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Doubting Thomas Good guy or bad guy? Manipulator or manipulated? Thomas Lennox's character raises many questions in 24's sixth season - and we try to prise some answers out of ubiquitous actor Peter MacNicol by T. DiLullo Bennett, 24 Magazine, May/June 2007 |
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There's a storm raging in the White House of Wayne Palmer. With a nuclear detonation in Los Angeles, the threat of three more bombs in terrorist Abu Fayed's control, and countless cities across the nation crippled, it's not hyperbole to say the landscape of 24's Day Six is that of a nation under siege. The newly elected President Palmer is overwhelmed by the violence being wreaked on domestic soil, so he's relying heavily on the recommendations and policies of his National Security advisor, Karen Hayes and White House Chief of Staff, Thomas Lennox. Unfortunately for Palmer, his most trusted staffers happen to be at opposite ends of the political spectrum, and so a much more personal war is also playing out against the back-drop of a dire national threat. With Middle Eastern terrorists taking responsibility for the mass bloodshed, there's a climate of fear permeating the nation as citizens are focusing their anger and mistrust on all Arabs in the US. With such uncertainty about just who the enemy could be, there's a quiet ground-swell, supported by Lennox and Vice President Daniels (played by Powers Boothe), to intern all Arab nationals of Muslim descent in camps similar to those Japanese nationals were forced into during World War II. It's a policy that is an immediate lightning rod of controversy and one that 24 has never explored before, despite two prior seasons that featured villains of Middle Eastern origin. With Hayes and Palmer firmly on the side of Constitutional rights for all, even during a climate of such extreme danger to the populace - the stage is set for a political stand-off unlike any the series has ever introduced. It's certainly new territory for actor Peter MacNicol. With a 30-year career spanning theatre, film, and television, MacNicol's made a name for himself as a character actor who shines in any genre - from absurd comedy (Ghostbuster's 2) to the most heart-rending drama (Sophie's Choice). At the age of 27, he made his big-screen debut in the fantasy classic Dragonslayer, and jumped back and forth from film to theatre for a decade. In the 1990s, the actor made a huge splash on TV with prominent roles on shows like The Powers that Be and Chicago Hope. But it was his role as the oddball lawyer John Cage, on Ally McBeal, that showed his acting chops to mainstream audiences. With a host of guest appearances and series regular roles on legal and medical dramas on his resume, MacNicol can practically claim honorary degrees as a physician and legal eagle! But it's his experience on those kinds of dramas that paved his way, and to a degree, prepared him for his tenure on 24. As it happens, when the new season of 24 was being cast, MacNicol was already a recurring character on the mathematically inclined CBS drama, NUMB3RS. He plays the eccentric but brilliant theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Dr. Larry Fleinhardt, who consults on cases. But the producers and casting directors of 24 approached the actor with the choice role of Lennox. "It just sprang up," MacNicol reveals. "I'm on another show, but this seemed like a nice little bit of blue sky in my schedule to do something different." An admirer of 24, MacNicol says the mysterious agenda of Thomas Lennox was an immediate hook. "The attraction is not the known, but always the unknown with a show like 24. All one knows is one's name and I think that is compelling. It obviously presents any number difficulties in playing scenes where you have no back-story and no forward-story. You are simply in a moment suspended in time." Such was the case as MacNicol immediately hit the ground running, appearing in the premiere episodes of the season at the height of the terrorist turmoil. Since he received his first scripts, the actor says all he truly knows about Lennox are the basics. "All I know is that he is Chief of Staff. By Episode Three or Four, the title Chief of Staff made its entry into the scripts. I don't know who I am. I am an advisor and at least a speech editor and a policy advisor. But beyond that, everything is surmise." According to producers, Lennox has a long history with the Palmers, acting as Policy Advisor for both Palmer administrations. Their trust in the man comes from his expertise in foreign intelligence and public policy., and his recommendations obviously take a conservative path in the arguments for how to handle and terminate the terrorist threats. "I have very definite political viewpoints," he says of Lennox's political agenda. "In some cases, I am sort of a rabid version of the most hawkish people we have in [current] power now. It's very amped up though, because I can't think of anyone in th current political scenes that openly espouses the same views that my character holds." Muslim internment, authorized raids of corporate and personal files without warrants, lockdowns and more. The views of Thomas Lennox being