[Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for Cross.]

Summary

The Amazon MGM Studios series ‘Cross,’ that drew huge viewing numbers and earned a Season 2 pickup, follows D.C. detective Alex Cross chasing a serial killer.

In Season 1, Ryan Eggold portrays the complex villain Ed Ramsey, a serial killer obsessed with serial killers, in the crime thriller series.

Eggold discussed the appeal of playing a villain, the dynamic with other characters, and the potential for his character’s future.

The Amazon MGM Studios original series Cross drew huge viewing numbers, making it one of Prime Video’s most-watched series debuts ever and earning it a Season 2 pickup. The first season of the crime thriller follows D.C. homicide detective and forensic psychologist Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge) as he faces a serial killer obsessed with serial killers. As Alex and his partner and best friend John Sampson (Isaiah Mustafa) track the very dangerous Ed Ramsey (Ryan Eggold) to stop him before he does any further damage, Alex also continues to grieve the tragic death of his wife while raising their two children.
After watching the first season of the series, Collider got the opportunity to have an in-depth chat with Eggold about his complex, complicated villain that’s part Ted Bundy, part Patrick Bateman from American Psycho and part Ken doll. During the interview, he broke down the appeal of the role, what he did to prepare for the character, and what it was like to figure out the dynamic between Ed Ramsey and his most recent victim Shannon (Eloise Mumford), and talked about how freeing it is to not be bound by the rules of being a good guy, why he almost didn’t take the role, weaving a fragility and vulnerability into the ruthlessness of his character, that creepy moment under the sheet, what it was like to shoot the interrogation room scene with Hodge, whether he feels like there’s still more to explore with this character, and why he’d want to play a Star Wars villain.
Ryan Eggold Enjoyed Relishing in the Villainy of His ‘Cross’ Character

Image via Prime Video

Collider: I love a villain character that can just relish being a bad guy.
RYAN EGGOLD: Totally, yes. It’s really fun, acting wise, to relish in that villainy, as well. He hides it from all the characters, but with the audience, he’s very transparent, and certainly with Eloise [Mumford]’s character.
Is that freeing, as an actor, when you don’t have to worry about trying to justify your character’s actions or figure out what his motivations are?
EGGOLD: Yes and no. It’s super-freeing, in the sense that, as the villain, you’re not bound by the rules like the good guy is. It’s fun to play someone where there’s no rule he can’t or won’t break, and no one he won’t betray. Nothing gets in the way of his blind ambition, which is fun. The acting is all about playing intention and objective, so when there’s nothing in the way of that, it’s really fun. But there’s also that thing that everybody always talks about, with how you try not to judge your character when you’re playing him. You have to find a way to embody it without judgment and believe in it, even when he’s ojectively perhaps not the nicest fella.
Were there times when it was a lot?
EGGOLD: Totally. There were so many great days on set when we’d get a new draft from (show creator) Ben [Watkins] and our great writers and be like, “Hey, he’s doing what?!” I’d see that my character had a chisel in one hand and Shannon’s tooth in the other, and I’d be like, “Oh, boy, this is gonna be fun.” When I read the scene when he’s in the shower and he’s getting ready for his big day and he’s trying his mask on, and then he looks down and there’s a young woman doing what she’s doing, and you’re like, “Oh, wow, okay. This will be a fun day at work.” The writing was just excellent, at every turn. I was just surprised at what was coming next and excited to figure out how we were gonna get it done.

