Tony-winning Gilded Age, Life & Beth and Gossip Girl actress Laura Benanti says she enjoyed being cast against type as a rookie prison guard and single mother of three kids in Season 4 of the gritty crime drama, Mayor of Kingstown.

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Airing Sundays on Paramount+, the series follows Mike McLusky (Jeremy Renner), the powerful liaison between police, criminals and the prison of a Michigan town where everyone has ties to at least one of the three.

"I'm such a fan of the writing and of Jeremy and I don't get to play roles like this a lot. I do a lot of comedy or rich, mean women [characters]," Benanti, 46, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.

"Getting to play a character that is so wildly different from anything I've done and wildly different from who I am and the way I grew up is such an acting challenge and I'm constantly wanting to stretch myself as an artist. It was a thrill to become a part of this cast."

Hugh Dillon, who co-created the show with Taylor Sheridan and also plays police detective Ian, said that by killing numerous regular characters off in Season 3, the writers were able to expand the world and welcome fresh faces to the story.

"We never stop thinking about it. So, to me, it's not cut up into seasons," said DIllon, 62.

"I'm immersed in it. Taylor and I, when we created it, we built in a particular velocity that'll carry itself and Renner just adds so much, just makes it easy," he explained. "For us, it's just what happens next? And it's not an algorithm and it's not a blueprint."

Season 3 ended with Mike's brother Kyle (Taylor Handley) shooting his fellow cop Robert (Hamish Allan-Headley) during a chaotic gunfight that ultimately lands Kyle in prison.

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"That was Taylor: 'Get them on the bridge, Robert and Kyle.' And then a few days after that, I kind of envisioned the end of Season 4," he recalled.

"Taylor always taught me to know where you're ending and then work backwards and, so, I pitched it to Renner, and he was like, 'I didn't see that coming and you should take a vacation and that's excellent.' And, so, we built it."

Dillon said the inspiration for Benanti's character Cindy came from a real female corrections officer he met while doing research for the show.

"She was a single mom and I just thought, 'What a compelling character,' because you don't see that coming either and then we were just lucky to find Laura," he said.

Benanti praised Dillon as a collaborator who is generous of spirit and interested in other people.

"That really carries through in the writing," she said.

"There's a natural empathy to Hugh that you wouldn't expect to find in a show like this and I think that is what really sets it apart, at least for me, that you get to see the inner life and the inner workings of these characters where we then have to see the outer facade they have created to survive."

The show reunites Benanti with her former Nurse Jackie cast member Edie Falco, who plays Nina, the prison's warden and Cindy's supervisor.

"I did the final season of Nurse Jackie, I played Edie's ex-husband's new wife. So, we had a couple of scenes together. Actually, the first time I ever worked with Edie, I went into a 'white box of acting' where I forgot all of my lines, because she was just so good that I was like, 'How do I get out?" Benanti recalled.

"I didn't realize we were even in the scene, because she was just talking, and I was like: 'Oh, that's what acting is! You don't know someone's acting.' So, she has been my idol for a really long time, so to get to do a scene or a couple of scenes with her, in this show was amazing because we also played extremely, extremely different characters."