This Friday, August 9th, the explosive, globe-trotting Cinemax action series Strike Back returns to our lives with its third season - featuring stars Philip Winchester and Sullivan Stapleton as badass Section 20 agents Stonebridge and Scott. Their target this year is an elusive terrorist mastermind named al-Zahuri, who makes the mistake of making things personal after causing the death of a fellow Section 20 agent.
Also this week, Strike Back: The Complete Second Season hit Blu-ray shelves, complete with audio-commentary tracks featuring both Winchester and Stapleton, who take us through many of the twists and turns from last year's high-octane African adventure.
I had the chance to talk to star Philip Winchester, who plays Michael Stonebridge, about the Season 2 Blu-ray as well as the upcoming all-new season of bullets, bombs, and stomach bugs.
IGN: When you saw how gorgeous Season 2 looked on Blu-ray, did it make all the hard work worthwhile?
Philip Winchester: Yeah, definitely. It was a lot of fun seeing it and being in the room with everyone. And this last commentary was done right on the heels of Season 3. We actually did it in Johannesburg, whereas Season 1 we did some commentary right after the season back in Los Angeles. So this year, when we got back to Johannesburg for Season 3, the first thing we did was get together with some of the old directors and some of the other people and sat down and watched it and talked about it. So it was really nice to refresh ourselves before we got thrown into Season 3 with [showrunner] Michael Bassett and all the mad things he wanted to do. It was kind of like a prep course for what was coming our way.
IGN: As adept as Stonebridge and Scott are, things rarely go according to plan for them. And from hearing the commentary tracks, it seemed like that was also the case with regards to a lot of the location shooting you guys did.
Winchester: It really was. And still is. I think one of the biggest luxuries we have on the show - aside from having amazing guest roles and incredible action - is that we have the ability to fly by the seat of our pants. Sometimes that comes because the script's not there and sometimes that comes because they are they and they just don't work. But mostly it comes from the fact that Sully [co-star Sullivan Stapleton] and I know what we're doing when we get put in situations. We know the training. And our directors trust that, and our producers trust the directors.
I'd say we have a team of about eight of us who've been at this since day one and we really have an understanding of the show. And the producers, in a very trusting way, often look at us and just say "Okay, guys. Make it work." And I don't think that happens very often. Not on network television certainly, where you have to hit a spot, look at a light, say your line in a certain way, and then leave. Strike Back doesn't live inside those boxes. And I think it works. I think the audience can see that there's a rawness to what we're shooting. And a lot of the time it's just Sully and I looking at each other going "This doesn't work, this doesn't work. How are we going to fix it?" And we'll just improvise and it'll be the stuff that makes it to the cut.
IGN: Would you say the production mechanism on Strike Back has gotten better and smoother since the beginning, or is it always challenging because of the places you guys shoot?
Winchester: It's just a difficult show. The nature of what we're doing is difficult. We're shooting a huge action show in 24 days. So, breaking down a season, we're shooting five action movies (two-episode stories) in six months. And they've got to be big, they've got to be great, they've got to have great characters. All the things that matter. And it's getting harder because, let's see, we will have done 15 movies now. So about 30 episodes. And you want your story to stay original. You want your characters to be integral and remain interesting to the audience. And that's one of the challenges as we head further and further down the line as a series on TV. It has to remain entertaining. And so we're always trying to challenge our writers and directors and producers about that stuff and saying "Look, our characters have done that. What about this? Or how about that storyline?" So they're listening to us and we're listening to them and there's a lot of collaboration going on to keep us going for years to come. If that happens. If we even survive Season 3. [laughs]
IGN: One of the things that I've always loved about Strike Back is how no two action set pieces, or episodes, feel the same. So you're saying that's part of a conscious effort?
Winchester: Absolutely. Sully and I have a pretty good grasp of what we've done. And we can spot things pretty quickly if a writer starts to repeat something or tell a story that's already been told. And also our director Michael Bassett, who came on last season to direct episodes 7 and 8, and then came on this season as our lead director and showrunner - directing episodes 1 and 2, and then 9 and 10 - stayed on board to help mold the scripts and make sure it was going in the right direction and to prevent things from going off the rails. We have really open conversations with him about this stuff all the time. It is a luxury because it doesn't happen on other shows, but it's also integral because we can turn around and literally say "Hang on a second. We've already done this. How can we change this scene?" And it's happened where we'll get halfway through a scene and think "Oh my gosh. This is starting to look exactly like another scene. How can we change it? How can we change the character's motivation?" And it's all pretty off-the-cuff and spur-of-the-moment.
IGN: You mentioned the great guest stars you guys get. But you guys hardly ever get any scenes with them. Especially if they're a villain. You had Charles Dance in every episode last year and I don't think you ever met.
Winchester: [laughs] Exactly. We didn't even get to kill him in the end. That was the last we saw of him. We had this quick little scene in Johannesburg where he gets attacked by civilians on the street and I remember that we had this crazy day shooting in these underground mines and we were running out of light. And we literally had a half an hour to shoot this grand finale scene for the show. And that was the half an hour that I got to work with Charles Dance. [laughs] It was just thirty minutes before the sun went down on a Friday and then we were done. We got on a plane and headed back for post-production. That was it. That was my time with Tywin Lannister.
IGN: It must be very cool and rewarding to get to shoot in so many places around he world, but you guys don't always wind up in paradise. Listening to the commentary track from Season 2...you got sick from airborne fecal matter? And then a lot of the neighborhoods were dangerous...
Winchester: Yeah, we don't always get taken to the best parts of the places we're in. That's for sure. [laughs] Bill Eagles, our lead director last season, was very interested in the tapestry and ground work of places that weren't so nice. So we were in places like Hillbrow. We were in really tough neighborhoods where we had to have armed guards protect us while we were walking around and shooting a scene. So it was a really weird dynamic, I thought, where we were shooting scenes fully kitted up for the show. All our gear and all our weapons. And then we had guys just off camera who were protecting us. So yeah, we shot in some Nigerian gang-ruled apartment buildings. Places where you would have been waist-deep in trash if it hadn't been cleaned out for production. But then every once in a while we got to go to some really cool spots. Budapest is beautiful. We went there this year. We started this season in a place called KwaZulu-Natal, just below Mozambique on the wild coast in South Africa. It truly stands up to its name. It's wild, it's beautiful, it's dangerous. So we had a ball there. You you win a few, you lose a few.
Find out what Season 3 has in store for you on Page 2...
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