Mark-Paul Gosselaar talks “Saved by the Bell” lessons and how series “Found” opens a “Pandora’s box”

You’re not alone if you were a teen or tween who swooned over Mark-Paul Gosselaar on “Saved by the Bell.” Gosselaar, who played blond trickster Zack Morris on the Saturday morning show, has had a long and successful television career since the original “Saved by the Bell” wrapped up in 1992, afterward appearing in “NYPD Blue,” “Raising the Bar,” “Pitch” and many other shows. He joined Salon’s Alli Joseph recently to discuss his new series “Found,” which airs Tuesday nights on NBC and also streams on Peacock. 

“’Found’ is a procedural show about finding lost people,” says Gosselaar. “The main character is played by Shanola Hampton [of ‘Shameless‘ fame]. She plays the character Gabi Mosely, and Gabi was abducted when she was 16.”  The show, while fictional, plays on a real statistic: of the 600,000 missing persons reports filed in the U.S. annually, 300,000 are people of color, and there is less attention paid to their disappearance than that of white people. There are also fewer efforts to find them.  

“That’s a staggering number that I don’t think the masses are aware of,” notes Gosselaar.  “You see, the media picks and chooses who should be found, and that’s not a system that works in our opinion. And so this is a show that gets the word out there and makes awareness. It doesn’t hit you over the head.  And if we can get that word out, then we’ve made an impact.”

In “Found,” as often happens in real life, no one was looking for Gabi, and she escaped her captor Sir (Gosselaar) after a year of being held against her will. “Through her life, she made a mission to help people in her situation, people that didn’t have the funds or the means to be found, “ explains Gosselaar. Sir and Gabi have a complicated, mutually dependent relationship, which is revealed in a twist early in the series.

“Saved by the Bell,” which gave Gosselaar an acting start and changed his plans of attending a Marine military academy, spawned sequel series and even a film. It is a testament to his skill and staying power, however, that Gosselaar branched out into more serious roles, and says even though the majority have fallen into the comedy genre, he still enjoys playing those characters. Either way, Gosselaar wants all of his roles to challenge him.

“Is this something I haven’t played before?” he asks himself. “Do I see myself doing this for many years? Every time I go onto a show, I want it to run for a minimum of five years, seven years.” You can watch my full “Salon Talks” interview with Gosselaar here or read a transcript of our conversation below. 

The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What is “Found” about?

“Found” is a procedural show about finding lost people. The main character is played by Shanola Hampton. She plays the character Gabi Mosely, and Gabi was abducted when she was 16 and no one was looking for her and she escaped on her own about a year after captivity, and she made a life mission to help people that were in her situation, people that didn’t have the funds or the means to be found. She was going to advocate for them through PR, which is her specialty, through people that were investigators, and people that could actually put the time and energy into people that, again, don’t have the means to get the push to be found, which is sadly what you need in this current environment. 

I play her backstory. I play the guy that did abduct her, and the twist to it is that after she escaped, years later she kidnaps me.

Was that not a spoiler?

Did I just spoil it for you?

Well, not me. I watched it.

If I spoiled it for people, just go back. You can watch it on Peacock right now. It’s OK. You’ll still be surprised by it. It is that good. I think it’s that well fleshed out that it still holds. 

You started out obviously doing a comedic show for older kids and teens, and then in the work that you’ve transitioned into is often a little bit more serious.

Not by choice because my last show that I did was for ABC, which was “Mixed-ish,” which is straight comedy. It was from the creators of “Black-ish.” It’s never by choice of, “Oh, I need to do comedic. I need to do dramatic.” It just so happens that things that come to me that I consider, it usually falls into, is it going to challenge me? Is this something I haven’t played before? Do I see myself doing this for many years? I think every time I go onto a show, I want it to run for a minimum of five years.

Well, you had “Saved by the Bell” ran from what, ’89 to ’92?

Four years, the original show.

And then there were some spinoffs.

We did the original, which was “Miss Bliss,” which was only a year, then “Saved by the Bell,” which was four, and then the college years, which was one season. It feels like we did a lot of episodes. We only did a hundred in those four or five years, but it’s been syndicated for so long that people think we did more than we actually did, and we were canceled every year. 

That’s the funny thing about “Saved by the Bell” is that we never had a normal 22-episode season. It was like we would do 10, and then we would wrap and we’d have our wrap parties and say goodbye to each other, and that was the last time we’d see each other. We’d get called back by Brandon Tartikoff, because Brandon Tartikoff loved the series so much, his daughters actually loved the series, and we’d go back to filming maybe 13 this time. Then we’d have another wrap party, and then they would say, “Well, maybe we’ll do beach episodes,” and we’d do the beach episodes and then we’d have spinoffs, not spinoffs, but movie-of-the-weeks. This happened for four years, but because of syndication, which started in ’96, it’s just been running for all these years and it just finds a new generation of viewers.

