'The Sinner' Season 3: Ambrose's 'steady voice' was good-cop counterpart Vic, says actor Eddie Martinez
'The Sinner' Season 3 focused on the inexplicable bond between Jamie Burbs (Matt Bomer) and Nick Hass (Chris Messina), who brought life to an intricate love for death and darkness by accepting one's inherent impulses to kill and face death in the eyes. But lying under the layers of Jamie and Nick's friendships was another bond between two other main characters that while bordering along the lines of your classic buddy cop dynamics, also highlights the need for a fine line between the bad cop's reckless abandon and the good cop's steady voice.
Bill Pullman brings his A-game into playing the stoic and reserved Harry Ambrose, taken once again by the curious motives of a murderer, while Eddie Martinez brings that balance into the job execution by being Ambrose's voice of reason — Vic Soto, even when the older detective's impulses get too risque.
"It plays against my type," Martinez sets it straight right at the start in a casual chat with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW.) "I was excited to play a detective who was a good, honest cop."
He elaborated on what drew him to the USA Network anthology horror that spins new tales of twisted murders revolving around Ambrose as the prime detective on the case. Vic meets Ambrose when the latter's move to the quaint town of Dorchester is marked by the mysterious murder of Nick. And right from the start, it is Vic countering Ambrose's questionable methods of investigation with his own idealistic articulation of the job. The other thing going for Martinez was of course how the show "takes a departure from traditional detective shows of whodunnit, and delves more into the psychological and philosophical factors of why seemingly normal people are driven to commit crimes."
Martinez prepared for the role of a detective with such an active moral compass by asking a law enforcement acquaintance "a lot of questions, specifically about small-town police departments" along with rewatches of The Sinner's previous seasons. But when it came to being the brotherly confrontational figure to Ambrose, especially dabbling in the pivotal all-consuming darkness that the characters are plagued by, Martinez didn't find it all that hard.
"It wasn't hard for me because Vic is sort of like the steady voice," the actor said. "Ambrose has an unconventional way of solving cases. He's sort of like an old-timer, loner guy. And so it's Vic's intention or goal to learn as much as you can from him and to be able to work with him to work on this case. Detective Ambrose is not very open to it, but I think little by little through fixed persistence, he gets a little change of heart and will," Martinez adds about the growing bond between the two characters.
The biggest distinguishing trait between the two detectives is highlighted from Vic's praises for Ambrose after he finally gets Jamie arrested, and Ambrose continuing to deflect all compliments. Despite having his reservations about this older, unconventional detective, even when Vic opens his arms wide for an exchange of admiration, Ambrose is still to restrained to let him in. And despite the older cop's walls, Vic is able to break through them, because as Martinez claims, Vic has seen a lot more and a lot worse than Ambrose. So, as the younger, but wiser cop, Vic is able to "inch his way in to gain Ambrose's confidence," thus sparking off brilliant chemistry between the two actors.
"It was a great experience," Martinez recounts, acting opposite the likes of Pullman and Bomer. "It was easy to play off of them because they were such nice guys," he adds, continuing: "You can see them. They're there. They hold their presence. Even when the camera is not on them, when it's on your side, they're there. They're still there giving you a lot to play off, which is good because not everyone's like that."
'The Sinner' wrapped its Season 3 with its finale 'Part VIII' on Thursday, March 26, on USA Network.