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Behind the Screens with Joshua Maloni
Cheyenne, Wyoming, is home to the Horse Palace Swan Ranch; the Cowgirls of the West Museum; and the 30,000-acre Terry Bison Ranch, with its 2,300-plus grazing bovine.
On NBC’s “The Hunting Party,” Cheyenne is also the site of a 30-year-old top-secret prison site – buried underground within a covert nuclear missile complex. The “most violent and dangerous criminals the world has ever known” reside in this encampment – until they don’t.
In the pilot episode, an explosion rocks “The Pit,” a tiered, glasslike encasement where these villains are kept … and, it turns out, subjected to experiments aimed at stunting the growth of would-be serial killers. Depending on who you ask, this sort of “Clockwork Orange”-type thinking has “done a lot more good than bad,” or “made the world’s worst serial killers even more dangerous.”
A joint government intelligence team is tasked with reclaiming these lawbreakers – and, above all else, keeping “The Pit” a secret. Leading the charge is FBI Special Agent Rebecca “Bex” Henderson (Melissa Roxburgh) and sketchy CIA operative Jacob Hassani (Patrick Sabongui). They’re joined by former “Pit” prison guard Shane Florence (Josh McKenzie) and Army Maj. Jennifer Morales (Sara Garcia).
Though she had been benched – demoted to ID’ing cheaters in a small Virginia casino – Bex is asked to join when the first person known to have escaped is Richard Harris (Tobias Jelinek), a serial killer she helped catch (and, she thought, deliver to a death sentence).
At that time, Bex was paired with agent Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler), who, as we find out, would later torture a kidnapper in pursuit of a missing teen. Though Bex would adopt this young woman, Sam (Kyra Leroux), she ends her partnership with Oliver.
Now, as Bex and company pursue their target, she learns the person who vouched for her is “The Pit” warden – one Oliver Odell. Equally as shocking: He tells Bex someone intentionally blew up “The Pit” and set the prisoners free.
“The Hunting Party” debuted Sunday, following the Philadelphia Eagles-Los Angeles Rams NFL divisional playoff game. The first episode will repeat on Peacock, and Feb. 3 on NBC, before airing new episodes in its regular timeslot starting at 10 p.m. Monday, Feb. 10.
WATCH:
From left, on “The Hunting Party”: Sara Garcia as Jennifer Morales, Patrick Sabongui as Jacob Hassani, Melissa Roxburgh as Rebecca “Bex” Henderson, Nick Wechsler as Oliver Odell and Josh McKenzie as Shane Florence. (NBC photo by: Lindsay Siu)
A look inside “The Pit.” (NBC photo)
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Wechsler shared more in this edited Q&A. (Episode one spoiler alert!)
The New Mexico native has crafted a stellar resume, having starred in hit series “Revenge,” “Chicago P.D.” and “Roswell,” while appearing on “The Boys,” “This Is Us” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”
BTS: As someone excited for this show, I was pleased to see you were getting the football bump. I think, perhaps just as important, though, might be the fact that you are attached to this project. And by that, I mean I'm looking at your resume, and there’s not a lot of misses. You've been a part of some really successful shows – and even the ones that didn't last as long have become cult classics.
What do you look for in a role, or a series, and what about this show met that criteria?
Nick Wechsler: I remember trying to get work, and feeling so on the outside of things, and feeling just like I didn't belong; and it felt like everyone was working and I wasn't. Everyone was a real actor, and I wasn't. And I still deal with imposter syndrome and stuff pretty bad.
But, the real answer is I'm not in a position to do things because I'm drawn to them. Most actors are working class – we need to just work when the work comes. So, I didn't even get to choose a great project; I'm just lucky that a great project chose me. That's the real answer.
But, I will also say that what I look for is, like, with music I love, if it's straight folk, I'm kind of “eh.” But if it's like alt folk or something, I'm like, “Ooh.” If it's like indie folk, or it's goth folk, or something, I'm like, “You got me.” There's a little twist. And that's the kind of thing I look for sometimes.
