Amy Acker

Mark Valley is a versatile film and television actor, who is known equally for his comedic roles as for his dramatic performances. Known to audiences from this work on Fringe, Boston Legal, Keen Eddie and Pasadena, among others, he is currently playing Christopher Chance on the Fox action-drama Human Target.

Based on the popular DC Comics graphic novel, the full-throttle series is centered on a unique and mysterious private contractor/security expert/bodyguard hired to protect those in need. For Chance, each job is about one thing - saving his clients’ lives. When there is an unusual or imminent threat that can’t be solved through "normal" means of protection, he is hired to completely integrate himself into his clients’ lives and become the human target. Assisted by his business partner Winston (Chi McBride) and hired gun Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley), Chance puts himself directly in the line of fire, as he races against time to save his client.

In a recent interview, show star Mark Valley talked to IESB about how much fun he has making the action series and gave a few hints as to what fans can expect for the rest of the season.

Q: How much more of Christopher Chance’s history will viewers get to see this season?

Mark: The next episode, "Baptiste," is going to explain a little bit more about Chance’s past. Not much about his past with women, but it’s going to show more about his past. It’s a very intense episode. Lennie James from Jericho has come on to play Baptiste, who used to work together with Chance, at one time, and they’ve become arch nemeses. He is probably the most talented assassin who’s still out there working for hire. He and Chance come to blows in the episode called "Baptiste" and also in the finale.

Q: What else is in store for the season finale?

Mark: Well, in the season finale, Baptiste comes back. Amy Acker shows up and plays this one character who is very pivotal in Chance’s past, in that she was the catalyst for his ultimate change into becoming Christopher Chance. Lee Majors is in that episode. Armand Assante plays Chance’s old boss. That was fascinating. There are a couple of major confrontations there. He’s an interesting guy and a wonderful actor, and I’m just really excited that he’s on the show. And, Jackie Earle Haley and I have our first fight, even though it takes place in the past. You can see the roots of their relationship and why they have such a trusting bond.

Q: What other guest stars can viewers expect to see in the second half of the season?

Mark: There’s this litany of beautiful, talented women that have come on the show. Grace Park is in an episode called "Corner Man." Moon Bloodgood is in one. Leonor Varela was in "Sanctuary." She just came in and completely took on the character of this ex-revolutionary, who lives down in South America and who is an ex-lover of Chance. She was just fabulous. And, Emmanuelle Vaugier comes back in "Baptiste." She’s still an FBI agent, and Chi, Jackie and I figure out a way to enlist her help. Also, Autumn Reeser comes back as well. She has a recurring role on our show, and she was in the show about the building that blew up. She comes back to help us out.

Q: Will your lovely wife, Anna Torv, be guest starring, at any point?

Mark: Oh, Fringe just got picked up for another season, so probably not. You’d have to ask her, but I’d think she’s probably pretty busy with Fringe.

Q: When did you realize that you had lightning in a bottle, with the chemistry between you, Jackie Earle Haley and Chi McBride?

Mark: I got the script first and I was the first one cast. I think we all realized that we had something pretty amazing when we were shooting the pilot in downtown Vancouver, at the very end of the episode. It wasn’t the end of shooting, but it was the end of the episode. The three of us are rarely together in any episode, but in this instance we were. We were getting ready to set up a shot and we were all sitting in the back, in our chairs, and the three of us started talking, as actors do, and just realized, "My God, we all come from completely different places, in terms of parts of the country and experience in the industry and so forth, but the three of us just clicked." The thing that I liked about both of them is that I was just really curious about them and wanted to get to know them better and thought both of them were really interesting. The three of us had that feeling about each of us, which is cool and rare. And, I think that shows up on the screen and makes viewers wonder, "How did they meet up? How did they come together? What is their history?"

Q: Was part of the attraction of this show the fact that you get to do a different type of story, with every episode?

Mark: Yes, that’s what attracted me to it. It was obvious that each episode was going to feel like a movie. It was going to be a lot of work with the director, putting a show together in pretty intense circumstances. And, it’s something that hasn’t really been done in a while, if not ever before.

Q: How much of a daredevil do you allow yourself to be? What are some of the more outrageous adventures that you’ve taken?

