Actress Melissa Roxburgh talks to The Inside Reel about psychology, approach and mindset in regards to her new thriller series for NBC: "The Hunting Party".
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00:00You're always looking for new approaches, new psychology, and Bex is nothing if not
00:24that in so many ways.
00:27Could you talk about that and that approach both physically, mentally, emotionally, intellectually,
00:33you know, just all through?
00:35Yeah, I mean, I kind of like to joke that Rebecca Henderson, Rebecca Henderson, geez,
00:44is Michaela Stone, grown up and promoted and just a couple years later.
00:49So Rebecca Henderson, she plays this tenacious, strong willed FBI profiler who has been tasked
00:57with retrieving the world's worst serial killers from this explosion at The Pit, a secret government
01:03prison and now they've all gone out into the world and they're all roaming free and she
01:07has to go get them back.
01:11So you know, it's super fun playing this character because every episode you're getting into
01:17the psychology of a different serial killer and I'm pretty fascinated by these killers
01:25who like, the way that they operate in life is so foreign to a normal brain, so.
01:30A nuclear missile complex is one of the most covert and secure locations on the planet,
01:34which is why for the last 30 years, this one has been home to a classified prison.
01:39Wait, did you say prison?
01:43It's called The Pit.
01:47It's home to the most violent and dangerous criminals the world has ever known, or at
01:51least it was until the blast hit.
01:54The explosion shook the whole valley.
01:56The blast wave hit the prison and completely collapsed the central structure.
01:59Only a handful of personnel recovered alive, including the warden, who's still in surgery.
02:04We don't anticipate many more survivors.
02:06Even with the people you're working with, you're always, your character's always looking
02:10for that tell.
02:11She's profiling them as she's doing that, and that's a really interesting way to do
02:15it, especially if you're talking about Hassani or, you know, the army officer or even Garcia,
02:21you know, that, the way she does it.
02:24Could you sort of talk about looking at that because you have to see everything that's
02:28going on in the room and the way you're reacting to one character might be completely different
02:32to another character.
02:34For sure, I mean, it is a team of people trying to get these killers back, but everyone brings
02:40something different, you know.
02:42Josh McKenzie's character is a lot of the muscle.
02:45He's, you know, the military guy.
02:48Jacob Hassani is the CIA, so he's intelligence.
02:52And Rebecca Henderson, she's the one looking these people in the eye, wondering why their
02:58eye looked that way or wondering why their body language said this or wondering why they
03:02phrased it like this but not like that.
03:04And, you know, me as a person, I just think that stuff is so fascinating because I do
03:10think that we do all have tells when we're, you know, trying to be something or trying
03:14to hide something.
03:15And so it's super interesting to me.
03:18When you were building her, because obviously the way she's put together, did you, was
03:23that part of it?
03:24You know, when you came to the script, you're like, okay, you did the research, but then
03:28building her look, building her, the way she moves, all these things, did that come sort
03:33of as you did it or was that completely taken care of in pre-production for you?
03:39I think that the showrunners had an idea of what they wanted her to dress like and be
03:43like a little bit.
03:44And so I had, I had a little bit of input there, but I mean, for the most part, there's
03:51a lot of me in there too.
03:52I'm not going to lie.
03:53So I wouldn't say that I did any animal work or anything for the role.
04:01You ever wonder why the number of prolific serial killers has dropped so significantly
04:05in the past few decades?
04:06No Ted Bundy's, no Zodiac killers.
04:08I don't know.
04:09Good police work.
04:10Because we catch them before they become Ted Bundy.
04:12Everything we understand about psychopaths, all of the theories you FBI profilers use
04:16to catch serials comes from the work done at the pit.
04:19You mean the experiments done at the pit.
04:21The work has made our country safer.
04:24Right.
04:26Look, I understand your frustration.
04:28There are some things I just can't tell you.
04:30That place has done a lot more good than bad.
04:32Some of the inmates have actually gotten better.
04:35And the rest?
04:36And the rest?
04:41Congratulations.
04:42You've done the impossible and made the world's worst serial killers even more dangerous.
04:46Because you have different killers each week.
04:48It's interesting that you have to sort of break it down.
04:51So do you do you look at a script or do you think about, you know, because it's obviously
04:56so many things are based on can be based on real life versus not.
