Starting from a Place of Character: A Conversation with ‘Task’ Creator and Showrunner Brad Ingelsby

Set in the working class suburbs of Philadelphia, an FBI agent (Mark Ruffalo) heads a Task Force to put an end to a string of violent robberies led by an unsuspecting family man (Tom Pelphrey).

It feels incredibly rewarding as a viewer to get lost in a television series where you feel fully invested to both the character and plot. And once everything shakes out, particularly not in the way you had thought, it’s oddly satisfying. But conversely, you’re mad that the season is over, there’s characters you’ll miss and now you have to wait for the next season to air at an undisclosed air date. That’s the feeling I had getting (happily) lost in the muck with creator Brad Ingelsby’s characters and world.

Brad Ingelsby has a knack of writing sharp characters on the fringe. And he doesn’t let up in his new series, Task. You love and hate to love these characters, and find yourself more often than not caught in the crosshairs of good vs. bad. But Brad breathes life into each character giving them space to be their own individuals, complete with flaws and ticks, and emotional wounds that are inevitably relatable.

In the conversation that follows, Brad Ingelsby shares his personal inspiration behind the show, the importance of character-driven storytelling and the emotional depths of his characters, his collaboration with his directors and focusing on emotional arcs, and the significance of birds in the show.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: There are so many beautiful layers to the show, and I’m so curious as to what was your way in - I know there was some kind of personal connection in terms of locale, but what was your way into this world and these characters?

Brad Ingelsby: My uncle was an Augustinian priest. He left the priesthood. And he's extremely close to me… he's such a great advocate in my life. And we talk all the time. But I was really interested in how his views of God have changed over the years, from being in the seminary to coming up in a kind of old school Catholic tradition of God as this guy in the clouds waiting to judge us, and how he has really evolved over the years - and that was sort of interesting to me.

And then we learned that the FBI works with priest and clergy, and that they have a volunteer in the wake of these mass casualty events. And it makes sense; you want to bring these people along. People are experiencing severe trauma and despair in the wake of these events. So, that was really interesting to me.

And so that was Tom and I was interested in a guy that's lost his faith through this kind of tragedy within the family unit. And then for Robbie, I sort of was interested in quite the opposite, a guy that didn't have any kind of religious faith, but had a faith in possibility of life but kind of against all odds.

It's kind of strange to say, I liked the idea that he would go to a quarry, and the quarry was his sort of heaven, in a way, his version of what that was. I had grown up watching Breaking Away, which is a movie that I watched as a kid over and over, and I always loved the quarry and what the quarry represented to those friends in that film.

I just liked the idea of these two guys. I always start from a place of character. I don't really know where the story goes. I'm not an outliner. I was just really intrigued by these two guys that kept kind of swimming around in my head that I felt like, well, how do I tell a story that involves these two guys, this intersection of these two lives? And then I started to build the plot out. But it always is born from character, and that was the genesis of Task, was just starting with these two characters and falling in love with them in different ways.

And then really thinking, well, the tension of this piece is, I like both of these guys, I know the collision is happening, and to have an audience get quite scared because they know something's going to happen eventually. And just ratcheting that up every episode was sort of the tension we wanted to mine there.

Sadie: There's something so great happening here, especially with these two guys, you love them both for different reasons, you feel kind of weird about liking Robbie, when you know you shouldn’t, but you can’t help it. But there is something emotionally happening to both of them… they’re both right on the edge. Something is going to break them, and you don’t, but you do want to see what will happen.

Brad: Yes, that's right. That's exactly right, and that's what we tried to tap into. What's the tension of this sort of unbearable, as you said, kind of knowing something's coming and being scared to see A, when it's going to happen, and B, what it's going to look like, or what the aftermath is going to be.

Whereas Mare, I felt like was much more of a classic whodunnit tension. Is it this person? Is it that person? I felt like we had to tap into a different nerve and that one is kind of what you're saying, which is, 'Oh God, I really like these people. I don't want to see what's going to happen,' which I think it paid a lot of dividends for us.

Sadie: There’s this great line that stayed with me from Father Daniel, when he says, “He’ll find his way.” And it carries a lot of weight for these two characters, but it stands true for everyone in their orbit. You’re not giving us the full backstory of every character, it’s all on the surface level, but what was your process in laying the groundwork for all their individual journeys?

Brad: I did a movie a long time ago. It was based on an Esquire article by Matt Teague, who's a journalist and the article is called "The Friend". And it was really about his wife who had cancer, and they had a best friend come into town and he kind of gave up his own life and responsibilities back home to help them get through this tough time in their lives. But when I was talking to Matt, I was asking him about his career as a writer, and he said to me, ‘It's not about the information. It's when and how you give it. It's the order of revelation.’ And I really took that in.

So, I'm really mindful of thinking what are some surprises that we still have? How do you not front load everything? What are some ways in which later, a character can surprise us, or we think we know them as one thing, and then we see a different side of them, or we think we don't like them, and then they do something that makes us like them.

And I think that's really important, that an audience never gets too comfortable, or you never allow them to feel like, ‘well, I could leave for 20 minutes and come back into the show and I'm not going to miss anything.’ And as a viewer, I don't like shows like that. I like to feel like every episode earns a seat at the table. There's a lot happening, there's a lot of clues, there are a lot of revelations.

And the other thing I would say, Sadie, a big question I ask of each character is why are we coming into their life right now? What does this character need in this specific moment? Why is it important? And I think I can probably answer that for every character, like with Grasso, he's not able to keep up this game any longer. With Lizzie, she doesn't know what she wants in her life. She feels like she's a coward, and now she's going to show courage with Aleah, it's the history of abuse, and now she's going to try to make a step into coming out of her shell, having a friend, overcoming the trauma, with Robbie, it's he can't keep up the game.

I think that's an important question to ask, and that often dictates the arc of the show. For example, Lizzie, she's a coward, she's kind of aimless, and then in the in the moment of truth, she shows some bravery. And so, I can start to map out the arcs, if I know where they start and why we're coming into the story at this specific time. So that's a question I like to ask. And then I like to surprise the viewer, if I can. As you're saying, to not give everything away so quickly, to leave some little surprises and tricks and some twists along the way, where you think you know people, but then they surprise you. I think that's really important.

Sadie: Yeah, that reminds me of the intros of the Task force team. It's such a great way to introduce characters. And they felt like this group of red herrings and you’re dangling this carrot in front of us. I thought I had a solid idea of who the informant was and then that gets derailed - and it's fun as a viewer, because you can play along within the story with them too, and it makes you more invested.

Brad: I think you're right. It's helpful to give an audience a mystery that they need to have solved. It wasn't like Mare, that the central mystery was driving the plot. But within the central collision course, there were these little mini mysteries, who's the informant, who's leaking the information? And I think that's important, as you're saying, the audience likes to try to guess and figure it out, and to give them a chance to do that is fun.

Sadie: There’s active participation. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the incredible casting on the series, Mark Rufallo especially. But first, I have to ask, there are several scenes where Mark’s character Tom does the ice water face plunge, is that something that he brought to the table from the Paul Newman character Harper or was that something you had established in the script?

Brad: [laughs] I think we mentioned, because it was in Harper, with Paul Newman... I think we had mentioned it to Mark, and I think he's the one that ran with it... but I had seen it in the Paul Newman movie... that's where I got it from. But I'm with you, I saw it in the Paul Newman movie. That's where I knew it from. I think he might even mention that in the documentary, like icing his face in the morning or something like that. But I really liked the idea, and he liked it too, so we ran with it.

One of the things I'm so grateful for is that Mark is such a humble actor. It's not the showiest role at times. I would always say to people the reason Alison [Oliver] is so funny, or Martha [Plimpton] is so funny is because they're able to play off Mark, who's a certain type of guy, ex-priest, kind of rumpled, and the dad. And I think he's such a humble person and a humble actor, that he makes everyone around him really pop in a way.

Sadie: Your creative team, specifically your directors carrying out your vision, what kind of conversations were you having in terms of establishing the tone and locking in the pacing?

Brad: Well, I met Jeremiah [Zagar] really early in the process. He's from Philly, so we got along really well. I'd seen Hustle, and I'd seen We the Animals, and I really was pretty adamant and passionate about having a humanist, that I really, really wanted someone that understood intimate scenes and tenderness. And especially because I knew Robbie would have these kids, Sadie, and that was really important to me to give the kids a voice. Emily on Tom's side, but also Harper and Wyatt to see how the action of the father impacts the kids, and not just have them be these kind of people in the background of scenes. And I felt like, here's a guy that understands what the emotional core of the show, the rest of it, the set pieces, and all that we can do together, and we can map it out.

Salli [Richardson Whitfield] the same. I think Salli was just wonderful in understanding what the show was about. And what we did early was walk through the scenes and say, 'What do we need to get out of the scene?' OK, so the scene is about Maeve has to tell Sam, or Maeve has to change her mind about Sam. That's what the scene is about. And if we're all aware of what we need out of the scene, then we can be nimble on the day if things don't quite match up in the blocking, or if the scene needs to shift from a river into a bedroom, I think as long as we're all on the same page about what is the scene about, then I think we'll be fine. And I'm there every day, so we can change the lines.

And also, I think it's really important that the action scenes are examined in a similar way. I'm not really interested in having action scenes just to quicken the pulse of the audience. I want there to be emotional stakes.

As an example, that big action sequence in Episode Six, we really mapped it out emotionally. Tom Brandis he's been knocked around all six episodes now he's going to stand up for himself, right? It's like Robbie's going to get the guy that killed his brother... So, the scenes are built around emotional arcs, not necessarily plot points - there are plot points within that, but Lizzie needs to show courage, right? Grasso needs to receive his comeuppance in some way, or the House of Cards has to crumble down. Aleah needs to prove that she is a sharp shooter.

So, you're sort of going down and going, how did the scenes work emotionally? And we had a lot of work in prep, just talking through the scenes. And so, when we got there on the shoot days, we knew what we needed out of the scene. And if we didn't have enough time, or we didn't have a location, we could be really nimble in terms of pivoting to still achieve what we needed emotionally.

Sadie: There’s another line that kept popping up throughout the series, “It's a feeling.” And as a viewer, boy, are you feeling all the feelings. Especially with the children thrown in the mix. And what I really appreciated was that you weren’t using the kids as some easy, low hanging fruit emotional manipulation device. They are a core to the story, and they have power in how they can change or sway other characters. Not just another, we’re gonna rip your hearts out because we can.

Brad: Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think it's trying to walk that line you're talking about, which is to not be manipulative, just to pull some heart strings. I'll give a credit to Ariel Stern, who works with us, she's a therapist that we use on the set, and we used her a ton in Mare, but we also used her a lot with Emily's adoption storyline, and trying to get to the heart of what that would be like. And I think what you're doing is sort of what you're saying Sadie is just to constantly be asking the question, how do we accurately portray the emotions of the situation.

Like with Emily, what really resonated for me was when I talked to Ariel and she was like, I've worked with a lot of people who have been adopted, and what they always say is, I always have to just feel grateful. Everyone says, aren't you so grateful? And they're like, sometimes, but not always, but God forbid, I ever say that to anybody. They look at me like, what's your problem? And so, I just felt like, oh, I never really had that thought that makes total sense to me, and it resonates.

And Ariel, I find is always really good, because she's had so many years of experience, at always helping me to look at things in different ways, like just even some of the things we're doing in season two, I was just talking to her, and I was like, 'God, I never would have even thought of that.'

I have a good process: I'll write the scene, I'll send it to Ariel, and she'll read it, and kind of go, ‘Well, that doesn't sound right. I may say this, or I've had a client say this,’ and that's really helpful. And I'm always asking her, ‘Well, what are some ideas we wouldn't think about? What are some things you've seen over the years or based on your experience, that we can tap into that feel like a really nuanced way of looking at adoption, or really nuanced way of looking at a mother who thinks she was a failure in the case of Mare?’ And that's really important to me.

