The Skies are Darkening for Scott Patterson’s Sully as the Past Soaks the Present on SULLIVAN’S CROSSING

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede How much more can Sully suffer? As viewers of the hit CTV Original drama series SULLIVAN’S CROSSING know, the walls are closing in on Sully Sullivan, played by Scott Patterson. Economically, his campground business in Nova Scotia has not recovered after a tough couple of years, and he has financial responsibilities to consider. And his always fraught personal life is about to get even more uncomfortable when echoes of the past infuse the present in a new episode airing Sunday, April 16, at 7 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app. Sully, of course, has demons lurking within him, which he has been managing to keep at bay, with great effort. But with the tension of that struggle always apparent in his sad and weary eyes, combined with the honest fact that everything truly seems to be getting worse for him, at what point might he give in to his darker impulses? It was put to Patterson, who is best known for his role as Luke Danes in the beloved series GILMORE GIRLS, that his Sully character in SULLIVAN’S CROSSING seems to be running from something, and yet he isn’t moving, either emotionally or physically. “I think that’s what a lot of people with addictions experience, and it can cause the feeling, in anybody’s life, whatever the addiction might be, of just spinning your wheels,” Patterson said. “Because if you can’t get out of your own way, you ain’t goin’ anywhere. Obviously he’s in one of those phases where things seem to be on the downward trend, personally and professionally. While the appearance of Maggie (Sully’s daughter, played by Morgan Kohan) at the beginning gives him a tremendous amount of hope, it just feels like the ‘same old, same old’ result is going to happen. So yeah, I think it’s an apt analogy.” Patterson acknowledged that in some ways he has walked similar paths as Sully, which is obviously adding substantial depth to the portrayal. “You know, I come from the same kind of background, and had experience with that in my family, and I battled it myself in my youth, and overcame it,” Patterson said. “I’m so grateful that I did, because we know where that other path leads. And I guess you’re right, you can never take that cloak off. It’s always there. It’s just part of you.” It’s a courageous form of acting to meld reality and fiction, though. “I’ve lived a lot of life in my 64 years, I’ve had a couple of different careers, and I guess I kind of wear it – it’s inevitable,” Patterson said. “So from a wonky sort of technical acting point of view, it’s knowing enough about the craft of acting to allow your life to exist on camera, instead of trying to cover it up with artifice. You borrow from your life, you let it breathe, you let it exist, and then you layer on a couple of other things that you think are valid, or pertinent, for the character. I don’t know if it’s so much a courageous thing, but the thing that you can bring to the role, and the uniqueness that you can bring to the role, is yourself. Because they cast you – they didn’t cast the character, they cast you to play the character. So you have something to do with it, right?” Patterson chuckled as he said that, but his character Sully hasn’t been chuckling a lot lately, and more troubles are looming on the immediate horizon. Taking a wider view of his acting career and his notable roles, Patterson made an observation that surely will intrigue fans of both SULLIVAN’S CROSSING and GILMORE GIRLS. “There are some people who are trying to draw some comparisons, and I’ve done it myself, and I will say this: it’s almost like playing Luke Danes had his life not gone well,” Patterson said. “Had he not married Lorelai (played by Lauren Graham in GILMORE GIRLS). Had he been rejected. Had he left that town. If Luke had run. If that fictional character had run, maybe he ends up in the woods in Halifax, running a campground with a heavy heart and a hole inside him. I think that’s what really clicked for me. Because he’s similar, in another form and another place, and he’s older now. So it’s almost like the GILMORE GIRLS audience can come along and see what Luke could have turned out to be, had this magic with Lorelai not happened.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv