Changing the face of 'American Crime'

AMERICAN CRIME
10 p.m. Wednesday, 6ABC

Elvis Nolasco is walking tall again.

In the second season of ABC's American Crime, where the actor plays a public high school principal named Chris Dixon, "I'm no longer shuffling my feet," and he has regained the 25 pounds he lost to play a drug-addicted murder suspect named Carter Nix in one of the more memorable performances of the show's first season.

"The transformation is really unbelievable," he said in an interview last month during an ABC press event.

Nolasco (Clockers), who studied in Philadelphia early in his career, performing at the Arden, Freedom, and Walnut Street Theaters, isn't the only one who has taken on a new role in the anthology series from John Ridley (12 Years a Slave).

Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton, Regina King, and Lili Taylor are all back with new characters in this year's very different story, which deals with an accusation of sexual assault against students at a private school. Richard Cabral, nominated for an Emmy last season for his role as ex-gang member Hector Tontz, is scheduled to return in Wednesday's episode. (King won for her role as Nix's sister Aliyah Shadeed. Huffman, Hutton, Ridley, and the show itself also were nominated.)

Treating the cast of an anthology series like a repertory company isn't new. Ryan Murphy has been doing it in FX's American Horror Story for six seasons, with Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, and Frances Conroy among the stars who've appeared as multiple characters.

But it's Nolasco's transformation that made me think Ridley may have more in mind than just to keep working with - and challenging - good actors.

One remarkable thing about that first season of American Crime was that it was a broadcast network show about the murder of a veteran and the rape of his wife that seemed as interested in the possible suspects as it did in the victims' families.

Nolasco's character, living hand to mouth and embroiled in a hopeless love affair with another addict (Caitlin Gerard), was gradually revealed to be someone who defied easy characterization.

And now a man with his face is a high school principal.

"He's just a guy [who has] a love of what he does," Nolasco said of Dixon. "He has a genuine care for his students and education. And so he's willing to do whatever he has to do to make sure that that comes across."

Changing characters "keeps you fresh," he said, "it keeps you on your toes, it keeps you really just transforming."

Nolasco says he's up for anything, should American Crime win a third season. "If John asked me to play an astronaut," he said, "I'll be playing an astronaut."

For now, "for me to go from playing this dark, conflicted, troubled young man to an adult and an authority figure ... what a contrast."

Contrast is also at work for Huffman. The former Desperate Housewives star hasn't just gone from blond to brunet: She has gone from Barb Hanlon, a sad bigot with a dead son, to Leslie Graham, an energetic headmistress trying to manage the unfolding scandal at her school.

"It was hard" playing Barb, Huffman said in a separate interview.

"I feel like I did my cleanest work last year. I'm proud of my work ... but Barb was a very internally parched character to play. And very lonely. And so I was glad to close the book and say goodbye. And I felt I had done her justice. Because if I did it well, people, although they wouldn't want to have dinner with her, they would have empathy for her," she said.

"This year, I was so happy to play something that was 180 degrees different, [someone who] is very cerebral as opposed to emotional. Barb was very reactive. Leslie Graham is 20 steps ahead of everyone in terms of the chess moves that are coming up. And I was also happy to play someone that - God willing, I don't know how the audience is going to feel - but she walks into a room and people go, 'Oh, great! Leslie Graham's here!' "