Apple TV+'s 'Echo 3' Cast Interviews

Moviefone speaks with Luke Evans, Michiel Huisman and Jessica Ann Collins about 'Echo 3.' "It was challenging physically and mentally," Evans said.

Premiering on Apple TV+ on November 23rd is the new action series ‘Echo 3,’ which was created, directed and executive produced by Academy Award-winner Mark Boal (‘The Hurt Locker’).

The series stars Jessica Ann Collins as Amber, a scientist who goes missing along the Colombia-Venezuela. Her brother, Bambi (Luke Evans), and her husband, Prince (Michiel Huisman), both have extensive military experience and set out on their own to find her against the backdrop of a secret war.

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Luke Evans, Michiel Huisman and Jessica Ann Collins about their work on ‘Echo 3,’ their characters, preparing for their roles, and working with Mark Boal.

(L to R) Michiel Huisman, Jessica Ann Collins and Luke Evans star in Apple TV+'s 'Echo 3.'

You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Evans, Michiel Huisman, Collins, and Mark Boal.

Moviefone: To begin with, Luke, can you talk about your approach to playing Bambi, and what were some of the aspects of the character you were excited to explore on screen?

Luke Evans: When you take on a role like Bambi, there's a lot of preparation. There's a lot of conversations, a lot of physical training, and I was ready for it. I was forewarned by Mark Boal that it wasn't going to be an easy job from the outset, and he was absolutely right. It was challenging physically, and mentally. It's a long job.

It was nine months almost in Columbia, which is an extraordinary country, but to shoot what we shot, and every single location was a real place, comes with its own demands and challenges. So, we all embraced the challenges that we were facing and made the most of it. I'm in this business, I don't want to have an easy ride. I want to challenge myself and choose roles that are going to push me to the limits, and this one was one of those.

MF: Michiel, can you talk about the Special Forces work that Prince and Bambi do for a living, and what training did you have to make that look as authentic as possible on screen?

Michiel Huisman: We did a ton of training to do justice to their background as Special Forces operators. When we first met up a couple weeks before we started shooting, we were immediately introduced to Mitch Hall, who's a former Navy Seal himself, and he really took us through the ringer and trained us in how these guys move, behave, and how they handle weapons. That was a very important part of it too.

What was exciting to us was that it was very important to Mark Boal that we would portray this in the most realistic way possible. You don't see that very often, and I was very happy about that. I'm very proud about that.

(L to R) Jessica Ann Collins and Michiel Huisman in 'Echo 3,' premiering November 23, 2022 on Apple TV+.

MF: Jessica, can you talk about Amber, her relationship to Bambi and Prince, and what it was like for you working on those relationships with Luke and Michiel?

Jessica Ann Collins: I think the relationships between Amber and her brother Bambi, and her husband Prince, are the actual crux of the show. I think that those are the relationships that carry the show. So, we all spend a lot of time focusing on those bonds, and talking about them, and really envisioning them. Inside of that, what is great is that there was room for being as complex as possible.

So, all of these characters have such complexity. You hear all the time about strong female leads, which I'm all for, but you rarely hear about complex female leads. So, I loved bringing complexity to the relationships with each of these men, and what those meant, and what they did for her.

MF: Finally, for all of you, what was it like working with Mark Boal on this project?

LE: It was incredible. From the outset, I had access to Mark, and he had access to us so that we could process every step of the way. It's a long job, so there's a lot of script, and there's a lot of rewrites and adaptations as we were moving through the story of the characters' journeys. But Mark, his passion for what he does is immense, and his commitment to the job was immense.

To have him on set almost every day throughout the whole process was really something I'd never experienced before from a showrunner, and it only benefited everybody by having him there. Also, it allowed us to have a dialogue all the time. He gets his feet wet. He gets his hands dirty. He wants to be there to experience what we are experiencing. So, it felt like we were a team from the outset, and we were all contributing together for the end product, and that was a really nice experience.

MH: I completely agree with everything that Luke was saying about that. I think that the process with Mark is very intense. He's very hands on, and I think that he's a filmmaker that really knows what he wants. I'm very grateful that I was given the opportunity to be part of his next project.

JAC: I think that it was very freeing for me to know that I could trust the person helping craft this performance, and that he was bringing a level of integrity, and he brought it to this, and that was a very safe place for me.