Before projects like The Amityville Horror and her Golden Globe nominated performance in HBO’s In Treatment, Australian actress Melissa George first gained fame in America with her role on J.J. Abrams' Alias. And beginning this Friday, George is returning to the spy genre with Hunted, a new series debuting on Cinemax, a couple of weeks after its UK premiere on BBC One.
Frank Spotnitz, the X-Files alum who helped successfully launch Strike Back on Cinemax, is the creator and showrunner of Hunted -- a BBC/Cinemax co-production -- which stars George as British spy Sam Hunter, who works for the espionage group “Byzantium”, and is shot and left for dead as the series begins. A year later, she returns to her job, resuming her position and beginning a new undercover assignment – but also intent on finding out who it was among her colleagues was behind the attempt on her life. Hunted’s cast also includes Adam Rayner (Hawthorne), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost) and Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones).
I sat down with George to talk about what drew her to Hunted, which includes plenty of intense action scenes, and what it’s like playing a different sort of role in a spy series from Alias’ duplicitous Lauren Reed.
Melissa George in Hunted
IGN TV: There are a lot of different levels to play here. Your character is returning to her life a spy, but she’s also trying to find out who was behind her shooting – all while juggling both her real life and her undercover role.
Melissa George: Yeah, it was like all these things I love: a little bit of Laura from In Treatment, a little bit of Lauren Reed from Alias, a little bit of all the complex parts. And you get to a certain point in your career where some roles just come to you because you’re at the right place, you’ve got the emotion for it, and when I read it, with all the little emotions through it... And all the ways she’s perceived in that first episode, I thought, “Okay, this is going to be a great challenge, an amazing opportunity.” In the first 10 or 15 minutes, she’s in Morocco, she’s French, then you meet her lover, then she gets shot, and then she goes away to Scotland to get so strong, she walks back into Byzantium after a year with no notice. She’s so good and sure that they’re going to take her back.. Then she has to confront her workmates because she’s convinced that there’s a mole on the team and one of them set her up to kill her.
IGN: I also really like the overreaching story of the season with her undercover in this household as the nanny, and connecting with the young son, even as she’s investigating the boy’s father and grandfather. Is it interesting for you to delve into that as well?
George: Yeah, it’s nice to be the American nanny, and she’s so American. It was lovely to be English then American from one scene to another. That I love to watch. Also, she lost her mother when she was eight years old, and the kid lost his mother, too, a year ago. So she gets to exercise that side that you don’t see when she’s Sam - the maternal side. She lost a child, and she has all these other things with this little boy. It’s nice to see both sides. But it’s also getting in the way. Being in that house and being back in Byzantium is really a hobby. Her main goal is to find out who tried to kill her and putting the pieces together -- that’s the thread of the show. Being an MI6 agent is just what she’s good at. She’s taking a day job, but it’s really getting in the way of what she wants to do.
IGN: Just in the early episodes I've seen, you’re doing the American accent and playing a British character – who in turn, speaks French. Are there other iterations we’ll see as the series continues?
George: Not a lot more. You’ll see the British and the American, because she’s no longer on the mission in Tangier. But next year it’s in Berlin, and there’s a whole link to Hourglass, which is the covenant group that killed her mother, and it’s linked to her. So there will be a lot of accents and things like that. But what I love about the show -- and what I was really not wanting was for it to be glossy and unrealistic –- is the fighting is so real. They taught me Keysi, which is what they taught in Bond, Bourne and Batman. All three of those characters learned the fighting technique that I do in Tangier. That ferocious and vicious beach scene is all me, it’s all real, making contact. So I didn’t want to do the show unless it was all absolutely realistic.
IGN: Those fight scenes are great. That second episode, you have a great big fight with that one guy...
George: The military man. That took two months to study for.
Sam (Melissa George) shows off her home-made flamethrower skills in Hunted
IGN: Yeah, it’s clear you don’t just get on set and do a few things. How long was this training process for you?
George: Well, they trained my core in New York. I got really tough. I was pulling carts with weights, so it was really very Gladiator-style. It wasn’t just punching a bag. [It was] steel balls into your stomach and having to throw it over your head and throw it back at the person. It was very barbaric, almost unusual training that I went through. By the time I got to London, I had my fight team, the best of the best of the best. We would work out every day and learn how to protect yourself. It was great.
IGN: Did you find that that stuff came to you relatively easy, or was there a big learning curve?
George: Here’s the thing with me: I’m convincingly good from the beginning, and I make everyone believe I’m well equipped, that I can do anything. That’s kind of my facade, I would say. And yes I can. But my problem is, I’m very feminine, and I’m very ladylike and soft -- really, believe it or not! [Laughs] All these roles I play are not like that, but I get hurt easily, my emotions, my feelings and my body. And yet, I’m really freaking good at being a freaking badass. I don’t quite understand, and neither does my family or my best friends. Why does Hollywood see me as that girl? I can do it. I’m very athletic, and I can throw a punch. What happens to me is that I click, I snap. I go to another world very easily, which is kind of scary. But what happens when I film those days is I get very hurt and very upset because it’s violent, and I don’t like it. So they know that when those days come, it’s going to be very, very painful for me. I get very upset. I shake, and I stop speaking, I get hurt. I just walk out thinking, “S**t, that’s not ladylike at all.” But it’s Sam, and they wanted the softness, which comes through my work, that likability. But on top of that has to be that. But it’s not me at all.
