During a recent interview for the Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, actor Tim Blake Nelson discussed his involvement in the upcoming Watchmen series for HBO.
He described how series creator Damon Lindelof first approached him about the character of Looking Glass, who wasn’t a part of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s original comic series:
I talked to [Lindelof] on the phone, and it was an evolving process for Watchmen, which in part is what makes Damon so interesting… I read it and I read my character, and I found him interesting, but one doesn’t want to leap into television without knowing where a character is headed. And Damon, frankly, said, ‘Well, I’m not sure about this guy and whether there’s going to be enough for you, to where you would want to play this role. I’m not sure that having you in this role would be gesturally right, in terms of the casting, with what I have in mind for him. You may be, in a sense, too big of a gun to shoot a fly.’ But then, he started thinking about it and he changed his take on the role. He said, ‘You know what, I really would like you to be a part of this. Here’s how I wanna enlarge the role. If you’ll trust me, then I’d really like you to come on board.’ What he had to say was certainly enough, but more importantly, the pilot script and what it seemed like he wanted to address with the show, which is way beyond your run of the mill comic adaptation, really intrigued me.
Nelson also used the words “absolutely right” in describing the tone of the series.
“I’ll only say that I haven’t encountered a false note. And I’ll also say that I’ve been allowed to color my own work, in a way that’s very specific to the world that I knew, growing up. That’s been great for me. It’s been really rewarding, and I very much appreciated Damon’s openness to that.”
This isn’t Nelson’s first comic book property; he previously appeared in Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk and Fox’s 2015 Fantastic Four.
