‘Sons of Anarchy’s’ Donal Logue: Lee Toric Wants to ‘Make Everybody Suffer’ (Q&A)

Donal Logue joined Sons of Anarchy in season five as Lee Toric, a slightly unhinged former U.S. Marshal determined to avenge his sister’s violent murder.

It became his mission in season five to bring down Tara (Maggie Siff), Otto (Kurt Sutter) and the California motorcycle club. Toric will return in season six, even more set on wreaking havoc on the club.

“His goal is to make everybody suffer for the death of his sister,” says Logue.

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Ahead of Sons of Anarchy‘s season six premiere of Sept. 10, The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Logue while he was in Ireland filming the second season of History’s Vikings, on which he plays King Horik. The actor revealed that Sons of Anarchy‘s very dark scenes left him a little disturbed after he was done shooting for the day.

Lee Toric is back for season six. What can you tell us about where he goes from here.

I knew from last year that he was going to come back, and I just didn’t know what path he was going to take. The last image we saw of him was in a hotel room with a bunch of pills and a ton of weapons on the bed. I think he works both outside and inside in his revenge-fueled fury to bring them down. Working on Sons is probably the first time I’ve worked on a show where you have to be incredibly careful about spoilers, but it’s worth it.

Yes, I think it’s worth surprising the fans, but it’s tough for you as actors, I assume.

It’s interesting because last year I did a film and I saw Ryan Hurst because he was working on it too, and I said, “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be working on Sons right now?” and he goes, “Yeah, well maybe.” It was amazing because it had a huge impact in that Opie’s death wasn’t something that came out. It was worth it.

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You’ve had some great scenes with showrunner Kurt Sutter, who plays Otto. What’s it like working with him?

I’ll have more scenes with him this season. What’s interesting about Kurt is that he’s a great actor and he has a lot of deference for the directors on the show. It’s weird but it really feels like you’re not there doing scenes with the executive producer. He fully puts that other hat on. We did some really good stuff together that was moving and intense. I will say that after working on Sons this season is maybe one of the first times I’ve come home from work and been genuinely disturbed by the stuff I was engaged in earlier in the day. It was hard to shake. It goes pretty dark.

From what we’ve seen of Lee, it seems like he has a few issues. How much of his backstory did you think out?

I had a conversation with Kurt before we started. He laid out a scenario that made a lot of sense to me. It sounded to me like he had written a lot of it with me in mind. I felt pretty comfortable immediately, knowing who this guy was. And then the rest of it is just these small things that you carry with you in your pocket, that you feel about the person. And not in some “actorly, super schmactorly way,” I’m not like writing an 800-page Bible — and by the way I respect people who do stuff like that. That really want to figure out what his mom would make him for breakfast and stuff. I felt like it was a cloak I could wear really easily.

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What’s it been like having fans from your work on this show?

They have such an amazing fan base. Every once in a while, I remember in Toronto, people were like, “Lee Toric, I gotta party with you man. You’re sick. Let’s do some really sick stuff.” And I was like, “I’m going to make some tea. Go over my stuff for tomorrow.” I don’t know how they would react if they knew how thoughtful some of the baddest bikers on that show are.

The people who have gone up against the club on this show have almost all died. I feel like Lee Toric is a little doomed.

I don’t know, I don’t know.

Was it the kind of situation where you’d rip open a script to make sure your character lived through it?

I had some sense of the really long broadstrokes, but there was an element of that. I think it’s really surprising and really fascinating what’s coming down the pipe.

Sons of Anarchy‘s sixth season premieres on Tuesday, Sept. 10, at 10 p.m. on FX.

E-mail: Rebecca.Ford@THR.com
Twitter: @Beccamford