K.C. Williams (Enuka Okuma) is a take no guff kind of gal. A successful DEA agent tired of not getting the credit for taking down bad guys, she teamed with RCMP officer Roy Patterson to chase down Slaney (Allan Hawco) and Hearn (Eric Johnson) on Caught.
Okuma, who most recently starred in the web series Spiral, Season 1 of Slasher and almost 80 episodes of Rookie Blue, sat down with us last year during a break in filming Caught in downtown Hamilton, Ont., to discuss her K.C. and what it was like to play the only character who was not in the source material.
Allan told me that K.C. Williams is a character he created specifically for the TV series.
Enuka Okuma: Yes, and that’s something I was unaware of when I bought the book! [Laughs.] I was three-quarters of the way through the book and I was like, ‘There is no such woman!’ For me, this is actually really exciting because I feel like this character is speaking to something that we’re talking about in the world today: female equality and diversity. She is a very modern character. I feel very lucky that they included her.
Looking at the characters in the book from my perspective and getting to know what the other characters were thinking, going after and what their desires are … it felt like a little bit of cheating because I had more information than I would visually.
What’s her background?
She’s the DEA agent in the mix and, I think, is the only American in the story. She is coming at this case differently than the RCMP and how they are trying to catch the bad guys.
What is their relationship like? Do they get along?
Paul and I have been trying to figure out who these two people are to each other. Roy is a little curmudgeonly and I am a little acerbic, so together it could be combustion, or if we decide to work together there can be a little magic.
What did you take away from reading Caught?
With a book, you always get the layers no matter what the project is. Being immersed in the world was really interesting. And, theatrically, they needed to do some things to move the story along. It works. I feel like everything that they changed makes perfect sense. But the book really lets you know, for Slaney and especially for Patterson, what is going on in these guys’ heads. Plus, for me, just delving into what they were going through at the time just puts you in that headspace.
The wardrobe on Caught is fantastic.
Michael Ground has really knocked it out of the park with this stuff because a lot of it has been built for us. You want to get vintage stuff to make it look realistic, but if you’re doing stunts and you have doubles you need more clothing. These boys have been rocking their looks. Eric and Allan, in their flashback scenes … it’s a little Hall & Oates inspired. Eric sent me a picture of the two of them in the makeup trailer and they literally looked like Hall & Oates.
Caught airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC.
Image courtesy of CBC.
