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  • 2 months ago
Spoilers below for the final episode of "DTF St. Louis" for anyone who hasn’t yet watched it on HBO or streamed it via HBO Max subscription, so be warned!

After seven weeks of Richard Jenkins’ Det. Homer getting bamboozled by one sexual fetish after another, HBO’s genre-mashing mystery "DTF St. Louis" came to a close with quite the revealing finale. (And I’m not just talking about the two lead actors in their skivvies.) Answers were delivered, and a non-murder was solved, but not before audiences spent a little more time with suspect Kevin, a.k.a. Faux Tiger Tiger, as portrayed by "Abbott Elementary" great Chris Perfetti.

"DTF St. Louis" will likely remain one of the most off-kilter and well-structured shows to hit the 2026 TV schedule, and Perfetti’s character entered late in the game as an additional bizarro layer to the fabric of Floyd Smernitch’s death. It’s like the best example of a hat on a hat, and I was happy to talk to the actor about playing a red-haired red herring. A big reason he joined the show was due to creator Steven Conrad, whose past idiosyncratic creations include "Patriot" and "Perpetual Grace, LTD," not that acting opposite Jason Bateman, Richard Jenkins and Joy Sunday was a chore.
Transcript
00:00Is everything that Kevin tells the police completely honest?
00:04Because your performance makes it perhaps debatable.
00:08Oh, thank you.
00:10I will take that as a subtle compliment.
00:14Yeah, I think what's so fun about Tiger Tiger,
00:18what's so fun about this character is like,
00:22you know, obviously the show is a detective show.
00:26Literally the audience has to be a detective
00:28as it's sort of unfolding.
00:29There are characters whose job it is to be a detective
00:32and actors, you know, are in a sense,
00:35all detectives in a way.
00:37And when I first read the script,
00:39it was just such a pleasure to try and imagine
00:44what the circumstances of his life would be
00:46that would bring him into orbit with these other characters.
00:50And I guess that's a roundabout way of saying
00:54he's a peculiar dude.
00:55And I think his truth is not necessarily other people's truth.
01:02And I think he's really flying by the seat of his pants.
01:06I think somebody who would take on this job,
01:08who, you know, is in sort of dire straits and is game,
01:13for as long as he is game,
01:16has probably a weird relationship to the truth.
01:20So I would say yes and no.
01:22I think he's, you know,
01:24what's beautiful about Steve's work is
01:26he writes a lot of characters who can't help but be honest
01:30and who are so sort of naked in their vulnerability.
01:35And, yeah, I think Tiger Tiger is certainly that.
01:41And there's also a nefarious kind of mischievous quality
01:45about him as well.
01:46So I think he's trying to see how much he can get away with.
01:49What was your reaction to the finale ending,
01:53the mystery being resolved?
01:54Yeah, I think it's beautiful.
01:56I think he's, you know, Steve,
01:58I love Steve for so many reasons.
02:01I mean, I feel like we share kind of an interest
02:04in the sort of quiet oppression of everyday life.
02:10I feel like a lot of his stories have to do with male bonding
02:13and the plight of men
02:16and in such a generous and interesting way.
02:24But probably chief among all the things that I love about Steve
02:28is I think he has a knack for taking
02:32what could be a relatively simple story
02:35and putting it in a blender
02:38and telling something, you know,
02:41greater than just the story of what happened
02:44by sort of picking what we think the audience should see,
02:49rearranging the way, you know, events happened.
02:52And so, yeah, I was not surprised,
02:56but I was surprised by what a sort of emotional release
03:02he, the emotional release that he crafted
03:04by the end of the seven episodes.
03:06I think it's really masterful.
03:08I think it's so wild to be a part of a project
03:12where, you know, the first episode
03:17and the last episode were shot
03:19pretty much at the same time.
03:21You know, the whole series was made,
03:24you know, knowing where it's going,
03:28but that sort of time would unfold
03:31for the audience in a different way.
03:33And so, yeah, I just think,
03:35I just think the way that he kept us guessing
03:39is very sophisticated and fun.
03:42And I think, again,
03:44I think it's because he was trying to draw out things
03:49in these characters' lives
03:50that wasn't necessarily about just what happened.
03:53It was kind of the journey of how we got there
03:55is sort of more important
03:57and what it said about us.
04:00And I think that's the way that we got to think it was about to be a piece of it.
04:00And I think that's the way that we got to look back at the end of this relationship,
04:02you know,
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