#Roswell, New Mexico’s Nathan Dean on the Arrival of Jones & if There is Hope for Max and Liz

Three seasons on television these days is a massive accomplishment, and Roswell, New Mexico has started their third season stronger than ever. 

Series star Nathan Dean comes into this season tackling two roles, and he’s shining brighter than ever in both. 

We got a chance to talk with him about what it’s like to play two polar opposite characters, whether the Echo fans should hold out hope for their favorite couple, and what storylines he’s looking forward to the audience seeing. 

TV Fanatic: Hi Nathan.

Nathan Dean: Hi. How are you?

TV Fanatic: I’m good. Thank you.

So, just diving right in here, your character spent a lot of time in season two in the pod, and now he’s back in season three, and there’s two of you essentially. So, can you tell us what it was like playing two different characters who, on the surface, seem pretty different?

Nathan Dean: Yeah, that was one of the really fun challenges that I’m so grateful is our showrunner and our writers for giving me this fearless.

Let’s create sort of what Max could have been, right? Because Max just spends so much time on Earth suppressing who he is, trying to just be a normal guy, but he has all these abilities, and he just has kind of squash them, and he kind of forced his siblings to squash them as well.

So, what happens when you have someone who has the full extent of the ability that Max could have had, and what does that look like? How does that change a person? How does that change your personality?

And it was really fun to just sort of be somewhat limitless in the experience of how you see the world. If you’re suppressing something for so long, you’re always sort of hiding. You’re always sort of this shell of yourself, and then Jones steps in, and he just is fully everything that you could be. And it was so much fun to create that.

And then it was so much fun as well to walk into this town of Roswell that we’ve spent three years creating and meet everyone again for the first time as a stranger, as like… Sure, Max knows Michael and Isobel, but Jones gets to meet Michael and Isobel. He gets to meet Liz.

He gets to meet these familiar faces for the first time. And it was so much fun just to walk that line. And on the one hand, be Max and be familiar with everything and on the other hand be Jones and having all this sense of wonder about this town that we’re all watching.

It was a blast. It was a blast. And I’m so grateful for Chris Hollier for allowing me to play with them.

TV Fanatic: Speaking on Jones. Could you give us like… If you could describe him in a couple of words, how would you describe Jones?

Nathan Dean: Jones? I would describe him as sort of the unspoken potential of what these aliens can be. We get a window into the history of into this world what these aliens have always wondered about. He offers a window into that. Into what they could have been had they not been on Earth.

TV Fanatic: I like that. Can you tell us a little bit about Max’s headspace coming into the season? His health is failing. Liz is gone. He found out he’s a clone. There’s like a lot to unpack there. So, what’s Max’s headspace like?

Nathan Dean: Yeah, that’s a lot to take in. At this point, I think he’s seeing the end of the line much sooner than he had wanted to, I think. And realizing that he hasn’t been there for Michael and Isobel, the way he could have been, the way he should have been.

He’s sort of taking stock of his shortcomings in life at this point because he’s trying so hard to be a certain way, and then the universe keeps forcing these crazy situations on him. And he’s sort of seeing the end of it right now.

It’s sad on the one hand, but on the other hand, it’s gratitude as well for having time then to be with Michael and be with Isobel. And sure, of course, he’s missing Liz, but she’s doing her thing. She’s doing well. She’s living her life. And sitting sort of on the end of a cliff, you become grateful for everything around you.

And I think that’s sort of where Max is sitting right now and just taking stock of everything he’s overlooked and everything that he’s going to miss out on—and just being grateful for the chance to have closure and find closure on his term.

TV Fanatic: So, each season, we dive a little deeper into the characters and who they are at their core. So, what are you hoping that the audience learns about Max this season?

Nathan Dean: Well, I think it’s just that Max stops. I think this year, he sort of grows up a little bit more and learns gratitude in a new way and becomes more aware of not only who he is and who he can become and who he needs to be here on this planet, but who his siblings are as well.

And you really learn more about where they come from and why they’re here and what they can do, and ultimately that they can’t just hide. I think that’s really the thing that Max learns a lot this year is that you can’t just hide under a rock your whole life.

You have to eventually step into yourself and take ownership of not only yourself, but in his case, his abilities, what you can do and grow in that way and really grow into this more mature adult form of what you’re meant to become. You can’t just hide in this little shell.

I think the pandemic is actually it’s sort of a perfect mirror because Jones is that mirror for Max.

And I think this past year, a lot of us have spent a lot of times sitting by ourselves and staring into a mirror, going, “what am I not doing? What should I be doing? What can I become? When this is over, what do I want to achieve? What do I not want to lose? What do I not want to give up? What do I want to fight for?”

