Burn Notice and Truth Be Told executive producer, Ben Watkins, created a new crime thriller on Prime Video, Cross, starring Aldis Hodge as Alex Cross, based on James Patterson’s crime novels. Alex is a Washington, D.C. homicide detective and forensic psychologist who we meet at the beginning of the series when his wife is murdered.
While Alex is set to take some time off from work after the loss of his wife, that’s not his path. Alex ends up chasing a serial killer leaving a string of dead bodies in the city.
Canadian actor Samantha Walkes plays Alex’s girlfriend Elle, someone he’s known since middle school. But with Alex still grieving his wife’s death, Elle is one of the people in his life who really tries to stress to Alex that he needs to take care of himself.
That becomes increasingly difficult as Alex’s past comes back to haunt him, impacting his work with partner John Sampson (Isaiah Mustafa), and his relationship with his kids Jannie (Melody Hurd) and Damon (Caleb Elijah), and Alex’s grandmother who lives with them, Regina “Nana Mama” (Juanita Jennings).
What really appealed to Walkes about joining the show was how well-developed the character of Elle is in the story, along with the other characters in Alex’s orbit.
“It’s rejuvenating and it reinstated a lot of hope for me in this industry, especially when so much of the love interest roles are kind of like watching wallpaper dry,” Walkes told Yahoo Canada. “They can be very flat, one dimensional, because it is all contingent on this lead and their own personal journey.”
“Elle becomes a pillar. Nana Mama is a pillar. Sampson is a pillar in holding up what Cross is and who he’s able to be in the world.”
In terms of working with her costar Hodge, Walkes highlighted that what made establishing that connection for their characters effective was that both actors were open and transparent with each other.
“Sometimes when you come into productions like this, there are certain people who are uncomfortable with intimacy, and I’m not just talking a sex scene, I’m talking … just allowing a transferring of truth, of transparency, … consenting to telling the truth and unmasking,” Walkes explained. “And what was so great about this time was I finally had a costar who loved their profession. Was so professional, but also incredibly passionate about their work. … We both were two people who consented to just being transparent with each other all the time.”
“One of my favourite scenes shooting was around Elle’s dinner table. It’s just the two of them and there’s this beautiful, relaxed, unmasked energy between them, of just two humans communing. I really wanted to make sure that, because we had such history, … there was this comfort level where they just let all the masks go at the door, … and came into a spot and a space that was safe for them to just be humans together. That was really important for me to work through and try to explore.”
What’s particularly interesting about Elle and Alex in Cross is how it explores Alex slowly entering a relationship after the dramatic and traumatic loss of his wife, and the reality that Alex may not be fully ready to entirely jump into a new partnership.
“I think in Hollywood and society, we’ve sold this idea of true love,” Walkes said. “But I’m more interested in real love. I’m more interested in stories that really give us moments of breath and reality and complexity, because we all have been through messy love stories.”
“To have moments where it’s written that these two people are trying to build bridges to each other in multiple ways, and some of them fall apart, that’s just real. That’s just love, that’s life. And so for me, it has been the most fulfilling thing as an artist to portray things that feel like breath. It feels like breathing. It is easy because it’s real. It’s true. It’s true to our nature as human beings and how we commune with one another.”
As Walkes highlights, Elle is also realistic about how Alex could fit into her life, not necessarily letting go of the life she’s built and being honest with him that this relationship can’t work if he doesn’t take steps to help himself as an individual.
“It’s so empowering because how many women will be able to relate to that? I mean, I relate to that,” Walkes said. “Just being able to be this very strong voice for someone you love, and you’re not even sure if that bet is going to play out in your favour.”
“Telling the truth that harshly, that tough love, you’re not sure how that’s going to play out for you, but what’s really beautiful. And what I wanted to portray is that invitation of, ‘I want to be here. I don’t need to be here.’ … She wants Cross, but she doesn’t need Cross. She’s built a beautiful life and cultivated a profession that she is incredibly in love with and passionate about, as the executive director of a non-profit working with kids. Being in her community, getting dirty and fighting for her people. … There is a part that looks like it could fit with what she’s already created. There is this beauty of this freedom that Elle gives Cross.”
It’s relationships between characters that are core to Cross. Borrowing a line from Watkins, Walkes said the hope is that “people come for the thriller and stay for the relationships.”
