Nominated for The Golden Globes, SAG Awards and the Critics Choice Awards, HBO’s The Undoing dived headfirst into the chaotic and deadly world of marriage, deception, sex, mystery and murder.
Starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, Donald Sutherland, Noah Jupe, Lily Rabe and Matilda De Angelis among others, The Undoing is a six-episode series that starts with a murder and unfolds like a thriller, infusing seeds of doubt into each character and plot twist.
Based on the 2014 novel You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It was cleverly written and produced by David E. Kelley and seamlessly directed by Susanne Bier that follows the Frasers who reside on the wealthy side of New York City and live quite a privileged life.
Jonathan (Grant) is an oncologist, Grace (Kidman) is a therapist, and their son attends a private school. Life is perfect on the outside, but reality storms into their live when the murder of a fellow school-mom Elena Alves (De Angelis), whose son is a scholarship student, turns into the biggest scandal of NYC, and the Frasers are trapped in the center.
We look back at The Undoing with Michael Devine who played Detective Paul O’Rourke who drew inspiration from his real-life duties as a recently retired NYPD Detective Sergeant. As well as, the many law enforcement roles he’s played over the years in notable film/TV shows such as When They See Us, The Post, Blue Bloods, Orange Is the New Black and more.
“I prepped for the audition by reading as much as the book as I could, I didn’t have much time. I read up until my scene in the book and it was really intriguing. It wasn’t a hard sell, I was easily onboard.”
“There was a couple of things that I liked about him. He’s partners with Detective Joe Mendoza [played by Édgar Ramírez] who is very polished and very suave, and I liked that Paul was none of those things. He was a little rough around the edges. I pictured him with a bit of thick a New York accent, so I started to think of people that I knew that talked like that, who were a bit rough around the edges. I loosened by tie just a bit and I know that they were looking for character actor, so I kept that in mind and I saw him as a character. I thought he was a good counterpoint to the suaveness of Joe Mendoza. So I had fun exploring those angles.”
Check out our full interview below to learn more about going into the mind of a detective, how Michael used his interrogation skills as an officer in his acting life, being a singer and more.
