“I’m stoked”: Benjamin Charles Watson on his excitement at being part of JJ Abrams’ TV comeback in ‘Duster’
All things considered, it didn’t take long for Far Out’s chat with Benjamin Charles Watson to reveal that the humble Canadian star is still getting used to people out in the world occasionally recognising him. Despite starring in shows like Designated Survivor, Snowpiercer, and The LA Complex, and working in film and TV for the last 18 years, it still surprises him when someone asks for a picture or an autograph.
However, because the good-natured actor is such a charming, upbeat sort, it seemed churlish to remind him there is danger on the horizon for his deep-seated desire to remain anonymous. After all, his plum role as gangster Royce Saxton in the new pulpy HBO Max crime thriller, Duster, is more than likely primed to introduce his face to many, many more people than have ever laid eyes on him. Therefore, it stands to reason that those days of anonymity are well and truly numbered.
For starters, Duster is JJ Abrams’ return to television after spending a decade making movies in a galaxy far, far away. It’s also the TV return of Abrams’ Lost star Josh Holloway, a man whose effortless magnetism and enviable head of hair as sexy conman James ‘Sawyer’ Ford helped power that show through six seasons, making it a cultural phenomenon.
“I’m scared, but I’m stoked, because you never know,” chuckled an excited Watson. “I’m just freaked out because it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m gonna be all over TV again. Want to be normal. Don’t look at me!'” Then, with a rueful shake of the head, he added, “It’s a fun experience, but I forget everyone has Netflix, or everyone has Max, and people are gonna be watching the show.”
It’s a testament to Watson’s likeable energy that his claims of nervousness when people realise he’s Dontae Evans from Designated Survivor or Tariq Muhammad from The LA Complex elicit sympathy for him. It’s easy to think of acting as an inherently showy business, and actors as a fame-hungry bunch, but for Watson, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
All Watson wants is to do his work, which he is passionate about, and then disconnect from Hollywood entirely by backpacking “in the south of France” or flying to London because he loves “when it’s cold and rainy and dreary”. Yes, this man actually seeks out British weather. “I just do me,” Watson smiled. “I love my business, but I just travel a lot, which brings me happiness, and I forget about the other stuff in Hollywood.”
In truth, Watson’s Hollywood career has been the definition of a slow and steady build, opposing any theory of overnight success. He counts Duster as the third major shift in his career trajectory, after The LA Complex first brought him to America when CW purchased the rights to the Canadian show in 2012. Suddenly, Watson spotted himself on Los Angeles billboards, which was surreal, but it also made him feel a tremendous responsibility as a gay man playing “one of the first Black gay leads on TV”.
Portraying an HIV positive social media expert in Designated Survivor in 2019 was Watson’s next significant step up the ladder, and playing that part was what gave him the confidence to finally come out to his parents and the world at large. Starring in both roles meant the world, personally and professionally, and he acknowledged, “They’ve taught me things about myself I’d never really understood, or was incapable of understanding”.
At that point, Watson confessed in an interview that he had initially been frightened to reveal his sexuality because he was worried it could affect his career negatively. Six years later, though, with his most significant role to date on the way, it only felt right to ask if he still felt that way.
The ultra-positive star immediately began shaking his head at the question and emphatically answered, “Honestly, it didn’t affect my career at all. Back then, you had to be a little bit careful, but nothing affected things to the point that I didn’t get roles or anything like that. I’m just very specific with the type of roles I audition for, or the type of roles that I will take on.”
On the other hand, Watson was quick to clarify that his experience doesn’t necessarily reflect that of every LGBTQ+ actor trying to make their way in Hollywood. He empathises with those who haven’t had such a smooth road or feel like they get boxed in by the industry. As he put it, “Each person is different, but no, it hasn’t been a challenge for me, unless something’s happening behind the scenes that I’m not aware of.”
Now, on the precipice of another shift in his career, he admits that this time it feels even bigger than either of his previous successes. “I think this one feels different because of the calibre of who I’m working with,” he grinned, “I’m stoked.”