crafted by the writers are made to shock and prompt reactions from the audience, but even with such hot button issues being explored, MacNicol says he has no idea if his ideology comes from a pure place or will be exposed as corrupted in future episodes. There's a history of moles and turncoats for power on 24, and the actor admits he is just as intrigued as the next guy as to his ultimate motives. Working only from script to script for his character's motivation is truly a new experience for the actor, and one he is enjoying. "I think that's kind of fun," he thoughtfully muses. "I really do. I don't find it as frustrating as I thought I would. I feel, I might be operating under a complete delusion here, but I feel that I can buy a tweak here and a tweak there that might affect my own outcome on the show. So that keeps me very positively engaged in every scene. I never feel as if anything is a fait accomli, because I feel that it's a blank slate that we are all painting on - all of us at once. I can't see what they are doing over in their corner and they can't see what I am doing over in mine, until the end of the day, then we see what we have all painted together." Chuckling, the actor admits it also bring out a bit of the paranoid in him when interpreting notes from the writers or directors. "Your creativity is limited. So what it feeds is your natural suspicions as a human being. I wonder if they are telling me [a direction] because they are really thinking [this]. Or I wonder if I am saying this because I am really thinking [that]. It's a constant game of paranoid double-think." In order to give his best, MacNicol admits he did his research beforehand to know the artistic language, in terms of dialogue flow, pacing and editing, to prepare for what he was getting himself into. "I did watch last season. I wanted to know the pace of the show. It affects our delivery. Without knowing their editing pattern, you don't know how to parse something out." He also made sure to really provide alternate interpretations of his lines and dialogue so the producers and editors have the tones they need to craft their stories. "I've done that twice in key scenes," he reveals. "I've given what I would call a very loaded look and then in another take, I have given it very little weight so they have 'it,' whatever 'it' is. You do frame things in certain ways - more looks than lines because the show is written so sparely, so you wind up having very few lines, but many looks and reactions." MacNicol also cites the way 24 is shot, with long master-shots involving active on-camera performances by all the actors in the scene, as something that fits well with his past acting experiences. "Back in the day, I've done a lot of these law shows and sometimes we'd have to do five pages at a lick. We'd have all these long witness examination scenes and jury summations that would stretch over several pages. So I don't think it's new to me," he considers. "This does feel like a film and the scenes don't run very long to me. The amount of coverage is what you see on a $100 million movie. I can't believe the care they give to that here. I have never, never in television worked around this kind of painstaking coverage." The 24 creative staff is also one that MacNicol relishes for its ability to listen and adapt to the needs of the story and character. "David E. Kelly [creator of both Chicago Hope and Ally McBeal] works very much the same way. I would guess that these writers, much like David, are relying to some degree or another on the energy and dynamism [of the actors] to shake them loose from any situation where they might feel stymied. They are brilliant plotters. They really are. I think that is the most shining quality about the whole show. I don't see that outside of really, really high budget films, I don't see such plotting going on. They are wonderfully accepting about actor input. They are discerning always, but they do welcome it." With Lennox's true agenda becoming clearer as each hour ticks by, MacNicol is excited to see where his character eventually washes out in the whole canvas of the day. Regardless of labels or terms applied to him such as good or bad, patriot or traitor, the issues ultimately provoked and discussed by the 24 audience is what interests the actor most. "I'm interested in reactions. It's very, very provocative and the whole way of dealing with the problem and the domestic terrorism scene will definitely get people talking around the water cooler. I haven't played anybody so on the nose, serious-minded, and aggressive in their ways. I think it will be new for an audience to see me this way." |
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CHARACTER CONFLICT: 24 MAGAZINE: Dr. Larry Fleinhardt (from NUMB3RS) versus Thomas Lennox - is it confusing jumping back and forth? PETER MACNICOL: "No. With the NUMB3RS character, I really have just come in as a guy to add a little bit of cardamom. I'm like a guy that comes in and seasons the soup at the last minute. I'm not there very often, about two days out of eight, so it's nothing to come over and do this. In terms of character, he's a Hawaiian shirt and mussed up hair over there. For this, I part my hair and have a tie and suit." |