’The Waterfront’s Holt McCallany, Jake Weary and Melissa Benoist on Troubled Family Dynamics and Bonding Over Dead Bodies

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for The Waterfront.]

Summary

The Netflix series ‘The Waterfront’ explores the Buckley family navigating their fishing empire to stay afloat and the dark paths they take to keep the business running.
The Buckleys struggle between what they should have and what they’re dealt, and who they can trust to get them to where they need to be.
Family dynamics are rich, with hidden family members, humor amidst stress, and complex relationships shaping the characters and their interactions.

Inspired by creator Kevin Williamson’s own father, the Netflix series The Waterfront explores the Buckley family and the fishing empire they’re trying to keep afloat in North Carolina. To keep the business running, family patriarch Harlan (Holt McCallany) and his son Cane (Jake Weary) get in deep running drugs for some unsavory individuals that just keep sinking them further. At the same time, Belle (Maria Bello) has other ideas for her family that Harlan is against and daughter Bree (Melissa Benoist), who’s struggling to stay clean, thinks the answer is turning in her own brother, not knowing the extent of the rest of her family’s involvement.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars McCallany, Weary and Benoist discussed how the Buckley family is different from the Codys in Animal Kingdom, Harlan’s “resting stress face,” learning about a previously unknown family member, why Cane is torn between Peyton (Danielle Campbell) and Jenna (Humberly González), the mother-daughter dynamic, and how things could change for a possible Season 2.

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‘The Waterfront’ is now streaming on Netflix.

Collider: Jake, you have a knack for being a part of messy families. How do the Buckleys compare to the Codys from Animal Kingdom? Would the Codys have wiped out the Buckleys? Would the Buckleys have given the Codys a run for their money?

JAKE WEARY: They’re quite different families. The Codys act a little more on impulse and there’s a little more of an animalistic nature to them, just because of how they were raised and brought up. With the Buckleys, there’s more trust within the Buckley family. We are all a little more victims of circumstance, everyone in the family. There’s a constant internal battle between the life that we should have and the cards we’ve been dealt. It’s fun to think about the Codys and the Buckleys together, but I think they just belong in two completely different worlds.

Holt McCallany Puts His “Resting Stress Face” to Use in ‘The Waterfront’

“Anatomy is destiny. I was born with resting stress face.”

Holt McCallany as Harlan Buckley looking serious while standing outside in The Waterfront — Image via Netflix

There’s reference made in the series to Harlan’s “resting stress face.” How do you perfect a resting stress face? Was this a stressful character to inhabit?

HOLT McCALLANY: Anatomy is destiny. Unfortunately, I was born with resting stress face. One of the interviewers who preceded you, asked me why he feels like every character that I play wants to punch him. One of our directors, Liz Friedlander, who’s a very good director and who did excellent work, said to me, “I really like it when Harlan smiles. I love what you’re doing with the character, but if I had one note, I’d love to see Harlan smile a little more often.” I understood why she gave that note, and I appreciated it. When a guy has had two heart attacks, and he’s teetering on the verge of alcoholism and his family business is going under and his daughter is a recovering drug addict and his son resents the fact that he wouldn’t give him his blessing to go away, and his wife is having an affair and two of his trusted employees have just been murdered by drug dealers, there’s not that much to smile about. That’s why, in a lot of these scenes, Harlan doesn’t look like he’s in a particularly good mood. It’s just because there’s been a lot of stuff stacked on his plate. I was really happy that (show creator) Kevin [Williamson] gave Harlan a sense of humor, because if he didn’t have that, then he would have resting stress face in every scene of every episode. I look forward to those moments of levity and to any opportunity that Harlan gets to smile.

Holt McCallany and Maria Bello in The Waterfront

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The conversation the Buckley family has when everyone is made aware that there is a child that they didn’t know about and he’s already the bartender at the restaurant certainly makes for an interesting family moment. How did you guys feel about adding that character to the mix? Melissa, your character had the funniest reaction because she asked if she’d hit on him and he has to admit that she did. What was it like to have that play out?

