DirecTV is throwing its hat into the scripted original series ring with Rogue, the story of an undercover cop (Thandie Newton) who joins forces with crime boss Jimmy Laszlo (Marton Csokas) to track down the person responsible for the death of her son, while simultaneously trying to uncover the traitor in Laszlo’s organization. Meanwhile, Jimmy must contend with his impulsive, arrogant son Alec (Joshua Sasse) and his manipulative wife, Cathy (Leah Gibson), who may have their eyes on the throne.
During a recent promotional tour, The Nerd Repository had an opportunity to sit down with Sasse and Gibson and ask them a few questions about their experiences working on Rogue.
How did you develop chemistry and a sense of history with your characters?
Joshua Sasse: The casting team had this project for a long time, and had been trying to cast our characters for four months before they found either of us. I got cast and flown out to Canada and we had a chemistry read. That’s a very important time because you can see very quickly whether these two people are going to work together. Leah walked in to the room and we had an interesting…
Leah Gibson: Experience?
Joshua Sasse: Experience, right. They threw us in the deep end and we had a sort of sex scene as our chemistry read.
Leah Gibson: Joshua already had the job, and they were still looking at a handful of other girls, so really it was my test: how do you fare against this actor they’ve already chosen. And yeah, it was interesting. Nick Hamm, the showrunner and executive producer, stepped over and handed us this scene hot off the printer that was what turned out to be our fairly graphic sex scene. He wanted us to “cold read” it, which means essentially “do what you will from just the script in your hand.”
So we had a couple of minutes, I asked them if they could just give us a minute or two, so they left the room and Josh was like “oh my god, oh my god.” And I was like “okay, you’re just gonna throw me on the table, grab my hair here, bite me here.” What could we do with this? So we did…
Joshua Sasse: And after that, we only really had a couple of weeks before we started filming, so you have to be very good at opening doors and giving each other a lot of trust, and a lot of sensitivity toward each other. Because it has to be believable for the audience, to actually think that there’s, like you said, some backstory and history there. We gave each other time and just sort of collaborated about what our choices were with family dynamic and everything like that. Everything comes together very quickly, if you’re very receptive towards it, the picture starts to be painted very quickly.
Did you have any reservations about accepting a role with a graphic sex scene, knowing how much of you might be on display for the public?
Joshua Sasse: Well, all of us would be on display for the public. (laughs)
No, not really, I mean… Look, we treated that scene as we would any other scene. It tells a story and it’s there for a purpose. You know, it’s a very hard situation to be in, but once the wall’s down you’ve just got to sort of go with it, enjoy it and not think about it. When we were in the room doing it, it was one thing that there were sixty people watching it, but we’re not thinking about the millions of people that are going to watch it. You just have to do the job you’ve got on hand, and do it to the best of your ability, and like I said, just be kind and sensitive.
Leah Gibson: When I signed on, I knew that I was signing on to a project that was intending to be very truthful. I knew there were raw sort of emotional states the characters would be in. I knew that we would be able to take the characters to some very real places, so when the subject of our sex scene came up there was a lot of discussion. I don’t take any of the choices that I make lightly, but I completely believe in them, and bringing the character to life and giving it honesty. To me, that scene has never been a sex scene, it’s always been just a very real scene about two people in very high emotional states. It’s a scene of power and conflict, and the experience of it, I think we fulfilled that. I feel very, very strongly about it.
Joshua Sasse: You know, there’s a lot of stuff out there. You look at the graphic content of anything: video games, feature films. The ante is being upped, constantly, and DirecTV wanted to be a part of that and take it further, and they did, and we knew that, and it’s done now.
The character of Alec has a lot of different layers. You see a scene of him with his 4-year-old daughter, and he’s smiling and having fun, and then you see him walk in to a restaurant and drop two severed heads on a table. What’s it like to play a character that can go from one extreme to another?
Joshua Sasse: You have to just try and work out why he’s doing it, and the two instances that you named are the same reason. The reason he’s doing all this stuff is because he wants to be a better man in his world, he’s doing it for his kids. There’s that duality to Alex. When he goes home to his baby he’s enjoying that time as fully as he can, and you try to have tenderness, because that tenderness doesn’t exist in the Laszlo family world, so you have to enjoy both of them. Alec is a hothead, and he does love that high life, but he has a sensitive side to him and it’s very important to pay credence to that. It’s crucial in the audience finding the humanity in him.
A follow-up for Leah – Alec obviously has a lot of ambition, but it seems like Cathy is the one pushing his buttons and pulling his strings. Are we going to continue to see that sort of manipulative attitude from her in future episodes?
Leah Gibson: One thing that is explored for all the characters in future episodes is that truth has its consequences, obviously, and actions have a reaction. You can seek something and go after something and want for something, and then you have it and maybe it’s… You find yourself in a completely different reality and now that you have what you asked for, is it what you wanted? That’s sort of a theme that is explored, without giving away plot lines.
Sell it to me. Why should I watch Rogue?
Joshua Sasse: Why do you watch TV? To be entertained. I think people want to see something new, they don’t want to have the normal droll that I think a lot of TV provides. I can’t bear watching TV where people are having sex with their clothes on, or you’ve got these kind of boy racers that are driving around with their seat belts on. It’s just not believable, and if I don’t believe it I don’t want to watch it, and then I’m not entertained and I’m constantly thinking about how it’s inhibiting me from growing, you know what I mean? Then I’m not enjoying it. If you want to watch it, you’re doing it because you want something that’s going to keep you on the edge of your seat, and something that’s breaking a lot of new ground. I think it’s always good to be watching something that’s cutting edge.
Leah Gibson: The writing is absolutely superb, it’s raw, real, so many twists and turns you have no idea what’s coming next, and it delivers all the answers throughout the ten parts, and more. It’s DirecTV’s first original scripted show, and being that, it’s very cutting edge. You’re seeing things on TV that you haven’t seen before and it’s going places that you don’t expect it to, and you’re able to take a very well-written story and express it without limitations.
Rogue premieres Wednesday, April 3rd, exclusively on DirecTV’s Audience Network.