Mark: I haven’t quite done as much of that as Chance has. I’m a little more into taking calculated risks. I like to mountain climb and, the better prepared you are, the safer it is. I don’t just run out and climb a mountain with a T-shirt on. That would be kind of foolhardy. There are some inherent risks with mountaineering, but I generally like to be well-prepared. I have parachuted. I did it in the Army, and I also did it, trying to get my certification to parachute down in Paris Island. I did it a few times, and that was pretty exciting, but for the most part, I’d say that now the biggest risk I take is probably, every once in a while, forgetting to put my seatbelt on. That’s about the limit of it right now.

Q: How much has your military training helped you with acting, especially with this show?

Mark: It’s funny because they lay out all these weapons and they talk about the ammunition and its effectiveness, and we worked with weapons in the Army, but it’s actually something you can pick up pretty quickly. I’d say there are other aspects of it that are similar. The hand-to-hand fighting, I learned a little bit of in the Army. And, boxing and wrestling, and that sort of thing. But, for the most part, it’s working as team under extraneous circumstances with a limited amount of time to get something done. That’s probably the biggest experience I got from the Army that applies to this job. We’re really making a movie in eight days, and that’s an awful lot of work that has to be done. So, it’s that teamwork and camaraderie that I experienced in the Army, that seems to be showing up again here in this show.

Q: So far, Chance has had cases in L.A., Canada, the Russian Embassy, an airplane and South America. Is there anywhere in particular that you’d like to see him travel next?

Mark: I would like to see Chance go to Paris. I’d like to see him go to London. We do go to London in one episode. What else? Africa would be an interesting place. There are all kinds of places he could go. Somewhere down South, maybe Texas. I’d love to do an episode that was a quasi-Western, in some way. That would be interesting. There’s Vietnam and all these other places in Asia that he could go. There’s things going on in China. That would be interesting. You name it. There’s the second season. Also, the cool thing about this cast and the writers we have is that maybe they could even write an episode that takes place inside a contained area, like the airplane episode. We really didn’t go anywhere for that. That all took place inside the fuselage of an airplane. Maybe we’ll do something like that again as well.

Q: What were some of the acting challenges you found, when you first stepped into this role?

Mark: It’s funny, when I first read the script, it is based on a comic book character and there are certain things that comic book characters can get away with that regular actors can’t really do, that’s that believable. One is to hold a pose for a long period of time, like to look concerned as if you’re in a comic book. It had the feel of a comic book, so there was a challenge of trying to find a way to bring a real person into that. It wasn’t written in any sort of hyper-reality. John Steinberg’s writing has a very casual thing that can exist in it, so it’s not that hard to do it because it’s not complete melodrama. The biggest challenge was reading it and enjoying it, like it could have been a comic book, and then thinking, "Okay, wait a second, this is me now? How am I going to do this? It’s hard to explain, but that was a challenge, along with picturing all the other people who could do better at it and thinking, "I’m going to do this? Wait a second. I think the guy in the comic book looks better." But, I’m enjoying it.

Q: How have you seen Chance grow and develop in the episodes you’ve shot, so far?

Mark: Well, personally, the way I’ve grown is that I’ve become much more comfortable with some of the action and fighting scenes, and the way Chance’s relationship with the other characters is starting to become a little bit more clear. His relationship with Jackie and with Chi is becoming a little bit more clear to me. I’d say that Chance is starting to come to terms with his past. He made a big change in his life about 6 to 8 years prior to the present, and the reality of why he made that choice and the repercussions that it’s going to have is starting to come back to him, so essentially his baggage is starting to arrive. And, Chance is having to open up some old wounds and some old changes that he went through, just to see exactly how that affects him now.

Q: Do you feel like Human Target has found its groove? Was there a particular moment for you, when you felt like it really clicked?

Mark: I think when it really clicked for me was probably the episode "Rewind," where we didn’t have a lot of locations and we didn’t have a lot of big set pieces going on. It all took place in an airplane that was broken down, and Chi and I were in the same location shooting, which was cool. I think that episode ended the pace that we came up with and that we realized we could work at. It was the second or third episode we did. The pace that we came up with and the shorthand that we all developed with the crew, the cameras and the actors was pretty amazing. And then, we realized, "Oh, wow, this is what we can do. We can make a movie in eight days." That was probably the one point where I realized, "Oh wow, we’ve got something here."

Q: Did you have a vision for what you expected the show to be, when you first came on board, and has it lived up to that?

