Tom Baldwin


Throughout the season, Joel Gretsch will be responding to questions submitted by viewers like you. Visit Joel's Ask the Cast page to submit your question now. Then be sure to return to this page to see if your question got answered - new questions and answers will be posted throughout the season!


Q: I just wanted to know how you came across The 4400. How did you get the part?
- Ohnny Leou, Irvine, California

JG: I got the part in the regular fashion that most actors get parts. I got the script from my agent, and he recommended that I give it a read. I liked it, and went in for a meeting.

Q: Do you ever get tongue-tied saying the word 4400 so many times?
- Jaime Vasquez, Elsa, Texas

JG: I haven't had to say it that many times in succession. If I had to say it 4400, 4400, 4400, 4400... after a while I would definitely be tongue-tied.

Q: "Life Interrupted" was a sublimely well-written episode, one of the best of your always-excellent series. It also stretched your character out in many new directions. What was your response when you first read the script?
- Kelli, New Mexico

JG: When I first read the episode "Life Interrupted" I was thrilled. Good writing can lift an actor to the level of the writing. Bad writing can make a good actor look not so good. Fortunately, on our show the writing is very good. So, I was thrilled with the episode and tried very hard to rise to the level that was written.

Q: Are you a science-fiction fan? You most certainly picked some of the best sci-fi projects to be a part of.
- Bangu, Bangladesh

JG: I do appreciate science fiction as an actor and as a viewer. "The 4400," "Taken," and "Minority Report" are really well done sci-fi projects with great human drama. I think those two components can make for great storytelling. But hey, I've gotten to work with the best in the business when it comes to science fiction projects... I'm very fortunate in that regard.

Q: I saw you for the first time on the Sci Fi channel's "Taken." On that one you were a bad guy, and in this one you are obviously a good guy, but with problems. Amazingly, you are believable as both. How did you approach both characters differently to achieve such opposites?
- Nathan Andrews, Idaho

JG: Regardless if you are playing a good guy or a bad guy, each character has specific wants and needs. So, when you get out of the judgment of character and play their human desires, you can make them believable if you put your shoulder behind your choices. In the show "Taken," obviously Owen Crawford was a man that did things that were really awful. But he doesn't think they are awful. He thinks what he is doing is right. I (Joel) may disagree, but as an actor I have to be out of that kind of judgment. There are many people that do things in this world that I can't understand, awful things, but they think they are justified. My job as an actor is to portray them as accurately as possible to tell the story.