Sam Trammell on Playing Nancy Drew's Dad, His Faith Movie Breakthrough and Homeland

Sam Trammell has worked consistently since he began his professional acting career in 1996, but 2019 finds the True Blood star sizzling hot with the movies Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, Breakthrough and I See You all opening in March and April, as well as the upcoming TV series Homeland, Reckoning and The Order.

"I’ve never in my life had three movies and three TV series happening at the same time," Trammell tells Parade.com in this exclusive interview. "There’s just a confluency. As an actor, you work and you put all these things in the can and then none of them come out and then, suddenly, they all come out at the same time and that’s what happening really."

First up for Trammell was the release of Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, in which he plays Carson Drew, Nancy's father, in the updated film version of the popular series of novels.

"I think there’s a huge demographic of women that grew up reading Nancy Drew that are going to love this movie," he says. "Linda Lavin has a big part in the movie. She’s so funny and talented and wonderful and I think a lot of people, including my mother who was a Nancy Drew fan, will love seeing her."

Then opening on April 17 is the faith-based film Breakthrough, which is based on the real-life story of John Smith, who, after drowning and being declared dead for almost an hour, comes back to life when his mother begins to pray.

"I met John Smith and I met his mother and it’s a really a great inspirational story coming out just before Easter," Trammell says. "The message is if you’re scared about something, or suffering, or praying about something, don't lose faith. That’s what happened with this mother. She never quit and she got great results. It’s really a miracle. It’s an unbelievable story."

The first four Nancy Drew books were published in 1930. Is that reflected at all in the film? Even though it’s in present day, does it retain some of the qualities of the original books?

This is based on the second book and it has a modern twist on it. There’s some social media elements that are part of the plot and Nancy Drew (Sophia Lillis) rides a skateboard, so she’s a little more tomboyish in that sense and a little more modern, but, absolutely, it definitely has the great family charm and great connection between the father and daughter.

Those are the things that ground the movie. Some of the details are a little more modern but it has that feel of a teenage girl going on this mystery. It’s a really old-fashioned plot but it’s great. It’s got a lot of great, quirky humor in it. And, of course, it has the aunt (Andrea Anders), who’s my sister, and a lot of that vibe of a 1930s small town, but with a modern twist.

When you look at who read Nancy Drew, there’s people like Hillary Clinton, women who have really achieved a lot in life. What about the new version makes Nancy a role model for 2019?

It really has to do with her loyalty to her friends. She’s great because she’s not presented as perfect with no faults, as an untouchable character. She messes up at the beginning and then she learns from it. So, I feel like kids today, as far as role models go, are really going to be able to connect with a character like that. Someone that makes mistakes, learns from them and then grows and, in the end, does the right thing.

You mentioned social media. Is that where the bullying comes in with Nancy wanting to protect her friend who is bullied?

That’s right. There’s an element of bullying in it and it’s really wonderful because there’s this schadenfreude sweet revenge on the guy that bullied and was not cool to her friend. So she ends up creating this situation that gets this guy back, which is great to watch, but ultimately she goes a little over the line. That’s where it’s really great for the audience to watch because then she gets a little bit in trouble and she has to make up for it.

So, how did you, as Carson, and Sophia, as Nancy, bond as father and daughter?

We did a lot of hanging out in Covington, Ga., where we shot it. Sophia­ is such a really open and intelligent person, and so talented. We did a lot of dinners at Chili’s, which was across the street and one of the only places for us to eat. Covington is an old town with a really charming town square. You can get ice cream there. It’s really kind of old fashioned.

I also hung out with her mother. Her mother was there for a bit of it, and I met her brother. So, I got to hang out with all three of them. It was a lot of hanging out and talking and having lunch. There’s something about her. She’s an easy person to befriend and connect to. I really like the chemistry that we have in the movie.

So, you have sons, not daughters. I’m thinking if they’re going to read, they’ll read the Hardy Boys, but was there someone in your family who is a Nancy fan and was really urging you to do this role?

My mother read all the Nancy Drew books. She found one of the original Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase hardback books right when I got this part. But she and all of her friends were so excited because it was a big part of their childhood.

You also have Breakthrough coming up which is based on a real-life, miraculous story. Were you familiar with what happened before getting the script?

No, I wasn’t, and I was really moved by it. It’s funny. It was made by Fox 2000 that did Fault In Our Stars that I did years ago, and is similar in the sense of being a heartwarming and really moving story. Ever since I did that movie, which was so successful, I’ve looked for similar projects. I wasn’t familiar with this one and I was really blown away by the story.

