Hot Ticket: 'Castle' Cast and Producers at the Paley Center

One of the hottest tickets in town last night just might surprise you. When the Paley Center in Beverly Hills announced last month that it would host the cast and creators of ABC’s television show Castle for a third time, tickets were snapped up in minutes. We heard in the press line (which was also more crowded than usual) that some fans had begun waiting in line to get front-row seats to the event at 2 am! yesterday morning. And during the event’s Q&A session, one audience member told the cast that she had flown in from Romania just for the event.

Now in its sixth season, Castle—a mix of romance, comedy, drama and cop procedural led by Nathan Fillion as mystery writer Richard Castle and Stana Katic as his muse Det. Kate Beckett—is an entertaining show that tips its hat to Moonlighting, Hart to Hart and Remington Steele. After years of will-they-or-won’t-they Castle and Beckett are now engaged and maintaining a long-distance relationship after she left the NYPD for a job with the feds. (For the record, both Katic and Fillion weighed in on their characters’ dream wedding during the panel. She wants their characters to elope, while Castle’s plan is a little more over-the-top—getting married in space.)

We got a chance to chat with a few of the other Castle cast members last night before the panel discussion. Of course, they were tight-lipped about future episode details, but we had fun asking them about their own ideas for their characters and learned a few interesting tidbits:

- Veteran TV and stage actress Susan Sullivan, who plays Castle’s mother Martha, talked about the chemistry between her and Fillion: “When we were auditioning, I didn’t know he (Fillion) was the star, I thought he was a reader. So I stood up in the reading and they were filming it, and he stayed down... And I was like (gestures) up, up up...he was cute about it and nice about it. I think that we just had that kind of connection.…”

- Sullivan has also pitched a few ideas to series creator Andrew Marlowe: “I pitched that [Martha] write a book and be a little competitive with [Castle]. And now, not only have I decided that she should write a book, it should be the big best-seller...I also think she should have some interesting scenes with Beckett to mother her and help her to know Richard better.

- Molly Quinn, who plays Castle’s daugher Alexis, says that her character was surpised by her dad’s engagement. We asked whether Alexis was getting back at Castle with a new boyfriend she met in Costa Rica: “I don’t think it’s rebellion, I think she really is in love. And if she wasn’t, I don’t think Alexis would ever use another person to get her point across. But yes, she is hurt that her father didn’t confide in her like he always did….”

- Seamus Dever’s character Det. Kevin Ryan is expecting a baby this season with wife Jenny (played by Dever’s real-life wife Julianna). Of the new cast edition, he says, “I think it’s great fodder if [Castle and Beckett] are baby sitting...and seeing them lose the baby or get involved in some crime…”

- We asked Jon Huertas, who plays Det. Javier Esposito, who’d win in a cage match between the NYPD’s Esposito and Ryan vs. federal agents Beckett (Katic) and Rachel McCord (special guest Lisa Edelstein). “That’s just a dumb question...I would rip Beckett’s head off and feed it to Agent McCord.”

- Castle creator and executive producer Andrew Marlowe said that in order to keep the show fresh and sharks at bay, “There are going to be challenges, there are going to be obstacles, comedic and dramatic, and a lot of it is going to find that equilibrum for them now that they’re really really together…We knew we wanted to challenge Castle and Beckett right off the bat, which is why the first couple of episodes have the elements they have in them.”

By the enthusiasm we saw last night at the Paley Center, it looks like no matter what comes between Castle and Beckett, the show’s fans will be watching this season.