S.W.A.T.’s Kenny Johnson: A Longtime Friendship With Shemar Moore Helped Fuel Luca’s Emotional Farewell
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The following contains major spoilers from the April 5 episode of CBS’ S.W.A.T.
CBS’ S.W.A.T. team bid adieu to original cast member Kenny Johnson’s Office Dominique Luca this Friday night, though not in the way that network promos had you fearing.
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Johnson’s farewell episode revealed pretty early on that Luca had in fact survived the multiple gunshot wounds he sustained at the end of last week’s episode. But following a multi-week time jump, Luca got a gut-punch of a phone call, from a doctor saying that his MRI had revealed irreversible nerve damage, caused by the bullet to his shoulder.
As such, Luca is no longer fit for S.W.A.T. duty. And rather than ride a desk, he opted to retire — in grand fashion, at a formal ceremony attended by all outside of HQ.
TVLine spoke with Johnson about Luca’s sendoff and the emotions it drummed up for the actor himself.
TVLINE | Did you see the promo they were running for your final episode? It really put fans through the wringer!
Yeah, because everyone thinks I’m dead. [Laughs] Even when I went to go in for looping, they only showed up to the point to where I got shot. I’m like, “It doesn’t look like there’s any way that I’m going to survive that.” Everyone’s kind of freaking out, like, “Oh my God, you’re dead! It’s going to be a funeral episode!”
TVLINE | Who took the news worse, Luca or you?
I think Luca did. In life I always think that everything’s meant to be and it’s for a reason; I’m very supportive of how the universe works. But Luca, dude…. He’s born and bred to do what he does, and to take the only thing away from him that is everything in his blood and his fiber…. [Voice starts to crack] It gets me emotional right now. It’s just so hard to get that taken away.
TVLINE | Did going through all of that with him, over six-plus seasons, help get you where you needed to be in that scene with Shemar [Moore] on the beach? Because that was quite emotional.
In that scene with Shemar I was trying to process the unknown, you know, because this [SWAT job] is what [Luca] was put on Earth to do, so he feels naked and lost. Now, everyone could say, “Oh, but you can go do this, you can go do that,” but when every breath of your being is that and then it’s no more, yeah, it definitely played on me and Shemar a lot. And I’ve known Shemar…. I met him way, way back in the day when we both were getting into acting — before I even took acting classes, or right when I was starting.
TVLINE | Oh, wow.
Yeah, I think it was at a party at Paramount. We had a mutual friend, [now-veteran voice actress] Cree Summer, who was doing a popular series at the time. I hooked up with [Shemar] as friends and we hung out for, like, a long time. I then saw him years later at a boxing gym that I had trained at for 10 years — he’d come in but I was always on the other side of the gym, so we never talked, but I was like, “That’s that guy!” I felt like we were like soul mates back then, or brothers in some way.
Everything was wide-eyed and fresh — it was the beginning of everything, you know. It’s the most exciting thing when you have nothing, but anything is possible. And then to circle around, all these years later, to where we’re on the same show together…. I think all that played into that scene.
TVLINE | Some fans were grumbling, “Why couldn’t Street be around for Luca’s send-off?” But it’s nice to know that your and Shemar’s history added a nice richness to that scene.
A hundred percent, a hundred percent.
TVLINE | What was it like, at the end of the episode, standing up on that stage in front of everybody in their dress blues, saluting you?
Oh God, man… Whew… [Chokes up] Just looking out at, like, Jay [Harrington] and Tan (played by David Lim), and Anna [Enger Ritch] and Odie (Otis Gallop as Sgt. Stevens)…. The look that they had, because they know what this means…. We’ve all been so close to each other for all this time, so every single time I eyed them it was tough because it’s Luca leaving, but for me I’m losing these friends that I’ve bonded with for six years, every single day. There’s a parallel there, obviously, but you know when it’s a human experience and it’s very real, I could see that there was a struggle in there for those guys, and it hurt me. It was a goodbye, but an “I love you” to everybody. It was wild, yeah.
TVLINE | Where does Luca rank amongst, say, the Top 5 characters you’ve played on TV?
I would say, yeah, definitely Top 5. I always go back to The Shield, Lem is one of my favorites…. I really liked Kozik, I loved SOA (Sons of Anarchy)…. Caleb in Bates Motel was definitely really interesting and complex, kind of dark and really trippy. It was a great character to play, but it was a tough one to be in that skin…. And then I played this character Burner way back in my first series, Pensacola. Burner and Luca both had this bubbly, positive energy now that I think it.
I played college baseball and football, and I was an arm wrestler — one year I was World Champion, left- -and right-handed — so it’s in my blood to compete, and S.W.A.T. is the ultimate place to compete, with brotherhood and team play. I love the character and I think I more love the way people react to S.W.A.T. or to Luca, anywhere I go around the world. I travel a lot, and you would think that we’re part of the Beatles! When you go to London or to Milan, or you’re in Paris, I couldn’t go 20 feet without people running up and kind of screaming, taking pictures. It happened my whole last trip, where I was like, “This is really wild how much of an effect it has had people everywhere.” So Luca’s definitely up there, Top 3 for sure.
TVLINE | Plus, Luca has an edge in that you got to work with your daughter, Angelica (who played Kelly).
[S.W.A.T. executive producer] Shawn [Ryan] knew that I struggled with dyslexia majorly growing up and he wanted to do a storyline about a kid [with dyslexia]. He says, “OK, I’m writing this thing and I want Angelica to audition. She might be too young for it, but we’ll put her on tape, and I’m going to send in the tapes to Sony and CBS but I’m not going to tell them that she’s your daughter.” I’m like, “Yeah, don’t,” and they ended up choosing her. She was 8 years old then, and now she’s 14/almost 15, so that’s pretty crazy.
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