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You’ve said that you almost said no to this, having just come off of New Amsterdam and being tired, so you almost didn’t want to do this. Now that you’ve done it and you know the character journey and where it all ended up, how would you have felt watching it and seeing someone else do this role?
EGGOLD: It’s so true. I was like, “Okay, I just did five years of this great show that I’m really proud of. It’s time to take a break and assess and look around and see what we’re doing.” And then, this just came along. I was shooting New Amsterdam up until Christmas in December, and then I was shooting Cross in early January in Toronto. It was pretty quick. I don’t know how I would have felt if I didn’t do it. I probably would have rationalized it to myself and been like, “That guy sucks.” But I’m really grateful I did it. I have to credit David Matlof, my lawyer, for encouraging me to check it out because he knew banned and vouched that he was a great guy. And then, once I met Ben, I was like, “Oh, yeah, this guy’s amazing. He’s smart and he’s grounded and he’s very egoless and collaborative and just really fun.”
I should also mention Kim Coleman, who’s the casting director. She’s hired me a few times and I’m just incredibly grateful to her because she’ll think of me for these roles sometimes that a lot of folks don’t always do. In Hollywood, everybody just wants you to do the last thing that you did, so it’s fun to find new colors and new challenges. I don’t know if it’s playing it safe or fear of the unknown or only wanting people to do what they’ve done, in any field, not even just acting. If you were a children’s book writer and you said, “I’m gonna write a tragic romance,” they’d be like, “What are you talking about?! You don’t do that.” So, it’s fun, with the help of great collaborators, to break out of some of those boxes. Whether you’re a writer or actor or in any field, the most exciting thing is to tread new ground and break into new territory.
Do you feel like you’re going to be more cautious with what you do after this because of the type of character this guy is?
EGGOLD: Yeah, exactly. Now I’ll be typecast as serial killers forever. We’ll see. I went into a play after Cross, and that was a totally different experience. That was a great new challenge.
Which Scene Helped Ryan Eggold Understand His ‘Cross’ Sociopath?

Image via Prime Video

Because you don’t know everything a character will be on a TV series when you start it, what was on the page with this guy and always part of the character, and were there things that you knew you wanted to bring to him because you saw him in a particular way?
EGGOLD: I wanna say I only saw two scripts when I first got it, or maybe even just the first episode with some themes from the future. I don’t remember exactly. But I remember one of the scenes that made me go, “Oh, I see where this, and it’s gonna be awesome,” and it was the scene in episode two where he traps Shannon at his house and has lured her in with the hand sanitizer and drugged her. Once I saw that turn of him using his charm to be Mr. Friendly and a nice guy and approachable, and then suddenly was just unabashedly frank about relishing joyfully, as the spider who had trapped this fly in his web, I was like, “Oh, I see where this is going.”
That’s when I got really excited about it. I think I just wanted to try to find out who he really was and not do a caricature, and find a person, as much as I could, and figure out where this lives in somebody and where it comes from, and how you get to the point where you are without empathy and without remorse. There was a fragility and a vulnerability that I wanted to find because I think that kind of ruthlessness comes from a place of deep hurt and fear and feeling out of place in the world. It creates this opening to swing the other way and vie for control and power, in a way that obviously becomes very extreme and scary.

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He’s an interesting contradiction because he is this lethal predator who can trap whatever prey he’s after. But then, at the same time, he also likes to play with his food. He’s not just striking them and killing them immediately, he’s keeping them around and playing with them.
EGGOLD: Definitely. I think that is the sign of a sociopath – that need to control and getting off on the power and being able to manipulate people and holding all the cards. Ironically, that is also then their weakness. At least in Ramsey’s case, because of his sense of godliness and his sense of invincibility, he thinks he’s the smartest person in the world, that no one can catch him, not even this great detective, that he can get away with anything, and that he’s going to launch himself into the pantheon of killers who left a mark on history. These grandiose delusions are what end up being his greatest weakness and his Achilles heel.
Was there anyone in particular that you looked at to draw from, or did you try to avoid getting specific, in that sense?
EGGOLD: I definitely wasn’t super specific. Ben was clear upfront that this is not a specific character from the books, so we had license to form an amalgamation of these amazing James Patterson villains in these books. There were a couple of things that I was thinking. He was like a psychotic Ken doll who just wanted to be perfect. That was the blond hair and the manicuring of himself and the way that he also manicures his victims. Of course, it’s hard to play one of these guys without referencing Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, just because Christian Bale did such a great American psychotic. And then, Ted Bundy was someone who was famously very charming, and able to manipulate people and woo them in that way, and who was also obviously capable of horrific violence. That was also somebody that I was looking to.
Ryan Eggold and Eloise Mumford Worked Together To Find the Twisted Power Dynamic Between Their ‘Cross’ Characters