And if it's not there, then I often do it like, “OK, well, this is a drama, I'm going to make the scene a little funny,” or something.
With this, it was like, it's procedural, a go-get-them – go-get-the-bad-guy procedural – but with a twist of what is going on. Who wanted this to happen? And am I involved?
That stuff – that's more fun for me. And with all the other things I've done, honestly, mostly what I've done is just try to make a scene funny when it didn't belong. I'm always looking for that little thing.
Nick Wechsler as Oliver Odell. (NBC photo)
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BTS: I believe the line in the first episode is, “ ‘The Pit’ is home to the most violent and dangerous criminals the world has ever known.” And yet, for most of the episode, we see your character as the villain. At the very end, we're not so sure.
What can you tell us about Oliver?
Nick Wechsler: I don't know that we'll know. … Over the course of the season, we learn how he came to work in ‘The Pit,’ and we start to unravel, “Is he good or bad?” And I'm not even sure that, by the end of season one, our answers are conclusive. I don't know.
But I can say I think his feelings for Bex, his care for her, is genuine. I think whether you're good or bad, you still care. I think his desire to have someone there that he can trust, whether he's good or bad, is genuine.
I think he starts to have a genuine pride in the team he's working with. …
I just felt like my character's really … I think the stuff he's done has isolated him, both professionally and romantically, and so he's got to dig himself out of these holes – but could end up going deeper in the hole in the process.
BTS: You mentioned he takes pride in his team. But based on that last bit of information Oliver gives to Bex at the end of the first episode, I'm wondering if Oliver is going to be part of the hunting party – or if he's just going to be a resource for her, kind of on the side?
Nick Wechsler: Good question. I will say that, throughout season one, I am, I think, literally never part of the field team. I'm always back at command center. So, I think, in that sense, I am only a resource. I can't be part of the field team.
But then, there's an element of being a resource, in terms of, like, what the mystery is. You know, she's trying to figure it out. She just doesn't know if she can tell me that she's trying to figure it out. He lets her know there's a mystery. But because Hassani is, like, whispering shit, she doesn't know if she can come to me about some of the shit he's saying. So, there's times when he's a resource without him realizing it, and then there's times where he's a very deliberate resource for getting to the heart of the mystery.
Nick Wechsler as Oliver Odell and Melissa Roxburgh as Rebecca “Bex” Henderson. (NBC photo by David Astorga)
Looking to crack the case on “The Hunting Party” are Patrick Sabongui as Jacob Hassani, Melissa Roxburgh as Rebecca “Bex” Henderson, Josh McKenzie as Shane Florence, and Nick Wechsler as Oliver Odell. (NBC photo by David Astorga)
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BTS: We began this chat by talking about your credits and the success you've had, and certainly you've been a part of a number of very popular shows – shows that still resonate with fans. When you have conversations with fans these days, is there a character or a show that comes up more often than not?
Nick Wechsler: When “Revenge” was on the air, “Revenge,” at the time – especially when it first came out, was like a little bit of a phenomenon. It was like a big deal in season one. And so thereabouts, in those few years … I wasn't inundated; it wasn't a big deal; but I got approached about that more than anything. Of course, it was on the air – or freshly off the air.
But as time's worn on, I'm like, “You know the thing that's never really waned? ‘Roswell.’ ” (Wechsler starred as Nick Valenti on the 1999-2002 CW teen drama centered on three alien siblings). People approach me about “Roswell.” I'm about to do some con appearances for “Roswell,” and I've already done a couple. And it's great. I kind of can't believe that.
I don't know; it's kind of moving. You don't know that it's going to impact people when you're doing it. You don't know what its lasting impact is going to be. And then you get a couple decades down the road, and people are still talking to you about it, and you're like, “Oh.”
Josh McKenzie as Shane Florence, Patrick Sabongui as Jacob Hassani, Melissa Roxburgh as Rebecca “Bex” Henderson, Nick Wechsler as Oliver Odell and Sara Garcia as Jennifer Morales on NBC’s “The Hunting Party.” (NBC photo by: Lindsay Siu)
"The Hunting Party (NBC key art)