IGN: Is it gratifying then, though, to see the final result and you see how well it plays on screen?
George: Yeah, when I saw that fight in Tangier, which really affected me greatly, I was in tears. The stick they used, I still can’t really close my fist.
[George shows me her hand and how she can’t quite close her first]
That’s as far as I can go - this is a tendon thing. So it’s not nice because I have to live after Sam. But what’s happening with me and Sam is that I don’t want to be anyone else right now. I love her. I’m really into her. It’s not a job for me, it’s a lifestyle.
IGN: This season filmed in London, Morocco and Scotland. Where were Frank and the writers located, and how accessible were they if you had questions?
George: I’m so lucky with Frank. We’ve become so close. He’s a genius. You’ve got to focus when you watch Frank’s work. He’s based out of London, so we were in London 80 percent of the time. The scripts are great. I was saying to Frank, I don’t pick my roles when I’m going to have to sit and work at changing the script. I don’t want to deal with that. So I’m just better off picking it by the showrunner, who I know is very good and with whom I won’t have any issues with dialogue. Because it’s hard enough for me to bring Sam to life, let alone sit there and say, “I don’t like that,” and, “Can you change this?” No. I don’t like to do that. I have to focus on other things. So it’s great. He’s easy.
IGN: How much did you talk to him about what was to come down the pipeline? Did he tell you from the beginning, “This is where it’s going to go,” or was it more script to script?
George: I knew the last five minutes of the eighth episode because I shot it the first week of filming in Scotland. We needed to just shoot the moment that we were going to play in the finale, and when they told me what that was, boy, was I excited. So I kind of knew. But as far as who’s responsible for my death and all that, I don’t want to know. Because in real life we don’t know, do we? Life is a mystery. When you’re too over-prepared and you know too much as an actor, it changed the way you play a scene. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know the set if my character hasn’t seen it before. I want to get there as we’re filming it, roll it, and it’s the first time I’ve seen it. You’ll get something different.
IGN: We have a growing world of more daring cable series, but especially with American network TV, it’s still more prudish. You see some of the nudity and think, “Oh, you wouldn’t see that in an American network show.” Is that strange for you?
George: Yeah, it’s funny for me because when I did In Treatment and then recently I did [Australian TV series] The Slap -- which is full-on -- if it’s required for the role, absolutely. But with HBO and BBC, it’s like, you know what, people pay to watch it. So you get a lot more leverage, a lot more freedom, to be natural. And if nudity’s required, then fantastic -- because sometimes when you’re covered up, it feels very unnatural. And you really have to lose some of your inhibitions anyway as an actress, let alone worrying about all these rules and stuff. So when you’re with HBO, if it’s required, sure. It’s really freeing, like the scene in Morocco at the beginning. That was totally fine.
IGN: That scene is interesting, because you can read so much on your face – she’s getting intimidate with this guy, but it’s all for the mission.
George: Yeah, she doesn’t want to be doing it, but she’s torn between these two worlds. And if I had a turtleneck on, it would be weird. So there are certain lines that I would never cross, and I’m very protective of my body and my career, but at the same time I don’t even think about it. What I did in The Slap, I was breastfeeding a five-year-old boy. It’s a very controversial role in the book, and it’s won so many awards for all of us, and it’s because we were free. We made the audience not look at the nudity because it was completely natural. That’s the key with nudity.
IGN: I was a big fan of Alias. Is it interesting for you to revisit this sort of spy world, but from such a different perspective, obviously, because you’re on the show from the ground floor as the protagonist? Does it kind of give you a different perspective from when you joined Alias?
George: Yes! You know, because it was Jennifer Garner’s show, I came in as the one that really stirred things up. Now it’s nice to be back in the lead role’s shoes, the good guy -- but also the bad guy at the same time. So yeah, it is. It’s unusual.
IGN: With Alias, I felt like you had somewhat of a thankless role, as anyone is who is introduced as an obstacle to the couple – in that case, Sydney and Vaughn -- that the fans want together.
George: See, the reason I get those parts is because I love to be that girl. They’re not going to hate me, because I’m a nice person in real life. So when they meet me, they’re so confused and don’t know what to do. But it’s an acting role, and it started my career, actually. I got Amityville Horror; after that, Derailed, with Clive Owen; I got all these other big films -- and it’s because I played a nice girl in the day and evil bitch at night. I’m an actor. Throw anything at me. But yes, it was tricky, and Jennifer and I, we were at Disneyland [before my debut on the show], and I was basically teasing them all because I had the wedding ring on. “Sorry, darling. I’ve got the wedding band on!” I just stirred them up.
IGN: On that show, did you have any idea that they were going to ultimately reveal that she was a true bad guy?
George: No, I didn’t at all. My gosh, when she was revealed as the sniper on the roof – but all casual about it, hair back, shot everybody and then just slowly packed it up and walked away -- I was like, “Yes! That’s my girl. Don’t run. Walk.”
IGN: [Laughs] Yeah. It’s casual!
George: It’s casual. All in a day’s work.
IGN: You mentioned Berlin as the setting for Hunted: Season 2. So has Frank given you a pretty good idea of where he wants to take the show?
George: Yeah, he’s given me a pretty good idea. It’s all going to be about Sam’s journey, finding out and putting the pieces together. She won’t be the nanny anymore.
Hunted premieres Friday, October 19th at 10pm on Cinemax.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on on Twitter at @EricIGN and IGN at ericgoldman-ign.
Source : ign[dot]com
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