A quick word with former Fringe and Boston Legal star Mark Valley, who's now got a show to call his own with Human Target, in which he plays Christopher Chance, a bodyguard with some unusual methods.
Did you know you had action hero Christopher Chance in you?
I had no idea. I'm still not really convinced. I think it will take another season of Human Target for me to really take it in.
Is it a dream come true?
Sometimes I'll read the script and laugh to myself because I'll think, 'oh, my God, I don't believe it. I'm 12 years old. This is fantastic'. In that way the show's been extremely rewarding.
You served as a soldier in the first Gulf War. How did you switch to actor from that?
When I came back from the Gulf War it was a time in my life where I was mid-to-late 20s, thought I was probably too old to be an actor and thought to myself, "what would I really want to do with my life if life were a dream? What would I really like to do?" Then somebody asked me to be an extra on a film, and I remember meeting people and then in came Anthony Hopkins and he's like, "Hello, I'm Tony. How are you doing?" He did the scene and turned into a completely different person, and then the scene was over, he walked out, and everybody treated him like a general. I thought, "damn, I want that job".
Did your experience as a soldier help you on a show like Human Target?
Absolutely. In the army we did a lot of exercises where you're pretending you're shooting. You're doing exercises where you're storming a room or clearing it. So there's some of those tactical things that carry over.
There is a lot of mystery surrounding your character. What do you think is the mystery behind Chance?
I think he was a kid who grew up in the suburbs. He came from a broken home, but otherwise had a perfectly wonderful childhood. I think at a pretty young age he decided that for some reason he wanted to be a marine, but they said he was too young, so he decided he wanted to join the French Foreign Legion.
LOWDOWN
Who: Mark Valley as Christopher Chance
What: Human Target
Where: Wednesdays, 9.30pm on TV2
- TimeOut