MELISSA BENOIST: We shot that scene on a weekend, and it was rare that we had a scene where all of us were together in a contained space, sitting around a table. Playing that scene was so fun because the dynamics are so rich. And then, adding this wrench into the mix made it all the more interesting. Bree is passive-aggressive in that particular moment, and she’s dealing with it with sarcasm, but still very pointed to her parents like that. It’s messed up, even though I don’t know if they’re all that surprised that it’s happening. It was a great, fun day of work, shooting that.

WEARY: We all had so much fun doing that scene.

BENOIST: Also, it’s happening in the midst of everything else going on, and then they’re sitting their two adult children down to have a serious conversation.

McCALLANY: Harlan remembers the mother very, very, very fondly. It represents an opportunity for him to welcome somebody into the family. Family is very important to Harlan. If this guy is my son, even if I never knew him as a boy, I’m going to get to know him now. I’m going to try to embrace him and try to bring him into the family and try to show him why he should be proud to be a part of this family. Raphael [Silva] brought a nice vulnerability to the character and made it very easy to like him. The complicated history that I have with my other son that I don’t have with him. It’s an opportunity for me to start over with a clean slate.

WEARY: Rafael really played it so dynamically. There’s vulnerability, but there’s also so much pride. It’s conflicting for Cane to see because it’s someone who’s trying to make their way into this family, and they’re almost proud to be a part of the family. Someone coming in with that much confidence, that’s able to show up and say, “This is who I am, I’m here,” is galvanizing for Cane. That scene has a really interesting dynamic.

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“Everything is up in the air.”

Jake, Cane’s relationships with Jenna and Peyton are so interesting because one represents his past while the other represents his present and his future. Do you think he loves them both? How did you view those relationships?

WEARY: You’re right, Jenna represents his past and represents that part of us that we look back on from that time in our life when there are endless possibilities and your future is laid out in front of you, and you can fantasize about it. In terms of falling in love, I don’t know if that’s necessarily what Cane is looking for with Jenna. It’s that nostalgic factor taking over. It’s this escapism for him. The comfort that she provides means so much to him at a time when everything is up in the air. Peyton represents more of this stability. He’s a bit lost in terms of where he’s at with his family. There’s so much love there for Peyton. I think he really cares about her. You see that when she’s attacked, at the end of episode two, when that protective instinct takes over. That dynamic is so fun to play.

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Melissa, what was it like to have that moment with Bree confronting the child version of herself? It’s hard to move on and move forward until you deal with your past and your guilt and your demons.

BENOIST: That was the crux of what caused the void she had, that made her feel like she had to fill it with substances of all kinds. It was the cause of her addiction. She felt so isolated and alone. So, playing that moment was really emotional. The girl they cast as young Bree was so great at playing that moment. It was powerful when we shot those scenes.

Melissa Benoist Wants to See the Mother-Daughter Relationship Deepen in a Possible Season 2 of ‘The Waterfront’

“I felt their relationship throughout the entirety of Season 1 was troubled.”

Melissa Benoist as Bree having a serious conversation with Maria Bello as Belle in The Waterfront — Image via Netflix

Melissa, this is a family where mother-daughter bonding consists of disposing of dead bodies. What was that like to figure out? How does that shape who they are? What do you think it will mean for Bree, with her mother taking over at the end of the season? How do you think that’s going to shape their relationship moving forward, in a possible Season 2?

BENOIST: I hope that after the events of Season 1, they grow closer, because I felt their relationship throughout the entirety of Season 1 was troubled. They’ve been at odds for a very long time. From my vantage point, it was entirely justified, why Bree felt really slighted by her mom because of what we find out happened when Bree was a kid. It was actually a lovely scene that I got to play with Maria [Bello]. It was such a fun moment and one of my favorites that we got to do, when we actually confronted that specific subject and how Belle didn’t necessarily protect Bree in the way that she needed to be protected, and Belle’s reckoning with that. The amount of relief that gave Bree was really beautiful because the relationship between mothers and daughters can be like this sometimes. I have it with my own mom, even though my mom is one of my best friends. The relationship between women is something magical and we have these unspoken things. So, I hope that it makes it all the more deep and beautiful and supportive in Season 2.