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Spoilers follow for Task<\/a> finale \u201cA Still Small Voice<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In Task, every character\u2019s life is presented as a series of moral choices. Until the finale, \u201cA Still Small Voice,\u201d Fabien Frankel\u2019s Anthony Grasso makes all the wrong ones.<\/p>\n In the first half of Brag Ingelsby\u2019s series follow-up to Mare of Easttown, Grasso is a slick operator who shifts between tough-guy posturing and a besotted romance with new colleague Lizzie (Alison Oliver). But Grasso has been leaking information<\/a> about his task-force team\u2019s investigation into Dark Hearts leader Jayson (Sam Keeley), and when his treachery inadvertently gets Lizzie killed, Frankel replaces Grasso\u2019s rakish grin and self-assured lean with forlorn eyes and drooped shoulders. In the finale, Grasso gets a chance to redeem himself, betraying the Dark Hearts and racing into the woods to rescue Maeve, a young woman<\/a> being targeted by the biker gang, all while bleeding from a bullet wound of his own. By killing Jayson, Grasso saves Maeve and gives them both a second chance.<\/p>\n Some Task viewers will recognize Frankel from two seasons on House of the Dragon<\/a>; in that other buzzy HBO series, he plays Ser Criston Cole<\/a>, a Kingsguard knight who turns increasingly villainous as his loyalties and motivations conflict. Both characters struggle with the weight of their guilt, but where Cole has fallen deeper into cruelty, Grasso takes the first step on a path to redemption. Frankel isn\u2019t sure he would describe Grasso as heroic, but says he sees a future for the character in a role once held by his boss, Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo), in another bit of masculine mirroring that Task does so well<\/a>.<\/p>\n Much of what drives Grasso is the guilt he feels over his lapsed Catholicism. Did you pull anything from your personal life for that?<\/strong> In the finale, Grasso admits to his sister that he was working as the Dark Hearts\u2019 inside man. You have this wonderfully pained line delivery of \u201cI can\u2019t live with it no more. I\u2019m suffocating.\u201d<\/strong> Why were you upset that scene was so early in the schedule?\u00a0<\/strong> I hope those feelings changed over time.\u00a0<\/strong> You worked with the <\/strong>series\u2019 dialect coach, Susanne Sulby<\/strong><\/a>, to adopt the Delco accent. How did you approach Grasso\u2019s physicality, how he carries himself?\u00a0<\/strong> Actors often say eating is one of the hardest things to do in a scene. Do you agree?\u00a0<\/strong> Later in the finale, Grasso has a final conversation with Tom in his hospital bed. He asks, \u201cAren\u2019t you going to give me my penance?\u201d to which Tom replies, \u201cPeople beat themselves up enough on their own.\u201d Tom had previously told Grasso he suspected him, and now he\u2019s offering Grasso a bit of absolution. What do you remember about filming that with Mark?<\/strong>
My mother is Catholic, but I\u2019m not personally religious. Brad grew up Catholic, and there were elements of his own life and his own questions about religion that felt pertinent. He writes them so eloquently, certainly in the three scenes I have with Mark where we speak about religion. Actually, almost all my scenes with Mark are about that, right? Mark is the voice of authority as someone who spent time in the priesthood. Brad and I talked a lot about Catholic guilt and the idea of repenting and confession.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m suffocating\u201d was something I improvised only on that take. I remember feeling that was what he felt. It\u2019s funny, because I shot that scene on my second day on set. I knew how important it was, and I was gutted that it was so early in the schedule, and I still feel like that \u2014\u00a0I can\u2019t really watch that scene. But it\u2019s so rare to have that combination of intricate scripts and the freedom to play. I remember saying, \u201cI\u2019m so stressed now that every job after this is going to be a nightmare, because you guys have made this experience so liberating.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t feel like I\u2019d had the chance to create the character. So much of Grasso felt informed by my time in Philadelphia, and at that point, I\u2019d been in Philly five days. I was like, Oh my God, I don\u2019t even know who this person is. I was a Brit working in America on a show that was so specific to a certain place that I\u2019d never been to. I didn\u2019t feel like I\u2019d earned the right to do that scene.<\/p>\n
It changed day-to-day, you know? I was there for six months. You eat in the restaurants and you drink the drinks and you hang out with the people from New Jersey and Philadelphia. By the time you got to the end of filming, you felt like you understood them. Not that you were one of them, but you were closer to understanding who they were.<\/p>\n
You have an idea of how you think someone is going to walk or comport themselves. I sit with my legs crossed a lot; I knew he wasn\u2019t that kind of guy. A lot of that comes when you put on the costume. Having a gun in your holster on your back makes you sit more upright. I spend a lot of the show eating food and smoking cigarettes, and those things all inform his idiosyncrasies.<\/p>\n
I find eating quite relieving because it takes the acting out of it. When I was at drama school, there was an actress in my year who was really struggling with a scene. A director had her make up the five beds onstage \u2014 the scene was set in an asylum \u2014 over the course of this monologue. It took her completely out of her head. She ended up delivering this incredibly natural monologue that had otherwise been quite tricky for her, because she wasn\u2019t thinking about how to deliver the lines. She was thinking about making the bed. The physical things, smoking and eating and drinking, help me. I will say, there\u2019s only so many Philly cheesesteaks you can eat in a scene. [Laughs] After about six takes, that first bite is much better than the 16th.<\/p>\n
It was one of my last scenes. We shot it in an old hospital in Delco. I remember asking them if I could stay in the bed between setups, because there\u2019s a certain feeling when you\u2019re in a hospital, a sort of restlessness but also an exhaustion by proxy of lying on your back the whole time. Your mouth gets very dry when you\u2019ve got oxygen going through. Those two things really inform how you feel. The dry mouth was a big thing for me \u2014 I refrained from drinking water for most of that day because I wanted that.<\/p>\n