From creator David Appelbaum, the NBC fantasy adventure series La Brea explores what happens when a massive sinkhole opens in the middle of Los Angeles, pulling hundreds of people into it and separating the Harris family. While Eve (Natalie Zea) and son Josh (Jack Martin) are in a strange and dangerous primeval land, Gavin (Eoin Macken) and daughter Izzy (Zyra Gorecki) are left searching for answers in the hopes of somehow finding a way to reunite.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Macken talked about why he wanted to do a crazy adventure series, why La Brea reminds him of Indiana Jones, bonding with co-star Gorecki in Australia, the huge character progression Gavin has by the end of the season, figuring out the purpose of the visions, being part of an ensemble where half of the cast is separated at the bottom of a sink hole, and what would most surprise viewers about making this show.

Collider: When this came your way and you learned that there was an opportunity to be a part of telling the story about a massive sink hole that opens up in Los Angeles, was that an immediate yes, or did you hold out until you found out that your character also has visions?

EOIN MACKEN: I could do the crazy adventure stuff and also be the crazy guy. It was both, actually. I really wanted to do something like this. It was really exciting and I enjoyed reading it because I didn’t know what was gonna happen next. Especially in the last 12 to 18 months to two years, I always read fantasy, sci-fi and adventure stuff – that was always my thing – but more and more, I found myself wanting to do it. And then, with this character, even though he’s definitely on the edge and he could be a little bit crazy, you feel for his humanity. I don’t have kids, but I was interesting about playing a father. I felt the dynamic he has with his kids, and Izzy in particular, was really interesting. I thought that would be a challenge, but also be really enjoyable to experience and go deep into.

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Image via NBC

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This is a show with a wild concept, but do you see it as a family drama because it does have this family at its core and at the heart of it, or do you always have to keep in mind that bigger concept that it’s set in?

MACKEN: It’s a family drama. It reminds me of Indiana Jones, with Harrison Ford and Sean Connery and how the main thing was their father-son relationship. That was the thing that kept the story going. This type of show only works if you care about the characters and about that family arc. That allows the rest to just happen all around them. You can’t even fathom what’s happening, so you’re just along for the ride and the most important thing is just grounding it in that connection with Zyra [Gorecki]. We have this journey throughout the whole show and, from our point of view, that’s what gave it a grounding and also what carries it through.

This is a family that clearly has a history, but they’re already separated when we meet them. And then, they’re really separated by the sink hole. Did you guys get to do any bonding prior to shooting this, to figure out what that family dynamic is since you’re coming into it with this history that we don’t fully get to see?

MACKEN: We did. We got to Australia and myself and Zyra hung out a little bit. I hung out with her and her mom. Luckily, because Melbourne went into a lockdown maybe a month and a half after we started shooting. Myself and Zyra went off and we saw some kangaroos and some koalas. It’s really important, especially with this type of relationship, that you trust each other and know each other, so we hung out a bit. When we were on set, we had a very easy understanding of each other. Honestly, she’s so easy to work with because she’s not just super cool and super chill, but she’s very, very talented. We had a very easy dynamic. That just made it fun.

Who is this guy, at the start of the series, and how big of a progression will we see from him this season?

MACKEN: It’s actually a huge character progression, which I found really, really enjoyable, but also, it was very emotionally taxing and very difficult because he is the only person who believes and understands what’s actually happening. He has to be the driving force of trying to save his family and try to figure out this mystery. Especially at the start, with trying to find that balance between how crazy he is or not, what’s really interesting and what’s really clever that what (creator) David [Appelbaum] wrote with this show is that he’s balanced by his daughter. He’s not able to go off the deep end on his own too much because she pulls him back. He has to be aware of her presence and he has to be aware of her emotionally, so he can’t be too selfish. He’s gotta balance the possibility that everything he’s seeing, that’s turned his whole life upside down, is real, and now, he’s also looking after his daughter. In theory, they’ve also lost her mom and her brother, and he can’t allow her to be on her own, dealing with that grief, just because he thinks that it hasn’t happened. He’s not sure. It’s a really interesting, complex dynamic to play, for sure.

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Image via NBC

It’s one thing to be a guy that has visions, but it’s another thing to know what to do with those visions or how they might be useful. Is he going to start to figure out how he could actually do anything with this knowledge that he has?

MACKEN: Yeah, that is the driving force of what he has to do in the season. He’s trying to figure out what he can do and also figure out who can actually help him. He’s not a magician who’s making this happen. Izzy and Gavin have to go on this adventure together to try to put the clues together and figure out what can be done. Even if he’s the key to it, it doesn’t necessarily mean being that he can just go and snap his fingers. He has to convince everybody else around him that what he’s seeing is real. It becomes this constant chase to search and try to put all of the pieces together and convince everybody, at the same time as himself and Izzy, while looking after her.

