Angel is his current one on the superb show Leverage.
If any of you haven't seen it, shame on you and here's a summary. Five former bad guys band together to help people who have been scammed or treated unjustly by using their special skills. Christian plays Elliot Spencer (again, a name nowhere near manly enough for him) whose technical title is "The Hitter" because he likes to fight. Okay, I don't actually know if he likes it, but he sure does it a lot. Some of us have taken to calling him "The Hitter with a Heart", which is exactly what he has become with the evolution of his character on the show. Elliot does have a dark past, which remains somewhat mysterious, since we are given few overwhelming details about it. But we do know he can cook, and for many of us,(by "us" I mean the ladies) that is a major plus point. The very best thing about his character, in my opinion, is that he almost never laughs or smiles, since he spends most of his time angry or annoyed, and yet he is one of the funniest characters on all of television who is not a technically funny character. His work with Aldis Hodge as Hardison is always phenomenal and chock full of hilarity. I'm just going to say the words "blue slushie" and leave it for the Leverage fans to jovially remember. And, like on Angel, we got an episode where we are privileged to hear him sing. So let me use this to segue into his real life music career.
In 1997, Christian met a guy named Steve Carlson, a man with whom he began writing songs and with whom he would eventually form the band called Kane. Oh, you little Jon Bon Jovi wannabe, you! Kidding! In my book, Christian Kane is way awesomer than Jon Bon Jovi. Anyway, they released a self-titled debut in 2000 and a live album in 2004, but it was in 2010 that Christian had his biggest musical success with the release of The House Rules. And every bit of success with this is very much deserved. The album is great, and, much like Christian himself, it is - Oh, yes, I'm gonna say it! - a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. So if you like that kind of sound, I suggest you check it out.
And there you have my retrospective on the career, thus far, of the wonderful Christian Kane. Like many of the people I love, he is completely underrated. Although, in this case, he is underrated as both an actor AND a musician. What is the deal with that? I mean, as an actor, he has proven time and again that he can play many types of characters, from sweet to serious, from funny to dangerous, and sometimes those types overlap, being done so beautifully. And as a musician, he's a fantastic songwriter with a great voice in which I can hear a hint of a young Lindsey Buckingham. And while we're on the subject, I may as well mention that his speaking voice kind of reminds me of a young Clint Eastwood. I should stop before this humble man develops an ego.
In conclusion, I love this person, and everyone with good taste who has managed to give him some attention, most likely loves him, too. Now if he could only stop scaring us, and probably his mother, with all that stunt work he does, everything would be just dandy!
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
