By Christina Radish
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Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of Temple.
The drama series Temple (available to stream at Spectrum Originals) is back for a second season, as brilliant surgeon Daniel Milton (Mark Strong) steps away from the illegal underground medical clinic he set up with the hopes of healing his wife Beth (Catherine McCormack), who has since woken up from her coma, and tries to step back into his previous life. But nothing is ever that easy, especially not when word of the lengths he’s willing to go to spreads through the criminal underworld and he’ll be forced to make choices that will permanently affect himself and his family.
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During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, Strong (who’s also an executive producer on the series) talked about the opportunity to play such a great and layered character, just how far he can go and still keep the audience coming back for more, having all of the secrets and lies catch up with him, the relationship he’s most enjoyed while making the show, exploring the character dynamics, and the different vibe they would have in store for a possible Season 3. He also talked about what’s up next for him, and the movie projects he’s looking to line up next.
Collider: I enjoyed the first season of this show, and I was just on the edge of my seat with Season 2 because I had no idea how he was going to get out of everything he just kept sinking himself further into.
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MARK STRONG: I know. It’s a great part. At the end of Season 1, all of these plates that he’s been spinning for the whole season, all come crashing to the ground and there’s that cliffhanger with people getting shot and the wife that he’s been trying to save waking up. It was like, “Where do we go from here?” Of course, what was wonderful was being able to take Season 2 and do what we wanted with it. We took the best of Season 1, cherry picked the humor, the dark comedy and the relationships between the characters, and made our own story, taking it wherever we want to. In Episode 1, you think he’s managed to solve everything, but once again, those plates stop spinning and crash down to the ground again.
We spoke about Season 1 and talked about what a fascinating character this is and how he’s really part hero and part villain. But with Season 2, as his secrets come out and his lies start to be exposed, do you feel like that made him more of the villain? Does he still see himself as the hero? Does any of that change how you feel about him when you’re playing him?
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STRONG: Playing him, what I loved was the fact that you could never really put your finger on whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. I suppose the moment he crosses the moral rubicon is when he steals the kidney, but then he’s stealing the kidney, in order to save his dying wife. It’s completely unacceptable, ethically and morally, what he does there, so I think that’s where he crosses over to the other side. But even in Season 2, he’s trying to do the right thing. He wants to be able to reconnect with his daughter, who he’s had to lie to. He wants to allow his wife to have a life that she’s been denied because she’s been in a coma. But unfortunately, that all comes crashing to the ground the minute Suzanna decides that she wants to demand money for the terrible secret of him stealing her kidney. Even then, he tries to make it all happen, but realizes he’s really gonna have to go further in going over to the dark side, in order to survive. I think it’s up to the audience, really. They have to decide whether they’re with him or not. That was always the challenge. How far can you stay with Daniel, watching him desperately struggle to keep his head above water?
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It’s such an interesting character to watch because he’s keeping all of these secrets and lying to all of these people, who realize that he’s not being truthful, but he believes he’s got it all under control.
STRONG: Yeah. I remember talking to a surgeon when I went to watch some surgery being performed at a hospital here in London, and he said that surgery is essentially dealing with each bridge when you get to it. When you open somebody up, you know what you’re going in for, but you’re never entirely sure what you’re gonna find. And during the course of surgery, you have to deal with it and move on. He said it’s not that unbelievable that a surgeon’s mind would work that way and go, “Oh, I’ll deal with that problem when I get to it and I’ll sort that person out when I need to,” and just keep moving.
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I’m sure that’s why people talk about a certain sense of arrogance that some doctors have, especially surgeons. They’re literally holding people’s lives in their hands, on a regular basis.
STRONG: Yeah. It was a revelation working with the perspective that we had, in both seasons. I was told by the surgeon, who was on set all the time, that it was incredibly realistic. That the size, weight, and shape of the organs were pretty much exact, and the amount of blood that was being pumped in during the surgical sequences was pretty much how it was. When we looked down at these prosthetics on the table, he said that it was pretty much what it looks like. I got a sense that the body is really a series of straps and pulleys and various organs that the heart pumps the blood to. If you cut in the right place and sew in the right place, you can save people’s lives. I think you have to have an ego to be a surgeon because you are literally saving people’s lives.
