Beth Reisgraf, Aleyse Shannon. Christian Kane, Gina Bellman, Noah Wyle in LEVERAGE – REDEMPTION| ©2021 Electric Entertainment

The next Hellmouth Con, celebrating all things BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL, is being held for the third consecutive year on June 13 and 14 at Torrance High School in Torrance, CA, where portions of the first three seasons of BUFFY were shot. Produced by Fandom Charities, it has a guest roster, as always, filled with big names from both sides of the camera, and is produced by Fandom Charities. For more information on this year’s convention, go to HellmouthEvents.org.

In 2025, one of the Hellmouth headliners was Christian Kane. Kane’s connection to the event was his portrayal of the sometimes evil/sometimes good Lindsey McDonald on ANGEL. Originally from Texas, Kane is also widely known for his starring roles in series produced by Electric Entertainment CEO Dean Devlin, including LEVERAGE, THE LIBRARIANS, LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION and ALMOST PARADISE. Devlin made Kane an executive producer on the latter two shows.

Additionally, Kane produced and starred in the 2017 feature TINKER’. His other film credits include HER MINOR THING (which earned him a Special Jury Prize at the Phoenix Film Festival), FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, and SUMMER CATCH. Kane was also a series regular on FAME: L.A., RESCUE 77, and CLOSE TO HOME.

As if all this weren’t enough, Kane is a singer/songwriter/musician with a number of albums to his name. Besides participating in multiple panels (and photograph and autograph sessions) over the Hellmouth convention’s two nights, Kane gets together for a Saturday night acoustic concert with fellow actor James Marsters, who portrayed the vampire Spike on BUFFY and ANGEL.

On Sunday afternoon, despite his crammed schedule and the fact that he just got off a plane from Belgrade, Serbia, where he had been reprising his LIBRARIANS role of Jake Stone in THE LIBRARIANS: THE NEXT CHAPTER (“I can’t tell you who was over there with me, but I can tell you that we had a blast”), Kane makes time to sit down to talk with Assignment X.

ANGEL wrapped in 2004. If Kane had known when he was playing Lindsey that he’d still be talking about the character and the series over two decades later, would he have done anything differently – perhaps taken notes?

“I’m going to say, ‘No,’” Kane replies. “Because when we started doing this, like 2000, I was already doing conventions. And this is the strangest thing in the world.”

LEVERAGE – REDEMPTION key art | ©2021 Electric Entertainment

Kane points out that while Comic-Con existed back then, it was not the behemoth event it is today. There were relatively small conventions for lesser-known shows. But in terms of the larger events for fans, “When I started doing them, it was either STAR TREK or BUFFY and ANGEL, STAR TREK or vampires. I was doing them early on, and I’m still doing them, and I’m still getting questions, so my memory is pretty sharp on that.”

Conventions are now much more recognized as normal social pastimes, like baseball games. People from all over the country and all over the globe not only come together to hear the actors and writers but to meet up in real life with friends often made online or at previous conventions.

“I think it’s the best thing in the world. The thing I love about conventions like this the most is that people come to see us, but that’s not the real reason they’re here. People come to be a part of their community. People come to be safe. People come to have friends. Sometimes you talk to someone online for six months and you don’t get to see them, and then they come here because of us, to celebrate us, which we’re so thankful for.

“But it’s really to celebrate your life, to see that there are other people out there who love sci-fi, there are other people out there who are geeks. I don’t mind saying that word, because LEVERAGE made it very cool. When Hardison said, ‘Age of the Geek, baby,’ you’ve never seen a more beautiful man say he’s a geek than Aldis Hodge playing Alec Hardison. And we’ve made geek cool. ‘What are you?’ I’m a geek.’ ‘Welcome to the family.’ And so, I’m so thankful that we were able to start giving people a community where they could feel safe and be themselves.

There have also been LEVERAGE conventions, like Con-Con (the name is because LEVERAGE is a show about reformed con artists using their skills to help underdogs). Kane’s experience of BUFFY/ANGEL conventions, LEVERAGE conventions and other types of conventions has pretty similar, he says, perhaps because he’s got his own fan following, who call themselves Kaniacs.

“They’re at everything. I’m so fortunate to have them. [The Kaniacs are] something that they’ve built that I’m a part of, that I feel like I helped a little bit, but it was mostly them. So, I get to see a lot of the same people, and I love that. I get to see my friends. I get to see my family. But it’s not that different [in terms of what show is at the center of a specific convention]. It’s just people celebrating this entertainment business.”

The nature of the business is changing, and Kane feels that those who work in it need to stand up for their craft and their employment. “It’s going away, and we’re still out there trying to get it done. It used to be, you’d just roll through it and you’re having fun and you’re getting paid as an actor. We’re actually in a fight right now, fighting to save this industry. It’s so much easier for everyone else just to not pay actors and hire reality television people who don’t care, who just want to be famous. We do it because we actually love the art.”

While there are many actors who often collaborate with particular creators and companies, not all of those actors become producers on their shows. How did Electric Entertainment chief Devlin wind up tapping Kane to be an executive producer on LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION and ALMOST PARADISE?

ALMOST PARADISE takes place in the Philippines. Kane’s character Alex Walker is an ex-DEA agent trying to live a peaceful life running an island resort gift shop, but he is often drawn into helping the local police.

