EXCLUSIVE: First Look, First Interview With Powers’ Triphammer, Andrew Sensenig

Based on Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming’s long-running comic book series currently published at Marvel’s Icon imprint, Powers follows the exploits of a pair of police officers assigned to Powers Division, a special group of cops whose beat is people with super powers.

One such individual is Triphammer, a veteran of the battle between good and bad powers. Triphammer, who bears some similarities to Marvel’s Iron Man, is a brilliant inventor named Harley Cohen developed technology that allowed him to become an armored superhero, fighting alongside those blessed with abilities.

In the TV series, Triphammer is played by actor Andrew Sensenig. You can see the first officially-released photos of Sensenig in costume here, and ComicBook.com has the first interview with the character actor, who you might recognize from roles in projects like Longmire and W.

My entry point was very much standard protocol: Casting went out of LA and my agent had submitted me for the role of Triphammer. I did a videotape first — I’m actually based out of Dallas, and I put a reading of Triphammer on tape and two weeks later or so went to Atlanta to meet with Charlie Huston and David Slade, who directed the first two episodes.

We had a fabulous meeting and seemed to hit it off. Fortunately it was a comic book nerd’s dream come true.

How familiar are you with the comics?

I had to catch up. I had heard of Powers and was definitely a cb nerd growing up and continued to from time to time jump back into classic comics. I did go and read the issues and try to dig into the backstories of all the various characters so I would be prepared when I met with Charlie and David. It’s so different that you have the superhero genre represented in today’s world. You have powers all over the place; you have teenagers whose whole desire is to try to become a power.

What’s interesting to me is that the powers, including Triphammer, are celebrities in this environment. They’re represented by CAA, they have talent managers and agents; you can picture that they’d go out and do celebrity promotional tours and things. In the meantime they’re also out there fighting evil. It’s an interesting look at social culture and also very human in that every one of these characters, there’s a little darkness underneath. Everybody’s got something just below the surface that makes them much more real. Even if they have a power like super speed or flight or breathing fire, but everyone has something just below the surface.

So you weren’t super familiar with the world of Powers before, but have you read other “corporate crusader” characters, like Booster Gold?

Oh, absolutely. This is following a similar vein, it’s just much edgier, darker, deeper and one of the fun parts of it is getting to know Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming, and seeing their process over these last ten years or fifteen years in the process of getting to where they are now.

Things happen at a certain time for a certain reason; Playstation is a great platform because it gives creators unlimited freedom. They can do whatever they want to do with no network restrictions or cable restrictions. It’s much more engaging, it’s so powerful and I know that the creators and the showrunners now are excited with Playstation because it allows them to say go for it guys, there’s no rules, do what you need ot.

He just has this perseverance to come back better and better from every battle and he really represents that spirit. Look at that spirit in our soldiers at war, in our veterans. Triphammer is a double amputee. He’s an everyman who, no matter what the challenge is, he’s going to come back fighting. If he gets knocked down he’s going to get up, because you’re probably not going to have a chance.

Does it feel when you step into this role like you’re stepping into a larger world than the average series, since the place you’re inhabiting has kind of its own rules?

That’s an interesting question. It feels like today’s world. It really feels like we’re taking powers and putting them into downtown LA today. It seems so real and natural in portraying the character around the other powers, it seemed like everybody was normal. Even the powers, the groups that are the celebrities, they hang out together. There’s history with Triphammer and Walker going way back. Triphammer and Retro Girl go way back.

So these peopled have just been in a circle of friends and enemies, but it’s just a normal world. It’s somewhat hard to answer that question because there really wasn’t anything different. You just happen to be talking to somebody who just flew in, and then you start talking.

Yes and no. Yes in a very positive way and no in that there wasn’t any eyes of “oh, you better make this happen. This better be good.” IT was more the excitement. The Playstation platform and the first orig programming for the platform is changing the business model. In an opportunity to put together an audience of comic loves, gamers, their friends and family, you’re going to have a 40-year-old guy who was just playing a game and he calls in his wife and says hey let’s watch powers.

Fall in love with characters, become her weekly TV show like she’s watching Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce or something The show is just remarkable. It’s beautiful. I described it to the cinematographer that the way it’s shot, it really feels like you are looking at a comic book and the panel on the page just came ot life. It doesn’t look like your standard TV drama. It’s just got this energy with it that is something so completely different and to do that on a brand-new platform, the sky is the limit.

The opportunity is huge and I can see Sony continuing on with the series and doing more and more and more. The comic book genre is just massive and it’s only growing, it’s only getting bigger and bigger.

What do you think about the costume? How does it move and everything?

Sure sure. Charlie Huston was one of the primary talents behind this new look for Triphammer and they spent many many weeks if not several months of artistic renderings and bringing together some of the best artists in LA to come up with this design. I started going to LA in August and almost every week we would do another set of fittings, redesigning fittings. What sounds a little odd is you put that armor on it transformed me. You put that on and you feel like I am ready to save the world.

It fits like a glove, it moves well, there are several versions of it depending on what we’re doing. There’s a very hard almost tortoise-like shell version and there’s some heavy duty stunts that we’re doing there’s more of a carbon fiber lightweight version that’s got some flexibility to it. You can’t tell the difference on camera but it allows for a little bit more motion.

The left arm, you will see several iterations throughout the show. Sometimes the days don’t go all that great and he might need to make some repairs. Like any tech, each arm that he builds becomes the latest and greatest and it’s really fun to watch those changes. Each one, I had complete flexibility. I used it and worked around the set and through the scenes just as easily as with my right arm. I really credit that to Shownee Smith, who’s the primary designer on the costume. He did work on the Superman movies and Spider-Man movies and he’s probably the go-to guy in LA to design your superhero outfits. He and his team had a blast with this because they were dealing with so many elements.

Charlie Huston wanted to see a very real Triphammer, a little more human like than the comics version. The armor the arm the legs, it’s almost a conglomeration of old battlefield metal that he found that he welded in place all the way up to technology that NASA couldn’t even think about creating. There’s so much history in every little piece that he has, as well as the future. So you have a character who embodies the everyman spirit of battle and drive and victory.

Triphammer represents that person who’s knocked down, but refuses to stay down. I had such an honor portraying him and thinking about our veterans who, you see their stories on the news every day. They come home and they’ve had an accident and they’ve lost their limb and they’re accomplishing things they never dreamt possible when they had their bodies in complete form.

I can see people grabbing onto Triphammer as a hero because he lives strictly to save the world. He know she’s the guy who can invent the right weapons, he knows he can outsmart the powers, 

You said everybody in this world has something broken about them just under the skin. What’s Triphammer’s?

If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.

The audience will enjoy seeing some as I mentioned just under that top level there’s something a little broken, but I don’t want to give that away because it’s just too good.

Any last thing you’d like to mention?

Triphammer, while the show’s powers and Triphammer is a superhero, he does not have physical powers. He doesn’t have the natural gift of flying or speed or x-ray vision. He just has the intelligence and the drive and things to build the equipment and invent. His power comes in adapting to the situation and being able to invent and create anything that helps him move past that situation to help save those around him.