Mark Critch Had to Separate His Reality to Make Fiction in ‘Son of a Critch’

What’s better than remembering how your family used to be? Playing your dad in a retelling of your childhood! That’s what is happening to Mark Critch on Son of a Critch, and it isn’t easy to relive those memories from the past.

Shows that focus on the real-life stories of creatives are very fun, and Son of a Critch really gives us that look into the life Mark Critch (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) growing up. The real Mark Critch plays Mike Critch, his father, and in talking to him, I could tell it’s been fascinating to relive his own life from a new perspective. “It’s interesting because you’re there and you’re filming sometimes and you go through different phases,” Critch said. “You’re writing it, then you’re in pre-production, then you’re actually filming it, and then a couple of times you kind of forget it’s about you in a way. I remember I was filming a scene once and they’re doing it and I thought, ‘Huh, something like this happened to me once.’ And I’m thinking, ‘What am I doing? No, this happened to me and that’s why this is happening.’ So that can be strange, but playing my dad on the show is interesting because it kind of forces me, I have these memories that I put in the show that are important enough that I put them in a show. And memory is a very personal thing. It can be a selfish thing.”

He went on to talk about how playing his dad has changed his view: “You always look at things through your point of view. And then playing my dad kind of makes me have to think about what his thought process was and put things in a whole different perspective. And sometimes it can be these out-of-body experiences people have during surgery or something where you’re floating over yourself. I’m looking at it. But the neat thing has been really making me kind of stop and think about what everybody else, my family and my friends, were going through in that moment. And it kind of makes things a lot clearer and gives you a better sense of the actual memory really.”

You can see our full conversation here:

Son of a Critch is airing on The CW now.

(featured image: The CW)