So that’s good for you.

Not really, because it was a Saturday morning show. You would think that I was able to buy these nice clothes with the residual money that we did on the show. That is not true. It was a Saturday morning show. We probably had one of the worst deals in history. You live and you learn.

I did read about that. And in fact, I read that your esteemed producer, who cast you and wanted your character to be this mischievous guy who pranked people but was still lovable and you wanted to like him, that you couldn’t get some of the actors back because of these breaks in filming because they had committed to other things. So that’s an unusual trajectory.

Back in the day, you stayed in your lane. If you were a TV actor, you didn’t branch off and do film. You were a TV actor. Nowadays, that line has been blurred, and it’s so good for the actors, it’s so good for people who are creative to be able to do film, television, theater, music, commercials. You were frowned upon if you did a commercial back in the day. Like, “Why would you do a commercial? You’re actually on TV. You’re taking a step down.” Now, you’re just able to do whatever you want.

Because I was a television actor, I wasn’t being considered for films, so after a season would end, I’d just go back to my normal school. I went to a normal public school and I would just hang out with my normal friends and waited to get another call. It wasn’t until I was about 19 that we finished the high school years and I got an offer for the primetime college years, and that was in primetime and that was real money. That was primetime money. That’s where I made a decision, “Oh, this is my career, I think. This is where I think I’m going to find myself.” That was in ’93, ’94. From there, I decided to become an actor full-time and give up my hopes and dreams of becoming a football player.

That was the dream?

Yeah. Actually, right before “Saved by the Bell,” the reason why my hair was short and blonde was because I was going to a Marine military academy. I wanted to go to this Marine military academy, I thought I was going to become a Marine, an officer, and I was going to a camp in Harlingen, Texas and I came back, my head was shaved, my hair was starting to grow out, my mom put in blonde highlights and then I auditioned for Zack, and they said, “We love that look.” Then I had to dye my hair for the five, six years that we were doing “Saved by the Bell.”

And then again in the spinoffs?

Yeah, I was still dyeing it to stay in character.

What about if you do another one now?

I wore a wig for the reboot. There was no way I was going to dye my hair. I’m trying to hold on to as much hair as I have.

Let’s get back to “Found” for a minute. I watched a number of episodes, and I do think it’s really important to note that of the 600,000 missing persons per year, 300,000 I read are people of color, and that seems to have been the true impetus for this show. Can you talk about what that means to you and why this series is important?

Well, the obvious, to get the word out there. That’s a staggering number that I don’t think the masses are aware of. We all see it in media. You see the media picks and chooses who should be found, and that’s not a system that works, in our opinion. This is a show that gets the word out there and makes awareness. It doesn’t hit you over the head. We’re not trying to clobber you over the head with each show — just trying to make you aware. If we can get that word out, then we’ve made an impact.

Then you have my side of the show, which is the backstory and the twist of it all, which was, for me, when I received the script for “Found,” that was the first thing I read. Of course, you’re going to read the part that you’re being offered. I read that and I thought, “This is interesting for a network show. Where does this all lead to?” And then I read the rest of the script and was pleasantly surprised how the procedural was weaved into this very complex backstory and thought it was an interesting twist for a procedural on a network. It hasn’t been done before, so I was very interested in that.

I want to hear a little bit about Sir, your character.

We find out why Sir is called Sir in an upcoming episode. It was pretty interesting. I won’t give that away. See, there’s a twist I won’t give away for you.

OK, thank you.

But there is a reason why he goes by the name Sir, and it stems from his childhood.

It is clear about Sir and Gabi that they have a very unusual relationship. It’s disturbing, at least on the outside, and perhaps we’ll learn even more down the road. What made you want to portray a guy like this who is a kidnapper and is creepy and, some would say, depraved?

On the surface, there’s nothing redeemable about this character. I could have played it in a way where it was very one-sided because in my eyes an individual like Sir is pretty black and white. But that’s the challenge. So that’s the challenge for me as an actor, is how can I portray this character and possibly make the viewer question their alliances and how they feel about this relationship that he has with Gabi? I think it’s worked. It’s an experiment that we’re going through. 

From some of the social interactions that Shanola, my co-star, has told me, there’s a lot of people that are questioning this relationship and wanting to see them together in a weird way, which says a lot about the individuals. I think people are struggling with they like to see them together, but they know it’s wrong. It opens up a whole Pandora’s box, which, to me, as an actor and as a storyteller, that’s what you want when you’re doing a project. I like things that live in the gray on film, so I’m all for what people are experiencing on this show.

It is an interesting dynamic. I was feeling a little mutual Stockholm syndrome. Is that fair to say?