Image via Prime Video

This guy has victims, but he’s also developing relationships with them. Did you have conversations with Eloise Mumford about what you were both comfortable with and how far to push things? What was that like to figure out, as characters and as actors?
EGGOLD: I’m so grateful for Eloise because she not only played the role so well and played Shannon with more than just the simple color of fear but added a lot of different tactics and colors and shapes to that character and really fleshed her out, as a whole human being. She was so great about it. We were always communicating, and we were always making sure the other person was comfortable, and always planning out anything that was violent to her or threatening violence, so that we could then be free enough to be a little unpredictable and maybe scare each other in a scene or catch each other off guard or surprise each other, which is always the best stuff.
We laughed because they’d say, “Action!,” and I’d have a chisel to her teeth and I’d be knocking her teeth out and threatening to murder her. And then, they’d say, “Cut!,” and I would grab a cup of water and be like, “Are you okay?” It was a fun relationship to play. They are in a relationship together, even though it’s a messed up one. They did meet on a date, so there was initially some spark of attraction and some intrigue. So then, to take that and put it into this context, where the power dynamic is flipped on its head, there’s a lot of intimacy there because they are alone together in a basement, being completely honest with each other. He’s not hiding the fact that he’s a killer or what his plans are, or anything. There’s a closeness there that was really interesting and fun to explore.
And really messed up to watch.
EGGOLD: Yeah, I bet. It’s a weird thing. And then, there’s that Stockholm syndrome that kicks in, where you feel a kinship with your captor. It was just a very interesting dynamic.
It’s never not creepy in a movie or TV show when the body under the sheet is suddenly not dead and sits up and walks out of the room. The way that it’s done in this was so brilliant, with that moment where you catch the chart while you’re still under the sheet. Was that always what that scene was going to be? Was there ever a different version of that, or was that always how that was going to play out?
EGGOLD: I have to give credit to Ben and the writers. That’s what they wrote, and that scene was always intended to be that way. It was such a great twist because it was so simple. It was like, “Okay, he’s done and gone,” and then the Terminator comes back again. And it was in such a way that now he’s got even less to lose. He had nothing to lose before and now he’s got less than nothing because he’s been “dead” already and he’s just trying to finish the job. And so, now the rails are off. I loved that. Ben and the writers sometimes redacted things, even for us, and I feel like they redacted that, to not let anyone know that Ed was alive until we shot it. And then, I was like, “What?!” They wrote so many great surprises. And then, there was the twist with the piano teacher that they wrote. They just wrote a great thriller.

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Aldis Hodge stars in the Prime Video series.

There are so many interesting layers going on in that scene. Having him come off the table and be naked was almost like being born again. Now, he’s shed even more of himself and is just full on in who he is. There’s such interesting symbolism with that, whether it was intentional or not.
EGGOLD: I think you’re right. Before he’s “killed,” he’s at least got a public face to protect as Ramsey, the socialite and influencer in D.C. Once they know it’s him in this morgue, he’s got nothing left but this. He’s naked, as his true self, ready to completely embody his ruthless pursuit.
The scene in the interrogation room between Ed Ramsey and Alex Cross is interesting because it feels like your character still thinks he’s the one manipulating the situation and doesn’t realize that Cross is holding information from him, to use it when it’s most impactful. What was that like to shoot? Did that dynamic come naturally, between you and Aldis Hodge?
EGGOLD: Those scenes were so fun. When I was first signing on, Aldis and I did a chemistry read to feel it out and so that they could make sure I was the guy. I forget exactly which scene Aldis and I read, but I wanna say it was one of the scenes in episode five when they face off in Ramsey’s house. It felt great immediately, and I certainly credit that to Aldis. I don’t think there’s anybody else in the world who should be playing Cross in this series. He just embodies the character so fully and confidently and naturally. He makes it feel effortless and easy. The writing in those scenes was great. It was fun to play. As the actor, you have to throw out any knowledge of whether you win or lose, and you playing it as though you’re the smartest guy in the room and you’ve got this guy beat and that everyone is beneath him. So then, to have the rug pulled out from under him, it’s fun because now you’re playing a guy in complete freefall, who’s completely breaking down and all the constructs in his mind are falling apart. And then, we got to throw chairs and bang our heads into the glass. It was fun.
In that moment, do you think that he respects Cross, admires Cross, or hates him? What do you think Ramsey thinks of him when he realizes that he wasn’t as manipulative as he thought he was?
EGGOLD: That’s a great question. In the moment that he’s completely caught off guard, it’s probably nothing but pure hatred for beating him at his own game, and for outsmarting him, outwitting him, and destroying his life’s work. But I do think that underneath that, Ramsey certainly respects Cross as someone who’s intelligent and capable and a great profiler, psychologically. I think Ramsey fancies himself the same. In his mind, he probably thinks they’re cut from the same cloth of being brilliant detectives and being good at reading people. It just turns out that Cross is actually the one who’s the brilliant detective. But I think there is a great deal of respect underneath and fear of a great adversary, which breeds respect, as well.
Ryan Eggold Is Open to Diving Back Into ‘Cross’

