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[Warning: The following post contains spoilers for<\/b> Mayor of Kingstown<\/a><\/i><\/b> Season 3 Episode 1-3.]<\/b><\/p>\n The introduction of Lennie James<\/a>\u2018 Frank Moses has been one for the ages on Mayor of Kingstown<\/i>, setting the tone for a very eventful season indeed. The Season 4 premiere opened with the Detroit-based businessman casually talking about the makeup of a copper penny while waiting for a train to arrive and behead the remaining crew of Russian gangsters that were hog-tied on the tracks.<\/p>\n After that, Frank made his intentions in coming to Kingstown clear by seeking a working relationship with Bunny (Tobi Bamtefa<\/a>) and, eventually, Mike McLusky (Jeremy Renner<\/a>). The most recent episode, \u201cPeople Who Died,\u201d saw Frank giving Bunny a tour of his train depot as a lens on his operation and giving him an offer: Frank would deliver Bunny\u2019s contraband by hiding it in boxes of refuse because the authorities just don\u2019t sift through cars full of garbage. And Frank\u2019s decades of legitimacy and staying off the radar more than proved his mettle at this game. He also offered to help settle some scores for Bunny (whom he defiantly insisted on calling Deverin) after an attack on his Grape Street Watts crew by the Colombian cartel in return for Bunny\u2019s trust, which Frank knew he\u2019d still have to earn. The episode ended with a counterattack on the Colombians\u2019 headquarters with a flamethrower flaying people throughout the house\u2026 until one guy got away and fired back, with disastrous results.<\/p>\n To break down this sizzling character introduction \u2014 and get a sense of what else we can expect from Frank Moses \u2014 TV Insider caught up with Lennie James himself.<\/p>\n Your character starts out this season of<\/b> Mayor of Kingstown<\/i><\/b> with a bang \u2014 or more like a splat.<\/b><\/p>\n Lennie James:<\/b> [Laughs<\/i>.] Or a squish!<\/p>\n Yeah, exactly. How did you feel about that introduction and kicking off the season on such a violent note?<\/b><\/p>\n I thought it was a hell of a way to introduce a character. It was, it seems, a fitting way to introduce that character to this particular show. I actually had a conversation with Dave Erickson, the showrunner, about whether or not it was revealing too much about Frank too early on. I had a conversation with him and Hugh [Dillon<\/a>, cocreator] about it. And actually, in the end, they were right about it, and I wasn\u2019t, and I recognize that. I think it\u2019s a hell of a, \u201cHow do you do?\u201d<\/p>\n Yeah, sure is. It seems like there may be a little bit more significance to the copper penny thing that\u2019s going on in that scene. Just out of curiosity, did you think that that token meant something to him more than we see?<\/b><\/p>\n Yes, it does. [Laughs<\/i>.] I can\u2019t really say more than that.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also got some really funny quirks, like he\u2019s singing \u201cShe\u2019ll Be Comin\u2019 Round the Mountain\u201d right before he\u2019s having a huge business meeting. What\u2019s it like to play this character with his many facets, where he\u2019s at once kind of humorous and also very, very dangerous?<\/b><\/p>\n I loved it really, because that\u2019s the trick of playing Frank Moses and bringing him to light. So if you\u2019re putting the character together, you try \u2014 I do anyways, I try \u2014 and first focus on the facts about them, and whether it\u2019s a fact or it\u2019s not a fact, it is part of the legend of Frank Moses, is that he is from Detroit. He\u2019s an old-school gangster who\u2019s been at it for a very long time. He\u2019s been at the top of the game for a very long time, and has never been to prison and has never been arrested. They\u2019ve never put the cuffs on him. So it\u2019s my job to create a man for whom that is true, and the way I went \u2014because, as you say, there are so many facets to him \u2014 is to make him as almost as disarming as is humanly possible. Even when he\u2019s doing a heinous thing, like having a train run over four men\u2019s heads and decapitating them, he\u2019s at the same time talking about the makeup of the penny and how much zinc and tin and iron is in there. And so once you\u2019re given those tools to play, you just riff as much as you can. And the way that he\u2019s dressed, the fact that he\u2019s a glasses-wearing fellow, the fact that he\u2019s full of advice and wants to mentor Bunny, all of those things are just a joy to play, as opposed to him just being the threatening, scary gangster.<\/p>\n