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John Stamos Inherits a New Full House With Fox’s Grandfathered

It’s party time on the set of Grandfathered, but the kids aren’t all right. Dozens of pint-size extras are supposed to crowd the dance floor of Jimmy’s, a swanky, upscale Los Angeles restaurant owned by perpetual bachelor Jimmy Martino (John Stamos) as he throws an impromptu birthday bash for his 2-year-old granddaughter, Edie (played by twins Layla and Emelia Golfieri). Former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora takes the stage to provide the soundtrack for the celebration, and everything seems to be going off without a hitch until the children scatter at the sight of Stamos attempting to push his way through the tiny dance mob.

“I’m trying to go through them, but they run when they see me,” Stamos explains to creator and executive producer Daniel Chun (The Office). As the cameramen reset, Stamos corrals the kids in the middle of the room, kneels down and flashes his blinding white smile. “Guys, nobody is attacking me,” the actor directs them in a friendly, singsong voice. “You’ve got to karate chop me!”

The children take his advice to heart, and on the next take, they swarm the leading man, hitting and kicking him as he delivers his lines. Suddenly, one overzealous boy latches himself onto Stamos’s upper thigh, which elicits a quick-thinking moment of improv from the actor. “Hey, watch the cannolis!” Stamos says with a laugh.

It’s been 20 years since Stamos last made family-friendly television magic as the Elvis-obsessed, leather-clad Uncle Jesse Katsopolis on ABC’s long-running Full House. This fall, the 52-year-old is hoping to re-create that success with Grandfathered, which finds his perennially single character learning he not only has a grown son named Gerald (Drake & Josh’s Josh Peck) but also a granddaughter in little Edie. “This is literally the show I’ve been waiting 10 years for,” says Stamos, who also serves as executive producer. “It’s a continuation of what I think I’ve done well on TV: a show that has heart, is about family and has relatable themes.”

Stamos began his television career in 1982 as troubled musician Blackie Parrish on the ABC soap General Hospital before landing his Full House gig in 1987. After eight seasons on the show that jump-started the TGIF brand, he made the leap to Broadway with runs in revivals of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Cabaret before returning to the small screen in 2005 for a series-regular role on the final four seasons of NBC’s ER. “He’s been so famous for so long that he should be a jerk, an animal or a monster,” says Criminal Minds vet Paget Brewster, who plays Jimmy’s ex-girlfriend and Gerald’s mom, Sara. “I was not signing on to do a show with a creep, so I asked everyone I knew who knew him, and they all said, ‘That guy is solid.’”

“John is definitely a kid at heart,” adds Fox Television Group chairman and CEO Dana Walden. “He has a lot of chemistry with the [twins] on Grandfathered and the relationship that’s developing feels very authentic. His kindness can charm a baby.”

Well, not always. Even though Stamos is No. 1 on the call sheet, it’s apparent his toddler costars rule the Grandfathered set. The Golfieri twins have two miniature director’s chairs of their own behind the monitors, and the transportation vans that shuttle the actors back and forth from the stage to their trailers are outfitted with two cushy car seats. And when the cameras roll, the old entertainment-industry adage warning against working with children and animals has never seemed more relevant. Stamos notes that the twins did a lot of “crying and screaming” during the filming of the pilot, especially in an important scene in which Edie plants a kiss on Jimmy after a tough night of babysitting. “[Producers] were like, ‘We’re just going to change it to where Edie is crying.’” explains Stamos, who worked with the Olsen twins when they were tots on Full House. “And I said, ‘No, no, no. The kiss makes it. I’m not going to finish the show until we have this shot. We finally got it in the second-to-last take because they slowly got used to me, but it was a brief moment, because she screamed her head off right after. It might have been my breath, I’m not sure.”

Luckily, the twins are not Stamos’s only scene partners. Grandfathered focuses heavily on the father-son relationship between Jimmy and Gerald. Over the course of the first season, Jimmy will take his socially awkward son under his wing to try to up his game with the ladies, particularly former fling and Edie’s mom, Vanessa (Christina Milian), who sees Gerald as just a friend now. “He’s allowing Gerald to come out of his shell more and not be so awkward or afraid of the world,” Peck says. “And Jimmy’s starting to appreciate the idea that he has perhaps missed a big part of what life’s about, which is family, kids and the joy that comes with them.”

