William Hurt joins the cast of Damages. The second season kicks off on Showcase tonight.

William Hurt sure is a deep thinker when it comes to his craft.

The Academy Award-winning actor was discussing his decision to join the cast of Damages this season. The acclaimed series, which stars Glenn Close, Rose Byrne and Ted Danson, kicks off its second season across Canada on Showcase tonight.

"I was riveted by the character and that was the key," Hurt said. "There are only a few plots in the world, but every life is unique and original. That's what fills libraries. It isn't plots."

So why is it that actors and producers talk about the importance of interesting characters all the time, but so few projects get it right?

This is where Hurt got deep.

What he seemed to be saying was that in times of turmoil, society gets dumber. But Hurt said it a lot fancier than that.

"I think the world is straining in a new paradigm for identity," Hurt said.

Hmmm, just what we were thinking.

"Since I was born, there's three times the number of people on the planet," the 58-year-old Hurt continued. "Cultures, ethnicities, religions, all are inter-mingling at rates never conceived of before. Identity itself is being challenged.

"When people become nervous as a group, their intelligence tends to recede, and the relationship between the fool and the deceitful increases."

The relationship between the fool and the deceitful? Was William Hurt spying on my family's Christmas dinner?

Oh, sorry to interrupt.

"A lot of it is group dynamics, but you still have to pierce the generalization, which is what fear becomes," Hurt said. "You want to say, 'No, I'm still a person.' That's your best way of identifying who we all are.

"Go to that, don't go to the generalization. But in times of anxiety, mentation recedes as a group. That's why it's that much more important to do this."

All-righty, then.

Well, if Hurt is as smart as he sounds, he certainly signed up for the right TV show.

As the first season of Damages ended, Ellen Parsons (Byrne) had decided to cooperate with the authorities to bring down her boss Patty Hewes (Close). And Arthur Frobisher (Danson) was left bleeding in a field, having been shot by a betrayed former employee.

Hurt joins the fray as energy consultant Daniel Purcell, a desperate man in a desperate situation, who just happens to have a mysterious history with Patty. Notably, Hurt and Close haven't worked together since the 1983 movie The Big Chill.

"This is not a departure of medium because it's all theatre to me," Hurt said when asked about moving from film to TV. "If it's the proscenium arch and it's 3,000 people and there are no microphones, that's one way. If it's an 85-millimetre camera rammed up your nose, that's another way. But it's still telling the truth about a character in that space and time.

"It's my job as an artist to be in command of that. The space and time framework is an abstraction."

Whoa. Need to sit down.