Olivia Wilde and Jonathan Tucker: The Black Donnellys

She was gay on "The O.C." and a tourist running from a human body chop shop in Turistas. He was in the thrillers Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Pulse and has done tons of TV guest shots. Now Olivia Wilde and Jonathan Tucker play a love duo with some serious problems on the new NBC TV series "The Black Donnellys" about an Irish family and friends living in a mob-controlled New York neighborhood.

Olivia plays Jenny Reilly, a childhood pal of the hot Donnelly brothers and Tommy, played by Jonathan, has always had a huge crush on her. Now, Tommy has been forced to walk on the wrong side of the law to protect his brothers. Will love win out or will these would-be sweethearts never get to be a couple? Check out the show Mondays at 10:00 P.M. on NBC.

We chatted with Olivia and Jonathan about their star-crossed characters, their on-screen relationship, other projects, teen backgrounds and what it's like to "go Irish"....

TeenTelevision: Olivia, obviously, a lot of fans will know you from "The O.C." Can you talk about that role and how it differs from the role of Jenny?

Olivia: That role was amazing to me because I had no idea how many people it would reach and how many lives it would touch. I still get letters from young women around the world saying that I help them accept themselves and how they're different from their peers whether it's their sexuality or just because they feel like an outsider much like my character was. And so, that what's really important to me about having done that role is that, I feel like it made a difference in a few people's lives.

And, the similarity between Jenny and Alex is they're both outsiders and a difference is that Jenny doesn't know anything about pop culture at all. She never had this opportunity really. She wasn't able to stay in school. They come from completely different worlds but they're both outsiders and I really enjoy playing an outsider.

TeenTelevision: Jonathan, you come from a ballet training background. Did that kind of training help you with choreographing chase or fight scenes in the show?

Jonathan Tucker: I wish I could give you a good answer and say that it did but, when I was younger, [it helped me] with professionalism and functionality and the ability to listen and take directions was invaluable.

TeenTelevision: Well, how do you pump yourself up for playing Tommy. Do you listen to tons of tough Irish music? .. Dropkick Murphys?

Jonathan: [laughs] You know, actually, I've always used music for my acting and I do have a kind of a very personal play list that I create. iTunes has been a real blessing for that, because it allows me to personalize the moment and scenes and the whole general overview for the show. I don't do the Dropkick Murphys because they're not on iTunes, I've been doing the Flogging Mollies which I think are a wonderful little band for the Irish stuff. There is an Irish American band and they're fabulous. They're called Haggis.

TeenTelevision: Olivia, it's you and a ton of guys on set. Is that a good or bad thing?

Olivia: They are just a pleasure to work with, each and every one of them and I never really feel outnumbered. I don't know, I guess I feel like one of the guys or they feel like one of the girls, I can't tell which but its all good.

TeenTelevision: How did you two research or prepare to play these characters?

Olivia: I met with Barbara Moresco, who is [Producer] Bobby Moresco's wife before we shot the pilot, and discussed what it was like to grow up as a young woman in this type of neighborhood, and I still use my notes from that interview as we shoot the show and it is invaluable information for me, because I did grow up in a very different type of environment. So many painful things happened during her life, and yet she didn't feel sorry for herself, didn't tell a soft story about her difficult childhood. She was very strong and resilient and I think that's what I try to take and put into Jenny.

Also, shooting the show in New York City really helps get into the role and with our crew who are mostly from neighborhoods like the one we are creating, and having Bobby Moresco around to keep us in the moment and keep us close to where he come from and reminding us how those people think and react and speak really helped.

Jonathan: I'd say that we've worked to have this show be about truth and that's really what were hoping kind of separates us from a lot of the other shows that are on network television, it is more cinematic, it is like the shows you'll see on an HBO or Showtime, it's more like going to sit in a movie theater. The truth that I was able to find in regard to that working class, Irish American experience, it was very close to home. I grew up in, as I joke around, I say the People's Republic of Charlestown in the City of Boston.

TeenTelevision: Oh, so you know about Irish-Americans. Olivia, women like your character have to be really strong and still nurturing.

Olivia: Yeah, I think it is a matter of survival, I think that's what they ask to do in order to keep going in that world. They have to remain incredibly strong. Jenny's grown up as one of the boys, now she's going to have to start covering for them.

TeenTelevision: Jonathan, do you relate to a lot of brotherly love? Do you have brothers?

Jonathan: I have a younger sister and I love her very much. As much as this is a show that is specifically about New York City and about the Irish and the Black Irish, and about a working class group of brothers, it is a universal story in regards to family, what you would do for a family. I don't have any brothers but I really fundamentally can understand being put to a position where I have to make an extraordinary choice to take arms, you know, to protect the people I love.

TeenTelevision: Jonathan, Tommy is forced to do some unsavory things but he's also an artist. Can you relate to that duality?

Jonathan: My father teaches art at UMass Boston and that experience has been a part of my life, and so I can understand, you know, the duality with Tommy because it is very much the duality that you have in a lot of the students that are coming from tough neighborhoods to go to UMass and I understand that from my father.

