He's used to playing villains, but even when Mark Strong plays a good guy, he ends up making bad choices.
The British actor's new show "Temple," based on a Norwegian drama and premiering on Spectrum, deals with how people react when standing at an ethical crossroads.
Strong stars as Dr. Daniel Milton, a British surgeon whose life is turned upside down when his wife (Catherine McCormack) is diagnosed with an incurable, fatal disease. With no other option but to desperately search for a way to prolong her life, Daniel opens an illegal medical clinic alongside new friend and doomsday prepper Lee Simmons (Daniel Mays).
After a career playing the heavy in movies like "Kick-Ass," "Shazam!" and "Green Lantern," the 55-year-old actor has found a gray area.
"You have a character who was faced with that moral dilemma: Was he a hero or was he a villain?" Strong said.
"He crossed a moral Rubicon. He made some moral choices that he would have never made if he wasn't forced into that situation."
Daniel's illegal clinic, tucked into the deserted tunnels beneath a London subway station, attracts a mixed bag of clients, from criminals with nowhere else to turn to patients who can't afford hospital bills. Eventually, it also attracts his wife's colleague (Carice van Houten), a research scientist who might be the only one who holds the answer to her disease.
"He's making morally dubious choices that are perhaps unacceptable, but because they're for a good cause, perhaps you would forgive him," Strong said of Daniel's illegal practice.