It’s also really interesting that your character started to have visions before this sink hole and not because of it or after it. Is that also going to matter?

MACKEN: When I read the pilot, I wasn’t sure what was happening at the end of it and I needed to know what was going to happen next. And I’ve felt that with every single episode of the show. So, it all starts to make sense, but it’s a really interesting journey. I can’t tell you what I wanna tell you because I don’t wanna ruin it, but with every episode, I was like, “Oh, that’s what’s happening. This all makes sense.” It was really interesting because as the character is figuring things out, I was also learning and figuring things out. I was on this journey with this guy, all the way through as well. If you told me what was gonna happen at the end of Episode 10 at the start, I would have been like, “That’s crazy.” But as it goes on, things become less crazy because you get used to it, and then you take the next step. You’re like, “Okay, we’re here now. We’ve figured this out.” It’s a really interesting story that keeps developing.

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Image via NBC

Is the fact that these visions started first something that’s important?

MACKEN: That’s incredibly fundamental to a lot of stuff that’s happening, yeah. The fun of that sci-fi and adventure stuff is that it’s always somebody who’s not believed and is not being trusted. If you saw an alien walk across the street, who are you gonna tell? Who would believe you? It’s an interesting concept when a character know something, but can’t prove it and nobody else believe it because nobody else has seen it either.

Were you given any of those answers in the beginning, when you signed on for this? Did you have anything to work from?

MACKEN: No, but it was fun that way. For me, once you know what your character’s history is in that present moment, this was the most fun acting experience. Once you know where you are, you exist and the world that happens, you’re going on that adventure. It was instructive to not know what was gonna happen. I didn’t know what Gavin knew and I didn’t know what was real and wasn’t real. I had to figure out what his situation was and ground him in that, and then just trust David in going on that adventure.

Were you personally making a lot of guesses and were the actual answers anything close to what you thought could be happen?

MACKEN: The stuff that happens, I would never have guessed at all. I would read the script and go, “Oh, okay, that’s happening. That’s not what I thought it was gonna be.” It’s far more complex and genuinely interesting then you think, initially.

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Image via NBC

Do you have a sense of where things could be headed, in future seasons?

MACKEN: I do now. By the end of Episode 10, I did, yeah. Once you put the puzzle pieces together, it all starts to make sense.

Is it something that you think will surprise viewers?

MACKEN: I didn’t know what was gonna happen from episode to episode. I genuinely didn’t, and that’s what was really cool about it. You felt like you were being taken on this journey by David and the scripts, every few weeks, so I hope everyone gets that same experience.

How often were you having to do stunts or really physical sequences and how much are you reacting to things that aren’t there versus practical stuff that is there?

MACKEN: You get a stuntman, and some of the stunt guys I’ve worked with are absolutely phenomenal. With this, I try to do as much stuff myself as I can. There was a lot of practical stuff. They kept things as practical as possible, which I like. With the green screen stuff, it always helps when you’re already grounded in the relationship with the actors that you’re working with because that keeps it real.

How odd is it to be part of an ensemble series when half the ensemble is on the surface and the other half is at the bottom of a sink hole? Is it weird to know there’s this whole cast that you can’t actually be in scenes with, at least at this point?

MACKEN: Yes, we would joke about that often, about the fact that sometimes you never get to have scenes together. We’d be like, “Are we on the same show together?” That’s what was really different about the show. You’re not sure when you’re gonna connect, who’s gonna end up doing scenes together, or how the two worlds are gonna intersect. Luckily, we all got to hang out a bit before the lockdowns happened, which mitigated some of that.

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Image via NBC

Because this is such an interesting father-daughter dynamic, how will this experience affect things between Gavin and Izzy? How different will their bond be, by the end of the season?

MACKEN: From my point of view, the most fundamentally important thing is the father-daughter relationship between Gavin and Izzy. Because he’s been estranged from his family and she’s the one still giving him the benefit of the doubt and trusting him, he has to look after her and be a father to her. He also has to learn how to see that she’s maturing and she’s an independent individual herself, and he has to trust her. The two of them end up going on this journey together. He’s been doing stuff on his own and following his own crazy thoughts and doing everything solo, and then he realizes that he can actually do this with his daughter. He has to protect her, at the same time as being caught up in whatever journey he is currently putting the pieces together and trying to fix and solve, while also making sure that she’s okay.

What is it like to make a show like this? What would most surprise people about how this show is made and what the biggest challenges are, in doing something like this?

MACKEN: The scale of it. We had two units running all the time. We had this huge crew. The producers and the crew did an incredible job. There were so many people working on this because it’s massive. To create something like this, to make it epic, to keep it interesting, to give all the characters a grounding, and then to make it look and sound the way it did, it’s a massive production. The crew we had in Australia were just incredible. That’s the thing that people don’t understand sometimes, just how many people are involved to make this the way it is.

La Brea airs on Tuesday nights on NBC.