And we’ve had to ask ourselves these questions, and Jones is that narrator for Max this year and forces him to really ask those questions and kind of step out of himself. And then once everything kind of clears up and we have to go to walk out into the world with this found idea of who we are and who we want to be.

That’s really what Max is kind of learning this year. And I think it’s a good mirror for what a lot of us have had to do during the pandemic.

TV Fanatic: Yeah, very true. So, you touched a bit on the relationship between Max, Michael, and Isobel, and there was a lot of really great scenes with you guys in the premiere.

And just wondering if we’re going to continue to see those kinds of scenes and if Max will spend some time with some of the other core characters throughout the season?

Nathan Dean: Definitely. Max is stepping out, so to speak. He’s sort of forced to step out. And it’s so great having this year. I think this whole season with Max, Michael, and Isobel, as well as Max and Liz, really trying to approach them in a more mature and a more adult and a more respectful and a more honest open way.

That’s something that we haven’t traditionally done, but this year is really sort of… I don’t want to say coming of age because we’re already 30. But, it is approaching each other with newfound respect and newfound love and just grace that we sort of have not had to this point. And Jones kind of forces everyone to take stock of that.

TV Fanatic: If you could say a little something to the Max and Liz fans, what would you say? Should they have some hope about you guys this season?

Nathan Dean: Absolutely. And we always have hope. These two, no matter how hard they try, they can’t escape each other. And at the end of the day, they don’t want to. They just, circumstance kind of forces their hand. But Max is always going to be a champion for Liz.

And even if she is experimenting on them and doing science that is questionable and doing this, Max is always going to hold a torch for her. At the end of the day, he loves her. In that sense, there’s no kind of escaping the two of them. They’re meant to be together.

They’re in this orbit around each other that they just can’t pull away from. And no matter how hard they try, they’re always going to find each other because that’s what they’re meant to do.

TV Fanatic: Are there any storylines outside of Max and Jones that you’re looking forward to the audience seeing this season?

Nathan Dean: For sure. Maria has a great journey this year, this season. We get to see a little bit more of Max and Kyle and sort of their awkward bromance that neither of them necessarily want but at the end of the day, they all have common goals.

So that’s going to be fun. And then, Michael and Isobel’s journey this year and it’s… Everyone takes sort of a leap forward, I think, in terms of their growth and their… It’s going to be good to see all that.

TV Fanatic: New Mexico is as much of a character on Roswell as anything else. So, what do you enjoy most about shooting there?

Nathan: Oh man. New Mexico is beautiful. It’s called the land of enchantment for a reason. Being able to shoot here and be here it informed so much about our show in terms of… You show up to work with our crew here, and you’re just immediately in it.

It transports you through this sort of otherworldly place. The skies are huge. The weather is. The environment here, the air, it breathes life into this show, I think in a way that we’re so fortunate to just be out here and have that in our background.

I think our DP’s or our director of photography and our camera operators do a great job of really just capturing the expanse of it. This is such an expansive place that it really allows your imagination to kind of run wild.

And I’m just so grateful to be here. I think we try to do it justice as we can. It makes sense if you’re coming from an alien planet, if you have all of space and time at your disposal. New Mexico is the place on Earth, at least that I found, that that feels that expansive. We get to be in this every day, and it’s beautiful. It’s stunning.

And it’s not a place that you can replicate elsewhere. It just has this breath about it that is so refreshing and unique and full of life and really gives great play for whatever we want to do.

TV Fanatic: That’s great. And just our last question, and first of all, congratulations on the season four renewal. In today’s TV landscape, that’s no small feat. So, how thrilled are you guys to get a chance to keep telling the story next season?

Nathan Dean: Oh, it’s amazing. Like you said, it’s hard to get this season born. I think one of the great things about this show is that this story is ever-evolving and ever-changing. And we have so much more to tell. We have so much more to say and more to explore.

Having been gone for so long during the pandemic and no one was able to work, and we were all questioning. Where do we going next? What do we do? And to have this show come back, and we start shooting again in a couple weeks. And I can’t wait to see where season four goes.

I have no idea. I can’t wait to see. But we learned so much in season three that now it just begs the question. Like, okay, well now what? Now, where are we going?

Because we have all this new information. We’re exploring this whole new, literally whole new world. Let’s jump on that. Let’s see where it goes. Season four is going to be awesome. And season three, I hope, gets people excited for that. I know we were all very excited to come back after the pandemic.

We were lucky enough. We started back in October, and we were able to kind of work through even a few shows that never got shut down. We’re just ready to charge ahead and do it again. This is such a rich landscape and such a fun world to play in and build in. I can’t wait to see where we go.

Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.