You're About to See a Lot More of Jason Lewis

It really doesn't seem like that long ago that Jason Lewis was Smith Jerrod-ing about on Sex and the City. Sure, it might just be our constant marathoning of the series that makes it feel that way, but for many, the 45-year-old will always be that sensitive, gorgeous actor who won Samantha's heart.

But the truth is, even though we might not quite have moved on, Lewis has been pretty busy since his last dash as Smith. For instance, he portrayed troubled patriarch Christopher Sheffield in Lifetime's third and fourth Flowers in the Attic films. And we'll soon be getting a Lewis double-whammy. In his new film Running Wild, he stars as Brannon Bratt, a ranch manager, alongside Sharon Stone. He'll also be a regular on NBC's much anticipated Midnight, Texas—based on books by True Blood author Charlaine Harris—playing a tattooed-up angel called Joe Strong, naturally.

We spoke to Lewis about all the goodness he has coming up—plus, whether he'd be up for Sex and the City 3. (Pls.)

You're an outdoors guy. Were you much of a horseman before shooting 'Running Wild'?

I'd ridden some, but I'm no expert. I wanted to do as much as I could in the time I was allotted before shooting. We had a lot of horse rangers and whenever I had free time I'd go out there, get them used to me—give them apples. And then I'd get together with the guys pretty much every day just to make sure I was comfortable out there.

Lewis in

What did you identify with the most in your character, Brannon?

I think he shares something universal in all of us—oftentimes the things we know are not enough to articulate the life we want to have, and so we have to keep moving forward, try to live through it somehow to get to the space we want to hold.

On your Instagram you've been posting about how sad you are at the outcome of the election. What are the things you believe in that you're being vocal about right now?

One of the things I love about my country is the ideology of equality, of opportunity for all, that a person should be measured by their value and their merit in the world. That's a challenge in any society to uphold those values and we're facing the challenge again now. I'd like to see a world where we hold that the value every life is equally important.

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Lots of your characters—Brannon and Joe included—are outsiders, in a way. But you're a good-looking, blue-eyed California boy, a Hollywood actor. Have you ever felt like an outsider?

I think everyone feels like an outsider sometimes. I absolutely have. Growing up for anybody is a challenge—not just trying what's around you, but what's in the world you want to take on and uplift. One thing I like about all those characters is that if you see other people struggle in that space, you won't feel like such an alien for your own efforts.

'Midnight, Texas' is based on Charlaine Harris's books, which are fan favorites—how did you prepare for the role?

It started with the pilot script for me. I grabbed the books—at the time we were shooting the pilot, the third one wasn't out—and started reading them, and saw what Charlaine intended for the characters. Then I looked at what the character was—being an immortal character, [there were] really broad decisions to make about what this character had been through. I took one of those "History of the Universe" graphs that started at the inception of the universe and then started making up stories interpreting things that I thought served the character.

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You've said that you get offered a lot of pretty boy roles—what was it about Joe, who is literally an angel, that appealed to you?

Joe is not like a Hallmark angel—he's not some cherubic icon on the front of a greeting card. He's an immortal creature who has lived through a lot of different circumstances. I think one of the hardest fights in life is to move through your experiences and life's struggles and to hold on to a sense of hope and discovery. That struggle there, I found that pretty interesting.

As a kid, did you ever want to be immortal?

I don't know that I was fixated on immortality instead of, like, X-ray vision, and flight and Batman gadgets. I really wanted a bunch of Batman gadgets.

There have been persistent rumors about 'Sex and the City 3'—if it happens, would you be in? What do you think Smith would be doing now?

If it were to happen, I would of course be in. I'm such a huge fan and I owe them a lot. So, yes, I would be more than happy if they wanted me to come do something with them. I think Smith's probably producing at this point. He's probably more on the creative end of things...he's probably taken his success and parlayed it into something creative.