05:00And this is about, you know, obviously a supermax about the pit, you know, at the beginning.
05:04Could you talk about looking at, you know, because these kinds of stories, they have
05:09to make sense.
05:10They have to show a progression.
05:12You have to see how she's breaking it down through an episode.
05:15Can you talk about looking at sort of that logic, you know, and building the character
05:20as she looks at it?
05:22Yeah, I mean, she did used to do this job before we meet her at the casino where she's
05:28profiling drunk gamblers.
05:30And so she does have a history like not none of it's brand brand new to her.
05:35But we do see her kind of thrust into the worst of the worst.
05:38And so as the episodes go on, she becomes a little bit more resilient, a little stronger,
05:44a little less shocked when some of these things are happening.
05:48But for me as Melissa, it was super fun figuring out each week how to differentiate between
05:57the killers in terms of talking to them.
05:59Because she does get to have conversations with a lot of them and figuring out how to
06:04talk to this killer versus that killer was fun because it was trying to get into their
06:09minds and everyone's going to be different.
06:14I spent a decade chasing terrorists and traffickers.
06:17I know how to deal with evil.
06:18I've been up close to it.
06:21But that was...
06:22Overseas.
06:25This is where our kids live.
06:29Speaking of your career.
06:33You weren't made to be on the sidelines, Bex.
06:37I spoke to the AG.
06:38There are going to be some more inmates to find.
06:41How many?
06:43A lot.
06:47You wanted back in.
06:50This is back in.
06:59You did this obviously very well in Manifest as well is that you're showing the humanity
07:04but also reflecting the stakes because you going in and speaking to these different people,
07:08there's such an empathy to her.
07:10But she also knows, oh, this might be BS, you know, so it's sort of interesting to sort
07:14of walk that line.
07:15Even when you went like in the first episode, when you go into the diner and talk to the
07:18waitress, there's a very specific thing like you're asking a question, but you're trying
07:22to get her to bring her guard down.
07:24And that's almost something that's not.
07:26That's something that's sort of like inferred.
07:29It's not necessarily in the dialogue.
07:31You know, can you talk about those in-betweens?
07:35I mean, you catch more bees with honey.
07:38I would say that if she came in military style and was, you know, get down on the ground
07:46kind of approach, she probably wouldn't get too far with these killers.
07:49They'd probably just try to kill her.
07:51But there is a person with desires and wants and needs underneath the psychopathology.
07:58And so, you know, I think she starts slowly to figure out what each character is looking
08:07for and how she can get through to them.
08:10So there is a lot of like kid gloves with these killers, which is which is so interesting.
08:16So I do think she has some empathy.
08:17I think she's got a lot of empathy.
08:20So I do think she has some empathy.
08:21I think she does genuinely want to understand why they are the way that they are.
08:26Obviously, when push comes to shove, she's not gonna let them kill again.
08:29So that's where things get messy.
08:33You okay?
08:34I should have had him.
08:37Well, you saved Corinne.
08:40Yeah, and now he has exactly what he needs to torture the next one.
08:50And my last question.
09:05This is the you know, and we've talked about this before about perspective and perception.
09:09And it's interesting.
09:10That's almost a thematic here, because even like when you're talking to Hassani, for example,
09:15you you say, well, we're hunting people on domestic soil.
09:18This is an international.
09:19This is a different country.
09:20So there's a sort of differentiation on perspective.
09:24And her perspective is so interesting.
09:26But she's almost able to see the perception coming back.
09:29Can you talk about the balance of perspective and perception in this character?
09:34And then I'll let you go.
09:36I think, you know, every character in a show represents something different.
09:39I think if I were to take a guess, she would be representative of just the people
09:44like, you know, American citizens.
09:47And I think she's not looking at it like how can we keep massive organization
09:53secrets at bay or and she's not looking at it like I just want to be a rebellious
09:58teenager getting the bad guys.
10:00She's kind of in this middle area of I want what's best for everyone.
10:04I'm not afraid to say it.
10:05I'm not afraid to stand up for that.
10:07I won't let you cross lines and I won't let you cross lines.
10:10She's kind of the mediator of different groups of people.
10:14So and I think she's able to do that because she spends so long psychoanalyzing
10:20everyone that she knows how to navigate situations a little bit better.