DJ Qualls might be known for his more high-profile roles on genre television, such as Garth on Supernatural and Citizen Z on Z Nation, but recently, the actor co-starred in Amazon's groundbreaking sci-fi series The Man in the High Castle, based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name.
The Man in the High Castle made its debut during Amazon's pilot program earlier this year, quickly becoming a favorite with fans and critics, with Amazon eventually picking up the pilot for a full series.
That series arrived on Amazon over the weekend, and Tech Times spoke with Qualls about his role on the show, as well as discussed how he got the part, although he initially turned it down.
"The show is set in 1962, in a world where we lost the second World War. In our version of history, Germany beat us to the bomb, there was a coordinated attack on D.C. and we were invaded," explained Qualls. "The war lasted seven years longer, and we also, ultimately, surrendered. And so, the United States is now broken into two halves: the Japanese control the West and the Germans control the East."
Although the series follows characters in both parts of the U.S., Qualls' character, Ed McCarthy, lives in San Francisco, a city now occupied by the Japanese.
"Ed McCarthy is a guy who came from a wealthy family," said Qualls. "His grandfather owned a munitions factory. What the Germans did, which was kind of genius in our world, they invaded us, and all the Nazis on our show are American. They integrated themselves. The Japanese, though, wanted complete rule, so we were subjugated by them. So they came to America and destroyed all things Americana. They destroyed all Civil War items, they destroyed all modern art, all those things."
So now the weapons factory that McCarthy's family owns makes replica weapons from the Old West for export to Japan. McCarthy, who lives with his grandfather, now works in this factory 10 hours a day.
"I think with the show, with all the characters, I think we do a really good job with showing that no one is really good and no one is really bad," said Qualls. "And even the bad guys on the show have good reasons for the things that they do, so you kind of find yourself not exactly knowing who to root for."
However, Qualls admitted that Ed is a different.
"My character, though, is not one of those people," he said. "He's a guy that loves to a point that it puts him in danger. He's just a guy who loves, especially his best friend, Frank—he loves him so much that he's willing to put himself on the line to save this guy."
Although working on a production for Amazon produced by Ridley Scott might seem a no-brainer for most actors, Qualls almost didn't take the role. Because he was just coming back home after filming a season of Z Nation, he felt he needed some down time.
"I was really tired and this came to me, to my inbox—the script did," said Qualls. "And I didn't really even give it a chance. I was so tired and didn't feel like I was in a place to take on work. And I turned it down, I turned down the audition. And they kept coming back to me, and I kept saying, 'you know, thank you so much for bringing it to me, but I'm not really working right now.' "
Fortunately for Qualls, the team behind The Man in the High Castle was persistent.
"I was in bed one morning, and I was still asleep, and the phone kept ringing and I picked it up," said Qualls. "And the voice said, 'What the f*** is your problem?' And it was the pilot director, Dave Semel. He went on to tell me how stupid I am and that this was a great project and to be in Ridley Scott's office at 3 p.m. and then he hung up on me. So I went in and they pitched it to me, and I was like 'wow, this is something great to be involved with.' A week later, they offered it to me again and I did it."
In the end, everything worked out, and Qualls marks the experience of working on the series and with Amazon as a highlight in his career.
"The experience, it was kind of life-changing in a way because it made me excited to be an actor again in a way that I haven't felt in a long time," said Qualls. "Also, the budget on the show—usually, the two enemies of production are time and money. And Amazon is a unique place to work because they give you all the money and time you need to do something."
Of course, working on a set where America isn't the America we're used to can prove disturbing, even to an actor. Qualls admitted that he found the setting disturbing when they first shot the pilot episode.
"We had this scene one day with like 150 extras in period costumes, all walking around, and classic cars," he said. "But then we had swastikas on the sides of the building and people wearing swastika armbands and you could feel this sort of like—even though people knew it was a movie—that iconography was really jarring for people. And it was really jarring for us.
"You see these things that are so jarring that bring up such negative associations, but then it's also sort of operating normal, so you forget about them. That's what we try to do on the show: we don't tell you a lot of stuff. We show you."
Although The Man in the High Castle finds its inspiration from a novel, Qualls admitted that he hasn't read the source material, but for a very good reason.
"When I got offered the script for the pilot, the first thing I did was go to my reader and I downloaded the book," he said. "I was 30 pages into it and I sent the pilot director an email, basically showing him the good boy I was reading the book. He told me to stop because my character is different in our show than he is in the book. And there are also key central characters that are in the show that aren't in the book."
Qualls also praised the Amazon process of choosing a television series through its Pilot Program.
"They pick in-house what they're going to make pilots of, and then the pilots are released online and people vote on them," explained Qualls. "And it's not just the voting, it's the comments. The comments are actively read by Amazon and our producers, and us as well. So we got a really good sense early on that the show had a good shot at becoming a series."
Qualls explained that this is different from the television pilot process because it's much faster and actors know relatively quickly if a pilot will go to series. In the television world, the entire process can take years, making for a "nerve-wracking" experience along the way.
"The Amazon Pilot process was easier for us because, first of all, it was much faster, but also because you could actually follow the pilot's progress as people were finding it," said Qualls. "And usually when you do a pilot, it might not ever see the light of day. So it was good for us because the way the pilot is structured, it was a standalone piece. So if it didn't go to series, it was just a moment in time that people got to see into."
The first season of The Man in the High Castle is available now on Amazon.
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