Owen Teague Talks ‘Bloodline’ [Exclusive Interview]

Actor Owen Teague doesn’t back down from a challenge.

Teague has had the unique opportunity to play two different roles on one show, the recently renewed Netflix original series, Bloodline. In Season 1, Teague joined the show as young Danny. He was then asked to return for Season 2 as a different character, Nolan Rayburn (Danny’s son).

I recently had the chance to speak with Teague about both of his roles on the binge-worthy series.

“It was really great. It was unexpected,” Teague said about being able to play two characters on Bloodline.

“I started with young Danny in the first season, and that was this very kind of small secretive… I didn’t really know what was happening in the show,” he continued.

“For the smaller characters, they don’t give out the whole script. They just give you your part, so you just see these little bits and pieces of the show. You have no idea what’s going on or what is happening in the rest of the show. I knew I was playing the flashback of Ben [Mendelsohn], but I didn’t know what Ben was doing, and so I was kind of in the dark for the whole thing.”

Teague described that role as being very physical, almost as if it were a stunt role.

“There’s a lot of water stuff, and there’s a lot of just being this physical character that had this traumatic situation. And they went back, and they filmed more and more of this one neat scene. As the season went on, we started with these little bits of the dad beating me up, and then we filmed more of it with the sister, and kind of just embellishing on this one little part of Danny’s backstory. But I really didn’t know what was going on,” Teague explained.

“Finally we wrapped Season 1, and I was all done. And that night I got a call from the casting director saying there’s this other role of the son,” Teague recalled.

“So I auditioned, and three days later they told me, ‘Hey, you got the part. We need you here tonight.’ The whole thing was like this kind of whirlwind.”

Teague was excited to be able to continue to work on Bloodline, especially since playing a second role isn’t exactly common. “I was very lucky that they took the risk that they did with hiring me not only for such a big character, but hiring me for that character when I had already been on the show as that character’s dad. It’s crazy,” he said.

And that’s exactly the sort of thing that makes Bloodline such a unique series.

“They love to do things the undone way. They love taking risks and changing things up. And it keeps the show really… it’s one of the things that makes it Bloodline. They don’t play by the rules.”

Something else that makes it unique is the fact that, “the plotline of the show is totally unknown throughout the entire series until it happens. Like until it’s written, nobody knows what’s going to happen.”

That fact presented a unique challenge for Teague as an actor. “There are things that happen in your character’s past that you won’t know about until mid-season. Which means that as actor, you have to kind of allow for those things to be written in as the story progresses — which can be scary at times,” Teague admitted. “They have the most amazing people doing the roles on the show, so they can get away with it.”

Bloodline really does have an incredible cast, and Teague was especially excited to be able to work with them.

“When I first auditioned for young Danny, the first name I saw attached to it was Sissy Spacek. She’s amazing. I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time. I mean, she’s just incredible. And so to get the chance to work with was like, ‘I have to do this role.’ And this was not even knowing about anybody else being in the show. And then as I started to find out who else was doing it, it was like ‘wow.'”

“Sam Shepard, I got to do one scene with him,” Teague continued. “To be able to work with him once in a one-page scene was just the most amazing experience.”

For Teague, working on Bloodline has also been a valuable learning experience. “It’s so important that you know who your character is and every little thing about them,” he said.

“The show is so specific with the character’s history, and how the character thinks, and takes information, and what they do — not only when they’re having family issues or dealing drugs or whatever, but when they’re just being people. You have to know every little thing, and that’s how you make those characters real. I don’t think I really got that as an actor before doing Bloodline.”

In addition to Bloodline, Teague is also currently working on a remake of a classic horror film. “Right now I’m doing It, the remake, which is really fun. I’m playing a very, very bad person,” he laughed. “It’s a small little role, but it’s just fun to get to be so awful. You don’t get to do that that much.”

You can catch Owen Teague on Bloodline, which currently available for streaming on Netflix.

 

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