Actor Ben McKenzie became known to most TV viewers via FOX’s The OC. That series ran for four seasons and was cancelled a couple years ago.

Currently, he’s playing one of the main characters on the Southland TV show which is about a group of cops working on the tough streets of Los Angeles.

Southland ran on NBC last season for seven episodes to mixed ratings. The peacock network renewed the show but, having decided to run The Jay Leno Show five nights a week at 10pm, NBC execs subsequently felt that they didn’t have an appropriate place for it on the schedule and cancelled Southland before its second season began airing. Production of season two was shut down after six episodes.

Fortunately, TNT picked up the show and made a deal to run last years episodes as well as the six second season installments. The new episodes debut on March 2nd on TNT. The cable channel is open to going back into production on the series but hasn’t made a decision yet because they want to see how the new episodes perform.

In the interview, McKenzie talks about what attracted him to the Southland series, the cancellation, if the final episode could serve as a series finale. He also shares his thoughts on the end of The OC. Note: Ben’s audio is a little low in the early part of the discussion so you might want to turn up your volume a bit.

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Image courtesy TNT.