Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter gives casting updates for the new season ahead including two characters with reduced roles and a new cop coming to town….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The final season of Sons of Anarchy will debut on FX this September, and creator Kurt Sutter has just started writing the first and second episodes ahead of production, which will begin this spring.
The entire cast (that’s still alive) will return for season 7, but some of the guest stars who had prominent roles in season 6 will have a slightly reduced presence with the new year ahead. Most notably are CCH Pounder, who played District Attorney Patterson as well as Kim Dickens, who portrayed madam Collett during last season.
“We will have limited episodes for CCH Pounder, who plays Patterson, and Kim Dickens, who plays Collette,” Sutter revealed. “The reason why they’re limited is because what happens is actors we don’t have series regular deals with and both of those actors, logically so, have booked other shows. I know CC’s doing the new NCIS spinoff, and Kim is (doing Backstrom with Rainn Wilson).”
Because of their reduced timing, both actresses are expected to appear in somewhere between two to four episodes this season. A similar situation came up last season when actor Donal Logue was brought onto the show, but because of scheduling conflicts had to be removed after only a few episodes in what was intended to be a much bigger story line. Just like with Logue’s character Lee Toric, the reduced roles for both Pounder and Dickens won’t impact the overall story for the season.
“So that’s probably the extent for those characters this season. It doesn’t really impact our stories all that much, we can make all that work,” Sutter said.
Drea De Matteo, as previously reported, will be back as a full time series regular for the final year, as well as Jimmy Smits, who signed on for one final turn as Nero Padilla.
Sutter also teased that a character from a previous season of Sons of Anarchy would be making a reappearance this year, but he’s not sure yet the extent the actor or actress will play in the overall story arc. There will also be a new law enforcement presence in Charming this season following the death of Eli Roosevelt (Rockmond Dunbar), but Sutter says there won’t be a ‘new sheriff in town’ feel to the character because they’ve already done that previously and ‘because we tend to kill a lot of cops’.
The other character back from season 6 will be Peter Weller’s dirty ex-cop Charlie Barosky, who will have to deal with the fallout from the brewing war between the Sons and the Mayans, which will impact his business in Stockton. Weller will also direct at least two episodes this season.
The new season of Sons of Anarchy returns to FX in September with the final 13 episodes leading to the series finale later this year.
