The final episode for Apple TV+’s “The Mosquito Coast” series dropped today and the prequel aspect of the series has, in theory, come to an end. Based on Paul Theroux’s 1981 novel and already renewed for a second season, the first seven episodes find Allie Fox (Justin Theroux), his wife Margot (Melissa George), and their two teenage children on the run from the U.S. government agents for unspecified reasons. The family has traveled across the desert, gotten on the bad side of a Mexican cartel boss, barely escaped a professional assassin, and somehow eluded local authorities at the last possible moment. Creator and executive producer Neil Cross has put the Fox’s through the wringer while tactfully avoiding why they are in such a predicament in the first place. And if you’ve made it this far, you’re probably heavily invested in discovering what is actually going on with this unconventional family.
Theroux delivers an expectedly intense depiction of an inventor disenchanted with contemporary culture, but the standout performance actually belongs to George. Best known for her acclaimed work in the first incarnation of “In Treatment” and the 2005 reboot of “The Amityville Horror,” the Australian-born actress says she was so enamored with the role of Margot that she wouldn’t audition for it over the fear of not landing the part. And that was before she even found out her character’s secret. A revelation she continues to keep close to the vest.
“Yes, I know it all, to the point where it was the first time that I got so much information from Neil for a part, that every single step you take, you can play, because you know why she’s taking that step and why she’s looking the way she’s looking,” George reveals. “And that’s such a joy. And there are moments where I’m sure the audience is like, ‘Oh my God, what have they done?’ Or ‘What’s going on?’ Or, ‘What did he do?’ And I was able to just play a double-edged sword, really, because I know so much. The only thing I don’t know is what’s going to happen in the end. I would say, there’s only so far you can keep going, but we never know what’s going to happen in the end of anything.”
During our interview last month, George bluntly reflects on the stressful experience she had when she was asked to audition, those 2:30 AM wakeup calls, Margot’s temptations to escape her husband’s potentially mad schemes and more.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]
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The Playlist: This role comes your way. What made you want to jump on board Mosquito Coast?
Melissa George: Look, it was a long story for me. It was many, many months of just holding onto the script, and I’m sure you’ve heard the quote. I just felt like I had to get this role, but I didn’t cast for it, because I didn’t want to lose the role. So it was one of those moments in my life where I thought, “If you don’t play, obviously, you don’t get it,” but I liked it too much that I didn’t want to play because I just couldn’t handle not getting it. And it got to the point where they had found their Margot, maybe several options of Margot, and Justin called or sent me a message on my New York phone. And I hadn’t seen him in so long and just was like, “We’re waiting for your casting. And apparently, casting said you’d submitted it, but we haven’t seen it.” And I actually just told my agent, “I just can’t do it.” And she said, “You have to do it now.” And so, I read for it, and within 24 hours, it all just kind of came out, and I got the part.
George continues: What drew me to it was, first of all, it was so well-written. It was just basically an intimate story of a fugitive family on the run. I knew it was more of a character piece. And a lot of actors, especially, ones that love acting, aren’t wanting to be upstaged by the scary house or the genre of the week. This was a way to have it just about a family, and dialogue, and character.
Is this something that you’ve gone through before with other roles, where you’re just like, “I don’t want to apply for it because I don’t want the chance of not getting it.”?
This is a one-time thing. I’d just been beaten down by life. I had a good four years of just a really hard time, and I became a mother to two sons. I had just snuck off, I guess because I didn’t want to leave my babies. So, I was surprised by my kind of resistance to being a little bit more ambitious, I would say. When I read for “In Treatment,” which at the beginning was just like a crazy concept of two actors reading in one room, I wanted it so badly that they asked me to read four pages for the casting, but I did the entire show as a monologue. So, I knew that when I want a part, I will go above and beyond and not just give them what they want, but give them extra so that they can really envision me in a part. But this was the moment where I was so frightened. I wanted it too much, and I just lost my confidence. So everyone’s like, “What do you do to prepare for a role?” And me, I went to see a therapist as Margot, which was super, super amazing. I will one day write a book about it. But I really had to work on my confidence as an actress again. And just believe that you got the part because you had something to give to this particular role. And so, really, it was just about working on my security as an actress. I think it was my agent who just said [I had to do it]. I only signed with her a week before. She was like, “Yeah, we don’t work that way. You have to do the [audition].” I was like, “What?” She’s like, “Yeah. Sorry, but you’re a little Parisian over there in Paris. doing your life in your French ways. Yeah. We’re New Yorkers and you kind of got to do it.” And I’m like, “Oh, shoot. I knew the Americans would come down on me.”
Was the show expected to go before the pandemic and it was delayed?
Yes. I got the script in April 2019
Oh wow. O.K.
I finally did a casting on October 1st. It was a long time. And then I started filming in October 2019. And we went all the way until March when we had to stop. We only got three episodes in, and we had to stop for five months
How do you view Margot in this family with everything that’s going on around her?