Speaking of the calibre of talent behind Duster, it’s a rogues’ gallery of TV greats past and present. Abrams (Lost, Fringe, Alias, Felicity) has co-created the show with LaToya Morgan of The Walking Dead fame. It stars Holloway in his major episodic comeback after seven years in the wilderness, plus The Good Wife’s Rachel Hilson, the iconic deep-voiced star of The Thing, Keith David, and Gotham’s Donal Logue.
Set in the 1970s Southwest, Duster follows Holloway’s getaway driver for a growing crime syndicate, who partners up with Hilson’s federal agent to bring down David’s crime boss. As with any good show, that description barely scratches the surface of a pulpy story that is exciting, violent, heartfelt, funny, and gleefully preposterous all at once.
Watson was all in on Duster from the second he nabbed the audition. He was especially excited that the show was set in the past, because he’d “never done a period piece before” and had “always been so interested in that ’70s time period”. What followed was one of the most painless audition processes in his career, something that shocked him because he’s more familiar with endless chemistry tests, repeat auditions, and jumping through studio hoops that rarely amount to anything.
After only two auditions, Watson’s manager told him, “Yeah, they’re interested. They want you.” With a wide grin, he admitted he’s still susceptible to “that whole actor thing: you’re like, ‘Oh, they actually want me!'” Soon, he found himself on set, decked out in full ’70s regalia as Royce, and everything felt right about it. “I got very lucky,” he nodded, “This was just for me. You know when a role is for you—when you get it off the bat, that it must be meant to be.”
Watson calls Duster the “brain child” of both Abrams, who hadn’t created a television show since 2010’s short-lived Undercovers, and Morgan, who is receiving her first credit as a creator. Before, she earned her stripes as a co-executive producer and writer on AMC’s martial arts epic Into the Badlands. They’re undoubtedly a potent team to throw together for a show like Duster, which is primarily concerned with entertaining the audience, but also features keen insights on race and gender relations in the FBI and the criminal underworld of the ’70s.
As for his character, Watson loves that Royce is consistently underestimated by his crime boss father and often seems ill-suited for the role of heir. Intriguingly, he also clearly contains hidden depths that will be explored as the season develops. This dichotomy intrigued Watson, who revealed that “Royce has been sick for a while, so he’s never had the opportunity to prove that he’s worthy of becoming the heir to his dad’s enterprise. He’s figuring out life. He has his own demons and dark issues that he has to figure out.”
These “daddy issues” spoke to Watson personally, even if his real-life relationship with his father is nowhere near as contentious. His family moved to Canada from Jamaica, and he remembers being told how his father was forced to start working at 18 years old to support his grandmother. For years, this led to Watson putting undue pressure on himself to be just like his dad, so “having to try and prove myself to my dad made sense”. However, he and his father talked years ago about how he didn’t need to put that on himself, which allowed “the pressure of all of that to dissipate”.
Watson enjoyed plumbing the emotional depths of a character like Royce, but to an extent, it was familiar territory compared to his previous roles. One thing he wasn’t familiar with, though, was action, so it was an entirely new arena where he found himself behind the wheel of an old-fashioned muscle car and was told to drive hell for leather along the dusty highways of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Suddenly, Watson discovered a passion for something he never expected to get the chance to do, let alone love.
“I think I love action now,” Watson nodded in excitement. “That car was amazing to drive, and that’s actually me driving. I was never that guy, and then doing some little stunt things? That felt cool.” Naturally, Watson is now obsessed with following this adrenaline-fuelled muse, and he knows exactly where he wants that to lead.
“Honestly, I want Tom Cruise to continue doing Mission: Impossible, because I swear to God, that would be my dream next role.” In addition, he pinpointed Marvel’s merry mutants as another: “I’m a huge X-Men fan”, and became endearingly animated, displaying “magical powers” in an imaginary superhero blockbuster.
Until that day when he can finally leap off a tall building with Cruise or squeeze himself into a leather superhero costume, Watson is perfectly happy to keep existing in the rough and tumble world of Duster. “I’m really happy for everyone to see this,” he exclaimed. “It’s been a lot of hard work going into the show. It’s the best cast and crew I’ve ever worked with. JJ Abrams, LaToya Morgan, like…Yeah!”
