In Strike Back, no one intimidates me more than Eleanor Grant.
Played by Amanda Mealing, she is the military leader that is at the helm of Section 20, an elite military black ops unit within the British government that focuses on high-risk, top-priority targets. She’s tough, mysterious and has a “Do not F@#k with Me” look that would make any man turn around running. Thankfully for me, she’s only fictional. Unfortunately for Scott and Stonebridge, she is not.
Daemon’s TV had the chance to talk to the delightful Amanda Mealing about who Eleanor Grant really is, what viewers can expect in tonight’s season finale and whether she will be in the second season or not.
Check out what she had to say below and don’t forget to tune in tonight Friday, October 21 at 10pm on Cinemax for the season finale of Strike Back.
So I would say congratulations on a second season but at this point I don’t know if you’re in it yet.
Amanda Mealing: No one knows who’s going to be back next year. It’s all up in the air. Everyone’s a bit nervous.
In the press release they announced that production is slated to start early 2012. So my question to you is, what are you doing early 2012?
Amanda Mealing: [laughs] Very good. Very good. Well, I don’t know. I don’t know. I could tell you but I’d have to shoot you.
Yes, we’ve seen your character with a gun and we know that’s pretty effective.
Amanda Mealing: I don’t- at least I’m a little more ladylike with my executions rather than the grunting and the screaming and the kicking the boys do. I’m just silent and deadly.
So the season finale coming up with potentially really, really big moments ahead. What can you tease?
Amanda Mealing: Well, I mean there were so many questions that were being posed through the previous nine episodes. So we can say that we will answer some of those questions. You may not get the answers that you think you’re going to get. And then we’ll pose a few more and leave it open. So all the way through the show, episode four we killed off one of our leading ladies, and so there are constant surprises. And the one thing we’ve tried to do is not make it predictable, so hopefully, yes, you will get the answers but not the ones you think.
Eleanor Grant is very, very interesting. Very mysterious. What attracted you to play that role?
Amanda Mealing: Because of that. Because of that. Because she is so mysterious. And it’s incredible to have a show with, particularly a Military Special Forces show, with a female lead. It’s such a rare thing. So for an actress it’s a fantastic opportunity. But the character of Colonel Grant is so deep and yet we don’t get to find out any of those things. Maybe we will in episode 10 in the finale. But It’s far more intriguing to play a character that is a closed shop and isn’t easily explained. It’s far more fun because it’s all there. The story’s all there. And maybe people will go back and go, ‘I see that now,’ and they’ll understand this and they’ll understand that. So it’s great fun. Plus I’m five foot five and I get to boss around two six foot, burly men. Which woman would turn that down? [laughs]
But for you as an actress when you took on the role, did the writers give you her complete back-story? Or did you have to fill some of the gaps with your own imagination?
Amanda Mealing: Oh, no. There was a very, very well written biography. So that’s all kind of contained in there. That she came from a military family. That she lost her mother very early on.
Even the necklace that is never explained. For the necklace, I sat down with the costume designer and since there’s so little revealed of her, we wanted to have something personal. She doesn’t do personal. She’s at work. She doesn’t reveal how things affected her. But we wanted to have something that was quite personal. So in her biography her mother died when she was young. And we said, that’s the mother’s necklace. And she always, always, always has that.
So, yes, there was a huge amount of background on all The characters. That she went to Oxford. That she was in intelligence when she was working for the Bush Embassy here in the U.S. And that she was seen by General McChrystal. It’s very, very detailed.
I spoke to both male and female commanding Officers, and they said you absolutely have to leave your personal life at the door because the entire unit looks to you. And even if a man goes down you can’t grieve. Grief is not a luxury you are allowed to have if you’re a commanding officer. You allow the guys to grieve and you encourage them to go out and toast whoever’s gone and let it out at a bar or somewhere.
And then come back to work. But as a commanding officer those guys are looking to you so you can’t break down. You can’t show that you’re upset. You can’t do any of those things. So it’s a really tough job. But obviously it does affect them. And I think in the season finale we’re going to see the impact and the consequences of these things. Definitely, I can tell you that.
The character has to keep a certain public persona but we saw Eleanor evolve throughout the episode. And actually are we starting to see a little bit of ambiguity, slash guilt, vis-a-vis Scott?
Amanda Mealing: Yes. Yes, yes. I mean they have quite a tempestuous relationship. I mean Stonebridge is Col Grant’s perfect soldier. And that’s why she obviously picked him. But then out in the field when things don’t go according to plan you do need a subversive thinker like Scott. So the fact that he was dishonorably discharged and had a huge chip on his shoulder, I think Colonel Grant feels for him.
