Thandie Newton Allows Fans Into The Mind Of Her New 'Rogue' Character [EXCLUSIVE]

When you’re an actress who’s appeared in a number of Oscar nominated films, people expect you to have some sort of arrogant demeanor. For actress Thandie Newton, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. When you first go to meet her, she’s busy chatting it up with her fellow cast mates. Newton  greets them with hugs with all of the might her petite frame can muster. You seat yourself in a quiet room to set up for the interview and before you can even get your thoughts together, she breezes in with a warm smile and that pint-sized case of nerves you had melt away.

Thandie Newton and I fell into an easy conversation about her new gritty cop drama “Rogue” which premieres April 3rd at 9pm exclusively on DirecTV. The versatile Newton plays Grace who is a morally and emotionally tormented undercover cop mourning the death of her son who may have been killed by someone she’s investigating. As she throws herself into finding her young son’s murderer, she begins to lose control of her marriage, relationship with her daughter and her own life. Adding to the chaos is Jimmy Laszlo, the head of a crime syndicate who suspects that someone wants him dead. Together, they embark on a journey riddled with deception, shocking revelations and murder.

Come along as Thandie Newton discusses how “Rogue” reflects real life dynamics between men and women, the games people play to get what they want, and why she’s proud of her friend Kerry Washington.

TUD: Despite the men being in power positions on the show, it seems like the women are really the ones running things. What do you think about that?

TN: That’s interesting. I haven’t even thought about it like that. I think Leah, the woman who plays Cathy, she’s like a Lady Macbeth. She sort of turns screws in the background. It’s a lot like real life. Women wield a huge amount of power in the relationship and in the goings on of the family. But to say they have more power than the men on the show, I don’t know. The central role is a woman and I kick ass! I’m glad we see this person claiming her future and fighting for the justice of her family.

Even with your character and Jimmy’s relationship, despite him being the powerful and feared mob boss, your character is the one person who can stand up to him and not deal with the repercussions that might befall on someone else in his crew.

Absolutely. Well, you know a stranger can be your best friend. But that’s definitely set up as a bit of dramatic irony. The fact that the two of us end up needing one another just shows that an enemy can be the person you need to rely on. That’s at the heart of a lot of interesting dramas. If you dig a bit deeper and penetrate the surface, you actually discover the situation is very complicated. That’s one of the great things about “Rogue.” You just don’t quite ever know which side anybody is on.

Your character Grace seems to be running off of desperation to find the killer of her son. Does her desperation cloud her judgement?

It does cloud her judgement, but more so that’s how her family perceives it. They also don’t know what she’s doing because she doesn’t want to reveal to them what she’s doing. She can’t in the beginning because she’s a cop. When she’s no longer a cop, she doesn’t want them to know she’s not a cop because her family will stop her from doing it because it’s a very dangerous thing to do. So she ends up having to do everything in secret. That’s why it seems that Grace is doing something that contradicts what they want. When, in fact, if they knew she was trying to seek justice for their family member, they would support her all the way.

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Do you think her zeal for finding the killer is causing her marriage to deteriorate without her realizing it?

Yeah, but if you go one step further, the death of her son is deteriorating the marriage. It’s not that she’s trying to find the killer. It’s what happened in the first place–the death of her son. That’s at the root of a lot of problems in the world; it’s not that there is fighting but what caused the fighting.

It says that she’s very lonely and isolated and doesn’t know who she is. She does have a very conflicted identity. When she was on the job as an undercover cop, she was also a mother at home and the boundaries were very clear. But when she goes undercover without police protection, the boundaries between who she is and what she’s doing become very muddled. It becomes personal. That’s why she’s initially pulled off the case because the police don’t want her personal attachment to cloud her judgement. It’s not that her judgement is clouded, in terms of her motivation. She’s got to put herself in a more dangerous position because of her desire to find out what happened to her son.

Despite Grace and Jimmy being allies and needing each other, they’re still lying to each other about a lot of things. Why is that?

It’s a game that they’re both playing. It’s about trust. There are profoundly disturbed trust issues in the show. Risk also plays an enormous role in the storytelling. Everyone has something to lose at every point. It’s minute to minute decisions and split second decision-making and that’s what keeps the adrenaline pumping. It’s having to keep all of those balls in the air. That was something mentioned a few times when I talked to the show runner–how do we keep all of these balls in the air at the same time, but I think we manage it. And when you get to the tenth episode, you can’t believe the journey you’ve been on.

With your character being the central role of the show, why do you think Hollywood was so late with putting female centric dramas on television? It seems like after “Scandal,” a lot of shows are being produced with females carrying the show.

I’m sure there have been examples of dramas led by women, but I don’t see the benefit of thinking that it’s come too late because it is what it is. I’m just glad where it is now. I’m glad that I’m doing “Rogue.” It’s more important that we celebrate the successes of now and keep it going. In terms of Kerry Washington, she’s one of my girls. She’s a fellow actress and a friend. Empowering women is a huge motivation in our lives. So the fact that we’re both taking these TV shows and running with them, it doesn’t surprise me. It makes me very proud.

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