Ben McKenzie starts off his day by walking his dog Oscar — and picking up his poop! — on Friday morning (July 23) in Hollywood, Calif. According to TV Guide, the 31-year-old actor will lend his voice to the cartoon reboot of Scooby-Doo, which will air 7/6c on Cartoon Network. Other celebs to lend their star power include Patrick Warburton, Gary Cole, Linda Cardellini, George Segal, Tricia Helfer, Tia Carrere and Julie Bowen.
The new season of Southland premieres January 2011! – Source

Gallery Link:
(x015) – Candids in 2010 > 23/Jul – Ben starts off his day by walking his dog Oscar

STLtoday:

“Southland” will return in January for a 10-episode third season, TNT says.

Created by John Wells (“ER”) and starring Ben McKenzie, “Southland” is “a challenging, visceral show that engages viewers with its immersive style, provocative storylines and complex characters,” TNT’s Michael Wright said. “These qualities have made ‘Southland’ a favorite among critics and appointment viewing for an extremely loyal audience.”

TNT picked up the police drama after NBC dropped it. The original episodes on TNT averaged 2.7 million viewers, the network said.

Just saw this article on Southland_Tv and I decided to put it here too:

Want to help saving SouthLAnd?

Please sign the following petition to Renew Southland. There is strength in numbers, even if you have already sent individual emails to the above people. We are hoping to gather as many signatures as possible so we can send them all at once to the Powers That Be showing massive support for the show, as well as organized support.

Note that in order for your signature to count, a confirmation email will be sent to the email address that you provide with a link. You must click on that link or your signature will not count! Your privacy is absolutely guaranteed! We will not share or distribute your information with ANYONE other than the intended recipients of this petition, for any reason whatsoever, at any time!!! For more information, please view our Privacy Policy.

http://www.southlandtvfans.com/petition

Laist has published a new interview with Ben Mckenzie. He talks about TV series ‘Southland’.

Ben McKenzie stars as Officer Ben Sherman in TNT’s “Southland”

Before Ben McKenzie took the role of rookie Patrol Officer Ben Sherman on formerly NBC’s and now TNT’s “Southland”, we all became familiar with him for his portrayal of the conflicted Ryan Atwood in The CW’s “The O.C.” Tonight the season finale of “Southland” airs at 10pm on TNT – we hope that this series, one of the best that premiered in 2009, makes it back for many more seasons. There is nothing formulaic about this contemporary portrayal of what patrol officers in Los Angeles do every day – the writing is superb and every episode brings a multitude of real LA locations to the screen with an incredible cast that makes every episode that much more real and gripping.

We spoke with Ben via phone last week. [Today @TNTWeKnowDrama will be holding a live twitterview with Ben and co-star Michael Cudlitz from 2-3pm Pacific-

LAist: So [tonight] is the season finale, is it also the series finale?

Ben McKenzie: We don’t know whether we will be renewed or not. TNT has been fantastic and have put a lot of muscle behind the show – the ratings have been solid, not spectacular, but a lot of people have been DVRing the show and watching it that way, so I truly don’t know if we are coming back yet. I’d certainly happily share the information if I had it but I think TNT is going to take its time to see how we do and how they want to go forward.

LAist: The LA setting of “Southland” reminds me a bit of “The Shield” but that show was more of a fantasy.

Ben McKenzie: That show did have a dramatic focus on corruption and power plays among certain members of the LAPD. Our show is more of a slice of life of the LAPD, from patrol cops to detectives. If we get to go again, we may have an episode or two that focused on corruption, but that’s not really the angle that we’re pursuing. “The Shield” was a terrific show and I’m flattered at the comparison.

Well this is it. The final episode of Season 2 (or Season 1.5, depending on how one keeps score.) Not so much a season finale, more the sixth episode of what was supposed to be at least 13 on NBC (before we were so unceremoniously cancelled before premiering). I wish I could say that this episode wraps up the plot lines in nice little bows, providing all of us — cast and crew as well as fans —some closure if in fact this episode does serve as a series finale. The truth is it doesn’t.

No surprise there: it was never intended to do so. Instead, it is simply another strong episode of a show of which I am immensely proud to be a part. That will have to suffice for the time being. Nothing worth having comes easy, and Southland is a testament to that fact. No body who worked on this show doesn’t miss making it. We all hope we can make more of it. But at this point, the decision is out of our hands. The ratings have been solid (particularly the DVR numbers), but not spectacular. It is up to TNT to decide whether there will be more Southland. I would like to thank them for the enormous efforts they have undertaken on our behalf. They have believed in the show from Day 1, and have done a fantastic job promoting it and nurturing it along in the difficult transition from network to cable. Thank you, TNT.

Southland season 2 premiere tonight on TNT @ 10pm!

Ben was in-studio with Ryan Seacrest on his radio show. You can listen to Ben’s interview here!

Photo credit: Jessicachenow

Southland has had a tough time of things, getting booted off NBC, then starting over on TNT. But the gritty cop drama is finally back with its first brand new episode since moving to cable, and star Ben McKenzie, who plays rich-kid-turned-inner-city-cop Ben Sherman, couldn’t be happier (despite how broody he may look on television). He talked to EW.com about the upside of moving to the less-restrictive cable portion of the TV tuner, why he doesn’t feel sorry for NBC, and why you should watch tonight’s season premiere. (Namely, because it’s awesome.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So the move to cable means what, exactly? Will we see more risque content?

BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. If I have anything to do with it, there will be as much nudity as possible.

Any thoughts on NBC’s programming implosion since they canceled your show this season before it could even air to make way for the now-failed Jay Leno Show to air at 10 p.m.?

Just that now that NBC is in need of quality dramatic programming at 10 o’clock, I wonder where they’d get something like that…. I’m talking s–t, but why not? They said we could make the same show we made at 10 at 9. Then we started making the show and they saw the footage, and they were like, Oh my God, it’s so dark. So then they freaked out. But it’s a situation where you’re like, Why didn’t you freak out earlier? If you didn’t want to pick us up, don’t pick us up. It was one of the only hourlong shows they launched to decent ratings and decent critical response. But we caught the last lifeboat off the Titanic.

How are you feeling about your new home at TNT?

I absolutely think both sides want it to work. My dream is to actually make 13 episodes of this show in a row. I think TNT will actually let us make the show we want to make. TNT wants to get into grittier, edgier stuff.

What can we expect from tonight’s new episode?

The first one back is probably my favorite episode we’ve done. It opens on a riot in [a Los Angeles neighborhood called] The Jungle. The residents call it that, so that gives you a pretty good idea of the quality of life there. You don’t call where you live The Jungle unless you have a pretty dim view of things. [We had] 200 extras who were real residents who we paid to pretend they were upset with the cops, which was not too far off for them. It was pretty fun. They actually pulled a loaded gun off a woman 100 feet from where we were shooting. Luckily our extras are real cops.

So it’s a lot like shooting The O.C.
I knew we’d get around to The O.C. Yes, we hang out all the time. We have potluck on Tuesdays.

Okay, instead of talking about The O.C. we’ll ask, what’s coming up for your character on Southland the rest of this season?

There’s some drama involving my character’s childhood. That will come up and make me contemplate going to the dark side. I think the way I’ve always seen the character is his journey is learning to be a man in the world as it is instead of the world as he wants it to be.

Southland airs at 10 p.m. ET Tuesdays on TNT.

Source