Your character has had some episodes where she’s in the field. But I don’t remember seeing a full-fledged gun battle as of yet. Would you be interested in doing something like that?
Amanda Mealing: Oh God. I would have loved to have done that. I can’t tell you. Come on, get out there and really, you know. I think I need to go to the live shooting range and practice just in case.
Yes, I would have liked to have gone out and done some of the stuff that the boys did. But also when she does go out she does it in her unique way. I mean she executes Daniel Connolly. There’s no kicking. There’s no fighting. There’s no scream. She just puts a bullet through his head and walks off. That is her way. And I quite liked the fact that she did that. ‘That’s it. You’re gone. We’re not going to discuss it. You’re dead and I’m walking on.’
But having seen the boys in action and shooting those 16s, they go on for a day, two days, three days or sometimes a week for some of those big battle scenes. And it’s quite exhausting. So when I saw some of the big ones I was kind of like thinking, ‘I’m in my trailer having a cup of tea while they’re sweating. I quite like this.’
Absolutely. Also the scenes with you when you’re all huddled up before a mission and you’re essentially briefing them, you play it straight, very serious and Scott essentially just says something that you just can’t help but crack up. Is it hard to just keep a straight face sometimes?
Amanda Mealing: Oh, it really is. It really is. And it happens quite a lot. I mean the thing is the boys are out there doing the action stuff and we in the crib do all the talking. So we have pages and pages of technical dialogue that would just go on and on and on and Phil and Sully would just go, ‘Copy that’ and walk off. It’s just like, ‘Oh my God, it’s a day off for you, isn’t it?’
Well, but then again they’re running and shooting.
Amanda Mealing: Oh yes.
So it’s a sort of a balancing act, right?
Amanda Mealing: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I mean inevitably when you’re to make these slick very, very kind of their game type of characters and you can’t even pick up a pen and write something without making a mistake, the entire crew will crack up. So there were many times you’d be striding along the crib, start barking orders at people and trip over one of the cables or something. It’s really not very Special Ops at all. So we did have a laugh. And I think it’s one of those things where you’re working hours together. And we were all thousands of miles away from home. You become a family. You really do kind of support each other. And there were laughters, there were tears. And it’s just been a joy to do. And, of course, I have two boys and in their eyes I’m Super Momma. Momma shoots people. It’s great.
Speaking of the locations, you guys were everywhere. I know the character went a lot of places but did you just stay in South Africa? Or did you move around as well?
Amanda Mealing: We went all around South Africa, which is a huge place. And there’s the beauty of something there, within a short plane ride we could be in the desert, in the jungle, by the beach, by a city. We could dress it up as if it’s Bali or Mumbai or- so within South Africa we were able to use lots of locations. We spent four months there. And then went to Budapest, went to Hungary, for a couple of months. Both stunning, stunning countries.
Aside from ‘Strike Back’ and potentially something you’re doing in early 2012, are there any other upcoming projects you can talk about?
Amanda Mealing: At the moment we’ve literally finished filming and then we were doing press. So we’re all just taking a little break at the moment. And I’m beginning training for the London Marathon. I’ve never run before. Listen, I’ve never run for a bus [laughs]. So I took the opportunity while we had Special Forces guys training us, I started my first efforts of running and boxing and stuff like that. So I’ve slowly begun. And now, in earnest, started my training for the marathon.
But that’s something I would imagine even your character Eleanor Grant would just do for relaxation.
Amanda Mealing: But that was part of it. Yeah. That was part of it and kind of getting into the psyche of Colonel Grant. I though she would do that. She would. She’d go out for an eight-mile run before she started work if she had time. So I think maybe a little bit of Colonel Grant has rubbed off on me. I’m quite pleased.
If you could guest star on any other TV show which one would it be?
Amanda Mealing: Oh my God. Oh my God. It’s so difficult because there are so many. Well, I can tell you for now they’re all HBO because, you know, the stuff that they’ve got on. I loved ‘The Wire’. Loved, loved. I think I personally promoted that film in the UK. Because I was going, ‘Oh you’ve not seen it? What do you mean you’ve not seen it? Oh my God.’ ‘The Wire’, ‘West Wing’, ‘Mad Men’, ‘Boardwalk Empire’. I mean I could just, really, I don’t know. I don’t know. What shows do you like?
You named pretty much all of them. Definitely ‘The Wire’. ‘The Wire’ is something you have to watch.
Amanda Mealing: I loved it. I loved it. Because it was one of those- it was the first show I’d seen where it wasn’t patronizing to the audience. In fact, if you can’t understand what’s going on, tune your ear in, listen, and it is the way it is. And I just loved that. So, yeah, I think I might say ‘The Wire‘.
(Photo: Courtesy of Cinemax/HBO)
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