Recently Jordan Belfi took a few minutes to answer some of our questions about Josh’s love for Beth, his relationship with Mick, and what’s coming next. WARNING: SPOILERS!

Moonlight-Detective.com: Jordan, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us about Moonlight and Josh Lindsey.
Jordan Belfi: My pleasure.

ML-D: When were you told that Josh’s days were numbered? How did that impact your portrayal of Josh? JB: I read the scripts for the last 5 episodes around the same time. Learning about Josh’s fate didn’t really impact my portrayal of him. He didn’t know what his fate would be, and I could only play what he felt and knew at the time. His ultimate love for Beth and desire to do what was right never changed.

ML-D: Would you have preferred for Mick to turn Josh into a vampire? Or maybe Josh could return as a ghost to haunt Beth!
JB: Great question. Having Josh turned by Mick into a vampire could have been another really interesting and dramatic way to go – and may still be. It opens up an infinite amount of possibilities and storylines, and would deeply and dramatically complicate the triangle between Josh, Beth, and Mick. In a lot of ways, Josh’s only limitations were simply that he was human. Something for which, I think, you absolutely can’t fault him. He knocked out the guy who was the leak in his office, and was passionate about going after the bad guys and doing what was right, going toe to toe with the arms dealer who was trying to kill his witness, as well as the gang leader who had him beaten up and threatened Beth’s life. And most of all, he loved Beth – he was willing to not only drop everything he had been working on for years because it put her in danger, but willing, in order to protect her, to put himself aside and ask for help from the very person he knew she had romantic feelings for – because it was ultimately the best thing for her. But what if Josh was a vampire? What if he could protect her and more specifically, make her feel safe with the supernatural power that Mick has? Would Josh be good or bad? Would he be a friend or nemesis to Mick? Where would that put Beth? I could go on and on, but they’re all dramatic and complicated and interesting possibilities that arise from that idea of Josh being turned. So yeah, of course, as an actor, it’s interesting to think about what I could then create with Josh being a vampire – same character, but some of the qualities of who Josh was removed, or perhaps just profoundly changed. The idea of playing both sides of the coin, of playing the whole spectrum of light and dark and the morally ambiguous range of shades in between, would be extremely exciting.

ML-D: Have you seen “Love Lasts Forever”? What was your reaction to how the storyline played out? Would you have changed anything (besides, you know, Josh dying)?
JB: Yes, I have seen “Love Lasts Forever”. I think the episode is great. It’s taut, suspenseful, emotional, visually stunning, and altogether gripping. Everyone’s performances are very strong. I think it’s the best episode so far. All of the complexities of Beth and Josh’s relationship, Josh and Mick’s relationship, and Mick and Beth’s relationship that have been brewing the entire season come to a head. It strikes the perfect balance between realism and the supernatural, action and drama, and the music, pacing, performances, and overall direction strikes the perfect emotional tone. Would I change anything about the episode? There is something that was omitted from the scene in the bathroom between Beth and Josh where Beth implores Josh to stick with the case and not back down. As she does so, Josh looks at her and suddenly has that moment where you’re reminded of why you fell in love with someone in the first place. He leans and kisses her. They break, and look at each other. The way Sophia and I shot it, in that moment, Beth leans in and kisses Josh back. It then grows passionate. In the show, it jump cuts from them looking at each other after he kisses her, to them kissing passionately against the wall. The audience never sees her kiss him back, and then it grow in mutual intensity. It’s a very subtle thing, but it results in a very different feeling. It becomes a lot less about two people who have history both feeling this spark of re-discovery, this re-ignition of something they had, something that was real, which had slowly faded. And which, by the end of the episode, is ripped away. It’s only a single cut, but a single cut can have a powerful effect on how you ultimately perceive the intentions of the characters and the meaning and feeling of a scene.

ML-D: Why do you think that Josh stayed with Beth, when it was so obvious that she had feelings for Mick?
JB: I think Josh stayed with Beth because quite simply, he loved her. He sincerely and wholeheartedly loved her. And he didn’t want to give up. He wasn’t an idiot – he knew something was going on and he wasn’t going to let himself be walked all over, and he was straight and honest with Beth about the fact that he could feel the tension between her and Mick. But still, Josh loved her. And I think that’s a very realistic struggle in love and relationships – a struggle that occurs sometimes between your mind and your heart, between what your mind might tell you is best for you, and what your heart feels and won’t let go of. I think that struggle is interesting, and dramatic, and it was that struggle that informed the emotional life of what I hoped to portray in the scene in ep.10 “Sleeping Beauty” where Josh tries to break it off – knowing that what she was doing was unfair and it all wasn’t working, but wanting to believe her if she will just look him in the eye and tell him that she doesn’t have feelings for Mick.

In the end, I think Josh’s love for Beth was unwavering. Like I mentioned above, he cared for her so much that he was willing to put himself aside, and place her safety in the hands of the man he knew had feelings for her. He wanted to make sure she was safe and genuinely wanted her to be happy.

ML-D: Did you and Alex debate that question amongst yourselves?
JB: No, Alex and I didn’t debate the question of why Josh stayed with Beth. We talked about Mick and Josh, and the evolution of their relationship. There certainly was an an arc, and a complicated back and forth, from the very beginning where Josh doubted but then helped Mick, to hiring him on a case, to very much sensing something was going on between him and Beth, arresting him, battling him for Beth’s affections, asking for his help in protecting her, and finally Mick trying to help save Josh’s life. Underneath it all however, we both felt Josh and Mick respected and liked one another, and under different circumstances, probably could have been friends.

ML-D: You worked almost exclusively with Alex and Sophia on the show; who else among the cast would you have liked to work with (either on the show or in another project)?
JB: Working with Alex and Sophia has been wonderful. You always want to work with good actors – actors that you trust. That trust allows you to let go and react and bring things out of one another, and that’s when you really begin to discover and create. That’s when it gets really exciting. So I am fortunate to have gone on that journey with Sophia and Alex, and sincerely look forward to our next time. I also had a great time working with Brian White in our handful of episodes together. A really good actor as well, who I look forward to working with again soon. And although I didn’t have the chance to work with Jason or Shannyn, I am sure I would’ve felt the same about working with them as I did Alex and Sophia, and hope to have the opportunity to do so real soon.

ML-D: Looking backward for a few minutes, what was your experience working on Ten Inch Hero?
JB: I came in to do a small cameo in that film. A friend of mine was playing the lead, and I came in to do some scenes with Clea Duvall. Jensen Ackles from “Supernatural” and Daneel Harris from “One Tree Hill” also star. It was a really good time.

ML-D: What’s next for you? Any projects in progress or on the horizon?
JB: It looks like I will be going back to do more episodes of HBO’s “Entourage”, which I worked on during the first three seasons of the show. And I am heading to New York to do a few performances – one reading with Alec Baldwin, Josh Lucas, Harvey Keitel, and John Cusack, which I am looking forward to. Should be great.

ML-D: Thank you again for chatting with us; we look forward to seeing what you’ll do next!
JB: Thank you so much.