Mark Valley as Christopher Chance in season two of Human Target. Photo by Liane Hentscher and copyright of Fox Television.
Season Two of FOX's hit series Human Target will premiere Wednesday, November 17th @ 8:00 p.m. EST/PST.
Picking up from the heart-pounding first season cliffhanger, the new season of Human Target kicks off with a bang as Chance (Mark Valley) and Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley) race to rescue their kidnapped associate, Winston (Chi McBride). Vowing to retire from the security business, Chance is lured back to work by billionaire philanthropist Ilsa Pucci (new series regular Indira Varma), who needs his protection after the mysterious murder of her husband. While on assignment, the team encounters Ames (new cast member Janet Montgomery), a beautiful, chameleon-like thief who has a past connection to Winston.
Last week, series leading man Mark Valley chatted with myself as well as other journalists about what viewers can expect this season on Human Target. The following is an edited version of that Q & A. Enjoy!
Obviously nowadays there are less and less shows that are automatically picked up for another season. When Human Target was sort of up in the air as far as its renewal, what were your thoughts? Did you think, "If I get another crack at this I’d really like to do this or have this happen on the show." Was there something in particular that you wanted to achieve with the character this season?
MARK VALLEY - I just wanted to go a little further in finding out who my character was. On one hand we have this guy who was an assassin and who carried out this job and was a spy and a soldier in some ways. It takes a certain ability to kind of shut yourself off emotionally in order to accomplish those sorts of tasks. However, on the other hand we also have a guy who likes to have fun. He likes people to some extent, and he has a bit of charm about him. There’s an element of compassion and empathy to Chance as well. So I was interested in kind of wearing out that path between those two a little more, to be honest with you.
And then also just doing some more stunts and martial arts. We have some great martial arts trainers that are working as stunt coordinators. I was looking forward to learning some more from these guys, including my stuntman, Jeff Robinson.
In the season opener we see that Chance’s team is growing. What can you tell us about the two new additions and about that episode, in particular?
MV - Yes, in the season opener you really get to know everybody, I mean, [producer] Matt Miller pulls everything together just brilliantly. It’s almost as if he had this whole entire story in his head before he showed up. First we meet Indira Varma’s character, Ilsa, a kind of wealthy financier and widow who has someone chasing after her and just wants to hire the best people to protect her. So instantly we see her trying to put our team back together again because she needs us. That's basically how the team comes back together - we all need each other in some strange ways, and it pulls us together.
As we’re going through the mission to save Ilsa we meet a young thief who's working for the other side but we don’t really know how involved she is with them. Chance and the rest of the crew realize how talented that this kid is, and it’s Janet Montgomery’s character, Ames. Maybe they see a bit of them in her and realize that she’s at a point where she could either go to the wrong side of the tracks or use her talents for the forces of good. So I think we all want to bring her on-board as well. It’s based on mutual need. We all end up needing each other for something and then we come together.
More than anything this is a very physically and mentally demanding role. How was it for you stepping back into the character after the hiatus?
MV - I was a little more prepared for what was going to be asked of me this season than last. So I just worked out, got in shape and just tried to have some general flexibility and strength when I came into the season, and it’s been going well.
It seems to be the standard for shows to introduce a love interest, and there was a rumor that Chance may be getting one this season. The fans seem to be really divided on whether or not they want to see that happen. What your thoughts are on that?
MV - Well there’s not a lot of time for a love interest when the bullets are flying. I think if there is a sort of love interest thing it’s going to catch them by surprise; it’s not something either character is sort of actively pursuing or avoiding. I think when you have a man or woman together on screen it does sort of beg the question at some point, but these are relationships that are much more based on need and respect and ability as well. There’s more of a one-upmanship going on with my character and Indira's right now, and I think that makes sense for someone in Chance's position as well.
So I would just say that, no, it’s not turning into a Cheers/Sam and Diana-tyoe of thing with them, do you know what I mean? We’re not going to lose Chance or lose the relationships that these three guys have with an onscreen romance. I hope that makes sense.
What kind of a journey would you say that the characters are on this season? What do we have to look forward to?
MV - I’d say they’re trying to catch up to themselves right now. In the first season we really kind of established the links between Winston and Guerrero as well as revealed some of their past. Now all of a sudden we’ve just thrown some octane into the mix. They have a much bigger business than they had imagined and are dealing with more people than they’d imagined. So I think it’s sort of like a company that expands and right now it’s just sort of trying to find its bearings based on the new scope.
In terms of the overall journey that the characters are going to be going on I think some relationships are going to be enhanced along with challenged, and we’re going to probably see a little bit more of what everybody’s like. When I read a script this season, it feels like it's longer simply because there are more characters in there. It also feels like there’s so much more material in terms of relationships and finding out who people are in the scripts than there was with just maybe three characters and a new guest-star, which we saw in some of the episodes last year.
It seems like you guys are even having even more fun this time around and there’s a lot more humor in the storytelling. Is that due to Matt Miller?
MV - Yes, there are more fun things to do and more things to react off of. I was also promised that I’d have more free time this season, but that doesn’t appear to be happening. It just feels like we’re doing even more than we were last year, and we are having an awful lot of fun. We’re all also being encouraged to find appropriate opportunities for humor, which acts as kind of a bond between our characters.
