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 caught up with star Willa Fitzgerald (Scream: The Series; Little Women) to chat about her breakout performance as Roscoe Conklin, a cop that's every bit as tough as the titular Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson)... maybe even more so!
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The first season, which is based on Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher novel Killing Floor, sees Roscoe team-up with Jack and her boss Det. Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin) to solve a case that has huge implications for the past and future of Margrave, Georgia.
Fitzgerald delved into all the extensive training she underwent to get ready to play Roscoe, how she was able to instantly develop that magnetic chemistry with Ritchson, and also walked us through some of the show's biggest moments.
Check out the full spoiler-filled video interview below, and keep scrolling for the transcript!
ROHAN: Roscoe is basically as tough as Reacher, if not more so - was that something that initially attracted you to the script?
WILLA: Well, I’m glad that you think that, I agree. I think it was just that, I read the script for the pilot episode and Roscoe kind of just jumped off of the page as a fully-formed human in that first scene, in that first scene. She’s tough, she’s opinionated, she’s self-assured, she is empathetic and I think that I was just really excited too see where the character went as the series progressed and it was just kind of one of those moments where you read a character and think, ‘she would be really fun to play,’ like I want to say those lines.
ROHAN: I believe this is the most action training you've done, outside of Little Women. Can you tell me about how much training you underwent before filming some of the bigger stunts?
WILLA: Yeah, I had a lot of action training for Little Women too. I’m so glad you realized. *laughs*
I have actually done a lot of action training in the past, I’ve done a few thrillers and Scream, we did a ton of gun training and fight choreography stuff. This show was super good about having us learn action sequences pretty far ahead of time, so we had a lot of time to practice, a lot of time to get comfortable and we just had a really great stunts department that was always there with whatever you needed before you asked for it, whether it was pads or help figuring something out or how to do something safely. Probably, the most time was spent on weapons training, it was really important, obviously, on set and we had a great department, who handled all of the weapons, of which there are many.
ROHAN: One of Roscoe's biggest moments comes in that forest scene at night - how long did that take to prep?
WILLA: Funnily enough, unless I’m misremembering, the forest sequences, for the most part, are just running, so really what we had going on there was kind of on the day learning where we would do a pass, a walking pass, and kind of make sure everything was safe and then the stunt double - my stunt double, who’s amazing - would do a running pass to make sure it all felt good. They’d get it a couple of times with the stunt double and then I would go and do it a few times and then hopefully it would kind of be done, because that stuff was just more dangerous, in the sense that you’re running on uneven terrain at night, which is always kind of dangerous. But yeah, that was actually more than anything kind of on set figuring stuff out.
ROHAN: You really get to unload on a few people - you're yelling at Alan a lot, you get to punch someone in the face and so on. Ws it easy to channel that anger?
WILLA: I’m a really angry person. *laughs* Just kidding! I think that there’s a lot of different context that you’re talking about, I think that the person who I punch is a terrible human and I think it’s not difficult probably for any of us to think about someone who we’d like to maybe punch, who’s a terrible person. So, I think that we had also already - that comes at the middle in the season and we’d already had so much lead up emotionally to that moment, that by the time it happens, it was very easy and I think that all of the Alan scenes, where we kind of get into it, are fun and easy because Alan and I already have a dynamic where I feel comfortable kind of playing with each other, that’s just an easy step into being in character and doing that too.
ROHAN: Roscoe doesn't really let her guard down with anyone until Reacher comes along and we get to see both of these characters be vulnerable with one another - was that genuine chemistry pretty easy to develop with Alan?
WILLA: Yeah, because I think Alan and I do care about each other. We definitely took care of each other while we were doing the show and he’s a great person and I genuinely think he is phenomenal as an actor and as a friend and it just makes that kind of dynamic so much easier when you already have an off-screen friendship and I just got really lucky because that doesn’t always happen, but I think we got really lucky, in that, we enjoyed each other’s company. We made each other laugh and we made kind of all of our times on set comfortable.
ROHAN: The whole series is extremely cinematic - how long did it take to prepare for and then shoot the finale?
WILLA: It was long! *laughs* Lot of parts, lot of parts, but MJ, our director from that episode is a beast. She’s phenomenal and I mean it’s just the interesting thing about shooting that kind of action sequence is that it’s often so broken up and that I think is the hardest part, as an actor, is to maintain the emotional intensity through what is a very long shooting arc that in the actual product is mere seconds probably, but the final kill is a huge emotional moment, but we shot the actual close-up of me doing that, kind of, independent of the whole stuff the precedes it and so, as an actor, the toughest part of that is just tying it all together in your brain, so you really understand the kind of full emotional and physical arc that your character has gone through to get to that moment because it isn’t necessarily in chronological order and kind of there for you already.
ROHAN: Spoiler alert, but there's a moment during your final confrontation where you, as Roscoe, seem to have a change of heart and don't appear to want to kill your adversary, and instead want to arrest him for his crimes - what was the discussion like between you and the director about how that huge scene played out?
WILLA: Yeah, that’s a really interesting question because I think, for me, it was really important that it wasn’t actually a revenge killing, it was a necessity. We went back and forth about the handcuffing, not handcuffing many times, eventually the handcuffing stayed in and then, the kind of compromise was that he goes for his gun that’s on the ground and so, the act of shooting this character is a necessity and something that she has to do. Otherwise, she could’ve just left him in the building, but it’s a thing she has to do and she then has to deal with the implications of what she’s done after that because I don’t think that Roscoe is someone who wants to kill someone, even someone who she does hate.
ROHAN: Outside of Alan, your biggest scenes are with Malcolm and Kristen - what was it like working with them?
WILLA: I love Malcolm and I love Kristen, they’re incredibly consummate actors and Finlay and Roscoe have a very fun on-screen dynamic also, it’s different than with Reacher, but also a kind of ball-busting dynamic where they’re really testing the boundaries of what they can and can’t say in that relationship and Malcolm is just also a very prepared actor. He comes to set knowing what he wants to do and that’s just a fun thing to be able to play with.
And Kristen, it was also just so nice because there were so few women on set and so when Kristen would come in and we would get to have those scenes together, it was just really nice to have a different dynamic and it was also really nice to play with Roscoe, as a character, in her relationships with women because we don’t really see that. She has one line with Neagley and other than that, Kristen is the only other female character who she talks to, so I think that that was a fun dynamic to figure out and especially plot-wise, their relationship is really interesting and yeah, Kristen and Malcolm were great.
Reacher starts streaming, exclusively on Prime Video, on February 4!