During a recent visit to the set of Minority Report, ComicBook.com was among a handful of reporters who got to sit down with series star Daniel London, who plays Wally on the FOX series.
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He had a lot to say — not only about the future of the series, but about its past, as London appeared in the Minority Report film from Steven Spielberg that popularized the concept enough to make it a series in the first place.
You can check it out below. Minority Report airs at 9 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.
Did you ever think you would be revisiting this world?
No. I’ve been saying like, I feel like how Sylvester Stallone must feel, getting to play the same role like every 10 years or so. I think it’s really a rare experience for an actor to get to do that. And it’s been pretty exciting for me.
One cool thing — I feel like me, as an actor, my experience with coming to this project again has kind of been like Wally’s experience within the world, within the Minority Report world. In that when I did this movie, well over 10 years ago, it was very exciting for me, it was very meaningful, it was intense, it was…one of the great sort of working experiences that I’ve ever had. And for Wally, working with the Precogs back in the police department, that was his life. That was a hugely meaningful thing to him.
I feel like it was his whole life in a big way and so then when he, when Precrime was disbanded, he was kind of afloat for a long time and I don’t think [he] ever thought that he would be back with Dash, extracting these visions. But then when Dash shows up on his doorstep, it’s this huge surprise where he suddenly back in it. And so, as an actor, my experience has sort of paralleled Wally’s in a way, to the point where it hasn’t been a reach for me to kind of figuring out what Wally must be feeling because I as an actor am feeling the same thing. I’m back in this exciting, unexpected world suddenly and am faced with these familiar, yet new and ever changing, circumstances.
Did you have doubts when they reached out to you about the viability of coming back to it in that way? Or did you immediately see the potential?
Oh, it was exciting and interesting to me immediately. You always wonder how things are going to go or what an experience is going to be like, because clearly it wasn’t going to be the same as back then [with] new people involved. But just sort of the concept of getting to do this was immediately appealing to me and exciting and it turned out that my cast mates in this new project….we all sort of really hit it off and bonded well. And I think we have developed a working relationship over these first five episodes. And it’s been great. It’s been a total joy.
Wally has been reunited with Dash and Arthur, how does he feel about the potential about being reunited with Agatha? Is he anxious or excited?
I don’t know that he….I think he would always be excited about the possibility of being reunited with Agatha. I mean, clearly Agatha was his favorite and he had a real soft spot for Agatha and felt the most bond with Agatha. I’m sure there’s trepidation there. And I think Wally’s much changed since those days though. I feel like he’s kind of come out of his shell in some ways and has a little more, sort of, spunk and confidence. So he’ll maybe be able to interact with Agatha in a more evolved way.
Really like the scene where you’re reunited with Arthur — you were ready to hug him and he was standoffish. Can you talk about that? And how does it play out from there?
I’m glad you liked that. I thought that was a cool dynamic to bring out too, you know. That showed sort of the difference between Dash and Arthur and kind of shined a light on Wally — in that this aspect does come out more in the next episodes — that Wally once sort of really loved and cared for these beings, but at the same time was very much complicit in their — essentially — enslavement.
So you can’t really blame Arthur for harboring a bit of resentment. But of course it’s heartbreaking for Wally because essentially he does just feel this paternal, loving instinct towards Arthur.
Arthur is clearly suspicious about Vega, but Wally and Dash seem to trust her. Are they going to get some sort of indication that she’s not trustworthy?
I will say that it goes more complicated. What we’re about to shoot, there’s….some holes are beginning to develop in what I think so far has been a pretty smooth working relationship between the three of us, but certainly between Dash and Vega.
But what we’re about to shoot this week, things get a little trickier and Wally is kind of in this observational position where he has to kind of figure out what’s going on and how to best navigate some bumps that come up in the road. I think Wally was pretty skeptical of Vega at first and was protective of Dash. But I do think, you know, she’s sort of proven herself to Wally in many ways. But, yeah, I think ultimately he feels a great allegiance to Dash. And like what we were talking about, a protectiveness over him.
Does the terrorist attack change the dynamic between the characters? Do they all fall in line in how it should be handled or is there tension there?
I think there’s some tension. You’ll see it certainly raises the stakes and it kind of brings up some tough questions for all of them. Because when you see clearly — these three lives of the Precogs are important and they deserve the same rights and freedoms as everyone else.
But when you’re looking at destruction that could potentially happen on that huge level of a terrorist attack, you start to think “well, sacrificing or compromising these three lives may be worth the amount of lives that may be affected”. So those are questions that definitely come to the forefront in the coming episodes.
Speaking of the coming episodes, what are you most excited for viewers to see about Wally’s development?
Well, I’m excited to see…heretofore, Wally has kind of been nestled behind his screen and kind of on the fringes. I will say that Wally will kind of get out into it a little more and is kind of a little more hands-on with all the issues of crime-fighting. And kind of gets his hands a little dirtier, which is cool and fun for me.
Can you tell us maybe some of your favorite elements to your set here?
People keep asking me about what technological, cutting-edge device is my favorite. But I kind of relate to more of the old-school things.
Wally is really a mix of the most cutting-edge kind of cool technological advances — very futuristic things. But also kind of still uses the Clapper and still has actual books lying around in piles. To me, that’s the cool thing about Wally — those kind of more analog things that he has not let go of and he still embraces those. For me, personally, I’m a bit of a Luddite and I’m not really in to the latest thing. So I’ve related to that part of Wally.
So the table with all of the books over there?
There are things from the old world that Wally has held on to that I kind of just like walking around this house and looking at some of those things sitting next to these cool headdresses and all of the other blinking, flashing [things]. I think that’s a cool kind of dichotomy. Like the chandeliers and all of these kind of old-world things. I like that.
