SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Fightland Season 1, Episode 4.

Fightland has a strained but intriguing father-son relationship between Duke Kilroy and his father Gary. The Starz drama has seen the two of them nearly come to blows, but at the same time, they’re still family. So of course, just as it seemed like things might be thawing between them, something had to go wrong.

Episode 4 of Fightland ended with Gary having been stabbed amidst the chaos of a Russian attack on the Marshalls’ gym. Is Duke about to lose his father while trying to avenge his brother? With Gary’s fate hanging in the balance, TVBrittanyF.com spoke to actor Richard Pepple about what brought him to the role. He also talked about how he built Gary and Duke’s complicated dynamic with co-star Howard Charles.

Brittany Frederick: What did you see in Gary that made him someone you connected with? Was there something you particularly wanted to explore with his character?

Richard Pepple: When I got the first episode and read the dynamic between father and son, that intrigued me—as to what that could be and how far I could push that, or where we could go with that in terms of storytelling. That was what initially really drew me to wanting to put my interpretation into who Gary was.

And then as the later scripts came out, we got the rest of the episodes, and [it was] seeing the linear journey and how complex and how layered that relationship [was] between father and son. And not just father and son—that Duke has with himself and a lot of his unresolved issues that have come from early mistakes and some of his flaws. That, to me, just made it much more challenging and much more intriguing to want to try and bring my interpretation to.

Gary isn’t solely defined as Duke’s father, however. He has his own gym and his own life that Duke walks back into. He’s lived a lot, and you’ve also played a lot of complex characters. How much of your acting or even life experience applied to Fightland?

All you can do as an actor is bring what you have and what you are, and what you know, and maybe intersperse that with or add to that a little of your imagination. But everything starts with your own life experiences. I think no matter what you play or who you play, it always starts from within. And I think there are things that I was able to draw on—personal experiences, personal tragedies, personal goals that that felt right in some of the choices I made when I was trying to bring Gary to life.

But fundamentally, all you have is yourself and your own experiences to try and interpret what’s on the page, and then hopefully bring it to life with a combination of your acting skills and and your life experiences. And I hope that came across.

The fun part for you is then working with Howard Charles to say, we have to build this extensive family history between us. How did you make that work so well?

I was lucky because I knew Howard from before. I worked with him probably about 15 years ago, when he first came out of drama school. Luckily we still liked each other, so that helps. [Laughs.] But I think it’s always good when you have an actor who’s willing and wants to collaborate with you. You have a safe space to bounce ideas off each other, and then try and build a rounded story that feels right and real for both of you.

And any actor that has the time to sit down and talk to you, for me, is a blessing. Sometimes acting, particularly film and TV acting, can be quite a lonely experience; you turn up on a day and you can do your stuff. If you’re lucky enough to have moments where you can talk and collaborate with another actor, it just enriches the whole storytelling experience.

Was there any particular scene in Fightland that you felt really worked, or that you just enjoyed from a performance standpoint?

There’s a hospital scene that we did. I’m not sure how much of it made the final edit, but that was one day and one scene I was particularly proud of. Me and Howard spoke quite extensively about it, as well as with the director. So I hope it’s a scene that resonates with people, or maybe gives the audience a different insight into who Gazzer is and and where his heart lies. I’m excited for people to see that scene.

But because so much of your work is naturally with Howard, is there any other actor you’d have liked to play more off of? Any character whom you would like to see how they interact with Gary?

I would have loved to have had a bit more time with Tahirah [Sharif], who plays the police officer [Kim Harper]. Because there’s a nice little scene where she comes into my home… and there are a few sort of tender moments there. And I remember when we filmed it on that day, we made a few discoveries, and so that was quite a nice experience. It would have been nice to have a bit more with her.

And then Kingsley [Marshall, played by Nicholas Pinnock] being my nemesis—we never get to share the screen… Even if it was a flashback scene, that might have been quite nice, because it adds to the whole story and the backstory and some of the motivations that the characters have.

Fightland airs Fridays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on Starz and streams on the Starz app. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Starz.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.