Cheers to Damages for allowing Chris Messina to show new depth.
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The handsome actor has often been stranded in bland roles,
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There's a good reason Damages' Chris Messina seems jittery most of the time he's on the screen — and it's only partly because his character is a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Patty goes to therapy? Things get flip-turned upside down on Season 4 of Damages
"I felt a huge responsibility to the soldiers to make it as honest as I could," Messina tells TVGuide.com. "I played a lot with sleep, and I think the most I didn't sleep was three days in a row. And I'm not a caffeine drinker, but I would play with drinking a bunch of Red Bull before the take. So, the sleep deprivation on top of the instant sugar-caffeine rush ended up making me very shaky."
Messina's Chris Sanchez has plenty of reasons to tremble. He's an employee for a Blackwater-esque private military company led by Howard Erickson (guest star John Goodman), and after Sanchez's last mission in Afghanistan went south, his entire unit was killed. Enter Sanchez's old high school friend Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), who wants to make Sanchez the star witness in her wrongful death lawsuit against Erickson...
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This is a bittersweet night for FX, as it prepares to bid farewell to one of its longtime signature series — the bawdy firehouse dramedy Rescue Me, whose seventh and final season will wrap this fall to coincide with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 — and in an ironic twist, it's going head to head against a new season of Damages, the riveting legal thriller the network dropped after three low-rated seasons, but which was rescued from oblivion by DirecTV. (Unlike the Friday Night Lights situation, in which NBC aired the show after the DirecTV run, Damages will air exclusively on DirecTV. So if you're not a subscriber, it won't be that tough a choice.)
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After the first three mind-blowing seasons of Damages, nothing should come as a surprise. But all the backstabbing and mayhem we've seen still doesn't quite prepare us for the scene being shot today at the show's Brooklyn soundstages: Glenn Close's Patty Hewes gazing tenderly into a child's eyes. OK, now we're shocked!
Turns out Patty is the guardian of her granddaughter. The hard-charging lawyer gained custody after ensuring the child's mother was jailed for statutory rape and her father, Patty's son, Michael (Zachary Booth), seemingly tried to run his mom down and went on...
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The fourth season of Damages isn't coming until next month, but it will be well worth the wait judging by the emotional trailers.
This season features Chris Messina as an old high school chum of Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) who suffers from PTSD. In the trailers, we get glimpses of the drama to come, including nudity of the non-titillating variety, hints of torture and John Goodman playing a very loud, corrupt and scary military contractor. We can't wait!
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