Last Light is juggling a lot of elements. The new Peacock miniseries focuses on the global chaos that erupts when the world's oil supplies are corrupted. This upends much of modern society spinning, with things quickly spiraling out of control. The series has a larger global focus at times, but it also strives to never lose sight of the human storylines that make up the emotional throughline -- specifically, the paths that Andy and Elena Yeats, a married couple already dealing with plenty of strife before the world begins to fall apart around them.
During an interview with CBR ahead of Last Light's premiere on the Peacock streaming service on Sept. 8, Matthew Fox (Andy Yeats) and Joanne Froggatt (Elena Yeats) about the surprising physicality of Last Light. The pair also dove into the elements that drew them to the series in the first place and how they fleshed out their on-screen marriage when they didn't actually get too many scenes on-screen together.
CBR: For both Andy and Elena, their family storylines are central to their development -- especially their marriage troubles. Notably, you two don't get a huge amount of time on-screen together before the plot separates the entire family across Europe and the Middle East. How did you approach that element of these characters, especially when you knew you weren't getting a lot of time together on-screen to flesh that out?
Joanne Froggatt: Well, I think we were all very much aware of that from [the onset]. We did in rehearsal with Matthew [Fox] and our director [Jack Ryan veteran Dennie Gordon] -- it was really valuable. We just sort of dug deep into their relationship because we were all aware that they don't have a lot of screen time together, so we need to know -- Matthew and I, we needed to know that history within ourselves to be able to put that across to the audience.
So it was important that we did that sort of backstory beforehand. It's often what's behind the eyes -- it's often the thought that you're not saying that is the thing that actually tells the story. We needed to have that history in our minds, you know, to be able to sort of put that across.
Matthew Fox: Yeah, I think the workshopping that we did... I mean, that bedroom scene when Andy is called away, there's a lot of subtext in that scene, and then the son comes in and breaks that moment. So we had to give the audience a lot of clues in that scene of just how much history there is in this pattern of Andy sort of choosing work over family and having to leave.
It was really Dennie's idea to get us in a room together and to talk about all the versions of how we could have gotten to that moment and what that relationship has been like for ten years, what it's been like in the last couple of years, and I think it paid off. You know, that always works that I think sometimes it feels like maybe it doesn't feel that fruitful in the moment., but then I think on screen, it's just there, so I'm happy we did that kind of work.
Matthew, this is something of a return for you -- not just to television, but acting in general. After a few years off screens, what was it about Last Light and Andy as a character that caught your attention?
Fox: I'm not sure it was Andy so much as it was just the whole story. I felt like the story is very timely -- this notion of our reliance on fossil fuels and what the world has to do over the next decades, so I felt that that was timely. I think the concept of families being torn apart... I think that is always a source of great drama and narrative storytelling. So I felt like we have this family that, at its core, they love each other very, very much, and that is separated through this crisis, and then the quest of trying to put it back together again. So I was really drawn to the sort of macro-elements to the story rather than specifically to Andy. He's a bit of an enigma and was a challenge for me to play, but I was really drawn to the bigger macro-elements of the story.
I was also very excited about getting an opportunity to executive produce. That was one thing that was on my sort of bucket list of things to do in the business that I had not done yet. I wanted to do that with my managerial partner Bill Choi, who's a very good friend. We work together in the business, and we have been talking for a while about how great it would be to have the opportunity to work together creatively, to try to problem-solve and figure out new things, to solve problems within a story... So Last Light had all the elements that I needed to sort of come off the bench and try my hand at acting again. That was actually really rewarding. I enjoyed it very much, and I'm happy to be doing it again. I plan on doing more of it.
Joanne, you had to balance not just the down-to-earth family drama inherent to Elena's plotline but also the chaos that follows the show's narrative shifts. How did you approach balancing those two elements?
Froggatt: I love to do roles that are complex. Although Elena is not complex in a sort of negative way within herself, she's in very complex positions in her life, emotionally and literally. She's stuck in this country that's not her own, trying to get home, and she can't get there, but also that fear for her sons. Her husband isn't there to support her, and there is this lovely man who kind of sweeps in and seems to fix everything and might just turn her eye a little bit -- but never properly.
There's all these things coming at her, and life is like that sometimes, isn't it? You know, we all have periods in life where everything's just... kind of plain sailing and nothing major happening, then all of a sudden, everything happens at once. That's life. For Elena, she's having that moment. Everything is happening to her all at once.
What surprised you both the most about these characters over the course of production?
Fox: My answer is going to be a little bit more sort of logistical. I was surprised by how much physicality the role required. Like, on paper, you're like, "Andy, he's a Petrochemist. He's the scientist." Then even the action sequences in the script as written, those are very deceiving, and you kind of develop the imagery in your mind. Then you see the car chase and the running and so on and so forth.
But then, when you get into doing it, it's always so much harder than you think it's going to be. I just remember several moments throughout the shooting where I was like, "I really wish I was a little bit more flexible. I wish I had spent a little more time doing physical prep for this role," because it was a little harder than I thought it was gonna be.
Froggatt: Similar to Matthew, I had the same thing -- I love doing action stuff. I kind of read the script, and I thought, "Oh, yes, Elena's got a couple of bits, but it's not like loads of action." Then I got [to] San Jose. I'm doing a lot of running, and I should not have picked these heels. This is a horrible idea... That's what I was surprised by myself, that I still chose inappropriate footwear to do the [action scenes]. After all these years, I still can't choose my footwear properly.
The Last Light, a five-episode miniseries starring Matthew Fox and Joanne Froggatt, debuts on Peacock on Sept. 8.