By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Josh Holloway is best known for his iconic role as Sawyer, the intensely sardonic, charming hunk from ABC's "Lost," which ended in 2010.
Four years later, he helmed a CBS drama "Intelligence" playing a high-tech operative with a special microchip in his brain providing him access to intel all over the world. It only lasted one season.
Soon after that disappointment, Holloway was speaking to his wife Yessica about future roles. "I really wanted to focus on quality content with good writing and the right people involved," said the 46-year-old north Georgia native and Cherokee High School graduate in a phone interview earlier this month.
At that moment, "Lost" executive producer Carlton Cuse called Holloway with a lead role in mind on a new USA Network show "Colony," which debuts Thursday at 10. Holloway would play former FBI man Will Bowman trying to protect his wife (Sarah Wayne Callies from "The Walking Dead") and kids in a Los Angeles that has been walled off from the rest of the world under mysterious circumstances.
"I told Carlton, 'You're my hero, bro!' " Holloway said. And once he read the "Colony" script, he was in.
"Colony" begins about a year after occupation began. He and his wife are still struggling with the fact one of their sons was left outside the walls. They desperately want to track him down but electronic communication has been cut, residents can't drive cars and drones track their every move. Actions he takes in the opening episode place him at risk before human authorities who are cooperating with the as yet unidentified (possibly alien) power brokers.
Married with two kids of his own, Holloway said he identifies with Bowman's predicament. He likes "the subtle ups and downs of a long-term relationship and the stakes that brings. That meant a lot to me." He also likes how characters are neither black nor white but very gray.
Bowman is a fundamentally good guy - unlike Sawyer of "Lost" fame - but is forced to make compromising moves to ensure his family's survival. "It's taking a man and bending him and see what's going to happen," Holloway said. "While Sawyer came from the dark to the light, Will is a patriot, a family man bent into the darkness."
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Holloway said the scenes of fleeting normality on the show - such as Will's efforts to make an omelette - are reflective of how any society lives under duress. People have to adjust and live their lives, he said. He alluded to the Nazi occupation of Paris where vintage photos show residents casually dining in cafes while Nazi soldiers march by.
"It's the oldest story in human existence," Holloway said. "We've colonized someone or been colonized throughout human history. It's amazing how fast we comply and try to get a life out of that."
USA released the pilot on its app before Christmas and Holloway said fans have been asking him all sorts of existential questions and how they would deal with occupation over freedom. "That's the type of response we want," he said.
Holloway laughed when asked how Sawyer would manage in "Colony." "He'd be living in a penthouse with all the goods," he said. "He'd figure out a way to survive, no doubt."
"Colony," he said, has Cuse's imprint on it because it's a character-driven story wrapped around a mythology like "Lost." "It's like so many mysteries," he said. "What's outside the walls? Later in the season, we get pieces of what's going on in other places. Like "Lost,' you'll know just enough to drive you crazy."
He said he's aware that both Cuse and Damon Lindelof of "Lost" got flak for what many fans felt was a muddled ending to "Lost." He himself liked the way they closed it on an emotional note but said he facetiously offered his place in Wyoming for the "Lost" creators to hide out until social media settled down.
We had a couple of minutes for him to reminisce about his time in Canton back in the 1980s when it was a small rural town, not a suburban alcove of metro Atlanta.
"Everybody was country," he said. "It was a way different mentality, a real small town. I grew up on a dirt road in Georgia. But my parents were very educated. Our neighbors were not. This was before the Internet. People were much more insulated."
But he said he was always a popular guy at Cherokee High School who never stuck to a particular clique. "I'm not clique-y. I was an athlete but I hung out with the band guys. I was adaptable."
TV PREVIEW
"Colony," 10 p.m. Thursdays, USA, starting January 14, 2016
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