'Jericho' To Explore Hawkins' Mysterious Past

"He's got a storyline that's kind of coming up, [where] he goes someplace where you really didn't expect him to go," actor Lennie James told SciFi Wire. "And maybe Hawkins will come back around. And also one of the other things that's happened is that, because of where we've come back, in episode 12, there's an arc that happens for Hawkins and his family that drags us to episode 15 [and then episode] 16."

Not much is known about Hawkins, other than he appears to work for the federal government and came to Jericho, Kan., only shortly before the town experienced the fallout from multiple nuclear detonations around the United States.

James said he deliberately tried to stay as in the dark about his character as viewers had been.

"For the first five episodes of Jericho, I had no idea about my backstory, because I didn't want to know," he said. "I wanted to remain in ignorance. Don't ask me why. It was a really bad idea. But I thought it would make the producers think I was a really deep actor. But after that, I couldn't play the part without knowing it, so I did know his backstory, and I kind of know what's revealed in [episode] 12 and beyond, because that's not even half of it. And so I do have a kind of sense of who he is and what he's up to now, so I wasn't taken by surprise at all."

But the revelation about Hawkins to be revealed will be a "a doozy," the actor said. "And that's the enjoyable thing about playing Robert Hawkins: ... that in every situation — if someone says good morning to him — he has to have three conversations with himself before he answers, and that's what I enjoy. And his backstory, his secret, just brings that deeper and deeper and deeper," the British actor said.

"Jericho" will return to CBS with a recap episode on Feb. 14 and new episodes resume the next week at 8 p.m. ET.

Talk about this story