TeenTelevision: Olivia, you got married quite young. Do you bring that experience into your character; maybe a rebellious side?

Olivia: When I read the pilot script, I thought wow, I've never read about anyone else who got married when they were 18 except for my grandmother. You have to be a little bit different, a little bit of an oddball. So I recognize that in Jenny and in myself and it definitely helped me understand her the way I think other girls wouldn't really be able to understand.

TeenTelevision: Olivia, didn't you grow up in Dublin? Did you know any families like the Donnellys, not necessarily from the organized crime element, but in terms of family values and loyalty?

Olivia: Actually, my father is from County Waterford in the Southeast of Ireland and I went to acting school in Dublin, but when I was in Ireland as a young person, I was always in the south in a very, very small fishing village and there were, you know, a few thousand people at most living there. The kids there became each other's families and some people didn't have mothers or fathers and everyone became a huge family and the tight knit group that formed really informed my acting on the show. It is very Irish to take care of each other and to struggle through very profound difficult times with humor and with your friends and family, of course. So, yeah, that definitely helped but I think the Irish American community is very different from the Irish-Irish community, and I certainly learned that.

Jonathan: The show is about contrast and we try to show as fully and as richly as we can, that there is violence and there is alcohol and there's this scent of impetuousness that you see with these young boys but there is also tremendous love and family values and great humor and I think that is very important to note.

TeenTelevision: Jonathan, your character started out trying to be the peacemaker, and then he got sucked into all this awful stuff, and I just wondered if you were the peacemaker or the troublemaker among your own friends.

Jonathan: I would say, you know, quite like Tommy, I'm probably a little bit of both. Actors we're all little kind of Gemini, two faces and I'm working always towards the peace, but sometimes, I get a little fire in my belly.

TeenTelevision: Did you, like young Tommy, do any joyriding as a teen?

Jonathan: Well, there have been many times when I've heard 'slow down!' coming from the passenger side or my mother and father would sit clutching the car door.

TeenTelevision: And, Olivia, were you a tomboy at all as a kid and did you hang around with a bunch of boys as a young girl?

Olivia: Yeah, yeah, I was a tomboy and I didn't have a bunch of brothers but I always wanted them and so I sort of adopted a few of my great friends to be my brother. It was very much like Jenny. My mother was a very strong woman, a very important part of my life and so as I got older, I became sort of more of a girl, and I have now ten amazing, wonderful girlfriends in my life and yet, I still feel like a tomboy all the time and I think I bring that into Jenny. I always imagine that if we have another season, I'd love to see Jenny trying to get dressed up for a night out or something. She is so not girly, it would be great to see her try.

TeenTelevision: The guys run around with guns. Olivia, do you envy doing that?

Olivia: You just wait. Jenny gets tougher and tougher. I love her strength. There's a few times when you think if I were Jenny I would break down or I would kill somebody myself but she had learned to practice extreme restraint and self control. The only reason she doesn't fight as much as they do is because she knows it is usually not a good idea, but she eventually loses a little more control.

TeenTelevision: This show is written by the two guys who wrote the film Crash. What was your reaction on first reading the pilot script?

Olivia: I was completely shocked that it was a television show, that it wasn't a film. It read like a film then it actually better than 90% of the film scripts that I read the previous year. I had not wanted to go back into television but the second I read it, I knew I had to try and get this role.

Jonathan: I had somewhat the same reaction.

TeenTelevision: Can you explain more of the Jenny/Tommy relationship. Is she married or what?

Olivia: No. Jenny's husband is dead but she doesn't know it yet or we don't think she knows it yet. Joey Ice Cream has a line in the pilot where he says 'he showed up in an oil drum and nobody had the heart to tell poor Jenny'. So the idea is she's in denial or she actually doesn't know and that resurfaces later on. In this type of neighborhood, you don't just get divorced. The problem is that, she got married to solve one problem with her life that didn't turn out.

TeenTelevision: What is now the biggest obstacle to your two characters getting together? Is it that she still thinks she's married or he's a bit too shy to make a move or what?

Olivia: Well, basically the difference this show and I think of normal television drama is that, when it comes to the love interest and the love story, we don't have the luxury of dwelling on the ups and downs of love and the flirting and all of that business because there is too many life or death things to be worrying about. The stakes are too high. It continues to be this very difficult decision of 'do we give into our instincts or do we remember that this can't happen?', A: because I'm married and B: because I morally object to everything that he's doing and I told him not to do it and he did against my will and I think that's really what stops him. I don't think he's too shy. He knows her husband is dead. He doesn't have the heart to tell her. And she maybe suspects that she knows he's not coming back at least.

TeenTelevision: Jonathan, your hair is super short and it was long in the TV show. Did you cut it for a film?

Jonathan: Yeah. I was just in Morocco shooting a very small but wonderful role in Paul Haggis' next film called The Valley of Elah so it's an army soldier and I shaved it off.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.