Sullivan’s Crossing: Chad Michael Murray Talks His Return to Small-Town Drama, Reuniting With Gilmore Girls Costar

Chad Michael Murray is standing on a dock in a waterfront small town, sparking with a pretty but kind of emotionally standoffish woman. No, this isn’t One Tree Hill, but the Canadian drama Sullivan’s Crossing, which made its Stateside debut on The CW on Wednesday. (One could even argue that Murray’s experience with seaside-ish shows goes back to Dawson’s Creek, although the actor appeared during the college-set season.)

Based on the novel series by Robyn Carr, who also penned the source material for Netflix’s Virgin River, Sullivan’s Crossing follows neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan (played by When Hope Call‘s Morgan Kohan), who leaves behind the big city due to legal troubles and returns home to the rural campground Sullivan’s Crossing, which is run by her father Sully (Gilmore Girls‘ Scott Patterson). In the premiere, Maggie meets Murray’s Cal, a mysterious employee at Sullivan’s Crossing, and mistakes his friendliness for flirting. She bluntly rejects him, leading Cal to tell Sully that the newcomer — whom he isn’t yet aware is his boss’ daughter — is full of herself. Oops!

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Below, Murray talks about reuniting with his Gilmore Girls costar and how Sullivan’s Crossing‘s setting compares to OTH. The actor also teases Cal’s troubled past and his “cat-and-mouse” dynamic with Maggie.

TVLINE | You and Scott Patterson have been on the same show before, which we won’t name because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, but I don’t think you shared any scenes. I could be wrong… So what was it like working with him this time around and having more direct on-screen interaction with him?
It was fantastic. It was one of the things I was very much looking forward to when I came on board. It’s funny, over the last 20 years, Scott and I have crossed paths, in and out of each other’s lives multiple times. He was on a TV series [The Event] with my wife, and then he and I did an independent film [Other People’s Children] together, and of course, we still never worked together on that film. We would just see each other at screenings, premieres, whatever it may be.

Anyway, long story short, I found out that Scott was going to be on board, and when you’re an actor and you’re going onto a project, I mean, for me anyway, no matter how many times I’m showing up on a project, it’s always nerve-wracking. You know, how are you costars going to be? What’s their style? Who are they, right? Is this going to be turbulent? Is this going to be smooth sailing? Are they easygoing? You just never know. And so, when you’re walking into an environment where you already know some of the people and you know something about them, it’s always much easier.

Cal looks at Sully, and I think he admires Sully in such a way because he sees a little bit of himself in Sully. He sees that Sully’s created this very homey vibe with Sullivan’s, and I think Cal wants a lot of that, and he admires Sully for how he’s done it.

TVLINE | We don’t know a ton about Cal coming off the premiere. What kind of guy is he?
Obviously, Cal is the mystery man, as we know, and that has a lot to do with the walls that he’s put up to protect himself, protect his heart, protect himself moving forward. Cal has come to Sullivan’s Crossing to heal, and that’s really what I think all the characters have done, even if they don’t know it, because Sullivan’s is a place to heal, it really is. It’s an awfully good place to heal, and Cal’s trying to move forward with his future, but he can’t until he puts his past behind him, and there’s a lot of trials and tribulations and different events that have occurred in his life that we’re going to find out about, and it’s a pretty deep well. And that was another reason I came on board. Once [showrunner] Roma [Roth, a vet of Virgin River] and I spoke about it, I found out how deep Cal really was, how many different things occurred in his life, and moving forward, how much ammunition we had to play with, that was really exciting. So we’ll peel the layers back as the show and the seasons continue on. You’ll find out a little bit more, little by little. But he’s a good man, and he’s a rock. He needs to be a rock for Maggie, he needs to be a rock for this world. He needs to be dependable, and so you’re going to see that from Cal.

