Tyler Posey Reveals Tragic Inspiration for His Emotional ‘Murder in a Small Town’ Performance

Tyler Posey was a featured guest star of the episode, starring as Ryan Coogan, a man who came forward to talk to Karl Alberg (Rossif Sutherland) after his friend Jack was found shot and bleeding out on the side of the road. He appeared exceedingly helpful and sincere and even showed up at the hospital in hopes of giving his friend, whom he’d met years before at grief counseling, some of his healing crystals.

All was not what it seemed beneath the surface, of course. As Karl unraveled the case, he discovered that Ryan was actually the jet ski driver who’d accidentally killed Jack’s daughter years before, and he befriended Jack to steer him away from finding out the truth about that night. When Jack ultimately discovered it was Ryan, he attacked him, and Ryan shot him in self-defense and stashed Jack’s body on the side of the road, not knowing he’d survive. Then, when it looked like Jack would awaken from his coma, Ryan triggered a fire alarm at the hospital so that he could sneak in and finish what he started.

As terrible as that act is, Ryan was dripping with tears as he lifted the pillow and seemed less upset when Karl stopped him in the act, thus saving Jack’s life.

Posey portrayed the character as, at first, affable and forthright before the truth of his past came out; from there, he oozed remorse and self-disappointment.

To break down this fateful character and how a personal tragedy inspired his gutwrenching portrayal of Ryan Coogan, TV Insider caught up with Tyler Posey. Read on to find out everything he had to say about his guest stint on Murder in a Small Town‘s latest thrill ride.

We find out very early on that Ryan has a history with the victim of the day, and he comes in and dutifully reports to Karl, and he seems so innocent and earnest. Do you think that’s his real personality, or do you think he was just kind of putting that on to cover his tracks?

Tyler Posey: That’s the thing about Ryan. I do think that is his real personality, and he’s sort of in between a rock and a hard place. So he’s using who he really is as a means to show, “Hey, look, I’m a really good guy.” He doesn’t really want to reveal the secrets of everything that happened. But I really do think that he’s a good person, and he just messed up really big, in a really horrible way, and just did not know how to climb himself out of the hole that he dug. But that’s what I really loved about playing Ryan, is that he is super layered.

And Rossif’s character Karl, he views Ryan’s character as this very surface kind of [figure]. He deals with these bad guys all the time, right? And he views him as that, but my character is … There is a layered story behind it all. And he did get in a fight with his friend, and his friend did try to kill him, and so he was defending himself. There’s just all this stuff that is unknown to Karl, but he sort of pins him as this guy who killed his friend’s daughter, followed his friend for years, and then tried to kill his friend — this ruthless murderer — when he’s more than that. He’s just put himself in some really bad scenarios and just kept digging himself deeper into them. And my character, at a certain point, knows that he isn’t going to be able to convince Karl of that, right? So he kind of just gives up and gives into it. But he’s super remorseful the entire time. He tries to kill his friend with a pillow, but the entire time he’s just sobbing and remorseful. And it’s really, it’s sad. It’s a really sad character and storyline.

Absolutely. Given how remorseful he was about almost killing Jack, I just wonder, do you think he’s glad in the way that he got stopped, even though he got caught? 

Oh, my God, I think so. It’s a tough one. Because I think, like I said, he is innately a really good person, and then being captured, there’s probably a sense of relief, like, “Jesus, thank God I didn’t have to go through with this.” But he’s gonna spend the rest of his life in prison. So I think that, morally, I do think that he is a good person. I think that he is relieved that he got caught — at least, I’d like to think so. I like to believe that Ryan is a good guy. He just made some really bad choices.

Well, like you said, this character, first of all, he doesn’t kill Jack, so that’s one good thing. And then second, the death that did happen, it was an accident when he killed his daughter. So I just wonder if you imagined a future where maybe he heals from all this and moves on to a happy life?

Yeah, yeah. I think so. Everything was an accident. He killed the daughter by accident. He shot Jack in self-defense because he pulled a gun on him. And so, yeah, I do think that. I don’t think he’s allowed himself to heal. I think that going through grief counseling was, was a means to keep an eye on Jack and make sure that he didn’t get close enough to Ryan’s trail and trace the murder of his daughter back to him. So I don’t know if he fully [healed]. I think he was too deep into it to allow himself to heal. So I think the time that he has now, wherever he’s going in prison, he’s going to be able to kind of deal with all of this and sit with it all and be able to kind of view it from the inside out, and just be able to actually heal from it.

The scenes between you and Rossif and the hospital, there were some pretty powerful moments, where you went to emotional places. Can you talk about crafting those moments where you’re digging in so deep?

Yeah, always really interesting as an actor. Throughout the years, I’ve been able to go there and be able to do that with other projects. But for some reason, this one was just different. And actually, my dog, I had to put my dog down before we filmed. And she was my everything. She was 13. I’ve had her since I was 20. So she was with me my entire, all the way through Teen Wolf, through my mom’s passing; she was just there with me through everything, and I had to put her down. And the scene where I’m putting a pillow over Jack’s face was just very kind of reminiscent of what I just did in real life. So I was really using that and putting myself in that place.

It was very cathartic for me and very rewarding as an actor to be able to get there. But yeah, I pulled a lot from my own life and was able to give that performance. And it just made me feel sorry for the character. He’s kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, and, if you’re able to bring the emotion and show the audience that this is a struggle for him, it gives the character this dimension that he is human, and it does sort of make the audience feel for Ryan, which is what we wanted to do. I talked to the director a lot about it, and we wanted people to feel sorry for this guy, even though he’s in this horrible scenario that he’s put himself in. So yeah, that the emotion was definitely something that I pulled from real life…. In a weird way, I’m glad that I had that experience just before the show, so I was able to put myself in that place…. It was really hard, but it’s a part of life.

Murder in a Small Town, Tuesdays, 8/7c, Fox

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