Michelle Monaghan couldn’t say no to this new Netflix thriller
Having just wrapped up three seasons of a drama with strong religious themes, Michelle Monaghan wasn’t exactly jumping out of her skin when a script titled Messiah landed on her lap.
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Having just wrapped up three seasons of a drama with strong religious themes, Michelle Monaghan wasn’t exactly jumping out of her skin when a script titled Messiah landed on her lap.
The Mission Impossible star, who appeared alongside Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul in The Path, a series about a family who belong to a fictional religious movement, was understandably cautious when presented with this new project.
“You see the title and your mind can go a thousand different directions,” Monaghan tells Insider.
“I had just come off The Path and of course I saw the title and I was like ‘no, no, no — for obvious reasons this isn’t something I’m going to be drawn to right now’.”
But after being given the full 10-episode first season script by Australian creator Michael Petroni — which she read in one afternoon sitting — she was convinced to jump on board.
“All the characters were so beautifully fleshed out and they were characters that were really relatable and in search of something which I think is really the identity of the world right now,” she says.
Messiah is a geo-political drama that imagines how the world would react if a Jesus-like character were to come to the fore. Al-Masih, played by Belgian actor Mehdi Dehbi, starts to gain a global following when he appears to perform a number of miracles, including very visible acts that cause widespread pandemonium.
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Monaghan, 43, plays sceptical CIA agent Eva Geller who investigates the mysterious figure from the Middle East, working to prove he is trying to be a destabilising force rather than the prophet many hope he is.
The series is told through the eyes of a number of players including Geller, a troubled Israeli intelligence officer (Tomer Sisley) and a Texas minister (John Ortiz) struggling with his faith. Dermot Mulroney plays the US President who has a complicated relationship with Al-Masih.
While there were a few rumblings when the show’s trailer dropped that the series would have an anti-Muslim sentiment, Petroni has played a straight bat and in telling the story from multiple angles has removed any type of bias.
“I think Michael had a very specific vision for the show and he stayed true to it. He wasn’t taking sides on any particular issue or belief system or anything like that,” Monaghan says.
“He really allowed for the viewer to actually self-reflect and I think that’s what’s so compelling about the show.”
Asked if she would be a believer or a sceptic should such a person appear today, Monaghan chose another option.
“I think I’d be neither,” she laughs. “I’m not like Eva at all — she’s very dogmatic, right and wrong. I’d be really curious.”
But the way in which Petroni has depicted the reactions from different communities across the globe is exactly how Monaghan believes it would play out.
“I think his portrayal of how the world would react is very accurate,” she says.
“I think people would feel incredibly emboldened and excited by this man’s presence and
I think a lot of people would feel threatened as hell — this is the ultimate disrupter.”
Monaghan believes the series will spark debate among those who watch it, just as it did when she sat down to watch it with her Australian husband Peter White.
“I just watched it with my husband and we’d dissect each episode after we watched it and we both had different takeaways of what found,” Monaghan says.
“That’s what I find so riveting about the show.”
The mum-of-two, who splits her time between New York and Los Angeles, met the Aussie graphic designer at a Manhattan bar in 2000 — before she was a household name — and the two have been inseparable since.
“I knew within five minutes I was going to marry him,” Monaghan told AAP in 2005. They married five years later in Port Douglas and head to her husband’s birthplace at least every year.
“We’ll be down there around spring break, close to Easter,” she says of the family’s next visit.
After getting her start with a few small roles on TV shows such as Young Americans and
Law & Order: SVU, Monaghan moved into to film and quickly built an impressive resume that has made her one of Hollywood’s in-demand actors.
She has starred alongside Robert Downey Jr (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Jake Gyllenhaal (The Heartbreak Kid) and Brad Pitt (Mr & Mrs Smith).
Monaghan has also had a recurring role in the Mission Impossible films as Julia Meade, Ethan Hunt’s ex-wife.
* Messiah is now streaming on Netflix