And I think if you go into it knowing that you're walking a tightrope of being manipulative and then always erring on the side of the nuance and subverting expectations in really honest ways, I think that's really the way through it. Because I think this show is as much a family drama as it is a thriller. And I want the family drama. It's not gonna be as exciting a time. But I feel like, in order for those action sequences to work, you need all the family drama scenes to work before you get there.

And that's really important to me that by the time we get to the woods, as you said, like, ‘Oh God, I care about all of these people in different ways, some more than others, and some a little less so, but I do care about them all,’ and I think those scenes that we're talking about, trying to find the nuance in these relationships - that's what draws an audience closer to people.

I think one quality I have as a writer Sadie is to raise my hand and go, 'Listen. I'm not going to know this stuff. I got to bring in people that have lived it, heard it.' I’m really good about bringing in people that know a lot more than me. And I always say, ‘best idea wins.’ I don't care if it's from the craft service people, or it's from the people at HBO or Mark Ruffalo. If you have a better idea than me, I'll take it. I don't have any ego about it. And I found that listening to the tech advisors is really helpful.

Sadie: Brad, so this is a thing I can't seem to decode on my end, and I've been thinking about it a lot - the birds. There's a lot of bird song or seeing birds, and they all hit on something in different ways. But what is the significance of the birds for you? Tom is a bird watcher, and you bring up the vagrant bird, which is such a great parallel to Robbie.

Brad: It's funny, Sadie, it was born honestly, out of real life. My uncle, the ex-priest, is a bird watcher. And in fact, I was actually reading a book by a writer that I read a lot, Brian Doyle, who is a really great writer. He passed away a little while ago, but he often writes about birds as a kind of like, how close to God he feels when he watches birds and my uncle is kind of the same way. So, it really, I got to be honest, it came out of it being a trait that I just felt like Mark's character would possess.

It wasn't as if I started the show and went 'I want to make a running idea of birds.' But then once we got into the idea as a bird watcher, then we really liked it. And we thought, let's try to stretch this into something.

When I talk to my uncle about God and everything, he's always like, just go out and look in nature for a while, go take a long walk. And if you still don't believe in God after that, then I understand. But he feels a deep connection to God in nature and just watching birds, and mother bird coming back and feeding her young. How does she know how to do that? How is that so ingrained? Where does that come from?

And so, I thought Tom was a guy that would be quite interested in that, and that his connection to the spiritual world would come from birds. And then once we kind of planted that... then I had heard about vagrant birds, and I got very, very interested in this idea. And it did ring true to who Robbie was… he has to survive, and he's lost his way, and he doesn't know how to get home. And that, to me, was like, 'Oh, my God, that sounds like Robbie, holy shit.'

And then we also felt like the bird song was sort of Tom's connection to the spiritual world, right? So, you hear it all the time... out the window at the end of the piece, you hear the birds outside. And to me, it was just a way of connecting him to the spiritual world. And is that the same Catholic religion that he once was so passionate about? I don't believe so, but it's a connection to something.

We talked to the sound people about where to hike it up and where to bring it down, and where to layer it in. And so, to me, it was just a way of connecting him to the spiritual world. And then at the end, it was a way of sort of bringing his wife back in kind of a way where he's looking out the window and he's thinking about her.

A lot of people have asked me, ‘what was the idea there?’ What I always felt was that as a character arc, in its simpler terms, he wasn't ready for his son to come home, at the end, he's still scared. He's still uncertain. He doesn't know what's going to happen, but he's more prepared than he was, and he's ready. And what Ariel, our therapist, always says to me, which always is so interesting, is she's like, 'Two things can be true at the same time. I can be scared of my son coming home, and I can want him so badly to come home and love him.' And I feel like I wanted Tom to live in that place and be comfortable with both things and the truth of both things existing in this one person.

Season One of Task is now streaming on HBO Max.