Mario Lopez wants to appear on Mark-Paul Gosselaar‘s NBC series Found — but only if his Saved by the Bell costar kills him on screen.
“I was with Mario and somebody said that Mario wants to come on Found. I said, ‘Oh cool. You could play Mario Lopez, and you could be a journalist.’ And he’s like, ‘No, I want to play a dead person,’” Gosselaar, 51, exclusively told Us Weekly before pointing out that his character, Sir, “doesn’t kill anyone yet” on Found.
Lopez, 51, however, is determined to have a killer cameo. “He said, ‘I just want you to kill me.’ And I told him, ‘Well, that won’t be too hard.’ But he should be careful what he wishes for,” Gosselaar quipped. “Because I was on NYPD Blue and when we had dead people on our set, you’re dead for a while.”
He continued: “You’re laying there, and it is not fun. It’s never fun to play a dead person. So he should be careful what he wishes for. But I would take any of [my Saved by the Bell] costars on Found. It would be really fun to have any of them on our show — as long as it didn’t take away from the story that we’re telling.”
Gosselaar (and Lopez) became household names after they starred in Saved by the Bell from 1989 to 1993. Gosselaar went on to appear on Franklin & Bash, Mixed-ish, Pitch and The Passage before he reunited with Lopez and the rest of the Saved by the Bell cast on Peacock’s short-lived sequel series.
Now, Gosselaar has won Us over with his portrayal of the villainous character Sir on Found.
“When I did research for this character, I needed to have a reference. [Our showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll] said Ted Bundy,” the actor recalled. “Up until that point, I had known about Ted Bundy, but I didn’t know much about him. When I did a dive on him, I realized he was a very handsome man and he could disarm his victims. Even when he was in court, he was a very smart individual. He made friends in a weird way and people rooted for him.”
Gosselaar admitted he didn’t always understand the way viewers supported Sir, adding, “It’s just an interesting dynamic, and I wanted to make sure that we continued that with this character. I could play Sir a certain way — which would make you hate him always — but that’s really no fun. … I think it’s just a study of society — but I feel the same way.”
Found, which premiered in 2023, follows public relations specialist and crisis manager Gabi Mosely (Hampton) and her team of associates as they work to find missing people who have been ignored or forgotten by law enforcement. Flashbacks throughout the series reveal that Gabi’s calling came after she was kidnapped as a teenager — by none other than Gosselaar’s Sir.
In addition to starring on the show, Gosselaar is now also a director after the Thursday, April 3, episode of Found.
“You have to do your homework when you direct one of our episodes because there are so many loose ends,” Gosselaar shared with Us. “Things that happened last season are either being wrapped up or expanding in the story so you really have to do your homework on our show.”
Gosselaar elaborated on the challenges he faced behind the camera, adding, “We have a really good cast, and I think they’re always on their best behavior. The hardest thing for us — when I was directing — was probably not getting wrapped up in a conversation on set. Because we all really like each other and because we all get along really well with our crew and we’re all just a huge family. We could spend 12 hours of our day just talking, hanging out and we have to get work done.”
He concluded: “So sometimes we have to remind ourselves of that, and we rely heavily on our [assistant directors] to kind of keep us in line. We have such limited time and we have super ambitious scripts. We have to be firing at all times and we do.”
Found airs on NBC Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET and new episodes are available the next day on Peacock.
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