Motive is all about the mystery. Who is the victim and why did they become a chalk outline? Who committed the crime? It’s a show that delves into hidden stories and—most of all—secrets.
Turns out Motive‘s lead, Kristin Lehman, has been keeping a little secret of her own.
“I cut my hair and I wear a wig on the show,” Lehman divulges during an in-person interview, sporting a closely-shorn ‘do. The Vancouver-based actress is doing press for Motive, returning Sunday, March 8, on CTV. Â The drama series that introduces the victim and the killer within each episode’s opening minutes and then spends the ensuing instalment linking the two, bows with the same core characters, though two find themselves in different places.
Sunday’s return, “Six Months Later,” finds Det. Angie Flynn (Lehman) out of the homicide department and interviewing cop wannabes. She’s stuck in a small office with high windows far away from Det. Vega (Louis Ferreira), Sgt. Mark Cross (Warren Christie), coroner Dr. Betty Rogers (Lauren Holly) and Det. Brian Lucas (Brendan Penny), who is the lead in Sunday’s case.
Motive‘s unique storytelling technique, coined “whydunit,” enables the Vancouver-shot project to feature notable actors and actresses as witnesses, victims and murderers, and Season 3 is no different. “Six Months Later” boasts Victor Garber, Jessica Lowndes, Tony Plana and Luisa D’Oliveira with Alexis Bledel, C. Thomas Howell, Ally Sheedy, Chris Klein and Dylan Walsh all participating in future storylines. Lehman loves the opportunity to have guest cast to interact with because it ups the game of the regulars on the call sheet.
Though the victims and criminals rotate every week, some things never change. Vega and Angie, for instance, will never become romantically linked like so many characters do on long-running series. Lehman says it’s something she and Ferreira have talked about at length.
“These two people are so aware of their limitations in their personal lives that they’re conscious the degree of intimacy they have with each other is the most valuable relationship they have,” she explains. “We’re both playing characters that are in their 40s and there is a strong codependence between them. We’re taking out the sexuality, but we’re enhancing the intimacy.”
That intimacy and familiarity between Vega and Angie will likely be tested this season. Lehman teases Sunday’s storyline becomes a story arch that echoes through the 13 episodes and keeps veteran thespian Garber around.
“In the course of doing so, it provides for a little bit of space for Angie and Vega to continue exploring how they are with each other personally,” she says.
Motive returns Sunday, March 8, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.
