Animal Kingdom is getting a new wave of fans, thanks to the drama now streaming on Netflix. The series originally aired for six seasons on TNT (from 2016 to 2022), and while it was popular at the time, things are very different now.
“It’s blowing up,” Shawn Hatosy (who played Pope) agrees while talking to TV Insider about his current role onThe Pitt (for which he’s been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama). “It’s been nice that it’s finding a new audience because it’s a show I’m very proud of. And I thought the work was great. I thought the writing was fantastic and electric. So it’s cool that people are finding it. A tight cast. Still friends with all those guys. I remember driving into work every day, passing the Warner Bros water tower, thinking, ‘This is the greatest job ever. I get to wear a t-shirt and jeans and ride a skateboard. This is weird. I’m getting paid for this. This is unfair. What a cool job.’”
While he’s quick to say the entire series is great, if he has to point to a moment when he knew it would be a hit, he calls the pilot “exceptional” and the first season “really well done.” With that, “there was a feeling amongst us that it was going to probably find a bigger audience,” he shares before noting that people didn’t find shows like they do now, with streaming (such as the way people have recently discovered the show on Netflix).
“It was on TNT, and I mean, TNT gave it everything, but it didn’t quite break out — not to say that it wasn’t good and it didn’t have its core audience, but right now on Netflix, it’s just such a wide net and it’s catching so many different types of viewers and they’re passionate about it,” he explains.
Looking specifically at his character, he knows that it may have taken some a while to warm up to him.“I think Pope was such a multidimensional character who at first you really didn’t like, who just seemed disturbed. And through the course of 75 episodes, you understand so much about why he was disturbed and how he became that way. And it’s not his fault. So they end up hating him at first, but he becomes the favorite by the end,” according to Hatosy.
He also admits that he “didn’t love the way it ended because I care so much about him,” he says. “It becomes a part of you. So watching him be betrayed like that and not surviving — maybe we don’t know. We didn’t see, did we? We didn’t call time of death, so who knows.”
Have you discovered (or re-discovered)Animal Kingdom on Netflix? What stands out to you about it? Let us know in the comments section below.
Animal Kingdom, Streaming Now, Netflix