Much like Jimmy, Stamos admits he’s still searching for a deep, meaningful connection with a significant other. “Something is missing in his life that could be a parallel with mine,” says the actor, who was married to Rebecca Romijn for seven years until their divorce in 2004. “When I was a kid, I made a list of all the things I wanted to accomplish, and I’ve crossed off every one of them 10 times except for having a family. So to explore what that’s all about on TV and see if it works—if it does work—I’ll do it in real life.”

He’ll have more than enough to draw on, because when it comes to TV families, Stamos is currently hitting the jackpot twice over. While Grandfathered readies its debut season, Stamos is also hard at work on the Full House reboot for Netflix, titled Fuller House, which is slated to premiere in spring 2016. “There were so many years where I really didn’t want to say those two words,” Stamos admits. “Not that I didn’t love it, but I had to get away from it.” It’s clear how much he’s come around on the idea now, though: He’s executive producing the new series and will appear in at least two episodes as Uncle Jesse.

Stamos, who partnered with original Full House creator Jeff Franklin for the reboot, says the new series just “fell into place” over the last year, with the main storyline centered around original daughters D.J. (Candace Cameron Bure) and Stephanie Tanner (Jodie Sweetin). “The first taping was explosive—people just loved it,” Stamos says. “I had saved my old wardrobe, so I wore all the leather jackets. It was a bit of a trip.”

Stamos also enlisted his Full House cast mate Bob Saget for a cameo appearance in the Grandfathered pilot—as a frustrated diner at Jimmy’s restaurant. Other guest stars in the premiere include former NFL star Deion Sanders, comic legend Don Rickles and rapper Lil Wayne, whom Stamos lovingly dubs “the holy trinity” for posing together in Jimmy’s epic selfie. Throw in a musical homage from Stamos’s other pals the Beach Boys and the Grandfathered pilot boasts a varied cross section of Stamos’s real-life influences and friends. “Years ago, you wanted to stay away from everything that was relatable to you, but now it doesn’t matter,” he says. “There’s no pedestal anymore. You can’t take yourself too seriously, and that’s what this character is. I’m a bit of a fool, so I just play to that.”

Grandfathered premieres Tuesday, Sept. 29, 8/7c, Fox.

 

Fear the Walking Dead Rises at the Dawn of the Zombie Apocalypse

Welcome to the beginning of the end of the world.

Tucked away within eastern Los Angeles, where the 5 and the 10 freeways merge, is the community of El Sereno. Often overshadowed by the nearby downtown skyscrapers and the glittery star power of Hollywood, it’s the oldest neighborhood in the metropolitan area, full of middle-class families and diverse culture. It also happens to be ground zero for the beginning of the zombie apocalypse in Fear the Walking Dead, AMC’s highly anticipated new “companion series” (as the network calls it) to The Walking Dead.

But on this particular sunny July afternoon, the screams of terror that one might expect to hear coming from a show like this one are instead replaced by squeals of joy coming from inside a rainbow-colored bounce house inflated on the front lawn of an old single-family home. The streamers, balloons and table piled with presents signal the start of a young child’s birthday party, but attendance is alarmingly slim. “We’re getting a bunch of cancels because of that bug going around,” the hostess explains to neighbors Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and Travis Manawa (Cliff Curtis), who notice another perspiring pale-faced neighbor struggling to pack up his car between coughing fits. “Slowly, civilization starts to fall apart before our very eyes in our very own neighborhood,” Dickens explains between takes. “And when bad things happen, they happen pretty quickly.”

Fear the Walking Dead goes back in time to explore the early days of the zombie outbreak through the lens of a new urban setting and a fresh cast of characters. “Since the beginning of The Walking Dead, the question that I’ve been asked the most is ‘What’s happening in the rest of the world?’” says AMC president and general manager Charlie Collier. “Now, we’re about to see a totally different story, and yet, at its core, this is a character drama just like the first one. These are real people who are going to be pressed in real ways, and then the world starts to turn.”

Robert Kirkman, cocreator of the Walking Dead comic book and TV series, teamed with executive producer Dave Erickson (Sons of Anarchy) for the six-episode first season, which will begin to fill in the blanks during the five-week period that original series protagonist Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) was in his coma. The duo set out to tell the story of a blended family led by Madison, a widowed high school guidance counselor struggling to raise her drug-addicted son, Nick (Frank Dillane), and ambitious teen daughter, Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey). Madison finds strength and companionship in fiancé Travis, an English teacher who has his own strained relationships with ex-wife Liza (Elizabeth Rodriguez) and son Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie). “We start off with a slow burn in our first few episodes because we had the opportunity to explore the dysfunction that comes with family,” Erickson says. “We also wanted to have characters who were completely ill-equipped for the apocalypse.”

