From Academy Award-winner Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker), the Apple TV+ original series Echo 3, tells the high-intensity story of what happens when scientist Amber Chesborough (Jessica Ann Collins) is kidnapped along the Colombia-Venezuela border. Acting very quickly, her brother Bambi (Luke Evans) and husband Prince (Michiel Huisman), both of whom are highly skilled in their military experience, set out to get her back, whatever it takes.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Huisman talked about how Boal was a huge draw for this project, training to play a special forces operator, having a military advisor on set to keep them in check if they weren’t authentic enough, biggest challenges of the shoot, and the key to understanding this character.

Collider: When you tell a story like this, is there anyone better to tell it with than (creator) Mark Boal? It seems like there is nobody that knows what they’re doing with this kind of story better than he does.

MICHIEL HUISMAN: Of course. It was a huge draw for me to this project, knowing that he was at the helm.

What’s it like to work and collaborate with him on something like this? Is he someone that you can always go to, if you have questions?

HUISMAN: Certainly. He’s very hands-on. I’d say he’s also fully committed and passionate about what he writes, and he knows what he wants. I would call the process of working with him a pretty intense experience.

When it comes to doing a project like this, do you have to mentally prepare for it, along with physically preparing?

HUISMAN: Yeah, but that’s hard to prepare for. The character required a lot of preparation for me because it was really a very different character from anything I’ve played before. Of course, with him being a special forces operator, it required a certain training, which I very much enjoyed and embraced. There were certain parts about this character that were very new for me, like the way he holds himself and moves. It felt an amazing opportunity to explore a new territory for me.

It’s one thing to train for a role, to look like you can use the gun that you’re holding or to show that you know how to move in a situation, but it seems like a whole other thing to portray an expert with the highest level of skill and training.

HUISMAN: Yeah.

Did you train throughout the production?

HUISMAN: Yeah, we trained throughout. We were very fortunate that Luke [Evans] and I were trained by Mitch Hall, a former Navy SEAL himself, and he really took us under his wing and stayed with us for the entire shoot. I wanted nothing less than to make him proud when it came to all those details and all those action sequences because I knew that, if he believes what I’m doing, only then is it right. I feel very fortunate that this is the kind of project where there’s a lot of appreciation for getting the details right. I think it’s very common on a movie set that there is a military advisor, so the director can ask, “What would you do?” And then, the advisor can say, “Well, you do this and this.” And then, the director can be like, “Yeah, okay, but that’s not gonna look good. Let’s not do that.” That doesn’t happen on a Mark Boal set. He enjoys getting those details right, and that’s very satisfying for me, as an actor.

Were there times that they had to tell you, “We’re not quite believing this”? How did they break that to you, if they had to tell you that it was looking real enough?

HUISMAN: If Mitch told me that it didn’t look real, he would not sugar coat that. He would just tell me it sucked, whatever I was doing, and that I should do what he told me to do. But it was an amazing opportunity. It’s funny, ever since, whenever I see something in a show or a movie that is action-driven, I can’t help but pay attention to those details. I’m thinking, “Oh, no, you’re holding it wrong,” or “That’s the old way of doing that. Nowadays, the latest trend is to put your hand there and use your thumb.” I enjoy digging into those details, and it was a real treat to be able to do that here.

It seems like this is the type of shoot that would’ve been exhausting for a movie, but you voluntarily signed on to do 10 hours of TV for this.

HUISMAN: Yes.

What were the biggest challenges in doing this shoot? Was there anything specific that you found most difficult or most challenging, and was it related to the outside environment or was it something you personally had to do?

HUISMAN: I think outside environment definitely was a big challenge. This show was almost entirely shot in Colombia on location. We never shot on a soundstage and there were no green screens. That, of course, gave the show so much, and it lent so much authenticity to it. But it also meant that I was often on set, especially when we were shooting in cities, looking around thinking, “Wait, are these extras next to me, or are these just locals running through the shot now? What’s happening here?” I think that’s also the feel that Mark likes for his projects and definitely wanted for Echo 3. It has this very tactile feel to it. It’s very hard to create that. It’s better to just let it happen, but that’s not easy.

What was it like to work with these directors, especially with them being from Latin America? Did they bring an insight with them that you found particularly helpful?

HUISMAN: I think so. They also had a flavor and a taste. Don’t forget that a big part of the show is in Spanish. It was just really such a gift that the directors that we worked with, those directors that you’re referring to, were also able to speak to our Spanish-speaking colleagues in Spanish. The majority of our crew was from Colombia.

What was the key for you, in understanding who this guy is? When you play someone like this, where both of these men are so driven, it’s hard to peel that away and figure out what’s underneath all of that. How did you figure him out? Was there something that was the key in really digging into that?

HUISMAN: I had a lot of conversations with Mark about the character and his backstory, and wherever there are holes in that story, it was up to me to fill in the blanks, so to speak. I also just really focused on the physical part of this guy because he is very connected to his body. A lot of these special forces operators are top athletes, so that was something that I really worked very hard on, during prep and throughout the shoot.

I trained way harder than I had ever done. One of the things that I learned from my research and from talking to our advisor is that a lot of these guys, on their days off, would not just train once a day. They would often train and do a couple sessions a day. I thought that was so intriguing. That never even crossed my mind. And so, on days off, I would often try that because I thought that would bring me closer to my character. I would start in a gym in the morning. I would run to the gym, work out, and then run home, have breakfast, relax, read a bit, watch an episode of something, and then jog to this pool where I would go for a 45-minute swim, and jog back. That is a whole different level of endurance. I felt like, if I did that, then physically, I would feel as if I was the strongest I’d ever been.

Echo 3 is available to stream at Apple TV+.