Sure, but again, Shanola and I have talked about this, our scenes in the present, not in the past. In the past it was very one-sided, Sir was in control of that relationship and he dictated what happened in that space. The space that we’re operating in now where Gabi is using Sir to help solve some of her cases has created this power dynamic, where who’s in control? Does he want to be there or is she keeping him there? There’s this constant struggle of who is in power, and that’s fun to watch and that’s fun for us to play while we’re filming because we actually don’t know. When you read the scripts, you’re interpreting what the writers give you, but it’s not always so clear. It isn’t until we’re actually filming it and we’re playing off of each other that you start finding these little nuances, and hopefully that comes across on screen.

You said you always hope for a five-season show, and that is not often how things go.

Because financially, I just want to retire. I feel like there’s a very finite timeline for television careers. I would love to have a long career, but I’m also looking for the time where I don’t have to work so hard and I can just go, “I’m going to take a few years off, watch my kids grow, and spend all this time with my lovely wife and just travel.” I think I’d be fine with that.

I think I would because I’ve been in it for so long. If you look at my career, I’ve been in it for a while, but I really haven’t had the shows that have had those legs. When I came on “NYPD Blue,” I got four years out of it. They did 12. But I came on the tail end when everything was starting to get cut. They were trying to extend the show, so they cut the licensing fees and all these things. I didn’t get in there when it was real meaty and good, so I’m looking for still that show that has the legs, and I think found my pin. Fingers crossed.

So when they give you the script at the head of the season, you read the whole season?

No. And that’s the other thing. That’s the other thing too. That’s a leap of faith. I was thinking about this the other day, is it’s really tough what we do on television as an actor because I don’t know what the season’s going to look like. NK, our showrunner, Nkechi Carroll, she gave me a brief synopsis of where she was going to take [it], but not the details really of what was going to happen week to week to week. You get these scripts, and I’m just as shocked as, I guess, an audience member would be when they see it.

We read these scripts and sometimes we’re just floored by what’s going to happen in that episode. You wish you had that information to shape what you did in the previous episode, and you just don’t. Sometimes you wish you can go back in time because now you have this ammunition that you could have used. It is a difficult process for television, but I think we do the best we can. It is a tough thing to do, to have this arc through the season that you have no idea where it’s going to go.

Well, I hope you get five.

I would love to. I want seven. How about seven? Or eight. Let’s just keep going. Let’s just do the “SVU” thing where they just have 20 or so. Mariska Hargitay, and then Chris Meloni comes back.

Then your retirement will be so prolonged.

It’s OK though. I’m down for it. Listen, kids, what island do you want? I just bought that one. Do you want that island? It’s OK, we’ll just buy that.

Speaking of kids, you’re a dad of four.

I’m a dad of four. I got to buy islands for all my kids. That’s the plan.

All right, so with your kids, any tips? You said a little bit earlier before we started rolling that every day is like a log roll, that’s what I call it, and you don’t know. You just lay in bed and think about the things . . .

All the things you did wrong.

I thought you were going to encourage me, because you have four and I have two.

All I can say is there is no right or wrong. We’re all doing our best, and that’s why the thing is . . . I’m not on social, but I do read, and you hear about celebrities because they put it out there with their kids and stuff and they’re the faces, and they tell these stories and they’re proud of their families or whatever, and people skewer them for things that they do. I just feel like you’re not in their shoes, and there’s no handbook for raising kids. Give everybody the benefit of the doubt. We’re all trying to do our best. We’re all trying to be good people, and raising a child is one of the hardest things.

What my wife does when I have to go to Atlanta and work for six months out of the year and I’m away, what my wife does I couldn’t do. I have so much respect for people who that’s what they do, is raising their children. Fathers that have to work and come back. It’s all not easy. It’s a blessing to have children, but you also know it’s one of the hardest things in life you have ever been given the opportunity to do.

Mark-Paul, I might not make it, I’m just saying.

Keep that rifle dry. That’s all you’re doing, is keeping it above water. 

You brought it back to your military roots, I like it. Look at that. Look what he did there. Just brought it right back.

Just keep it dry. The gunpowder has to stay dry, and you’re good to go. You’re not alone either, because we’re all going through this.

I’ll think of that next time.

And it never ends.

“Dad, my island is flooding.”

“Can you come over here and fix it?” I just bought you an island.

Bring the bilge pump.

And you know what? As a parent, you’ll do it, because that’s what we do.

I had children in my 30s and I had so much more energy in my 20s, but I was nowhere near, I had no capacity to be, but I probably would’ve been a much more fun dad in my 20s than I am, and even in my 40s and stuff like that. But it’s like, what are you going to do? You just do the best you can. You’re a great parent. That’s all that matters. And just think about it, I’ll leave you with this: Even the worst parents, their kids still love them. Just don’t be a bad parent though. Don’t use that as an excuse. But I’m just saying, you can sit in bed late at night and go, “I really screwed up that day,” your kids still love you though.