Hot Gallery: Ben McKenzie, Shawn Hatosy, Michael Cudlitz, and Lucy Liu Reflect on the Road to Southland

As heartthrob Ryan Atwood on The O.C., Ben McKenzie got cozy with his fans the minute they’d see him out simply because they’d mob him.   “For a time it was weird to have a lot of people come up to me," says McKenzie, "who I didn’t really know what they thought of me or my work, but who would approach me like we knew each other already.”

“I think there is a little bit of a shift [now],” McKenzie hypothesizes about the way Southland has changed his image with the fans. “I think guys maybe look at me a little bit better—with a little more respect. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking!”

Lucy Liu is the new kid on the block on Southland, coming into the squad in the fourth season with a character who has deep emotional baggage. The journey for her on-screen is to find the strength to really find herself within the job again, and for Liu, finding herself is a sentiment known well, albeit not as recently.

“When I was in Stuyvesant [High School], I didn’t know myself. I was kind of just doing things by rote because when I was younger—when I was really young—I knew I wanted to be an actress, but I knew that that wasn’t going to be possible. It just didn’t seem feasible. It wasn’t even on the radar for me or my family,” Liu admits. “I was struggling because I didn’t have an idea of where I was going. I think when you have a better idea, it just helps guide you, but I had none of that guidance.… Once I left the city [for college], I really began to understand who I was and have a sense of myself for the first time.” Watch Southland's Regina King talk about her days on NBC's hit sitcom 227.

Michael Cudlitz can be gruff and just as mean as the Southland streets he patrols as Officer John Cooper, which seems to demand a certain respect from his fans. Though he admits that these days people are actually “pretty cool” when they approach him, he has had crazier experiences with fandoms in the past—primarily when he was on the original Beverly Hills, 90210.

Cudlitz shares this crazy fandom story with Snakkle: “I had an experience at Ed Debevic's—it was a burger joint in Beverly Hills,” says Cudlitz. “[My wife and I] went in one day for lunch, and I noticed there was a group of 16- or 17-year-old girls having a birthday party. There were, like, 15 girls, and I walked in, and they looked, and then they immediately looked away, and I said, ‘I think the girls at that table watch the show.’ And [my wife’s] like, ‘Oh my God, will you stop?’ So we sat down, and no sooner had we sat down when two of them walked over, and they were fidgeting, and they couldn’t look anyone in the eye, and they said, ‘We know this is going to sound stupid, but are you on 90210?’ And actually I said no at first, and my wife kicked me under the table, and I said yes. And one girl touched me on the shoulder with just a finger, started screaming, and ran away. And that was pretty disturbing, actually. It was the first time I had ever had anything like that happen—and the last time, actually!”

Back before Shawn Hatosy was on Southland—or even Dexter or Felicity—he performed live onstage both in theater performances from the age of 10 and as lead singer in a band in high school. The immediate response from a live audience always provided him an additional rush.

These days Hatosy gets his live action rush from tweeting with his fans: “We were kind of encouraged to tweet, but I really like it because you can see the reaction right away. The fans have been so positive, but even when they’re not, I kind of like it!”   Southland's season finale airs Tuesday night at 10 p.m. on TNT.