EXCLUSIVE | 'Big Dogs' star Michael Rabe says show's 'closeness to reality' was not something he was expecting
Based on the books by Adam Dunn, Amazon Prime's 'Big Dogs' is a dark and grim what-if scenario, where law and order has broken down, crime is rampant and the economy has collapsed. In the middle of all this, police officers Santiago (Manny Perez) and his new partner Everett More (Michael Rabe) have to crack down on a nefarious drug network.
Speaking to MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), Michael Rabe opens up about his role as More, the training he had to go through for the role, as well as his favorite moments from the show. Rabe says that he enjoyed playing the role of the brutal and quiet character More. "That was a very fun challenge. There's so much to him. I talked to Adam [Dunn], the writer, and a lot of it just kind of ended up building him, you know, through his history. What brings him to keep putting himself into scenarios that he ends up in situations."
According to Rabe, he had more to explore with More, as he stayed quiet for most of the season. "You know, without the voice, it allows you to do a lot. So kind of figuring out how he presents himself and how he moves and whatnot was a big part of that [understanding the role]."
On how he prepped for the role, Rabe says, "We got to do some weapons training and things like that. Trying to get as much familiarity with the many weapons and things that More is, you know, is super familiar with. And you've got to go to some ranges and do some training. So that was very, very fun for me. You know, it's so specific for people who are operating at that level, like how they move and how they hold a gun and their placement, body weight and all that stuff. So really trying to pin it down as much as possible. But we had good instructors and good stunt coordinators and stuff."
The storyline has several twists and turns throughout. Speaking about this, Rabe says, "The twists and turns definitely kept me on my toes reading through them. Adam sets up this whole world, but then just how the things unfold within it are continuously surprising and how they get around it and how they figure out what's really going on. It's pretty fascinating."
Rabe's favorite scenes involve his driving scenes with Perez. "So in the beginning, when Santiago is just really trying to figure out who on earth this person is who he's been paired with and why? He engages with two criminals and then More comes out of nowhere and handles them very quickly. And that scene was a lot of fun because it's the first kind of reveal that More is a little bit more than just your average police officer."
Rabe says that he never thought that the show would even slightly resemble the world of riots and pandemic that we are now living in. He says, "When we were working on it, it seemed very much, you know, something that could happen, but maybe in many more years. But, the closeness now is, certainly, was not something we were aware of at the time, I guess Adam was."
Talking about his upcoming projects, he says, "Well, I shot two episodes of Homeland that they've already aired. And then I work often in the theater, so it really, you know, trying to see what's going to happen in that world. Nothing is set yet. There's a movie where I play a Vietnam veteran."