Even as domestic drama heightens, the producers thought it paramount to ensure that the central bond between Madison and Travis was strong. “They are the love of each other’s life,” Curtis says. “Madison is in some ways more of a pragmatist, while Travis is more of an idealist, and who they become through the sequence of events throws up some very big challenges in their relationship.”

In addition to introducing new characters, the producers wanted to move the action away from the Georgia backwoods of the original series and explore the disintegration of a major American city. They settled on Los Angeles because it syncs up with the show’s theme of shifting identity and reinvention. “Los Angeles specifically is a place where you go to reinvent and cast aside your old self to become someone new,” Erickson says. Just don’t look for any shots of the Hollywood sign or Walk of Fame. “You won’t be seeing any L.A. landmarks during the course of the show,” he says. “But the ocean is important. There’s something interesting about having your back literally at the edge of the continent during the apocalypse.”

The diversity of the city also allows viewers to follow families with different perspectives, like the Salazars, whose barber patriarch, Daniel (Ruben Blades), immigrated to the United States from El Salvador to provide a fresh start for his family, including daughter Ofelia (Mercedes Mason), who has very much embraced American culture. “This young woman sees herself as her parents’ protector and guide through the world,” Erickson says of the clan, who will be introduced in the second episode, airing August 30. “The relationship between father and daughter is going to become quite important [in terms of] coming to understand the human side of your parents.”

While the writers of the show have plenty of human stories to mine, the undead will still take center stage. Producers tapped The Walking Dead special effects makeup supervisor Greg Nicotero once again to perfect the visual aesthetic of the freshly turned zombies, which the Fear characters refer to as the “infected” rather than “walkers,” as they are called on the original series. The cast also had to get used to acting opposite their bloodied and rotted costars. “It was really horrible,” says Dillane, who shot his first scene with a young woman (Lexi Johnson) made up as a flesh-eating zombie. “I remember her turning to me and being in horrible, horrible shock. It’s not like anything anyone’s ever seen before, so I found it really difficult to work alongside.”

Although Fear’s timeline sets it at the beginning of the apocalypse, Erickson says the exact cause of the outbreak or the pursuit of a cure will not be addressed. Also, the families will have to catch up to what the audience already knows, such as learning how to handle the infected, including avoiding bites and scratches and discovering whether or not the humanity of the zombies can be preserved even as their bodies deteriorate. “We have our characters confronting friends, colleagues, family members—people whom the day before they’d be getting coffee with and now, for whatever reason, this person is trying to tear their throats out,” Erickson says. “I think the first instinct for most people wouldn’t be to kill but either run or find some way to help these folks, assuming they’re sick. There is an emotional toll and psychological trauma that goes with that.”

Back on the show’s El Sereno set, the sun is setting as Debnam-Carey prepares to shoot her inaugural encounter with one of the “infected,” and her excitement is palpable. “This is a fun day for me because it’s my first zombie experience!” she says with a laugh. “A lot of scenes are so hard to navigate because you don’t know how your character is supposed to react. There are no rules.”

Well, maybe one: Don’t expect a crossover with Rick, Daryl, Michonne or other characters from The Walking Dead mothership any time soon. “You’d love to find a way to conflate those two narratives at some point, but obviously there will be issues of geography and timeline, so there are no plans to do so right now,” confirms Erickson, who points out that Fear’s first season will take place over the course of just three weeks. Still, the actors can’t help themselves from planning their own dream cameo situations. “I think Madison and Rick would get along, since he is my favorite,” Dickens says. Adds Debnam-Carey: “I’ve thought about how Alicia and Maggie [Lauren Cohan] would be a great team.”

The cast has also thought about the immense pressure and expectations to follow TV’s second most watched scripted drama (after NCIS.) “It’s pretty daunting because you really want to please this loyal and amazing fan base,” Dickens says.

This will be AMC’s second gamble at franchise expansion this year, after the successful launch of Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul. “It is a fool’s errand to predict numbers,” says Collier, who has already renewed Fear for a 15-episode second season. “I hope people come into Fear expecting it to be its own thing as opposed to comparing it to The Walking Dead.”

And new viewers won’t need prior knowledge of the original series. “If you’re one of the seven people in the world who have never seen The Walking Dead, you can come into this show fresh,” Erickson promises. “It’s just another badass story that lives in this larger world that Robert created.” Clearly, as all hell prepares to break loose in the City of Angels, the only thing left to fear is Fear itself.

Fear the Walking Dead premieres Sunday, Aug. 23, 9/8c, AMC

Dwayne Johnson Rocks TV in the New HBO Sports Comedy Ballers

No one lives up to a nickname quite like Dwayne Johnson. It’s a quiet May afternoon in a tranquil suburb outside Boston and all 6 feet, 5 inches and 260 pounds of the man most commonly known as “The Rock” have just returned to his house fresh from a midday training session. Still catching his breath from the taxing workout, Johnson strides in wearing a sweat-soaked gray hoodie and extends his arm for a firm handshake while flashing his famous pearly-white smile before quickly excusing himself to change. “I put my Elvis shirt on for you,” his voice booms throughout the cavernous hallways as he reemerges, proudly puffing out his chest to display a bright yellow shirt with an image of the legendary king of rock ’n’ roll.

These days, it’s easy to crown the 43-year-old Johnson the king of the pop-culture landscape. After spending eight years as arguably the most recognizable face on the World Wrestling Entertainment roster, he made the move to acting with 2001’s The Mummy Returns. Since then, he has been unstoppable at the box office, headlining 2002’s The Scorpion King, appearing in the last three installments of the Fast and the Furious franchise, and starring in this summer’s disaster flick San Andreas.

On June 21, Johnson cooks up his first series-regular television gig on the new HBO comedy Ballers. He plays Spencer Strasmore, a retired NFL all-star linebacker beginning a new chapter as a financial adviser. “I’ve had an opportunity to play some cool characters, but this role truly became a wish-fulfillment scenario for me, because I always dreamed of having that life,” Johnson says as he cracks open two juice bottles and settles onto the white couch in his living room.

Johnson started his own football career as a high school freshman in Hawaii. Just before junior year, his family moved to Pennsylvania, and he spent the next two seasons becoming a dominant force in the game. Upon graduation, he was recruited by many of the top college programs in the country and ultimately settled on the University of Miami, where he helped his team to a national championship in 1991. But during Johnson’s senior year, a back injury and four knee surgeries sidelined him from the action. After being passed over in the NFL draft, he played in the Canadian Football League for two months before he was cut and moved back into his parents’ apartment. “We were broke during all of my teens, but if I became a professional football player, I could buy my parents a house,” Johnson says. “Football was everything, so when it was done, it was sobering and devastating.”

In 1996, he decided to follow in the steps of his father and grandfather and became a pro wrestler under the name Rocky Maivia. Thanks to his signature arched eyebrow and spirited catchphrases (e.g.,“Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?”), Johnson quickly became a fan favorite, landing a total of 17 championships during his tenure. It didn’t take long for Hollywood to come calling.

Johnson likens his Ballers character’s transition from sports to business to his own from wrestling to acting. “When you get into a world like Hollywood, the odds are that you won’t make it,” Johnson says. “When I got into acting at 29, I started applying myself with no formal training. I had to rely on my gut as a performer. I trusted my instincts, and I never forgot that.”

Spencer uses the same moxie to navigate the decadent Miami playground of nightclubs and luxury yachts as he builds up a sports division for his new firm, Anderson Financial. He uses his nice-guy reputation within the football community to build trust with current players, including Ricky (John David Washington, son of Denzel), a veteran wide receiver whose off-field antics got him cut from the Green Bay Packers but who now has a second chance to prove himself on the Dolphins. When it comes to managing the egos and finances of these athletes, Spencer considers himself their, well, rock. “That’s a good pun!” Johnson says with a laugh. “The interesting thing that happens to a lot of us is we, at times, are better at helping others than helping ourselves, and you’ll see Spencer have flashes of success and brilliance while wrestling with demons. Another pun!”

Ballers comes from executive producers Mark Wahlberg and Steve Levinson, two of the creative minds behind the long-running HBO comedy Entourage, whose DNA is apparent throughout Ballers—think high rollers, scantily clad women, extravagant parties, and overall dudeness. “But Ballers’ tone is still its own thing,” insists Levinson, who credits pilot director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) for infusing a fresh energy into the storytelling. “Plus, Dwayne has tremendous range and can tap into the drama of Spencer’s life and then effortlessly shift into playing the comedy that is [that world].”

Johnson’s comedic abilities come as no surprise to TV viewers. Earlier this year, he went head-to-head with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon on the premiere of Spike’s wildly popular Lip Sync Battle, bringing the house down with a performance of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” and the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.” And in March, he returned to NBC’s Saturday Night Live for his fourth stint as host, reprising his Hulk-inspired presidential spoof “The Rock Obama.” “I love performing live,” Johnson says. “I’ll sing, I’ll dance, whatever. I just want to knock it out of the park.”

He often does—even off screen. “Regardless of what your taste is, everybody likes The Rock,” says Rob Corddry (Childrens Hospital), who plays Spencer’s wisecracking boss, Joe. “When you meet him, he lives up to that sterling reputation in that his heart is as big as his chest, and I think it comes back to him in terms of success. He gives love and gets it back.”

But Ballers is not all fun and games. The series hits on a number of issues plaguing the league today, including players’ legal troubles off the field and, in Spencer’s storyline specifically, concussions and the lasting damage experienced by a growing number of former NFLers. Johnson says addressing these issues was paramount for the preservation of the show’s authenticity. “We are aware there are two sides to every story,” he says. “So we wanted to be fair to the league, but, more importantly, we want to be fair to the players.” Johnson, who also serves as an executive producer, had conversations with the NFL about its portrayal. “They were hesitant at first, as they should be,” Johnson says. “But once they started seeing the parties involved in the project, it eased some tension. They saw that there would be a level of respect shown.”

And many current NFL superstars came ready to play. Just as Entourage attracted Hollywood A-listers for guest cameos, the first season of Ballers has lined up a roster of pro athletes, including Steelers Pro Bowler Antonio Brown, Redskins wide receiver DeSean Jackson, and Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz. “I spent a lot of time with Cruz,” says Corddry, whose personal obsession with fantasy football was written into his character. “He was my No. 1 wide receiver on two of my fantasy teams until he got hurt, but I didn’t want to be one of those fantasy guys who was like, ‘Come on, man, you didn’t score me enough points!’”

Helping to keep things real behind the scenes is Rashard Mendenhall, the promising former Steelers and Cardinals running back who shocked the sports world in 2014 when he announced his retirement at the age of 26 to pursue his true passion: screenwriting. “He knows about being in the locker room and winning in a way that, frankly, none of us do,” Johnson says. “He also brings the unique perspective of a guy who was on top and then quietly retired. That psychology of walking away from millions of dollars—this guy could be really f—ed up. But no, he’s satisfied, happy, and proud that he did it.”

When it comes to his own career decisions, Johnson, too, is extremely proud. In addition to sports, film, and TV, he’s formed production company 7 Bucks Entertainment (named for the amount of money he had in his pockets after being cut by the CFL), which has developed a number of projects, including the TNT reality series The Hero and Wake Up Call. “There’s still somehow a stigma in Hollywood that if you’re a movie star, you shouldn’t do television,” Johnson says. “But that rule is silly. Quality is the mandate. You’ve got to swing for the fences to be great, but if we strike out, at least we’ll go to sleep knowing we gave it our all.”

So does this guy ever rest? Johnson reveals that he gets enough for a guy who is constantly jet-setting around the globe, acting, producing, and maintaining one of the most prolific celebrity social-media presences today. (On May 21, he broke the world record for most selfies taken in three minutes after posing for 105 photos with fans at the London premiere of San Andreas. The next day, he surprised a superfan by officiating at his wedding.) “I do what I can to maintain the legend that I am a machine,” says Johnson, once again flashing that signature smile. “They say, ‘He doesn’t sleep! He sends out crazy f–ing messages at 3am! He’s talking to his cardio machines!’ My schedule is pretty hectic, but I get by with about five or six hours’ sleep.”

Keeping him extra busy this summer: shooting Central Intelligence, a new action-comedy movie with Kevin Hart. But Ballers remains Johnson’s most personal project to date, in more ways than one. “You get to see some parts of me that you’ve never seen before,” Johnson teases. Since the series is broadcast on a premium cable network, Johnson fans can expect a number of very racy sex scenes, one of which was interrupted by a faulty fire alarm during filming. “Look, I hit it so good that I set off alarms,” Johnson says with a laugh. “Talk about something that just feeds the ego. They call me The Rock for a reason!”

David Duchovny Takes on Charles Manson in NBC’s Aquarius

The truth is still out there. Far out there, ya dig?

It’s a late-November afternoon on Paramount Pictures’ lot in Los Angeles, and everyone is feeling groovy during the final days of production on NBC’s new period procedural Aquarius. Dozens of extras cloaked in layers of hippie rags float wistfully around Stage 5 awaiting their turns on camera, while stars David Duchovny and Grey Damon wrap an intense interrogation scene in the adjoining studio, which has been outfitted to represent the LAPD’s Hollywood precinct circa 1967. As the crew preps for the next take, the actors make their way over to a couch adjacent to a car collector’s dream lineup of antique police cruisers, vintage Cadillacs, and a mammoth Plymouth.

“We are not happy driving in it,” Duchovny says of the cream-colored Plymouth. “The turning ra-dius is three blocks, and there’s no air-conditioning, so it’s a sweatbox. But we just kept telling each other it’s realistic—and that sweat is fine.”

“We are immense sweaters!” adds a smiling Damon, who plays rule-breaking undercover cop Brian Shafe. “It’s kind of a pain in the ass, but this guy [pointing to Duchovny] is a real stud.”

Indeed, this is the dawning of a new age for Duchovny, who spent nine seasons investigating paranormal activities as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on the sci-fi phenom The X-Files. The 54-year-old actor is making his return to the force—and network television—in Aquarius as homicide detective Sam Hodiak, a Los Angeles lawman whose search for a missing teenage girl (Emma Dumont) leads him to discover an underground movement of free-loving youths led by an aspiring musician named Charles Manson (Gethin Anthony). “Hodiak is more proactive and less investigative than Mulder,” Duchovny says. “The X-Files is a show where you’re chasing big mysteries, but Hodiak is chasing killers. So the mystery is a whodunit and not a what-the-hell-did-it.”

At the center of it is Manson, one of the world’s most notorious criminals. He was sentenced to life in prison after leading his followers on a killing spree in 1969 that took seven lives, including that of actress Sharon Tate. But Aquarius—which creator John McNamara (NBC’s Prime Suspect) classifies as “historical fiction”—is set two years before those events, and Manson is still just a struggling songwriter surrounding himself with a bevy of beautiful women. “Manson is posing as a peace-and-love dude and ends up being our first famous mass murderer, so he’s more of a symbol of when the ’60s died,” Duchovny says. “We don’t want you to sympathize with the guy, but we do want you to empathize with him.”

In finding the right actor to portray this dark American figure, producers took their search across the pond and tapped Oxford University grad Anthony, who most recently played the late Renly Baratheon on HBO’s Game of Thrones. “I started trying to sound like him and really understand his cadences,” Anthony says, citing Nuel Emmons’s book Manson in His Own Words as a vital tool to getting into Manson’s mind. “I tried to erase the monster that permeates our ideas of him. I read about where he grew up and what experiences he had in order to humanize his actions.”

Other cast members also delved into research for their roles. Friday Night Lights alum Damon spent three weeks before production immersing himself in books and documentaries about the Vietnam War to channel his character’s difficult return home from the front lines. “But I had to tone down [my research] a bit after I started having nightmares about Vietnam and comrades blowing up right next to me,” Damon reveals. “I had one dream where I walked into this dark room and Manson was standing there with a switchblade in the garb that he was arrested in…that lambskin.”

Vietnam is one of the many real-life social issues Aquarius will tackle during the course of its 13 episodes. Look for Hodiak and Shafe to enlist the help of a Black Panther named Bunchy Carter (played by fellow Friday Night Lights vet Gaius Charles) for a handful of cases involving race relations. There is also a multiepisode arc involving a shocking murder, which results in Hodiak having to go undercover at a gay nightclub. And the rise of feminism is addressed through the eyes of young female police officer Charmain Tully (The Originals’ Claire Holt), who struggles to earn respect in the cutthroat boys’ club of the precinct. “It’s such a fertile area for stories, because our characters are standing right on the point of history where things are going to go to utopia—where the hippies want to go—or things are going to turn dark, as it does for Manson,” Duchovny says. “Hodiak either has to come along or get left behind.”

In addition to addressing social change, Aquarius has plenty of patented ’60s sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. The soundtrack in particular plays a vital role in setting Aquarius’s tone. Producers handpicked a variety of rock classics for each episode, with the first hour alone featuring popular tracks from Jefferson Airplane, the Who, and the Rolling Stones. “It was not cheap,” says executive producer Marty Adelstein. In order to avoid those hefty price tags going forward, producers scoured archives for lesser-known songs to showcase alongside the era’s greatest hits. “Frank Sinatra is a huge part of Episode 6, but that motherf—er is so expensive,” McNamara says. “So in that episode, it’s Sinatra and five songs you’ve never heard of. We became connoisseurs of garage bands, one-hit wonders, and B sides.”

The producers are also channeling their inner radicals by testing the limits of traditional network-television standards in the show’s depiction of drug use and sex. Originally conceived by McNamara as an envelope–pushing cable drama, the series was championed by NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt, who previously cast Duchovny in The X-Files and as sex addict Hank Moody on the Showtime comedy Californication. “Under normal circumstances now, talent like David chooses to go to cable or a digital platform first because there are so many restrictions on network television,” Greenblatt says. “But the lines are blurring more, and this has more darker edges and themes than the average broadcast show.”

To that end, NBC made it overtly clear to the show’s creative team that the integrity of the series would remain intact, including the explicit orgies and underage drug use that were staples at the Manson camp. This meant filming—and editing—two different versions of every episode: an hour approved by the network to air in primetime and a racier version that will be released later on Amazon and international platforms. “We would do the digital version, send it to NBC, and their heads would explode,” McNamara says. “Obviously nudity is a huge part of the era, and that is fully [on display] in the digital cuts.”

NBC is going one step further in bucking the traditional broadcast norms of series distribution by making all 13 episodes available for bingeing on nbc.com following the May 28 season premiere. “I believe viewers think more highly of a show that they can watch at their own discretion rather than waiting for every episode to come out,” Greenblatt says. “We’ll just give the viewer more of a chance to get sucked into it faster.”

For Duchovny, the broadcast rules for salty language were the most difficult to overcome, especially while having to play a tough-talking L.A. cop. “I feel like networks allow a lot more violence than they do language, and to me, that’s backward,” Duchovny says. “It’s a part of life. My kids know the words, so I don’t know who we’re protecting.”

Although Manson’s murderous rampage came to an end in 1971, McNamara insists that’s not where Aquarius’s story stops. The producers have six seasons plotted out, with a bulk of the action spanning into the late 1970s before time-jumping to 1984 for its ultimate conclusion. “The show really is about how people deal with failure, tragedy, and changes,” McNamara says. “How do you face the aftermath of things you couldn’t stop or fix?”

A potential six-season commitment might sound daunting to some actors, but Duchovny embraces the challenge as he adds this series to his expanding résumé. Earlier this year, he released his first novel, Holy Cow, about a cow that travels to India to avoid being eaten. And on May 12, he released his first album, a collection of folk-rock tunes, called Hell or High-water. “It’s exciting to be able to do such different things,” Duchovny says. But it is the upcoming reboot of The X-Files that has his fans in a frenzy. Earlier this year, Fox announced that Duchovny and costar Gillian Anderson—who played Mulder’s partner in crime (and later love interest), Dana Scully—would reprise their roles for a six-episode event series written by creator Chris Carter and set to air later in 2015.

“It just happened. We were all able to come together at this moment,” Duchovny says of the timing. “Also, who can’t do six episodes? My mom can do Mulder for six episodes.”

Production is set to begin in Vancouver in mid-June, and Duchovny has been dropping hints about familiar faces that will reappear, telling David Letterman that Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner) and William B. Davis (Cigarette-Smoking Man) will be back. Even though Duchovny has yet to see a script, he admits he is most looking forward to reuniting with Anderson to further explore the Mulder-Scully relationship. “I’m just thankful that Gillian will be there to check in with and go, ‘F–k, this is strange!’” he says with a laugh. “We started this show 23 years ago, and here we are still doing it. In some way, it’s a show that never ended.”

Back on the set of Aquarius, it’s apparent that Duchovny has already discovered a fresh new chemistry with his latest on-screen partner, Damon. “I look at the relationship like Jesse Pinkman and Walter White,” Damon says, referring to Breaking Bad’s meth-cooking duo. “They complement each other, both negatively and positively.”

“I’ll say your hair looks great,” Duchovny replies. “That’s a compliment!”

“And I’ll say your hair looks stupid,” Damon says with a laugh as he runs his hands through Duchovny’s crew cut. “This is going to be a wild, interesting, and very groovy ride.”