Mark: I didn’t have a pretty clear vision of how it would be. I’d been on shows before that have been new and, with this one, not only is the show new, and Chi and I are new to this genre, even the show runners are new to this. So, I went into it with an open mind, thinking how it would come together was going to be exciting, and it has been. It is a collaboration where everybody’s influence is heard, felt and reacted to, and the end product is something that everybody feels a part of. I think it’s exceeded any expectations. I’m not quite as exhausted as I thought I would be.

Q: How do you balance the comedy and drama on the show, particularly in your performance?

Mark: I really love to fine the light moments. A lot of it depends on the scene and the person you’re working with, and where the jokes can come in or where it seems appropriate or not appropriate. And, of course, there’s the way the scene is written as well. Maybe it’s my background on a soap opera, where there were no jokes at all. It was all just complete melodrama and I wanted parts of it to be funny, so I just remember searching and combing through the script and saying, "Well, there’s this moment or that moment." I was just so hungry for something to be funny that I developed a perceptive eye for it.

Q: What’s it like to play a lead character when you don’t have all the pieces of the background? Is that more difficult for you?

Mark: It’s definitely easier to have some of the pieces. It’s definitely somewhat of an advantage to have a little more of an idea because, as actors, we do create characters and things in our imagination, but ultimately we’re an interpretive artist and we’re interpreting what the writers have created. Some people will say that doesn’t matter. They think, "If it’s not in the script, it doesn’t really exist, so don’t make a big deal about it." But, television is a little bit different. It would be nice to know ahead of time because then maybe I could plan a scene or have that in mind, if this might have happened before, but it’s pretty exciting to find it out as you go along, with the rest of the viewers. So, not only are you working on a show and acting in it, but it’s also fun to be experiencing it as a viewer and finding out things as they reveal themselves.

Q: Did you model Chance on any particular character or actor?

Mark: There’s this coterie of characters that I’ve played that I could draw on for Chance to use. Sometimes I have and sometimes I haven’t done that, to any meaningful effect. Sometimes I think, "How would I act, if I were in these circumstances, and if I could be whoever I wanted to be? How would I deal with it?" I use that. I could go back and watch Die Hard or Indiana Jones and you see certain moments that could influence the character. Or, watching Lee Majors on The Six Million Dollar Man. You never really know because here are so many different influences. I base it, in some ways, on a friend of mine that I knew when I was in the Army. I knew one guy who had this attitude. Those are things that go into the mix when I first start building a character, and then it gets on its own feet and moves along.

Q: Have there been any particular scenes that didn’t come across quite the way you thought they would?

Mark: No, but there was a scene that did probably come off the way I thought it would, which is the one with the spider in the back of the wagon. I didn’t think it was funny when we did it, and I don’t think it’s funny now. I just don’t think the spider gag worked. Other scenes that have turned out differently was the one with Jackie Earle Haley that I had the other night, where there’s a real important flashback to a scene between Chance and Guerrero, where they’re almost fighting each other to the death, and you find out a lot about their past and that relationship. That scene ended up being much more intense, but moving than I imagined it to be.

Q: Is there any particular topic that you would like for your character to delve into, in a future episode?

Mark: I think what the writers are coming up with is fine. I like getting a script and getting a fresh idea laid out on the desk, and I just dig into it and take it from there. I’d say no, there’s really nothing that I’d like Chance to do. Maybe a little more jujitsu instead of all this kicking and punching. Maybe a little more wrestling. Oh, and I want to learn how to fly a helicopter. That would be interesting.

Q: Because the show is very different, how much of the comics did you actually read, in preparing for the role?

Mark: I read about four or five of the original DC comics, and then I read all of the Vertigo graphic novel ones.

Q: Do you think the master-of-disguise aspect is ever going to make an appearance?

Mark: Nobody’s ruled it out. Nobody’s left it out there. I know John Steinberg’s attitude was like, "Let’s start the show where you get to know the central character, before we start dressing him up and having him come out as Dabney Coleman." That was his idea. Chance does have an aptitude with languages and my theory with that is he doesn’t use any more than is necessary. He doesn’t wear a mustache or glasses, or anything if it’s not really necessary, and he doesn’t really become that other person unless it’s absolutely necessary to do that. He’s been able to get away with it by playing somebody close to them or somebody near them because those rubber masks can get really warm. So, that was an adaptation, but that doesn’t rule it out. I look sort of like Thomas Jane. If that show on HBO doesn’t work, I could be him from a distance.

HUMAN TARGET airs on FOX