Charlie Barnett is just as in the dark about Jack Hollingsworth as viewers are.
In NBC’s Line of Fire, Barnett plays Jack, the Hollingsworth son presumed dead who turned up very much alive at the end of the premiere. Barnett spoke exclusively with BLKCinema.com about playing a character shrouded in mystery, his tense scenes with Antoinette Crowe-Legacy’s Nia Wallace and what’s ahead as the season goes on.
Charlie Barnett on playing a mystery
Barnett said he had no idea how long Jack’s story would be drawn out when he signed on.
“It depends on the show, it depends on the people running it, it depends on the network, it depends on the studio, all the pieces that come into play. But a lot of times you don’t know when you’re walking into it,” Barnett said. “I had no idea that Jack was going to be drawn out this intensely or this deeply.”
Having worked in both broadcast and streaming, he said the slow burn is rare for network TV.
“I’ve done network television, and I’ve been in the HBO, Netflix, streaming spaces, maybe a little riskier kind of storylines. I’ve been in both worlds, and so many times in network, they just force things out. Push, push, push, get the story, get the relationship going, get it done,” Barnett said.
He pointed to Ross and Rachel on Friends as the kind of long build he misses, and said he’s grateful the show is taking that approach.
“As a person portraying life, that is so true. We go up and down and up and down until finally it happens,” Barnett said. “I am incredibly thankful to Josh, to Jenna, to Ben, to all of our producers, all of our creatives, all of our writers for taking a risk in this kind of venue and expanding a character this long and letting it be a slow burn.”
The slow drip of Jack’s story has its downsides, he joked.
“There definitely have been weeks when I’ve been sitting in my blank-wall apartment just being like, I need to act. Give me something to do,” Barnett said. “It gets terrifying to walk onto a set when you haven’t been doing anything for a week and you’re like, great, I have my one scene of this episode. I better not fail.”
Charlie Barnett on facing off with Antoinette Crowe-Legacy
Barnett said his showdown with Crowe-Legacy’s Nia pushed him to raise his game.
“Antoinette is a Yale-trained actor. She ain’t messing around. She showed up,” Barnett said. “There are some actors, I’ve heard this about Meryl Streep, Viola Davis is another one, where it just clicks. There’s no effort. The work has already been in place, the talent has already been built, the backbone has been structured. They just fly.”
“We luckily did coverage on Antoinette first, and let me tell you, when those cameras started rolling, I literally had to check myself. I was like, oh, I need to show up today. This is not a just-playing-around moment. She’s delivering work. I need to meet that,” he continued. “I love working with people like that, and she is the pinnacle.”
Is Jack Hollingsworth a villain?
Barnett said he fills in Jack’s motivations where he can, but the answer isn’t simple.
“A lot of the time, it’s a mystery, and I am just as lost as the audience is. You’ve got to fill in the blanks where you can, and you try to fill it in with the right choices, but if you don’t have the information, you don’t have the information,” Barnett said. “In this field, it is not black and white. There are so many gray areas.”
“It’s so great when a secret agent is choosing to do this in order to protect one, two and three, but you have to sacrifice number five. What is the greater good? Whoever’s parents are of number five, they’re going to have an opinion about that, and the people you just protected are also gonna have their own opinion about it,” he continued. “You can never end up on the right side in this kind of messy work. So I want to be able to give you a solid answer of, yeah, he’s doing it for this, and he’s gonna end up being a good guy, but it’s just not that black and white.”
That includes the killing viewers saw in the premiere.
“Having to explain that stuff away and gain audience compassion for an act like that is some challenging writing,” Barnett said. “But don’t question. It may be coming.”
What’s next for Jack in ‘Line of Fire’?
Asked for a tease, Barnett first joked that “the origami is gonna get more elaborate,” a nod to Jack’s paper cranes, before offering a real hint.
“We’re working on an episode, I’m not gonna give away the number, where everything is starting to collide,” Barnett said. “As an audience, I’m getting my satiating moment of everything being on the table. As much as that resolve is gonna cause its own kind of complications and problems, you, as an audience, are going to have a clear answer.”
When does ‘Line of Fire’ air?
Line of Fire airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC and streams the next day on Peacock.
Featured image photo credit: NBC
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