Nick Nolte plays a man haunted by his past in second season of 'Graves'
Last season on “Graves,” we were introduced to an ex-U. S. president who underwent a spiritual awakening and set about righting the wrongs he perpetrated while in office 25 years earlier. Along the way, there were bouts of public drunkenness, marijuana, vandalism and consorting with a spiritual muse. Not exactly behaviors befitting a conservative ex-chief exec.
Now as Season 2 of the EPIX comedy opens Sunday, Oct. 22, the journey continues for Richard Graves (Nick Nolte) as he goes about rediscovering the man he was before entering the Oval Office, before his legislative agenda brought the country to war and economic ruin. That's a process that coincides — for better or worse — with wife Margaret's (Sela Ward) campaign for U.S. Senate, the arrival of his first grandson courtesy of daughter Olivia (Helene Yorke) and a revelation about son Jeremy (Chris Lowell).
As the title character, the gravelly voiced Nolte seems the perfect fit to play a gruff guy haunted by his past, and the 76-year-old actor admits they do have a few things in common.
“I don't think there's much that isn't me in the character,” Nolte says. “You know, you go to work every day, you wake up with yourself, and you go to bed with yourself. So why wouldn't you take yourself to work? It just so happens that some parallels of my life coincide with some presidents. Not all of them. ... So it's kind of a process of elimination, eliminating the part of Nick Nolte that doesn't fit in this presidential ex-presidential being.”
As Graves is tearing down his political legacy, Margaret is in the process of building hers up after being the dutiful first lady of a two-term president and mother of two now-grown children. So a husband going off in search of himself isn't what she needs at this point in her life.
“I love that Chinese expression 'a woman's second spring,'” Ward says, “when she's raised her children and it's the chapter of her life when it's all for her. And this is what she's really getting to experience. She's passionate about politics, having stood by the side of her husband all those years, and feels she has her own independent voice and the opportunity to really express that and own herself for the first time.
“ ... So that's where Margaret is this season, redefining herself. It's risky. It's not a smooth ride. She's juggling, at the same time, this delicious, dysfunctional family with the most fabulous storylines you could ever imagine. And this poor woman, just trying to stay fast and steady toward her goal, is derailed every 10 seconds by humongous issues around her.
“And she finally, in this season, falls apart, which is really delicious unto itself. So it's a wonderful part for me, and it's a wonderful journey.”
---
“Graves”
Returns at 9 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22, on EPIX