I know what she is that the audience doesn’t know. So, I know that a lot of the moments in each episode leading up to the end of the first season, my goal was to unravel certain sides of her that the kids haven’t seen before, she didn’t even know about herself before. She’s an observer. I feel like in many ways she’s the eyes of the audience, contemplating exactly the level to the extent of the danger that this family is in and when to pull the plug, and when to keep going. She’s like the Bonnie to the Clyde. I mean, they don’t exist without each other. You’ll see why further along as to why they need each other. And it’s not just for what most couples want from each other. They are literally doomed without each other, and they’re doomed with each other. So it’s an amazing sort of juxtaposition to play, to constantly go back and forth in her mind and her way, her feelings towards the husband and the situation. Margot really hit me, where she’s in the hotel room in Mexico when she just wants to be caught. She can’t wait to be caught so that all of this nightmare is over. And it was such a wonderful moment to play because it wasn’t written like that. It was just sitting on the bed and just watching the hell that is happening between her husband, who she loves. Obviously, she’s called her parents, and she shouldn’t have, which I made a decision that she does every single year for nine years and just got unlucky this particular year. And she then gets quickly transformed into this brainwashed ecstasy, where she goes on the thrill of a lifetime with her husband constantly. And so, she feeds off that, and we know why. There’s something about Margot that we don’t know yet, that’s just crazy.
Did Neil give you a lot of back story about why she’s agreed to be part of this whole on the run scenario?
Yes.
And you know what Allie did, or they both did, that put them in this predicament?
Yes, I know it all, to the point where it was the first time that I got so much information from Neil for a part, that every single step you take, you can play because you know why she’s taking that step and why she’s looking the way she’s looking. And that’s such a joy. And there are moments where I’m sure the audience is like, “Oh my God, what have they done?” Or, “What’s going on?” Or, “What did he do?” And I was able to just play a double-edged sword, really, because I know so much. The only thing I don’t know is what’s going to happen in the end. I would say, there’s only so far you can keep going, but we never know what’s going to happen in the end of anything.
You mentioned the moment where she wanted to get caught, but there’s also another scenewhere she’s got the kids in the car, and they’re going to go, but they don’t. And the last shot of the seven episodes, she looks the most upset about being on the boat and stuck on an adventure that simply cannot end well.
Yes. She realized that her plan to leave is thrown into the deep water, pardon the pun. And I played it looking back at shore, knowing I can never go back to land, and I am stuck on the boat with this mess. And the feeling of getting further and further away from what she ideally wanted, which was just to leave and bring your kids and go home, wherever home is, was just pushed into the horizon further and further and further. And she knew that she was stuck now with Allie. And that’s it. That’s going to play so nicely for other moments because she either accepts it or resists it. And the more you start to find out about Margot, the more and more she’s going to get so much fun. I didn’t know mom could shoot out eight tires in five seconds. So, there’s just this snap that can happen with her at a moment’s glance. I love that she can be two things in the same breath. And that was a lot of fun to play within that particular episode
At one point thekids are told that they’re not the biological kids of Allie and Margot. Did I catch that correctly? Is that true?
Yeah, that’s just a manipulation technique of the police, just to get into the mind of the kids.
So they are their kids?
Yes. I mean, that’s what I’ve been told. I’ve been sworn, “They are your children.” So, yes, but how brilliant. I mean, who knows? Maybe that’s a little curveball for another season. But no, for what I know and what I feel and the way I’ve been playing her, they’re definitely her children.
You guys were in the desert, you were in Mexicali, you were all over the place shooting this one. Was there one sequence or scene or day that was just tougher than the other, that you were like, “What did I get into with this show?”?
I never got to that point because the more difficult it was, the more I fed off it for Margot. Because there were times, especially in the desert episode, where we were in the truck at 2:30 in the morning, to get to the desert by 4:00, to get hair and makeup done by 5:30, and to the on set when the sun was not even up yet. And to do that day in, day out, and then be left in the desert, eat cactus fruit and sleep on a bus and just walk and walk and run to the Iraqi village. It was just so hard that I would find myself just laying on the sand, just drawing circles with my finger, like praying, just praying that we’re going to make it, praying like we’re going to make it, like I got to make it. I know this is acting, and I know that it’s a job, and I know, and I kept rationalizing in my mind. And then I just kept thinking of In-N-Out Burger across the border. [Laughs.] God, I could get out early on a Friday and go to Palm Springs and get an In-N-Out burger. And just to sit in the sun with Justin and my kids by the pool. My mind was just seeking just some way out, and that’s what Margot was doing too. So beautifully done by the production. I mean, nothing was a surprise for me. Everything we did felt realer than real.
Oh, wow.
I loved the looks of it. Justin and I, and the kids, we’d just looked at each other, and there would be times where, being like, “No, please don’t speak. Are we going to get through this?” It was just crazy, but the love and the complicity between the four of us was a gift. I don’t know if you’d call that luck or great casting from Victoria Thomas or what it is, but we got very lucky with that.
“The Mosquito Coast’s” first season is now available on Apple TV+.