TVLINE | Maggie comes to this place because she’s also dealing with some troubles in her life, and you say that Cal has some stuff that he’s trying to heal from. Do you think that they recognize that in each other, even if they don’t explicitly say that, and that’s what draws them together?
Subconsciously, yeah, I believe that that’s always going to be an undertone… I think that there’s a spark that she has that Cal can’t get away from, for sure. She’s savvy, she’s smart, she’s got an incredible intellect. Why wouldn’t you want a strong and incredibly intelligent woman on your side, you know what I mean? So I think that that’s really intriguing to Cal. And the mysterious nature of who Cal is, I have to believe, in my heart of hearts, that’s part of what Maggie’s intrigued by, as well. Why is she, [like they say], like a month to a flame? This is that relationship right now that’s just butting heads. We get to see maybe whether this will flame out or whether these sparks will burn. It’s exciting.

TVLINE | They get off on the wrong foot in the premiere, as Cal says.
Oh, that’s for sure. [Laughs]

TVLINE | Which is a fun dynamic to start off on in a TV series. What do you enjoy about that aspect of their relationship?
It’s like a game of chess, right? A game of cat and mouse. It’s always got to be that, and if it’s not, if you don’t have that ping-pong match, then it’s not going to work, right? It shouldn’t be easy. That would be boring. That would be boring TV. There’s got to be work. For me, it feels very organic. I think multiple people in this world can say that they’ve started out on rough terms with maybe a loved one or a partner, whatever it may be, and then that rough moment turned into something really incredible. … It’s just that organic growth of two people, where it starts with maybe some animosity or misunderstanding into conversation, into words, into moments, into potential dates or handholding. You just never know, and ultimately, the heart wants what the heart wants. So you have to go on that “do I or don’t I?” battle.

TVLINE | When Cal finds out that Maggie is Sully’s daughter, does that change, at all, how he views her? Is there a moment of like, “Oh, she’s off limits”?
I don’t recall 100% if we played that, but for sure, I did in my head. That was part of the journey: Where do you go? What’s safe? What’s not safe? And what are you allowed to say to somebody? Because at the same time, like I said, Cal has such a respect for Sully that he doesn’t want to step on his toes… It’s an interesting piece of the puzzle, a hurdle.

TVLINE | One thing I was unclear about after the premiere was does she still have a boyfriend back in the city? There was a really tense conversation between her and the boyfriend, but the note they left off on was kind of ambiguous to me.
I’ll go ahead and just say, yeah, I’m pretty sure that they’re still going to be together. I mean, I’m pretty positive.

TVLINE | I figured they probably would want to keep the boyfriend around just to create some more conflict and tension for the two of you.
Oh, gosh, I love Andrew. I think he’s fantastic every time. You just wait. We got some secrets cooking for you.

TVLINE | Well, you’re no stranger to shows about small towns near bodies of water.
[Laughs] I know, it feels very reminiscent. It does.

TVLINE | It totally does, but it feels different, too, because this time it’s set in Canada, it’s filmed in Canada, it’s a Canadian show. What has this particular experience been like for you, in comparison?
Again, it feels very reminiscent of the show I did when I was much younger, in that the location really is a character on the show. So much so that it gives us the no-acting-required kind of ability. This show, the picturesque landscapes, the hominess vibe, the freedom and the fresh air, it really does a lot of the work for us. It really is a place that I think people are going to want to visit, very much like a Wilmington, North Carolina. It just feels so important, and it feels so special, and I will tell you, this place is magic. It really is magic. Halifax, Nova Scotia is a gem, if I’ve ever found one or ever seen one, of a location. I absolutely love it. I’m in heaven there. It’s just fantastic.

There’s definitely similarities, in that we’re both dramas. This feels very much like a This Is Us or a Virgin River, but with different undertones. The story is about coming home. Maggie’s coming home, back to Sullivan’s Crossing. She’s not the fish-out-of-water scenario… This is very much the theme of family and community. That’s really what the show, ultimately, is about, and how the place itself really is a character in the story, Sullivan’s Crossing, and I promise you people are going to want to visit the Crossing. I’ve just got a feeling. [Laughs].

Note: SAG-AFTRA has cleared the cast to do publicity for the upcoming season.