By JUDY SLOANE

Front Row Features

HOLLYWOOD-NBC’s drama “Found,” which premiered last year spotlighted the life of public relations specialist Gabrielle ‘Gabi’ Mosely (Shanola Hampton,) who, as a teenager, was kidnapped by Hugh ‘Sir’ Evans (Mark-Paul Gosselaar.) Now Mosely and her crisis management associates are dedicated to finding the missing who are forgotten by the police and the media. But Gabi had her own secret. She found and imprisoned the man who kidnapped her, Sir, locking him in her basement and forcing him to assist her in solving cases. But at the end of last season Sir escaped and is on the loose, making Gabi’s biggest secret her greatest threat.

Shanola Hampton and Mark-Paul Gosselaar came to the TV Critics Association summer tour to speak with the journalists about the second season of “Found,” which premieres on NBC, October 3, 2024 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, and after listening to the actors banter back and forth, could there be a sitcom in their future?

Q: Mark-Paul, what was your reaction when you heard the change for season 2?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: It was this dance that you have to trust NK (creator and showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll) and her team to provide us the floor to be creative in, but also to feel that it’s not forced. Every script that we got, I kept saying how can we continue this trajectory because it just continues to rise right from the start of the second season. I’m very pleased and excited for our fans and our audience to watch the second season because everything that we built up in the first season, there is going to be a payoff.

By the way, I was very content being in the basement. I was fine there. I would come in maybe one or two days a week, do my work, take off. It was a great schedule. Now with this location stuff, it’s –

Shanola Hampton: It’s still one or two days a week. Cut it out.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: It’s kind of biting into my ‑

Shanola Hampton: Cut it out.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: It’s a lot of work. I got wardrobe fittings now. I just like that gray uniform I was wearing. Also, the fact that the world has expanded, I’ve had to learn the names of my other cast members.

Shanola Hampton: He’s not kidding. And their character names.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: Could you talk, please?  This is your show. Talk about it.

Shanola Hampton: What I love about [it is] we have the luxury thank you to NBC, of 22 episodes, we don’t wrap things up in a little bow in one or two episodes. So the healing process, as in life, takes time.

It’s been a different journey for me as an actor to play because Gabi is always in control and people are looking up to her. In this season, for the majority of this first chapter, everyone’s really pissed at her and disappointed and sad.  It weighs on you.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: Not me. I’m on your side.

Shanola Hampton: All you have is me.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: All you have is me.

Q: Mark-Paul, many actors talk about the need to relate to their character. Do you ascribe to this?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: I really like working. Honestly, when I look at something, I think is this something that I want to be on for seven, eight years?

Shanola Hampton: She asked if you were like Sir. That’s what the question is. Are you like Sir?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: No. But the reason why I took this role is this script was so solid.

Shanola Hampton: That’s a yes, ma’am. Very similar. Sir is a little smarter.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: That’s true.

Q: Your onscreen relationship is very toxic and codependent. Both of you seem like lovely, funny people.

Shanola Hampton: One of us is quite lovely. One of us is so sweet, so kind. We get asked this question often and we answer it differently because our approach is different.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: Very different.

Shanola Hampton: Why did you say, “very different?”

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: You just have a very different approach to –

Shanola Hampton: What would be my approach, then, Mark-Paul?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: [She] goes from Shanola to Gabi like a light switch. She’s so talented she can do that.  I have a little bit of a different process where it takes a while for me to get the fabric of Sir onto me. And then, it takes a while for me to wash that fabric off.

Shanola Hampton: I’ve made you better with that, I think.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: I think so too. If I was able to do what she does, it might be a little easier for me. But every actor’s different.

Shanola Hampton: Let me set up the scene. We have a scene together.  I come in.  I sing.  I dance.  I jump on him, right?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: No joke.  This is not a joke.

Shanola Hampton: Everybody goes oh, my gosh. Then they say action, and I hate him. When they say cut, I jump on him again. It’s simple. That’s really the dynamic of us. Then, he does his little grimacing face. Ugh, why’s she on me? And then we end our day.  Two takes and we’re out of there. It’s quite fun. It’s really not difficult for me to turn it on and turn it off as Gabi Mosely.

Q: How do you feel now that you’re not together in the second season?

Shanola Hampton: I think it’s so satisfying for the audience to see them because if Sir is on the screen or not, he’s always present.

Feeling that presence, and only Mark-Paul in the way that he is able to deliver Sir can make you feel that presence, even when he’s not present. So you get this sense of him in every single scene, even as we’re looking and trying to solve these other cases.

Q: Mark-Paul, what is Sir envisioning as his own endgame this season?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: It is singular for me. My intent is just to have the connection that I have with Gabrielle. That’s basically it. Any sort of connection that I can have with Gabrielle is good enough for Sir, whether that’s in the basement, out in the open, but just to have something that keeps us together, in any capacity. It’s not dysfunctional. Not to Sir.

Shanola Hampton: It’s perfectly healthy.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: It’s fine, it’s fine.