by Thinus Ferreira
In the new thriller drama TV series The Terminal List that has made its debut on Amazon Prime Video, Chris Pratt plays a Navy Seal, James Reece, who discovers a vast conspiracy after his entire platoon was ambushed during a high-stakes mission.
Chris Pratt, others of the cast, writers, executive producers and directors sat down to answer some questions about the new series, produced by Amazon Studios, Civic Center Media and MRC Television, and based on Jack Carr's best-selling novel.
You're on-screen as James, but you're also a co-executive producer. How did you get The Terminal List?
Chris Pratt: I read it, I thought, dang this is really great property to try and put on the screen somehow, so I reached out to try and get the rights through my agent, and I heard there were other people bidding against me.
And I thought, well, that makes sense, it's a hot property, everybody wants it. And they said the other guy who wants this is Antoine [co-executive producer], Antoine Fuqua. I was like: I've got a history with Antoine because we did The Magnificent Seven together, we're brothers, we love each other, so I just called him.
I called him and said there's this project The Terminal List and he went "Oh yeah, it's hot, it's hot".
I said I kind of want it, I think you kind of want it, I think we might be bidding against each other, and he said "Oh, really?" And I said "yeah". And he said "well, let's do it together" and I said yes, let's do it together and that's what we did.
Antoine, as the director of the first episode, how did you try to set the tone that all the other directors would follow?
Antoine Fuqua: I put together a visual book about this thick with psychological breakdowns, and then David DiGilio (co-executive producer and writer) gave it to all of the different cinematographers and directors and they stayed on track.
I would check in on the weekends and look at dailies and discuss things with Chris and Dave and that's how we did it. It was teamwork.
David, in the first couple of episodes it's clear that you and your fellow writers are having a ton of fun in keeping us as the audience guessing. You're not sure of who to believe. How much fun was it?
David: That part of the series is a blast and really comes out of a group effort that starts with the book and the character we were gifted with from Jack Carr and the authenticity.
Then there's something happening inside Reece's head in the novel. When I came at it, I asked the guys "we can take that knob and dial it up" and they got really fired up about that.
It's this question of "What is truth?" which is so relevant today and it comes into play big time in the first couple of episodes.
We really took Jack's incredible story and followed that story but also allowed us the possibility to play up the psychological thriller aspect of the show in the first three episodes. Then we turn it at that point, and into the revenge thriller, conspiracy aspects from the book.
The viewer gets a show that evolves over the course of the whole season, so we keep the audience guessing all the way through the full 8 episodes.
Chris, initially viewers think you're nuts - and then it flips. What's the acting challenge like and going through all those moment-to-moment changes, as also the character's evolving arc?
Chris: I went into this, not really knowing what to expect but really ready for anything.
I knew I was ready for the challenge that it would be, but I didn't know what it would look like - not only acting, but also executive producing from inception all the way until the premiere and being part of every aspect. In over 20 years of my career it's not anything I've ever done.
I always show up for a couple of weeks of rehearsal, stand on the mark, and a year and a half I come back and I go: "Wow, I really made that movie!" [He laughs.] Turns out, it's an entire team polishing my performance. I've really gained an appreciation for the collaborative art form.
As an actor, it was challenging, simply in the amount of volume of work. It was really high-paced because we kept the television schedule but with a cinematic ambition. It was a lot of working long hours.
'In over 20 years of my career
it's not anything I've ever done'
There is this moment where the tone shifts from psychological thriller to more revenge thriller and we find evidence that gives us a new trust in the narrator.
Up until that point it was really just trying to play everything very real, and grounded in emotional resonance of the loss of a troop and the way my family has been embroiled in this conspiracy and all of the effects of that.
I think there's a tendency to play Navy Seals as superheroes and it was important for me to make this man very mortal, and make him someone who's authentic and a guy who was tip of the spear for 20 years as a Navy Seal but can't dodge bullets. He's a mortal man.
The challenge was to ground it in reality. We removed anything that made it felt like it is too "Hollywood". We relied on a great team of tech advisors and Navy Seals to give us the sniff test on everything I was doing in my performance.
Taylor, you play Ben Edwards.
Taylor Kitsch: I literally can't say anything!
What do you find most intriguing in the relationship between Ben, your character, and Reece?
Obviously, Chris and I have played Navy Seals before but it is that brotherhood - it's that relationship that's a huge driving force and a throughline during this whole show.
The biggest challenge for me going into it, was rooting that understanding of Ben's motivations.
Not to sound too actor-ey like "What's his moootivation?" but there's a duplicity there - there's a crazy fine line that we're all walking throughout this show and Ben is a facilitator when Reece comes back and is searching for truth during all of this trauma, and going back into the fight with him was an amazing episode to shoot as well.
Jeanne, as secretary Lorraine Hartley, what was the challenge for you with the character?
Jeanne Tripplehorn: There's a fine line between altruism and corruption and big business and politics. I'm trying to play it honestly and truthfully and life is grey. That was my biggest challenge.
Dave, how is the series different from the book and who or what did you feel was most important to include from Jack Carr's work?
Jack gives us an incredible blueprint and an incredible look inside the warrior-ethos. We knew we had an incredible A-storyline, we had this incredible character to build off of.
Then, aside from the psychological thriller change that we made early on, the other thing I would say, is we slow-burn the conspiracy aspect of the show. No-one ever lies on this show.
Antoine: Exactly!
Dave: They just don't tell the whole truth. Everyone in this show cares deeply about James Reece, but he's also a dangerous man.
He's an incredible warrior who's been pushed to the brink, and has something happening in his head. We really leaned into the psychological side for the TV adaptation. We embraced the grey areas because that's what life is.
'They're telling you the truth.
But they're telling you the truth
from their perspective'
Antoine: We spoke about it and we decided that the only way this works, is if no one's lying. They're all telling the truth. It's the information that you don't hear. It's what they leave out. That's why you believe the characters, because they're telling you the truth.
But they're telling you the truth from their perspective. The journalist in this, Katie Buranek (played by Constance Wu) is the truth seeker in this. She's there to shine the light of the truth in the dark.
The idea is scary that a man can harm the people that he loves without having any memory of it. Chris, how do you relate on a personal level that people you care about, could be hurt by you?
Chris: Man, I was talking to somebody recently and they brought something up that I hadn't really recognised before.
I think there's an element to this life that I live that exposes people who are close to me - my loved ones, my family; my children. Being a well-known person, living in the public eye - there's an element of that.
They thought it was so interesting that I chose this project, and chose a character who loses control over his ability to protect the people he loves, and then exacts brutal and dark, vicious revenge.
It never really dawned on me before - maybe there was part of me in my life that related in a way and maybe fantasised about seeking that kind of revenge because of harm that might come to my loved ones because of the profession I've chosen.
That kind of blew away; it has never really dawned on me that that could have been a reason. Maybe there's a thread in there that drew me to this story.
The Terminal List is on Amazon Prime Video from 1 July 2022.
