The following interview contains spoilers for the first season of Reacher,
Proceed with caution!
Reacher is now streaming on Prime Video, and to mark the occasion, we sat down with star Malcolm Goodwin (iZombie; American Gangster) to talk about his starring role as Detective Oscar Finlay, one of the only people in town that Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) finds he can trust.
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In the first season, which adapts Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher novel Killing Floor, Finlay is tasked with unraveling a mystery that has devastating consequences for everyone involved, and finds himself unable to trust anyone aside from Reacher and his one good deputy Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald).
We speak to Goodwin about playing a new kind of detective after having famously portrayed Clive Babineaux on iZombie, channeling some of those "fish out of water" feelings, developing an authentic brotherhood between Finlay and Reacher, his huge moment during that explosive season finale, and a whole lot more.
Check out the full spoiler-filled video interview below, and keep scrolling for the full transcript!
ROHAN: You're coming off playing another cool cop in Clive Babineaux - outside of the tweed, what would you say is the biggest difference between Clive and Oscar Finlay?
MALCOLM: That’s a good question. The difference is, Clive isn’t as tightly would as Finlay at all, Clive is a little more easy going. The one thing they do have in common is their strong sense of right or wrong in justice, but Oscar Finlay is more by the book than Clive is, because obviously Clive works with a zombie, which isn’t by the books at all. *laughs* Oscar Finlay, he’s by the books and he has something to prove.
ROHAN: Finlay chooses to be in Margrave, where he's essentially a fish out of water, really out of his element in a town nothing like Boston. Did you draw upon any personal experiences to channel that emotional rollercoaster he's on through the season?
MALCOLM: I think, for me, it was my connection, in terms of being this ‘fish out of water,’ I think I felt that several times. Sometimes you can feel like that on having a new job and questioning whether or not you belong here or not. I think that whether that’s an acting job or whether that’s a job at a McDonald’s. When I was young, I worked at McDonald’s and it was very weird, but it’s one of those things, any place that you put yourself in where you can feel uncomfortable, out of your depth, although you have the talent and the skill to fit right in, but it’s kind of you getting in your way sometimes or what other people told you can’t do or can do that’s kind of brought into those situations.
Listen, I took from many situations in my life coming up, even the first time coming to LA and feeling like, ‘okay, everybody comes to LA to try to be an actor and try to take a swing at the bat and how is this thing going to work out?’ So, I kind of drew from that, but knowing, like Oscar Finlay, he knows he is qualified, he knows he can do this and that’s what he hangs his hat on and that’s what he hangs on to. So, I kind of drew on those experiences.
ROHAN: You have really great chemistry with Alan, this real genuine brotherhood - was that an instant connection between you two or was it something that developed as filming progressed?
MALCOLM: I felt like it kind of happened instant because we had one rehearsal before filming and we were just supposed to do a reading and then Alan starts reading and he’s off-book! At the rehearsal! We don’t shoot for another month I don’t think and he’s off-book, but you know what, I’m off-book too. *laughs* Then, we put the page down and we start doing the scene and while we’re doing the scene, it’s like, “Oh, you’re off-book too! Oh, we’re dancing!” So, the fact that we kind of both did that instinctually, we didn’t have to be off-book that soon, but we chose to do that without even talking to one another, so we were able to do those scenes in the rehearsal without the script in hand. We just pushed them all away and started doing it. That chemistry and I felt like it happened instantly.
ROHAN: What do you think Finlay and Reacher saw in one another that ultimately ended with them sharing that great last moment at the diner?
MALCOLM: I think it’s that they’re both dealing with loss and a lot of their tactics and their passion and tenacity comes from that. They’re drawing from the same kind of well of grief and instead of having that grief make them stagnant, it actually makes them active or that activity allows them to hide from it or not deal with it. Once they realize that they have that in common, shooting that scene, it was just a powerful day. That’s when he realized, “Okay, we’re more alike than we are different.”
ROHAN: How good was that pie?
MALCOLM: I didn’t eat it! If you see me eating it, I don’t know, did I eat that pie? It was peach pie. It was good. *laughs*
ROHAN: The series has a ton of brutal kills, but I'd say you have arguably have the most brutal kill in the entire eight episodes - what was it like filming that huge finale and Finlay's big showdown?
MALCOLM: Dude, I felt like John McClane in Die Hard, I felt like, with the tank top and the holsters, I’m like, “The is straight Die Hard, come on man!,” and I loved the Die Hard movies, so it was great. It was Finlay going for broke and props to all the stunt men and women on that set. Everyone just brought it, my stunt guy just killed it. I just watched him and was like I hope I can look as good as that when I have to do it for real, but it was fun. It was just a lot of fun, I was literally pinching myself. I couldn’t believe I was doing some of the things that we were filming, but everything was thoroughly planned. We had a lot of rehearsal for it and that was also great too, so everybody felt safe.
ROHAN: How long was the rehearsal and shooting time for that explosive finale?
MALCOLM: Yeah, I think we filmed five months and rehearsals for those last scenes started the first month in, so we were rehearsing for several months before we shot it.
ROHAN: I'm a huge iZombie fan, so I have to ask about you about your relationship with your former castmates - are you all still keeping up with one another?
MALCOLM: Oh, yeah, we’re all still friends. Yeah, I literally just talked to Rose yesterday, she was filming her last episode of Ghosts and I talked to Rahul today because we’re working on the next project I’m working on after this is Fall of the House of Usher, so I had my meeting with Mike Flanagan and Rahul called me after, asking “How’d it go?!” So, he’s a big reason why I’m a part of that project, he just fought to get my name in the mix and it worked out.
ROHAN: Have you already started filming Fall of the House of Usher?
MALCOLM:Yeah, they started filming already, but my portion of the series starts filming in April/May for two months.
Reacher starts streaming, exclusively on Prime Video, on February 4!