An interview with Terence Knox by Sgt Pepper

Terence Knox stars as Detective Ben Bannister
in the film 

BJ: Craig I am finally getting my interview with Terry.
Terry this is for Craig Blackmore of HUM90.
(A H-2 Hummer just pulled up... It is a stretch limo... and my grandchildren are going "WOW").

Terry: You want me to take them to look at that real fast?
Sit right here... come on, come on girls... just for a second.

BJ: He loves kids, he is taking my grandchildren outside to look at a Hummer limo... this thing is like over twenty feet long...

Terry: It's like a big box is what it is... That's not a pretty limo, it's white... It's like a big military thing.

BJ: And you should know huh Terry?

Terry: Yea...

BJ: After how many years on "Tour of Duty"?

Terry: Three

BJ: When?

Terry: Late 87 to 91 something like that?

BJ: Are you still quite the prankster?

Terry: Kinda, kinda whenever I can get away with it...

BJ: Have you mellowed?

Terry: I mellowed a little bit.

BJ: You did? That's not fun...

Terry: Well I'm not around the people as much now so.

BJ: How many producers and directors have type cast you since your days in "Tour of Duty"?

Terry: None actually, I haven't played in the military since then. So actually not, well I played in the one military role but, there are not a lot of Vietnam military stuff going around so actually I have to say none... there was no problem with that...I was more worried with being type-cast as a rapist after "St.Elsewhere".

BJ: How did that happen?

Terry: Well, I just got the script and it said that's what I did but, I was afraid that I was going to be type cast for that after that was over but I didn't.

BJ: How did you manage to land the role as Sgt.Clayton Ezekiel Anderson?

Terry: Well, I just went to the audition and there was a long process cause they had been looking for the guy for a while. They kept reading and reading me and they finally gave me the role and the next day I left for Hawaii.

BJ: I was told that they were looking for a younger man to play the role.

Terry: Yea... absolutely.
They tried everything they could NOT to use me... they were looking for a younger guy.

BJ: Well they lost out and they picked the best choice...

Terry: Well... I like to think so.

BJ: If you had the choice... How would you see the end of TOD? How would you like to have seen it happen?

Terry: The end of "Tour of Duty"?

BJ: Yea...

Terry: I would like to have seen an episode that had some final scenes between Goldman and Zeke, because I think that was really the core relationship in the series and the way that they did it, they didn't know if they were coming back or not and it was so inconclusive. It was really a wet blanket.

BJ: It left us fans in the air as to what even happened to Doc when Saigon was attacked again...

Terry:Yea...

BJ: What do you think should have happened to Zeke?

Terry: I don't know... I think that he should have gone home and become an alcoholic or something like that.

BJ: What about Jennifer?

Terry: I don't know anything about her... They split up so... I wouldn't know. I just like to think that they should have had a wind up episode but they didn't do that.I thought the writing was pretty cruddy by the end of it. I thought that the last season it had gotten pretty bad.

BJ: Has TOD influenced your life in any way?

Terry: Yea... It has opened me up a lot, cause a lot of people that I've gotten to know I might not otherwise have the opportunity to know... so in that sense it did open it up.

BJ: Since your days in TOD... Has there been any particular role that has interested you the most?

Terry: Ah... Yea.. We did a show called "The Road Home" in North Carolina that was pretty good.
I never saw a guy say good-bye for so long and go nowhere in my life... (Terry and Sgt P are looking at TJ was suppose to have left like 20 minutes earlier but was still  there...)

TJ: You know that's just... we even had a picture taken

Terry: You should have him stand at the door and have him say farewell to people... He's real good at that.

TJ: I'm a great doorman... How are you... How are you... How are you guys? You leaving? I'll hold the door for you...

Terry: See? Just put peanut or something in his mouth and he's all right...

BJ: I found out last night that you didn't get to meet Ben Bannister...

TJ: Yea... I met him a couple of times last night...He was here last night... He's not dead.. They put that in the movie... That's fiction...He's alive and well, he was at the screening last night... I met him on the set too.

BJ: So how did you prepare for the role?

Terry: I just looked at as much information in the script... I played cops before... so basically it's be more of a listener than a talker.

BJ: Before you chose a movie, do you get a chance to view any part of the script? Or do you read the newspaper accounts? Terry: Usually it's not something that is in the newspaper but, you always want to read the script first... Always.

BJ: Then you decide after that?

Terry: Yea... Well usually they decide if they want you, then you read the script, then you audition for the part, then they decide if they want you.Sometimes they'll send you the script and see do you want to do this.But this... this they had me read it and asked me if I wanted to do it.

BJ: Who's the biggest prankster you or Dan Haggerty?

Terry: ME...

BJ: How early does he have to get up to out do you?

Terry: Well he has his own circle of friends that he's probably a pretty big prankster with but... you see his problem is he sleeps too late... If you going to sleep late... I'm going to get ya.

BJ: My favourite prank that I had heard that you had pulled was the one from the episode "Angel of Mercy"...Where you guys are coming down a path and you are telling Scott about the "Aztec Two-step" cause he 's crying and complaining and belly aching... That is the day that you had put mud and grass down his back...

Terry: My best prank was... We're doing a scene... it was Stan Foster's first season in Hawaii and I forget which episode it was... I think it was episode six where Tim Thomerson was in the episode... We are all standing around and we are having a scene and Stan Foster and I are not in the scene much... We're just in the back ground... but we had these little chairs... and I took his little chair and I had one of the Hawaiian guys take it and put it way up top in the tree...We were always stealing each others chairs and throwing them out in the water...So I took a Polaroid... just for the scene shot of his chair up in the tree... and when the scene was going on I handed it.. we are in the back ground... and as the scene is going on he's sitting there looking... the Polaroid develops.. then he sees this chair in the top to the tree in the middle of the scene... and he realises and starts looking around... That is my best one... I gotta go... If you need any more you ask me later ok?

BJ: Thanks for taking the time Terry... Later then...