A new kind of crime drama has arrived on Fox in the 2024 TV schedule with Murder in a Small Town, starring Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk. Based on the novel series by L.R. Wright, the show follows newly-arrived police chief Karl Alberg (Sutherland) and local librarian Cassandra Lee (Kreuk) as they connect and end up investigating crime together. James Cromwell has a key guest role in the 90-minute premiere event, but the show really relies on the chemistry between the two lead stars. When they spoke with CinemaBlend, Sutherland revealed that he originally wasn’t hooked on the idea of starring.
With his arrival on Fox, Rossif Sutherland is starring on the network that was the longtime home of his brother Kiefer Sutherland on 24. When I spoke with him and Kreuk ahead of the premiere of Murder in a Small Town about the audition process, he shared:
I was cast first. I auditioned. I did a Zoom audition. I was doing a job in Montreal, and I got this text for this detective show on Fox. I’ve played a bunch of detectives [and] I wasn’t particularly excited about playing another one, so I dismissed it at first… and I hate Zoom auditions. I don’t know what got into me that day, but I just thought, ‘Heck, I’m just going to do it. Why not? What have I got to lose?’ And so I did that Zoom audition, and two weeks later, we got the phone call that they were interested in me for the part.
Crime is one of the most popular genres in television, and Sutherland had played enough detectives over the years of his career that playing a police chief just didn’t immediately grab his interest. Murder in a Small Town certainly isn’t another take on the nine-show Law & Order universe or NCIS, and its setting in the small coastal town of Gibsons in Canada sets it apart further from others in the genre.
Fortunately, Sutherland decided to do the audition to play Karl despite not loving auditions via Zoom, and it was enough to win him the role. He went on to share what really piqued his interest leading up to Kristin Kreuk landing the role of Cassandra:
That was a wild thing, because I had auditioned for things like this before, but usually it’s quite the dance, and I audition again and again and again. But it was quite clear to them that they wanted me, and I was flattered and excited, and then they needed to find a love interest, and they reached out to a number of women, wonderful actresses, and amongst them was Kristin Kreuk.
As anybody who caught the pilot when it aired on Fox on September 24 (or streams it via a Hulu subscription) can vouch, Murder in a Small Town really needs both leads turning in solid performances for the premise to work. The team behind the scenes found the person they were looking for in Kristin Kreuk as leading lady, and the Smallville alum shared with CinemaBlend how she didn’t have a conventional audition:
That would be me! We did the chemistry read. That was my audition for the show, and it was on Zoom, and it was an audition. It was fun and nice… Zoom chemistry reads are bizarre things.
Chemistry reads aren’t uncommon for the casting of leads in a new show, whether that’s to build a romantic dynamic like the one between Karl and Cassandra on Murder in a Small Town or a decidedly platonic one like on Brilliant Minds. If it sounds somewhat ridiculous that matching a pair of actors can happen over a Zoom call, then the MIAST stars would agree! Rossif Sutherland chimed in:
It’s an absurdity, really. [laughs] To be able to see if two people have chemistry off of a two dimensional experience is quite weird, but they saw something. The producer, Jeff Wachtel, described it as we kept poking at each other, and he was quite interested in that.
Challenges of a two-dimensional chemistry read aside, Kristin Kreuk and Rossif Sutherland clearly found a dynamic that works for what producers were looking for. Kreuk, who agreed with her co-star about the “absurdity” of doing the read over Zoom, summed up the experience:
She challenges him, and he has to respond to her challenges. That was essentially the process, and then we got to work together and it was a joy.
Murder in a Small Town premiered on Tuesday, September 24 at 8 p.m. ET and will air in the same time slot next week, before the new drama switches to airing at 9 p.m. ET on Tuesdays. Be sure to keep tuning in to see Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk in their new roles after the unconventional audition process. If you prefer streaming to watching live on Fox, the series will be available streaming on Hulu moving forward.