Grimm on NBC gives Grimm’s Fairy Tales a new twist.

Silas Weir Mitchell is not a Big Bad Wolf in Grimm Series

Grimm is the hot new NBC series that turn the classic Grimm’s Fairy Tales into material for a contemporary crime drama. It follows a Portland homicide Detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli), who discovers he is a descendent of an elite line of “Grimms,” charged with keeping the balance between humanity and the mythological creatures of the world.

Burkhardt has a partner on the force, Hank Griffin (Russell Hornsby) and a fiancé, Juliette Silverton (Bitsie Tulloch), who get caught up in his new found calling as a “Grimm.” But it’s his reluctant new confidant Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell), sort of a reformed Big Bad Wolf, who helps Nick navigate through the ancient evil-doers of mythology.

Silas is familiar to fans of Prison Break, and has been seen in My Name is Earl, The Mentalist, and Burn Notice, among 100 other TV appearances. And he calls his Grimm role “awesome.”

The show has come along at a great time when it seems the horror genre is very desirable. Silas explains, “Everyone likes to be scared. It’s true. Everyone likes a thrill ride. I do think we are kind of going through a little bit of a dark time. It’s sort of a dark time in our country, with the economy.” And he thinks it’s not unusual to gravitate to horror when there’s real scary human stuff going on in the real world.

Silas says the essence of the show is a great crime drama, regardless of which fairy tale is being explored in the episodes. “I think that Hank is a good policeman, a detective of the first order. And I think it helps character development that Monroe helps Nick, working together to solve crimes.

Monroe is helpful because he knows all of the larger-than-life forces, such as Hexenbiests, Blutbads, and others in the mythology. As a reformed Grimm creature, it’s humorous to know that the “Big Bad Wolf” goes to church, does Pilates, and is a vegetarian trying to right his primal nature.

So was there a “Grimm” type story that Silas read as a child that really scared him? You bettcha! He recalls, “There was the cautionary tale about a little boy who was a thumb sucker, and his parents say, ‘don’t suck your thumb or Mr. Cut-your-thumb-off is going to come.’ They leave, and the kid sucks his thumb, and a guy runs in and chops his thumb off. That was kind of creepy and scared me.”

Silas likes that Grimm is filming in Portland, Oregon, because of the wonderful locations that add to the production. The producer David Greenwalt says, “Portland is like another character in the show. It’s spooky, it’s a little dark, and it’s misty most of the time. There’s beautiful moss on the trees, there’s rivers, and waterfalls. And there are woods close by with quaint homes that look like storybook houses.”

That doesn’t sound too grim, but it gives the show Grimm a scary fairy tale look.