Matt Passmore Talks Beating The Heat, Alligator Entanglements On A&E’s ‘The Glades’

Sunday nights are getting a little bit steamier – literally — thanks to A&E’s new Florida-based detective drama, “The Glades.”

Although the show may star an Australian – Matt Passmore as the brilliant-but-deficient-in-social-skills detective Jim Longworth — even he can’t take the heat on set.

“It’s hot,” the Brisbane-bred actor told AccessHollywood.com of the on-location show. “We would get reasonably muggy, but nothing like here. This is like real North Queensland mugginess. We’re going from medium to well done and it [isn’t] even August yet.”

In order to beat the heat, and repeated trips to re-sculpt Jim’s big city sleuth coif before filming (his character hails from Chicago), Matt admitted that sometimes, he and his co-stars hop in his character’s car to cool off.

“We all melt. There’s just no getting away from it — especially when you’re out on location. There’s nowhere to hide… until they pop up a cooling tent. Or sometimes, we just all sit in Jim Longworth’s Charger and have a chat while they’re setting up and have the air-con on full belt,” he laughed.

Weather aside, the actor’s been enjoying life on the show’s Florida set, which is buzzing after its season premiere made “The Glades” A&E’s most-watched drama in the network’s history. Matt’s also been relishing in sinking his teeth into Jim, the bright, sarcastic and complex detective, who lands in Palm Glades after being shot by his former police captain in Chicago under semi-mysterious circumstances.

“I love playing those characters, where the most exciting thing for myself and for an audience watching it, is when you see the cracks, when you see things that truly affect him, that don’t quite slide off the way everything else does,” Matt said. “And then you kind of earn them, because we know the way he moves through life, so it’s what happens when something actually affects him. Rather than handing the audience this guy on a platter and saying, ‘See, he’s so nice!’ It’s like, ‘Let’s find out!”

One of the ways viewers will get to figure out the character is through Jim’s blossoming relationship with hospital worker and single mom, Callie (played by Kiele Sanchez), who he met in the season opener after being bit by an alligator.

“In A&E style, they’ve set up a very complicated relationship,” Matt said. “I don’t know too many shows where they’ll introduce ‘guy likes girl, girl turns out to be married to a guy in prison with a child.’ So that definitely puts a whole bunch of complications into the chemistry there, but there’s chemistry there.”

As for the alligator run-ins, those may prove less frequent in the weeks to come.

“I think I proved I’m no croc hunter,” Matt laughed of Jim’s first episode alligator entanglement.

“You know what, that morning, two alligators had actually moved in, so the wranglers had to move them on until they got me in the water. But trust me, every time something moves near my leg, I start to sweat a little bit more,” he laughed. “If it [was filmed in] like, North Queensland, it would be like, ‘We just can’t go in here. Guys? Guys?’”

“The Glades” airs Sundays at 10 PM on A&E.