For Benjamin Hollingsworth, playing Dan Brady on Virgin River is the kind of job that keeps an actor wanting to act.
For many fans of the Netflix show, Brady has always been an interesting baddie. Now, as Season 5 is about to drop, Hollingsworth says his character’s character is about to get a lot more complicated.
“There’s a tension there, an inner storm that is brewing,” said Hollingsworth during a phone conversation earlier this summer from his Vancouver-area home. “It’s not just clearcut that he’s a bad guy. That’s not interesting, it’s never interesting. And it’s not clearcut that he’s a good guy. People just don’t do a 180 overnight. It’s nuanced, and I love that about it. For me, when I can get a part like that, I’ll play that for as long as they’ll let me.”
Netflix will release the fifth season of Virgin River in two parts: Part 1 on September. 7, and Part 2 on Nov. 30.
A sixth season has been green-lit, but, at press time, the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America strikes had suspended shooting. Hollingsworth did this interview with Postmedia News before the actors went on strike.
When it comes to dishing on the Netflix series’ return, Hollingsworth can’t say much except that Brady, who was exonerated for the shooting of Jack (Martin Henderson) at the end of Season 4, now has a chance for a major life reset . The question is, will he use that get-out-of-jail-free-card for good or evil?
“He still has a lot of things to figure out. And this season there is still very much an external force that is pressuring him. I can say that,” said Hollingsworth, keeping major plot plans quiet.
As for his romance with Brie (Zibby Allen), well, that is a situation that gives Hollingsworth another interesting acting avenue to venture down.
“We heard him say he loved her. That’s the first time he said that to a woman. And so it’s all uncharted territory for him, which again, is very interesting to play whenever it is a character’s first,” said Hollingsworth, a National Theater School of Canada graduate.