It’s a true story about this boy John Smith, who in 2015 in St. Louis, he and three friends walked down to this iced over lake. They all fell through. They shouldn’t have been there; it was a warm spring day. Two of them got pulled out really quickly but John was under water for 15 minutes and came out not breathing and pretty much gone, but they kept the CPR going in the ambulance.

I play Dr. Sutterer, who is the first doctor to see him. I spend about half an hour trying to resuscitate him. I use electrical shocks but no pulse, no breathing. He’s dead, but it’s beautiful because I don’t want to stop. I want the mother to see us working on him before we stop, so we have her called. Of course, she comes to the hospital and we keep going until she gets there, so that she can at least see that we tried as much as we could.

At that point, we stop and we let her say goodbye to her son, who’s passed away and you could hear her in the hospital, outside the room, all down the halls, screaming to God, praying to God to save her son. And lo and behold, a pulse happens and nobody can believe it, but at that point, even though he has a pulse, he’s still going to die, and even if he lives, he’s going to be brain damaged. But little by little he starts coming back.

His mother never lost faith. She kept praying and the whole community supported her and supported him in all kinds of ways -- with prayer, with food, with presents. He came back and he had a full recovery.

What do doctors say about that? It sounds like spontaneous reanimation, which I don’t even know if that’s a thing.

I know, right? In the movie, Dr. Sutterer wrote a letter to John’s classroom saying that he has never seen anything like this and it’s nothing short of a miracle. It’s not explainable. He wanted to impress upon us the magic of it, the real magic that what happened just does not happen. It does not happen that somebody’s gone for that long and comes back to life. Much less that they come back and have a full recovery. He called it a miracle. He had faith. He was a man of faith before that, and it made him even more so.

There are other characters in the story, Mike Colter, who is an incredible actor, plays Tommy Shine, the First Responder. His character really didn’t believe in God, was having a hard time and was struggling and he was won over. This is all true. It’s a beautiful story about this community, this small town, getting sewn together by this incident, which is nice. It’s a nice thing these days to hear about towns being brought together as opposed to being pushed apart.

You mentioned meeting Joyce and John. What did you talk about?

I didn’t say, "So what’s it’s like?" You have to be gentle with it. I didn’t want to ask them, "So, you really don’t have any problems from it?" But one of the interesting things that we talked about is he got so much attention from this. Everybody in the school was very, very supportive but he also had some difficulties, too, because of all the attention.

There were people that were jealous and so he had to deal with that. None of this was his choice. He made the choice to go out on the ice but he thought it was safe. He was just so blessed and fortunate to be brought back to life, but then he had to deal with all the attention that he got. The attention was really great but parts of it were not so easy because there were jealousies that happened because these are teenagers, so he not only had to recover from the incident, but he had a little bit of work to do in school, too, as far as saying, "Hey, I didn’t ask for this and I didn’t want it. I’m not trying to get attention, I’m just grateful for everybody that helped me." I think everybody was won over, but it’s interesting. You think that something like this is all just a bed of roses but there’s interesting different kinds of things that come up that are not what you would think.

You worked on This is Us, but your storyline was with Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia, so did you know Chrissy Metz before this film and what was it like working with her?

Chrissy’s so cool. She’s so talented and it’s interesting because she was a casting director, so she comes at this with a wealth of experience from the other side of the camera and a real understanding of how things work. My very first scene was with her. It was where I had to tell her that her son was probably not going to live when she shows up to the hospital when I’ve been trying to save him.

She is extraordinary. She’s very humble, very talented and very open. She had to do this scene where she just yelled out to God to save her son and it just broke all of us on set. We could hear her because they were shooting me from the outside responding to her. It was just unbelievable what she brought to the scene, and I’m just a huge fan of her anyway. I think that she’s so in touch with herself and so grounded and so open as a human being that people just connect with her, they just really do. There’s something about her.

You have also joined the cast of Homeland for its final season. What can you say?

I play Vice President Ben Hayes and I could not be more excited. It’s such a good show with the highest quality of writing and incredible actors. We’re shooting in Morocco, which is so exotic. I’m honored to be on the show and I’m honored to have been elected vice president.

It’s really heavy, though. It’s a tall order because I will be in charge and I will be giving directives to Mandy Patinkin and to Claire Danes. I have a lot of respect for them as actors and I couldn’t be more thrilled. It’s just such a different kind of role for me. I’ve just finished my first episode and I really love it. I like the feeling of wearing a suit, having the pin of the American flag on it and feeling the power of that, because even in playing pretend if you get a little power from it, that’s fine. It’s really fine.