Christopher Gorham on How ‘Insatiable’ is a ‘Cautionary Tale’ [Exclusive Interview]

Soon to be released, Insatiable follows the story of a disgraced attorney who has become a beauty pageant coach. His newest client, Patty, has a goal of vengeance that could wreak havoc on the world and her bullies.

I recently had the chance to speak with actor Christopher Gorham, who opened up about his role in the Netflix original.

Gorham started off by describing his character: “I play a district attorney, whose name is Bob Barnard. He’s the antagonist to Dallas Roberts’ Bob Armstrong. So, whereas Bob Armstrong has recently been disgraced as an attorney, Bob Barnard is fully embraced and adored by everyone, which drives Bob Armstrong absolutely bananas.”

He went on to say, “My character is essentially a peacock. He craves attention.”

Dovetailing off his observations on Barnard’s desire for attention, the conversation turned to the current controversy surrounding Insatiable.

“I’ve seen only a little bit of what people are talking about. Apparently, some people are upset about the trailer, but it seems to me they’ve misunderstood the trailer,” Gorham stated.

“Because what part of the story is, is this girl who has been overweight, and has been mercilessly bullied by the other kids, loses the weight and is enraged by the fact that now everyone is treating her differently. In fact, it’s so drastic that people don’t even recognize her and don’t believe she’s the same girl,” he continued.

“It’s the fact that these people are so superficial, that people can be so awful, is what makes her want to get revenge on them. It’s not really one of those stories of the fat girl getting skinny, and then everything’s magic. It’s not that at all.”

Gorham even went so far as to give a bit of advice to anyone who has seen the trailer and is on the fence about the show.

“I would encourage folks who have seen the trailer and are concerned about it to watch the show. I think you’ll be very happy. The creator of the show is not some old man who is objectifying young girls. The creator of the show [Lauren Gussis] is a woman, an incredibly talented, smart female writer coming from Dexter.”

He continued to sing praises of the show and Gussis:

“She has created a character who is essentially herself. And she’s writing about experiences that she actually went through. It’s hyper-real, and it’s written as a satire. It’s fun and crazy, and insane. But the emotional truth there is all very true and centered in reality. It’s not just catty story. Every character has a hole inside them they’re trying to fill. It’s a wild ride.”

Gorham even added his take on what he hopes the audience gets from this very real, very important story.

“I hope that they get that this is a cautionary tale of what happens when you believe being thin is going to fix everything. This is a story that is putting bullies on notice. It’s fun; it’s emotional, and I think in many ways going to be completely unexpected.”

“This show in many ways is trying to talk about these very sensitive hard to talk about things. Which is why Lauren [Gussis] chose satire as a way to do that. Because sometimes really difficult things to talk about are easier to chew when you’re dealing with it in a comedic setting,” he said.

He had one final thing to say about the controversy: “Look, nobody involved in this show has any interest in shaming anyone except for the bullies that are making the rest of us feel bad about ourselves.”

From there the conversation turned to The Magicians. His character is only in three episodes but has a profound impact on the story.

Gorham was excited to turn the conversation to this recent endeavor, “I’m a fan of that show. I’ve seen every episode, and I was thrilled that they asked me to be a part of it. I love how subversive they can be. My favorite thing about my character is that he was essentially ‘white privilege’ personified.”

“This is a successful United States senator who truly believed he had climbed the rung of success all by himself; he pulled himself up by his bootstraps [and] was a self-made man. Only to find out that in fact all along he’d had this incredible, in the case of this show, supernatural advantage.”

“When he was made aware of that, it really rocked his world. And he, to his credit, went about looking to make that right in the best way he knew how. I thought that was really interesting,” Gorham added.

“There were some challenging emotions, [which] are always tough when you’re coming in, and you just don’t have the history with the character. It’s a brand new character to me and to the show. He goes through this massive, massive emotional arc that really wraps up in about 12 scenes or three episodes,” Gorham said.

Gorham continued to elaborate on the challenges of being John Gaines.

“The world of politics is not typically where that world goes. So having all the magic kids show up at a Senate office is kind of outside what that show usually does. Helping to bridge those two worlds and then making you care about this guy in such a short amount of time, it’s challenging.”

Discussing the love Gorham has for each character he plays actually brought the conversation to his experience with directing.

“A lot of actors end up wanting to see how it feels behind the director’s chair because we love what we do. When you’re directing you have so much more responsibility. You help to tell the story.”

While he had some early experience directing Funny or Die shorts, Gorham credits his time on Covert Affairs as really getting him some experience behind the camera. He talked about how he asked to be given opportunities when they shot the pilot.

“I didn’t really wait for them. I just kinda started showing up at production meetings and started shadowing other directors that I’d worked with before. So finally I talked the network, USA network, into letting me go along on one of our international shoots as a documentarian, basically.”

“I was shooting stills and behind the scenes video as Covert Affairs went from Venice to Berlin and then Stockholm. They created a whole website around that stuff. Then next year, they let me direct the webisodes. Then later that season, I did my first episode. I ended up directing 3 episodes of Covert Affairs,” Gorham stated.

Finally, Gorham opened up about who inspires him the most right now.

“Right now, I think my dad is a big inspiration. He has nothing to do with the arts. He’s an accountant. But, he’s dealt with physical issues. He got in a bad accident when I was six months old, a brain injury.”

“He ended up opening his own practice. He started his own business; built his own business, and then a couple years ago, he had a stroke. Then fought his way back from that and has continued to work. He’s 73 now and still working. He still loves going to work, and he values the importance of hard work.”

You can catch Christopher Gorham in the upcoming Netflix Original Insatiable, available to stream August 10th.

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