The Librarians Season 4: Christian Kane on Jake’s Evolution

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Now that TNTs The Librarians has returned for its fourth season, it’s only fitting that Den of Geek sat down with Christian Kane for a telephone interview to discuss the show and his character Jake Stone.

Though he sees it from a different angle, Kane still derives as much pleasure as fans of the show when he watches episodes as they air. “We’re always acting to something that’s not there,” he says. “We haven’t seen the monsters yet. We haven’t seen the magic or the forces.”

“Dean Devlin sat us all down before we started and said this season is strictly for the fans. We’re giving the fans everything they want,” Kane explains about season four’s different approach. “We weren’t trying to fit ourselves into one box; we just got to run free.”

So what can we expect from The Librarians and Jake stone this season? “There’s a lot of inner demons that they’re going to be fighting this year,” Kane reveals. “I get to fight a lot more this year which is what I grew up on. On Angel and growing up on Leverage.”

Jake seems to enjoy getting physical and never turns down a good bar fight. Fortunately for fans of the show, Christian Kane also enjoys the physicality of the role. “I do all the fighting; I do all my own stunts,” he insists. “I look at it as a dance. I’m a huge Steve McQueen fan, and that’s my specialty – fighting on camera.”

At times it feels as if Jake is in charge of the three young librarians, and Kane talked about their working relationship when guardian Eve Baird (Rebecca Romijn) is not around. “When they’re in the field, especially if Baird’s not there, he does take a little bit of the control only because he has a cooler, calmer head than everybody else,” confirms Kane.

And what about that iconic red ax Jake Stone wields in every season and appears in much of the show’s promotional material? “The funny thing about that was that the ax was never meant to be anything,” Kane admits. “I had an ax and I threw it at a giant wolf and killed him. I got it off him and spun it like old Eliot Spencer (Leverage) would do. I got in trouble for that. They didn’t want me to do Eliot Spencer stuff.”

Now that he’s comfortable putting his own name on his scholarly articles, Jake Stone has some personal decisions to make. “That’s one of the monsters we run up against,” Kane says. “Do we want to do this and spend the rest of our life doing it? Because it’s a commitment to the library. That’s his battle this year. Or does he want to go out make a difference some other way?”

Though many actors have fan followings, the “Kaniacs” are among the most loyal, and Kane talked about their desire for or aversion to a possible romantic entanglement for Jake Stone this season. “Does he want love in his life?” Kane asks rhetorically. “Because he can’t have it if he’s going to continue to date the library. He is conflicted about this. As John Rogers used to say, Jake Stone’s weekend are full; he just deals with the library during the week.”

Season four of The Librarians airs Wednesdays at 8 PM ET on TNT, and for the first time during its run has expanded its season from ten episodes to twelve concluding on February 7, 2018.