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“Mayans MC” star JD Pardo, who plays outlaw biker EZ Reyes in the “Sons of Anarchy” spinoff, tackles a completely different role in “The Terminal List,” a new Prime Video thriller starring Chris Pratt.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, but it is interesting, playing that other side of the law,” Pardo, 41, told The Post. “It’s like on ‘Mayans’ [EZ is] in this criminal world, and here is the law and he’s trying to enforce it,.
“It’s always refreshing and exciting to do something different so that you’re constantly growing.”
Premiering July 1, “The Terminal List” is based on a novel by Jack Carr and follows James Reece (Pratt), a man whose entire platoon of Navy SEALs is ambushed during a covert mission. When he returns home, he has conflicting memories of what happened, and his culpability is called into question. He also discovers that larger forces are at play and are working against him, endangering his loved ones. Pardo plays FBI agent Tony Layun, who crosses paths with Reece.
“It’s a great story by Jack Carr, a great book series, and just an all-star cast. Chris, Constance Wu, Taylor Kitsch … it just goes on,” said Pardo. “I really wanted to be part of that, because it’s inspiring to work with that kind of talent. We had a lot of fun on that set.”
Pardo said that he was familiar with the world of Navy SEALs as seen on the series, thanks to his own family background.
“My father was in the LAPD for 30 years and in the Marines for 30 years. So, I grew up in that atmosphere, around a lot of those guys,” he said. “What was interesting for me is that Tony Layun being an FBI agent — there’s a moment where he gets pulled into Reece’s world. And there has to be this feeling of he’s a fish out of water, because the consequences are life or death. I just kept this idea in my head that Tony was this normal average man who was trying to catch Superman.”
As events spiral out of control and the media portrays Reece as a dangerous man, Tony becomes embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game with him.
“Everyone talks about how you can’t catch him, [how] he’s escaping every situation. And here’s Tony, who is sort of outmatched with somebody like James Reese,” he said. “But, he has the power of belief. He feels like he can catch him.”
Some of Pardo’s colleagues on set were real Navy SEALs, which pushed him to work harder, he said.
“I’m always up for a challenge. With ‘Mayans,’ I didn’t know how to ride a bike, so I had to go to Harley school and throw myself into that world. In the same way with ‘The Terminal List,’ I had to throw myself into this world of ex-Navy SEALs who were playing these characters,” he said.
“Just being around them as a group … when they say ‘action,’ those guys don’t have stunt men. We have stunt men come in and do scenes that they had to do, but the majority of the time, our guys are doing it. And so my playing the character Tony, who is the head of this task force — psychologically, I didn’t want these guys to do something that I couldn’t do.
“So I challenged myself every day.”
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