Elizabeth and Finn are currently on a romantic getaway to Vermont. Why do you imagine he proposed the trip? “I think at some point, he’s gotta stop playing around, right? You’ve got to push all your chips in and see where they fall. If it doesn’t work out, at least you’ve put it all on the line. I try to come from a place that these are two kind of damaged people. Her husband died, he had a wife who died. I think it was just time! You can only play that [will they/won’t they] for so long. I think that’s more interesting, to see someone go, ‘I’m going to get back out there and try again. If I get my heart broken, I get my heart broken.’ I don’t know what’s going to happen with them, I really don’t. I actually thought it was done and then they re-engaged it. I think [the powers-that-be] are trying to go all-in and see what happens with it. It’s an uphill battle because it has gone through an ebb and a flow; I think it had some momentum and lost it. Trying to work that back is difficult, but I always say, the writers can do anything. It just takes some work, and I know Becky [Herbst, Elizabeth] will be good, and hopefully I’ll be nearly as good, and maybe we’ll make it good to watch! And if not, they’ll do something else. But I think it was just time to be all-in, and Becky is an amazing actress. When you give her rich material, powerful material, she’s amazing to watch. I’d be giving her powerful material every day; she’s that good. So, we’re going to take a run at it and see what happens!”
Back at home, Finn is contending with Gregory’s ALS diagnosis, giving you and Gregory Harrison (Gregory) some meaty material. What has it been like to play Finn grappling with his father’s mortality? “First of all, Greg’s amazing. He’s a lovely human being, he’s a lovely spirit of a man, and then on top of that, he’s an amazing actor. Connecting with him is so easy. This has been a very strange year for me because I’m the same age as my mom was when she passed away, and of course, I lost my father as well, and I lost them both to cancer. I remember that slow decline, but I didn’t have to draw on that. Someone asked me, ‘Did you draw on those experiences?’, knowing a little bit about what I went through, and I said, ‘No, this is just the relationship that I have with Greg and the notion of him not being on the show, because I enjoy working with him so much and he is so talented and I think he brings so much.’ They’re hard scenes but they’re easy to do, if that makes any sense. It’s just the connection between two people, or three people, if you bring Chase into it.”
How do you think the dynamic between Finn, Chase and Gregory has shifted now that everyone knows what Gregory is facing? “I think it’s very true to life; if anybody’s ever dealt somebody that is terminally ill, very quickly, your own ego takes a back seat to what they’re experiencing and the pain that they are suffering. These people were distanced for most of their lives and now they’re reconnecting. I’ve had a lot of people come up to me mostly in the supermarkets and say, ‘Oh, that’s a lot like my relationship with my brother,’ or, ‘My sister and my mom and I had this relationship.’ I think it’s very relatable.”
