We sat down with Mike Vogel on the set of his new NBC show The Brave, where he plays Captain Adam Dalton, a member of the Special Ops force at the center of the show.
Together we talked about collaboration on the show and where he sees the story heading.
How’d you get involved in this project?
They sent the script, and I read it [laughs]. I said to Dean [Georgaris, creator], “yeah that’s my gig, I need to be involved with that.” Dean’s vision the whole time was to make something that was–while certainly playing on the current events of the world–not with any sort of political agenda. Hollywood wants to make these shows and movies with their agenda in mind, and speak for what they think the military must be feeling, instead of letting the folks on the ground interpret it themselves, and tell the stories themselves. Thats what I hope we’re doing.
This show seems to have the opportunity to go anywhere, where would you not want it to go? Either for your character or the show?
I mean I can’t think of a place. Here’s the thing: unfortunately the world is being united over and around terrible events right now. This isn’t just terrorism, its arms dealers, its drug cartels, its people that seek to do wrong. There’s a great quote and I gonna completely butcher it, but it says, ‘People can sleep well in their beds at night because daring men and women stand poised ready to do extreme violence on their behalf.’ Its an unfortunate reality that I think if there was anywhere I said ‘oh I don’t want to go there’ or ‘I don’t think we should go there’ well then we’re limiting ourselves and saying we’re not willing to confront what may or may not be the issues staring us in the face. Again I don’t want this to be a political show with a political bend. We’re about rooting out evil and bad dudes wherever they are. So I can’t think of somewhere where I wouldn’t want to go. Where you never want them to go is your own front door. I think that’s the scariest place, but that always been the thing, we go fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here. That’s changing as well now, now there’s stuff all around us as well. If I think of a place where I don’t want us to go then it kind of undercuts the whole point of it.
As much as you trust the writers, when do you go to them and say ‘lets try this?’
Day 1 of the pilot. This has been such an amazingly collaborative experience, to have a cast that’s invested in the message, and invested in the roles of their characters. [We have] a creative team that’s willing to say ‘yeah we trust them’ because they get it. It’s like anything, it never works 100% of the time. If I thought that my idea was great 100% of the time it’d be a really crappy show! Thank god they don’t listen to me that much, but once in a while a blind squirrel finds a nut, and theres a lot of that thats come through, and that’ll continue.
I heard you got to set up a screening of the show in Germany?
Yeah a buddy of mine is an officer over there in the base at Stuttgart, where Africom and Eurocom and where all those troops base out of, so we were able to piggyback an early screening of the show over there that’ll happen of September 23rd for all the men and women over there. I’m stoked to do it, he’s pretty excited about it, and hopefully they are as well.
Sounds great, thank you!
Thanks!
The Brave premieres Monday September 25th at 10/9 c on NBC.