Image via Prime Video

When you get to the end of the season and your character is not dead, it means that he could still be around and come back, at any point. Did you immediately want to know if you’d return for Season 2?
EGGOLD: Obviously, that’s definitely a question for Ben and what they want to do. The response to Ed has been really fun. As you said, there’s a really fun dynamic between the two of them. When I finished New Amsterdam, I was looking for a shorter commitment, in the moment. But this group of people is so fantastic and the show was so well-received. I’m so happy for Ben and for Aldis and for everybody. They’re really good guys, and I love seeing when good, nice people make something good. They deserve the success. I would definitely be open to diving back in, in whatever capacity that means. I don’t know what that would look like. I don’t know if it’s from jail and it’s a Hannibal Lecter vibe, where he’s helping him with another killer. I have no idea, but I know that Ben is always coming up with amazing twists and turns and clever ideas. I know that whatever they did come up with, if that were to happen, would be worth the watch.
It’s certainly a character that doesn’t feel finished. He’s got enough to him that it feels like there are interesting things there to continue exploring.
EGGOLD: Yeah, it would be fun. I would love to know more about Ed and his childhood, and about what happened to this guy and why he is the way he is. I wanna know who the human being is behind this mask of terror. That’s always an interesting question. The world that Aldis has created and that Cross inhabits is ultimately very warm. He’s trying to be a good father, he’s mourning the loss of his wife, and he’s trying to be a good partner and friend to his partner. There’s ultimately a lot of love at the center of the show, which is what makes it work. So, putting Ramsey in there, who is quite loveless, is interesting. You almost feel bad for the guy, like you would with any broken soul.
And yet, there’s probably no amount of therapy that would actually help him.
EGGOLD: Probably not. But it’s worth a shot.

9:11

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Was there a most difficult and challenging scene to shoot, and was it something that surprised you?
EGGOLD: In a silly way, doing all the teeth stuff with Eloise was hard. I got the heebie jeebies about it. I had to turn off all my natural instincts and embrace his gusto and joie de vivre with it. The constant challenge with this guy, for me, was trying to figure out where to where to pitch it, where he lived, and who he was when he wasn’t the killer. I wanted to try to figure out that guy. I tried to bring a softness to him, at times, and a delicateness that was then punctuated by moments of freefall and of being out of control, and this rage and uncontrollable messiness spills out, but he has to pull it back together.
Ryan Eggold Would Love To Play a ‘Star Wars’ Villain

Image via NBC

Does it feel like your bar is much higher now, for playing a villain again?
EGGOLD: Yes, 100%. There are those giant movies, and it would be fun to play and do something in Star Wars or something like that, where it’s not only a villain, but there’s also such a theatrical element to it that’s perhaps a little less slice-of-life naturalism and a bit of larger than life theatrical-ism. Having just done this play on Broadway, experimenting with size of performance, that would be a really fun experiment. When they get it right, like when you see [Adam] Driver play Kylo Ren, it’s so fun to watch. So, I would love to find something like that in the future.

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Detective and forensic psychologist Alex Cross is pulled back from family leave to hunt a dangerous serial killer after the tragic loss of his wife. Set in Washington, D.C., the series follows Cross as he uses his expertise to delve into the minds of criminals. Amazon’s adaptation promises a mix of psychological intrigue and intense crime-solving drama, blending elements of James Patterson’s books with a fresh storyline.

Release Date

November 14, 2024

Cast

Aldis Hodge
, Isaiah Mustafa
, Juanita Jennings
, Alona Tal
, Samantha Walkes
, Caleb Elijah
, Melody Hurd
, Jennifer Wigmore
, Eloise Mumford
, Ryan Eggold
, Johnny Ray Gill
, Stacie Greenwell
, Mercedes de la Zerda
, Sharon Taylor
, Dwain Murphy
, Karen Robinson
, Matt Baram
, Siobhan Murphy
, Jason Rogel
, Chaunteé Schuler Irving
, Ann Hamilton
, Ashley Rios
, Richard Waugh

Seasons

1

Creator(s)

Ben Watkins

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Cross is available to stream on Prime Video. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Prime Video