“We were filming in the Philippines. Dean was watching dailies and he noticed some things that we were doing and all trying to learn in between set-ups. The Filipinos were trying to learn from me, I was trying to learn from them, ‘How do we shoot this?’ Everybody conjoined. Instead of getting mad or upset with each other, we were all learning. And Dean noticed that it was tough for me, but I was trying to take my time to learn other people’s way of doing things, their process.

Christian Kane in ALMOST PARADISE – Season 1 | ©2020 Electric Entertainment/WGN America

“And he was really proud of me, and so he made me a producer. I thought that was one of the best gifts ever. I didn’t ask for it, he just did it. And then when Season 2 came around, even without me knowing, he made me an executive producer of the show. So, that’s him keeping giving me gifts.

“I don’t create the shows, I don’t really have any say over what’s going on, but if Dean has a role that he thinks is right for me, I do get to put in at least my two cents for collaboration. And that doesn’t happen with a lot of producers or studios, because Dean is the studio. So, I’m very thankful for that at this point in my career. He’s actually taking what I’ve learned and what I’ve gathered throughout my life and applied it, so it’s just a gift.”

Kane emphasizes that he is only a producer on the shows in which he is one of the leads. “The reason why I’m a producer on his shows is because I’m involved with it. If I’m not involved with it, then there’s no reason for me to do it. Because I’m really an inside guy.”

There have been times when Kane has made suggestions on the shows, including the LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION Season 1 episode “The Golf Job,” which had Marsters guest-starring as villain of the week Carl Bishop.

In most installments of both the original LEVERAGE and LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION, Kane’s ex-military character Eliot Spencer can be relied on to beat up the bad guys. Not so this time.

Kane explains, “There was one scene where it was scripted that Eliot roughs up Bishop. And I said, ‘That’s not going to happen, guys.’ And it’s like, ‘Well, you’re Eliot. You’ve got to put some …’ I said, ‘When people are watching this show, eighty-five percent of people are not going to see Eliot anymore, and they’re not going to see the character that James is playing. They’re going to see Lindsey and Spike. I’m not going to use him to come over and let Lindsey beat up on Spike. I’m not going to have Eliot punish Spike for what he did to Lindsey.’

“So, he kind of got the upper hand in that scene, instead of me throwing him against the wall. And James thanked me, he said, ‘I appreciate that, man.’ It was like, ‘I’m not going to take away what we’ve built our whole lives in a two-second situation. People see Lindsey, and they see Spike. They’re not looking at Eliot, and they’re not looking at his character on this show. There was a chance where Spike and Lindsey almost fought a couple of times, but they never fought. Let’s keep that ANGEL magic.’”

CHRISTIAN KANE | ©2025 Fandom Charities

There was some musical magic on the ANGEL set, never seen by viewers, when Kane and Marsters would jam with their guitars between takes.

“If we had two seconds off between things, James had this little red Marlboro cigarette carton that somebody had made an amplifier out of, and you’d just plug your guitar in it, and I thought it was the most brilliant thing. So, he got me a Marlboro Lights one that had the speaker in it, and we would plug in, and we would just play around and tell each other what we were doing.”

Although they were on stage together for the Hellmouth concert the night before this interview, Kane and Marsters performed alternately, rather than dueting. This was because there was no time to rehearse.

“Our [convention] schedules don’t have time for anything extra, and that’s perfect. But I said, ‘Do you want to go over anything [for the concert]? Do you want to come up with something?’ And he goes, ‘When?’ I went, ‘You’re absolutely right.’ He goes, ‘I say we just go song for song, and shoot from the hip.’ And here’s where it got great for us. He said, ‘We’ll listen to each other and try to go off each other.’

“We were at sound check, and I listened to him, and I said, ‘Oh, I’ll play this,’ and he was listening to me, and he goes, ‘Oh, I’ll play that.’ And then I said, ‘Oh, wait. That’s your first song? I’ll play my first song I ever wrote.’ And it just went really well.

“At the end of the show, James came back, and he said to me, ‘I can’t see that going any better.’ And that made me very happy and proud. But I couldn’t have, either. We don’t know each other’s songs. But we know each other. And I think that’s the most important thing – me and James have been friends for twenty years now, and that’s something.”

What else is Kane doing with his music these days?

Christian Kane and Gina Bellman in LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION | ©2021 Electric Entertainment

“I’ve been so fortunate in traveling. I was working in New Orleans before [shooting LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION], so it’s been hard, but Hank [Henri O’Conner] and I have gotten together, he’s playing guitar for me right now, and we’ve written some stuff.

“I think you know Riley Smith from TRUE BLOOD and NANCY DREW, and Riley’s international now, so I’ve been hanging out with Riley, and we’re writing. I really want to do more music. I think we’ve got a couple of songs that will kick off, maybe having three, four, five more songs and then adding some other songs people haven’t heard before. I always say, ‘It’s coming.’ I just want to take this time to publicly say we’re almost there.”

For those who want to see Kane in person, he is a scheduled guest at Creation Entertainment’s “The Road So Far … The Road Ahead” SUPERNATURAL convention in Toronto, Canada, July 10-12. There’s a Saturday night concert, free to attendees, and while performers for that haven’t been announced, it seems like where there’s music, there’s likely to be Kane.

Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X

Article Source: Assignment X
Article:  Exclusive Interview: Multi-hyphenate actor Christian Kane discusses ANGEL, LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION, music and conventions

Related Posts: