Premiering tonight on NBC (10 pm et/pt), Crisis centers on a group of kidnapped Washington, D.C. students who are the victims of a conspiracy plot that’s aimed at the president of the United States and a high powered executive named Meg Fitch (Gillian Anderson). Dermot Mulroney is Francis Gibson, a “slightly disgruntled CIA analyst” who is one of the adult chaperones that accompanied the teenagers, and Lance Gross is a wet behind the ears Secret Service agent tasked with protecting the President’s son.
“One of the great things about these characters is they all have a personal connection to the story, even as the story gets more wilder and extravagant,” said Mulroney, whose TV work includes a recurring role on New Girl and the HBO series Enlightened. “That’s the dramatic pull of the story, so as actors we would always bring our imagination and parts of our personal life to the character.”
The show was created by writer/director Rand Ravich, whose skills at crafting complex characters is evident in his previous TV series Life, a show which featured inspired work from Damian Lewis (Homeland) as a wrongly imprisoned cop whose surprisingly positive outlook masks his true intentions.
In the video below, Gillian Anderson, who describes tonight’s pilot as a total page turner, talked about what drew her into the world of Crisis:
