After years spent on the periphery of TV in recurring roles on shows like Cougar Town, Chicago Fire and Secrets and Lies, Edwin Hodge has finally landed his much-deserved starring role. After reprising his mysterious character in summer's The Purge: Election Year (he's the only actor to appear in all three of the films in the franchise), Hodge returns to TV with Six, a new series from History that follows the elite Navy SEAL Team Six, one of the United States's principal counterterrorism operations. When former SEAL leader Rip Taggart (Walton Goggins) is captured by Boko Haram in a raid of a Nigerian school, his estranged teammates set out to find him—and run into an unexpected connection to a years-old mission they completed in Afghanistan. Hodge plays Robert Chase, a newcomer who joins the team in Taggart's absence.
The irony of a show about counterterrorism airing in the midst of Donald Trump's contentious first weeks as president is not lost on Hodge: "The show is going to give people something to feel some type of optimism about who we are as a people and how we deal with one another," he says. "Our moral standards and our belief system should be built on working together and not judging because of color, sex and so forth. When you have someone of power right now who, in my opinion, is preaching otherwise, you need entertainment in general. Media is a source for all, and we need to do better about educating people in a way that is progressive and unifying."
Below, the 32-year-old opens up about his personal ties to the role, working on politically-charged projects and how his brother, actor Aldis Hodges, inspires him.
He has a personal connection to the role.
"My parents are both vets, and [Six] gave me the opportunity to explore what their life was prior to me. Also, to understand the mentality of these warriors, these men and women who actually do go out there and put their lives on the line for their country and a belief, an ideal—their freedom, your freedom. They're always on call. Their job is one of the most dangerous in the world, so for me, [it] was understanding the mentality of these men and women, and why they do what they do. I felt like we could tell a true, honest, progressive story."
His work is purposefully political.
"I want to do projects with a message. No matter how I get that message across, whether it's as entertaining and whimsical and grotesque as The Purge or something as real as Six, I like being able to tell an honest story. I feel like a lot of entertainers do projects for the money or the fact that they are famous. That's fine, [but] I don't mind holding out for something I genuinely feel is going to put forth a positive idea in the world, or make you try to understand different opinions. I studied psychology growing up in school, and English was my major as well, so for me, I love talking to people and trying to understand where they come from, why they think the way they think and what's led them to believe what they believe.
As far as my work is concerned, I want people to sit down and be entertained, yes, but try to get something out of it. I think there's always a time to educate people, and if we can somehow slide in that message with me shooting a gun, then fine, let's do it. If you can slide in that message with me sliding down a water slide in a comedy, let's do it, but I want you to take something out of it. I want you to feel full when you leave the movie theater or when you stop watching the show. I want you to want to see more, or be involved with the idea of my character to the point where it influences your life. I love doing that stuff. I have the opportunity to do that with millions of people around the world."
He hopes Six will inspire a call to arms while showing both sides of the story.
"I think what the show does is, it educates people on what's going on in this world. Hopefully we can cause some type of change or make you think differently about something you may not have agreed with in the past. Maybe you don't agree with Muslim Americans, but let's show their story: let's [show] an American Muslim fighting for the cause and the American Muslin that's the opposition. Let's [show] both of those stories so we can show that there is some type of good in the world. Just because there is one bad egg doesn't mean that all of them are bad. We can't crucify all Muslims because a few Muslims do something wrong. We can't condemn all white people because someone went into a church and murdered innocent black souls. You can't condemn everybody. The ones who do the acts, those are the ones we have to go after, and that's what this show does. The ones who are wrong, those are the ones who need to be punished. You can't punish everybody.
The problem with America is that we definitely feel too safe. We think we are untouchable, and if we can just take a second to look outside of our safety net and understand what's really going on in this world—these are innocent girls who want to learn how to read, want a better life for themselves. They've lived away from their families and then [they're] sold on the market in the sex trade. Morally, I can't understand how one would not want to at least try to help find a solution for this. We deal with sex trafficking: it's huge across the world, and America has its faults with it, too. These are issues that don't just exist in other countries. We want to turn a blind eye to what's going on in our own system to make ourselves feel better, when we're doing the same thing."
He has one thing to say about this particular era of political unrest.
"Everybody's going to have their beliefs. I'm not going to judge. Everybody has their backgrounds, where they came from: Democratic, Republican, liberal, conservative, whatever you want to call it. I can't fault you for that. What I can fault you for is not educating yourself. The fact that now 'alternative facts' is going to be a term, and it's going to be a term that's going to be used to actually validate a lie, essentially? This is where we've come, and I don't understand."
He worked with two female directors on Six—a promising sign in an era where female-directed projects are on the decline.
"There is no difference. I'm not going to separate a man from a woman. They are directors, period. You're not going to have a female director, you're not going to have a male director. If you deserve that accolade, no matter your sex, then you deserve it. I think people need to open their eyes and recognize the beauty of these women's stories, and how they are telling these stories."
He adopted a very unorthodox alternative to coffee on set.
"I don't like to put caffeine into my body at all. It makes me uneasy, and so while everybody else is drinking coffee and smoking their cigarettes, I peel off and take a nap. For some reason, that just gets me through my days and my nights."
His brother Aldis is also an actor, currently starring in Hidden Figures and WGN's Underground.
"I started in the industry when I was three. My brother followed a year after. My mom made sure that we were never, ever in competition. She instilled in us that we're two different people who are going to have two different talents. People are going to see us two different ways. We have to accept that from each other. We grew up with that mentality and there were plenty of jobs that I went out for and my brother got them. Likewise, he would go out for something and then I got it. The one thing we always understood is that we were supporting each other. My mom stayed steadfast with making sure that we always maintained that mentality. When I had my lowest points in the industry—I quit twice, actually—where I felt like I just couldn't deal with all of the politics and the naysayers, he was the one who was like, 'No, you're not. I know you're upset and maybe you just need to take this break, but you need to get back on your feet.' And I did"
Samuel L. Jackson gave him a very important piece of advice years ago.
"My brother and I were working on Die Hard with a Vengeance [in 1995]. [Jackson] was the one who said [to my mom], 'If you want your kids to make it, get them into theater.' Two months after that, I was auditioning for what I thought was a Pepsi commercial. We get to the theater and there's like 500 kids there. We're auditioning: we're dancing and we're doing acrobatics and all this other madness. Five hundred kids turned into five, and my brother and I were two of the five. I guess it came down to my personality—I wasn't afraid to swing out on a rope in the opening, so I think that's why I got it. Then we were signing a six month contract. Even at that, I still didn't understand what Broadway was! I only knew TV. I didn't know what musicals were at this point in my life! When I say that those curtains opened and I swung out on the rope and I was scared sh*tless—I was absolutely horrified by the fact that I was staring at thousands of people and they were watching a live performance. That was a huge learning curve for me."
Fences is his favorite movie of the year.
"That was the first time I cried in a long time. This story is important on so many levels. It's not an African-American story at all for me. It is because of the cast, but when we look at the full spectrum of this film, anybody should be able to relate to everything that happened in that film."
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
First, third and fourth images of Hodge styled by Natalie Mark and grooming by Shiyena.
Julie Kosin is the senior culture editor of ELLE.com, where she oversees all things movies, TV, books, music, and art, from trawling Netflix for a worthy binge to endorsing your next book club pick. She's the former director of audience strategy and entertainment at HarpersBAZAAR.com. When not glued to her laptop, she can be found taking pictures of her dog or haunting used bookstores.