I also think it’s just Matt Miller and his sensibility and what he’s looking for and what he’s bringing together. It’s not necessarily funny lines, but funny situations and specific characters who react off of those situations. That’s kind of where a lot of our humor comes from. We’ve also had some great guest-stars. John Michael Higgins was just on and he’s naturally funny, so you can’t go wrong there. So we’re still doing the kind of nuts and bolts shoot 'em-up Human Target stuff, but there is a little more room for humor as well.
Chance seems to be skilled in absolutely everything. I was wondering are there some skills, like karate or shooting, that you already learnt in the military and that your character now does on the show?
MV - Yes, we had to learn to shoot in the Army; we had to qualify with I think it was M-16s at the time as well as a 45 caliber. So I’ve done a little bit of that. I also studied languages when I was in the Army, including French and German. But I think what’s interesting this season is that I want to find opportunities where we discover that Chance doesn’t really know everything as well as he might think he does. There’s a scene, I think it's in the first episode, where he goes into the Swiss bank and tells everyone to get down on the floor. When they don’t do as he says, he fires a gun off. I asked if I could do the scene in French, and was told, “Yes, go ahead, dude. Give it a try.” So I yelled it out in French, but my actual translation of it wasn’t, "Get down on the floor." It was, "Everyone in the world get in the basement, or get underneath the floor." Everyone looks at Chance quizzically, and then he realizes, Okay, I’ll just fire the gun, that will get their attention.
So hopefully we’re going to find some more opportunities where we see that yes, my character is adept and he can do a lot of things, but he makes mistakes like everybody else. One of which is that he can’t really speak French as well as he thinks he can.
How did you originally make the jump from the military to acting? What first caused you to do it?
MV - Well, I was stationed in Berlin for quite a while after the Gulf War, and I realized that life could be short and I might as well be doing something that I really enjoy. So I started sniffing around, and I tried a variety of things. I worked as an extra in a movie and realized, Wow, I want to join the circus, so here I am.
What is it about your role on Human Target that continues to challenge you?
MV - Physically it still continues to challenge me. Every stunt or fight we do is interesting to me insofar as there’s probably something that I obviously haven’t done before, and you just kind of imagine how someone would do that stunt or fight. I think what also still challenges me with the show is the fact that despite the past that my character has had, he’s still able to maintain a kind of a wink and a little bit of sparkle of charm. Chance is able to cheer people up and sort of be positive and hopeful about humanity and the people around him. Those are two things that I’m really looking forward to continuing, not to mention working with this cast that we have. It really is a phenomenal group of people.
Human Target is the most action-packed sequence TV series on Fox; what stunt work do you do yourself and what can we expect to see this season as far as fight sequences and explosions?
MV - Well, the explosions are a little bigger. The fight sequences aren’t quite as long as they were last season, but they’re much more intense. My stunt double, Jeff Robinson, seems like he’s improving faster than I am, so it’s really kind of throwing a challenge out there for me. We also have a shorthand working together. For example, we have an array of stunt people that come in under different guises and play bad guys, and we’re all sort of used to working together and working with our camera crew. That allows us to put things together a bit more quickly, so our fights might be a little bit faster and more intense.
That said, we owe an awful lot to Steve Boyum, our producer/director who is with us in Vancouver. There is a great deal of preparation that goes into finding a feasible or a cost effective way of producing these stunts, and it’s just amazing the way he does it. Steve previously worked as a stuntman as well as a cameraman. He’s been around for a while and we’re really profiting from his experience at being able to lay out these scenarios where we can work and play. In some ways we’re saving ourselves an awful lot of time from his experience and benefiting from that. So thanks to those assets, we’re just going to continue to make some pretty interesting stuff.
What would you say are Chance’s strong points and shortcomings, and how does he compare to you in real life?
MV -I would say one of Chance’s shortcomings is probably his lack of patience. In any episode he's like, Okay where are the bad guys and why can’t we go get them right now. I think there’s a side of him that doesn’t really like to sit still. He just wants to go out there and do it. I think I tend to be restless sometimes, although I think if I had a day off I would just sort of sit around, drink coffee, maybe watch TV and answer some e-mails. I’ve kind of been fantasizing about that lately.
So what else? I guess Chance likes working with a team. He really likes the teamwork aspect of accomplishing these missions and working with people that he trusts as opposed to just anybody. I feel the same way; I like to work on things with people who I like, trust and enjoy. That’s what seems to be happening right now on this show with Chi and Jackie and Janet and Indira. Again, it's such a great group of people. Matt Miller really is kind of pulling this thing together well, along with Steve Boyum, our producer. I’m really enjoying working together with all of them.
I was first introduced to your work when you were John Scott on Fringe, one of my favorite TV shows. It was really cool for me and other people I know who watch Human Target to see the mystery of John Scott, the humor of Chi McBride from Pushing Daisies, and kind of the suspense of Jackie Earle Haley’s and the movies he's done, such as Watchman and Nightmare. What do you think the combination of you three has brought to Human Target?
MV - I think it's definitely brought together three independent trajectories that kind of crossed at the same time. As actors we’ve had a variety of different roles. Chi did an awful lot of work in features, and of course Jackie did a lot of work as a child actor and then now he’s an Academy Award-nominated actor. We all have different rhythms. We don’t necessarily know how it’s going to go on the day when we’re actually doing a scene as opposed to just reading it on the page, and that kind of unpredictability excites me.
As noted above, photo by Liane Hntscher and copyright of Fox Television, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
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