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You’ve played a number of memorable characters in a variety of different kinds of projects and in different genres. Where does this character fit in for you? Is he a character that will always hold a special place in your heart, among other characters that you’ve played?
STRONG: I think so, yes. I’ve always tried to choose characters that are as far removed from me as possible. For me, acting and performing was always about finding characters that I could have a different voice for, or that I could wear an interesting piece of costume for, or that I could wear a wig for, or something that would take me away from myself. I always felt, ever since I started out at drama school, that was the interesting thing about playing characters. Daniel is as close to me as I’ve ever been, really. He looks like me. He lives in London. He has a comfortable life. I imagine that, if I were him, I would hopefully behave better, but he’s certainly closer to me than most of the characters I’ve ever played.
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Minus the kidney stealing.
STRONG: Minus the kidney stealing and minus the lying.
You’ve been with this character from the very beginning, from watching the original series, to finding out if the rights were available, to figuring out who this version of this guy would be. Has anything surprised you about the journey? Is there anything that’s been unexpected with this whole process for you?
STRONG: The thing that I’ve discovered that I’ve enjoyed the most is the relationship I’ve had with Danny Mays’ character, Lee. I didn’t quite understand how much of a double act they could become, but there is something really enjoyable about watching this odd couple working together. That’s been the revelation for me. I discovered it in the first season and it was something that we actively wanted to promote in the second season. I’ve really enjoyed doing that and playing alongside Danny Mays. His character, Lee, is a great foil for Daniel.
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It’s such an interesting relationship that really feels like those two need each other and they really fulfill something for other, but also for the audience, who really needs to see Daniel in a relationship like that because it makes him a little bit more likable.
STRONG: He has to learn that you can’t just use people. He finds, in Lee, somebody who’s prepared to help him and Lee goes out of his way to help Daniel do everything he needs to do, but Daniel pretty much takes him for granted, until the point when he realizes that Lee is being very emotionally affected by all of this. That friendship is something that should be valued and encouraged, rather than just assumed. Daniel has a journey that he goes on with every character in the series, particularly with his wife and his daughter, but also with Lee. That’s really come to fruition in the second season, and I’ve enjoyed that.
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It’s also been so interesting to watch Daniel and the way that he navigates both Beth and Anna. The way he is with each of the women is so interesting. What are Catherine McCormack and Carice van Houten like to work with, as scene partners? Did they approach things from the same place, or did it feel like they approach things very differently?
STRONG: They’re both really accomplished actresses. Playing scenes with both of them is really very easy because of what they do. I think Catherine really enjoyed bringing Beth to life because obviously she spent far too much time in the first season being in a coma. I was really looking forward to seeing how she would function, now that she’s alive and well. She has some great scenes with people around her in astonishment that she’s still alive. She’s just on a mission to find out why Daniel is lying. Catherine is a great partner. She comes at it very thoughtfully. Mentally, she had to go through gymnastics, in order to work out how that character would now behave, having come out of a coma and discovering what she does. Carice is also incredible to play scenes with because she’s very driven and very natural, at the same time. Anna and Daniel have that underlying guilt of their relationship that plays through everything we have together. It’s a fantastic position to be in, to work with two people like that, who are so good at their job.
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Gubby is such an interesting addition, as a character, for Season 2. What do you think that character brought to the show and added to things this season, and what was it like to play opposite Rhys Ifans?
STRONG: It was a conscious decision to not just make him an archetypal bad guy. The introduction of his son is a really clever method of helping you understand that he may be a villain, but he loves and adores his son. He’s got that soft side to him, which allows him to be as menacing as he wants to be, and Rhys Ifans is very good at that. Obviously, in any story, you need a nemesis. He brings a sense of menace and danger to the whole process, which Daniel and Lee need to be feeling, in order to make the whole thing as tense as it is. In the first season, they were being chased by the police, who were after them. In the second season, we thought it would be much more interesting if their nemesis was somebody that they needed and had to work with. And Rhys brings a lovely sense of menace to the proceedings.
