If you don't know Michael Cristofer from Rubicon, you may be familiar with him as a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and occasional screenwriter (The Witches of Eastwick, The Bonfire of the Vanities). But if you do know Michael Cristofer from Rubicon, then he'll forever be Truxton Spangler -- the aloof, Corn Flakes-eating head of the American Policy Institute intelligence agency. Oh -- and also the guy who, in last week's episode, helped destroy the oil supply of the United States.
You should already know about the slow-building greatness of Rubicon, AMC's series about an intelligence team assigned to stop a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, last week, the team failed to stop an explosion of a Gulf rig that effectively ended the flow of oil into the U.S. for at least three months. Worst of all, API codebreaker Will (James Badge Dale) has discovered that his boss, Spangler, is behind the plot.
As we head into Sunday's finale, Movieline spoke to Cristofer about the origins and future of Truxton Spangler, the probability of a second season of Rubicon, and (yes, minor spoiler alert) what to expect in Sunday's finale.
About an hour ago Fed Ex showed up with the Rubicon finale, and it blew me away.
You've seen it? Then you know more than I do. [Laughs]
Well, let me tell you: This is 100 percent Truxton Spangler's episode. And he's not a very happy Truxton Spangler.
No, no. Well, it's a lot better than some of the earlier scripts. You know, this episode went through a lot of changes. We had, I think, four different scripts, and I shot four different versions of the last scene with Badge. So I'm not even sure which lines were in and which speeches were not, so I'm anxious to see it myself.
Well, Spangler, as always, has an air of invincibility to him.
There's always been an idea from the beginning that Truxton and those other guys -- like some of the neocons, like some of the Dick Cheney type guys -- although, objectively, they're doing pretty nefarious things, they think they're doing things for the good of the country. And it was something thematically that [executive producer] Henry [Bromell] and I spoke about that for a long time. But as it got close to resolving the plot, I felt that was being neglected, that idea. And it was all about greedy guys doing this to make money. So when we were doing the last scene, there were a couple of different versions of it.
Will there be a second season?
I haven't heard. I think they have to make a decision by the end of October. I believe that there's a deadline in terms of the show and Henry and everybody. So hopefully we'll hear soon.
What's your sense of the fan base? To me it seems like it's like a small but very loyal following.
Yeah, it's always hard to tell. Because when you're living in New York, what you get face-to-face with people is a lot of really, really intense fans and people who love the style of it. Some people complain about the slowness; some people really love the slowness. I think when Mad Men started it was a pretty small audience. So I don't know. I do feel when I try to read some of the stuff that's being said on some of the blogs, you do feel some people were annoyed with the show. But it feels to me people are really fond of what's been happening these last episodes.
And it's kind of reaches into the overall bigger problem with episodic television. When I look back on the first three or four episodes, I like them a lot more now than I did when I first watched them. The slow buildup is now appreciated. But when you first start, you can't say, "Stick with us, we promise there's a payoff." Or, if you make it non-stop action from day one, there's no payoff.
Exactly. If you remember the first episode of The Wire, it was OK. You could sort of take it or leave it. But if you weren't compelled by the detail and the characters, you probably wouldn't have stuck with it. Then when you find out, "Wow, look what I stayed with, this really was a monumental piece of work."
Did you know from day one that Spangler was the evil force behind the whole operation?
They did a wonderful job. When Henry took over the show, we didn't have any scripts when we started. We had two, I think, and that was it. So we were following the plot the same way as the audience was. We had no idea what was really going to happen to any of us.
And since this is running before Sunday's episode, we can't really discuss if anyone is killed in the finale or not.
No, that's right. Then you can talk about it after, I guess. And I guess they trust you not to do that because they wouldn't have sent you the screeners. Yeah, and after 13 episodes, I mean, people would be really pissed off at you. [Laughs]
That's true. See, no one really wants to know what happens. They might think that they do, but they really don't.
They really don't. That's exactly right.
If a fan of the show is headed into the finale, it's tough when it comes to Spangler's character. As a fan, you want Will to prevail. But Spangler's character is so great, you certainly want him back for a second season.
I'll tell you, when I got the script that had me ordering Will's murder, I thought, Oh, how can Truxton ever go on? How could he ever come back if there was a second season? Then I spoke to a few people and it was like, "It's the villain you do want." You do want him around because it makes it more interesting. What happened was they did a panel with people who had previously worked in American intelligence. Henry came away from that panel saying, "You know, these guys don't give a f*ck what you know about them or what they've done. They are untouchable." And I said, "Henry, that's what I've been telling you. I don't think that there's a way Truxton can lose. Because there's nothing he can't handle."
Here's what I love about Spangler: Even though he put a hit on Will, I feel Spangler was really sincere when he went down to thank Will for all that he's done up to that point ... even though he just ordered Will murdered.
I think that's true. I think that was in the writing and it's in the character of this man. I really do believe some of these great villains that are operating in our government, they are not vicious cartoon characters. They are people who believe that certain things must be done and they are the guys to do it. And if it means that someone dies or one government is overthrown or 500,000 people are murdered in some kind of civil war that's going on... so be it.
I love the scenes between you and Arliss Howard. Kale Ingram is one of the best characters on television.
I know, we have a great time with those, a great time. Pretty extraordinary and he does such a great job with it, too. But, I'm telling you, it's the writing. Probably one of the best written episodes, overall, was the episode where I go to Washington with Will. And, at the same time, the rest of that team is back in New York making a decision about the life of someone and some people and at the same time I'm...
Worried about Will's lack of a briefcase.
Exactly. And trying to get from the government the kind of privacy that allows us to make those decision about life and death with other people. It was such a well written thing. So well written. And look at that speech about the necktie. You don't get stuff like that.
When the original showrunner left, did that affect production or had the show not started shooting yet?
Initially, I was not in the pilot. My character was added by Henry when he took over, so Truxton didn't really exist in the pilot that was done a year and a half ago. When Henry took over they didn't interrupt production. It was at the point where they were rewriting the scripts. So the only thing that happened was that we started production with only two scripts. so each script was being written five days before we shot. And I don't know that the bible had been done; I don't know if they knew exactly. Because I know from my experience with Henry working on Truxton, we didn't know where it was going to go.
And in last week's episode the terrorist attack occurs causing an oil spill in the Gulf. Is that life imitating art or art imitating life?
This episode was written after. We shot that episode around July 19 or 20. Maybe it will happen next year, but the whole idea was that Truxton and these guys were working to get the country off its dependence on oil. And that's an interesting twist on the events of the plot.