Badge Dale on Rubicon: 'The Middle of the Road is Not Good Enough'

What was it like to play a character in a conspiracy theory that isn't actually rooted in science-fiction, like many other shows of this ilk?

To be quite honest with you, I'm still playing it. We're shooting the last episode now -- this week. It's grounded in reality. The thing for us is that we've created our own world. It's kind of a cross between 2010 meets 1974. Because we've created our own world, we can kind of hold up a mirror to our world and what's going on today. To be able to work on material that's grounded in reality and not dealing with science-fiction aspect. It's pretty cool -- I think it's a strength of the show.

Are you prepared for the level of scrutiny this type of show invites? Like people coming up to you on the street and saying, "You have to tell me what the clover means?!"

I'm never prepared for people to come up to me. I'm a private person. I hope people enjoy it. If you can find me, good luck, dude. [Laughs]

You mentioned the '70s before and Rubicon does feel like those '70s conspiracy thrillers like The Conversation...

Man, that's a great movie! Three Days of the Condor is one of my favorite movies. I actually had a little talk with Robert Redford -- I did a movie he directed last year (The Conspirator) -- and we talked about Three Days of the Condor and All the President's Men and how they did it and why they did it and the difference between then and now. I'm very familiar with those films. What I didn't want to get into was watching those movies as research and then starting to kinda copy them. Which you can do subconsciously.

Rubicon is the third dramatic series from AMC after Mad Men and Breaking Bad -- how has it been working with them as a network?

They're kind of like those parents: You can be whatever you want to be, you can do whatever you want to do. They're not scared. They're not operating out of fear. That allows us to do what we're hired to do -- which some days, I don't know what that is -- but, they're very supportive. We want to do something different, we want to take a risk. If we fall on our face, fine, so be it. The middle of the road is not good enough -- especially when we're following up shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad, which have taken risks and succeeded. They have their own voice. We have to take a stab at our own voice.

So like you said, you're filming the finale of season one right now. Without spoiling, do you think this show lends itself to further seasons?

This is a tricky one, because you get a little superstitious about this. I don't want to talk about that -- whatever -- second thing that might be out there. I don't want to get ahead of myself. What I know is that we are shooting this last episode now, we're finishing this first season and it will be the strongest story that we can make it. And that's... [long pause] I don't want to get into the future of this. I feel like once it comes out of my mouth, I will jinx it.

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