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By the end of the season, there is a bit of a sense of closure, in that your character takes some very definite actions. How do you feel about what he decided to do? Were there discussions about any other possible ways to wrap up the season, or did this feel like the right end point?
STRONG: The thing about any television series is that you need cliffhangers and you need moments that will encourage people to watch the next episode. In this particular instance, we want people to wanna know what happens in Season 3. We’ve written a couple of episodes and have a treatment ready for the third season, should we be lucky enough to get to make it, so we were very conscious that we wanted to have a big cliffhanger, which we do. What we chose to do leaves the opportunity for where we go next completely open. It shows you that Daniel hasn’t learned anything because, once again, he’s lying to people again and leaving people with emotional trauma to save his own skin.
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Do you feel like the third season would feel very different and have a different vibe to it?
STRONG: Yeah, we have a very definite change of vibe in mind. Now that we’ve been introduced to the characters over two seasons, and we’ve moved them from the bunker in the first season into the real world in the second season, the third one, which we always envisaged as being the final one because we’ve always seen it as a trilogy, takes them to another place entirely. Because we understand who everybody is, it’s great watching them operate in a completely different environment. That’s our plan.
It definitely ends at a place that I was very excited with because it does feel like you can see where it might go, but then it also might feel very different in that and you aren’t really sure what could happen next.
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STRONG: You realize that Daniel now understands who he is. For two seasons, he’s tried his best to persuade himself, if no one else, that he’s a good guy and that everything he’s doing is justified. But by the end of the second season, he sees himself for who he really is, which gives us a great jumping off point for Season 3.
Do you have any idea what’s next for you, in the meantime, while you’re waiting to hear about a third season?
STRONG: I’ve got a couple of movies lined up. I’ve got one that’s shooting here in London, between now and Christmas. It’s an old-fashioned heist movie about a bunch of guys getting together to commit a robbery. And then, in the New Year, I’m hoping to do a movie with Adam Sandler. That’s on the cards, but our people are talking, as they say, at the moment. And then, Doug Liman is directing Everest with Ewan McGregor, which is something I’ve been signed up to for awhile. We’re hoping to do that as well, next year. I’ve got a few movies lined up. Daniel and Temple is my TV life, and I’m really only interested in that. I’m not doing any other television. I just do that particular show because that’s where my heart is, in terms of TV. I wanna continue doing movies because there’s something about the format of film that demands a particular kind of writing and a particular kind of storytelling that I also love. TV gives you the opportunity over a whole season, and then there’s a number of seasons to develop characters, and that’s exciting, but there’s something about the discipline of movie making that I also like. So, I’ve got two or three movies lined up, which God willing, we’ll shoot next.
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Does the heist movie you’re doing have a title?
STRONG: It’s called Severance. It hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s essentially about a guy who gets the gang back together to do one last big job. It’s a nod toward those British heist movies, like The Italian Job.
You said that you’re looking to do something with Adam Sandler. Do you feel like you don’t get to do enough comedy? Would you like to do more?
STRONG: There’s a big debate, isn’t there, about whether it’s easier to do drama or comedy. I think comedy is incredibly difficult. I think you have to have a natural instinct and funny bones, as they say. I appreciate comedy, but I think my strengths lie more in the dramatic side of things. There’s something about delving into a troubled character that I find interesting and easier than actually doing comedy. But I have done comedy. I’ve worked with Sacha Baron Cohen. I’m looking forward to doing something with Adam Sandler. I like variety. That’s what you’re always striving for, as an actor, or I am. I like to mix it up. I like to do little independent movies, a little bit of television, a big blockbuster for the studios, and mix all of that up. On the one hand, you’ve got Shazam!, Cruella and Kingsman as the big movies, but then you’ve got Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Imitation Game, Zero Dark Thirty, and those kinds of movies that I also love doing. And then, there’s a bit of Daniel in Temple as well. If I can mix it up, that’s what I wanna do.
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Temple is available to stream at Spectrum Originals.
KEEP READING: Mark Strong on 'Temple,' 'Shazam 2', and Why He's Upset About the 'Dark Crystal' Cancellation
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