Josh Dallas Teases Part 1 of Netflix Revival – The Hollywood Reporter

Manifest star Josh Dallas knows full well how lucky the show is to have a second bite of the apple, and he’s truly made the most of it. Much like the series’ central mystery involving Montego Air Flight 828 which disappeared and reappeared five years later, the former NBC supernatural drama briefly vanished last summer, only to return as a Netflix series a couple months later. Creator Jeff Rake’s remaining three-season plan evolved into a 20-episode season four that will be split into two parts, with part one arriving Nov. 4 on Netflix.

For Dallas, he credits the show’s passionate fans, affectionately dubbed “The Manifesters,” for the series’ rebirth, as they, combined with new viewers, rallied to keep the show’s existing three seasons atop the Netflix charts for a prolonged period. 

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“There was this amazing groundswell from our fans who not only were with us from the very beginning on NBC, but also from all the new people that started to find it, the Manifesters as we call them,” Dallas tells The Hollywood Reporter. “They offered such support, love and passion for the show and these characters on social media. So it was a beautiful, humbling experience.”

Netflix coming to the rescue even allowed Dallas to make his directorial debut on episode 407, something he was supposed to do in season three until Covid came along. The Kentrucky native is also previewing what fans can expect for his character Ben Stone after a tragic end to season three, including the death of his wife Grace (Athena Karkanis) and the disappearance of his son Cal (Jack Messina) and daughter Eden.

“Ben’s road ahead is very difficult. We start part one of season four two years after where we left season three,” Dallas shares. “So he has had a lot of time to throw anchor in this profound depth of anger and grief, and he’s questioning everything. He’s questioning everything about the callings, because as far as he’s concerned, they’ve given him nothing. They’ve only taken from him. So he wants nothing to do with them anymore.”

In a recent conversation with THR, Dallas also looks back at the journey to this point, as well as his final day on the Manifest set.

Congratulations on this rebirth of sorts.

It really is a rebirth or resurrection. It’s one of the two, much like the characters on the actual TV show.

Well, much to the chagrin of your former bosses [Once Upon a Time creators and Lost writers Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz), you’re probably sick of hearing the Lost comparisons.

(Laughs.) 

But there were so many mystery box shows that tried and failed to fill that void over the years. So in your estimation, what made Manifest the one to pull it off some 8 years later?

Well, there’s just such an emphasis on the family story, the personal story and the emotional story of these characters’ lives. That grounds the entire idea of this plane gone missing because the idea of a plane going missing and nothing being found, or a plane crashing or something horrific like that, is a story that sort of lives somewhere in all of our consciousnesses. I just think it’s always sort of there, and that story is a hook. That unsolvable question of what happened to this plane is so compelling, but what keeps people coming back and what’s turned people on so much to the story of Manifest is the characters and this family and how they piece together their life as they find it now.

What were your expectations for the series when you were first cast? 

My only expectation is to have the best time I possibly can and the most creative time that I possibly can. Of course, in the back of your mind, you always want it to be a big gigantic hit, but those are few and far between. I always want the most amount of people to see the work that I do, and I want it to reach as many people as possible. But you never know. All you can know is whether the story and character resonate with you, and then you just go out and try to do it the best that you can. So the fact that it was canceled and then embraced in such an amazing way by people finding it mostly for the first time on Netflix was just a shock. That was humbling and gratifying and validating in many ways.

So the first two seasons hit Netflix, and a few days later, the show was canceled by NBC as season three had just finished airing. And then there were initial revival talks with Netflix that fell through. Did you lose all hope at that point?

I didn’t lose hope, but I was definitely devastated by it. The end of season three ends in such a horrific, horrible way. And the idea that that was it, the idea that we were going to leave these characters mid-flow, but also mid-flow in a horrible situation was just devastating. So I was pretty sad about it, but I didn’t lose hope that it was all over. The further and further that it went on, hope was disappearing, but then at the same time, it just started surging on Netflix and just didn’t stop. It just kept going, and it was in Netflix’s Top 10 for so long. So hope started coming back in a big way. (Laughs.)

From where you’re sitting, what changed to allow a deal to happen a couple months later? Was it in fact the Netflix numbers? Was it a combination of factors?

From a business point of view, I think that ultimately the huge numbers were the deciding factor in Netflix bringing us back. There was this amazing groundswell from our fans who not only were with us from the very beginning on NBC, but also from all the new people that started to find it, the Manifesters as we call them. They offered such support, love and passion for the show and these characters on social media. They would bombard NBC and Netflix all at the same time, or anyone that would listen, about bringing the show back, which is really only something that could happen in this day and age. So it was a beautiful, humbling experience.

When the good news was delivered, that must’ve been quite a phone call or Zoom call for everybody.

Honestly, I can’t remember now. I’m sure it was definitely a phone call from either [creator] Jeff Rake or my manager, John Carrabino. But I cannot remember where it came from because those days were sort of heady and crazy. So it was definitely a phone call from somebody, if not all of them, all at once. (Laughs.)

Prior to that call, your deal had lapsed, so was that state of limbo quite nerve-racking? You obviously couldn’t wait around forever, so could you feel that added pressure?

I think there was a pressure in terms of an expectation from the audience that we would come back, so I wanted to make sure that we could come back. Jeff Rake always had a six-season plan, but we had to truncate it into these last 20 episodes. So I think there was an added pressure and expectation to get the story right with a condensed amount of time that we had. But in terms of an added pressure in getting the deal done, I left all of that to my brilliant agent, Sean Grumman at Verve, and John Carrabino, my manager. I left that all to them to deal with, so I didn’t have to feel any of that. (Laughs.)

The same companies produced the final season, but did physical production change at all from the NBC run to Netflix? Excluding Covid protocols, of course.

It didn’t change at all. We made the show in the same amount of time, and our storytelling was the same, albeit that it had to accelerate in a certain way just because of the time that we were telling the story in. Cinematically, the show feels slightly bigger than it did, possibly, but I think it’s still the same emotional, compelling, twisty-turny, mysterious show that it always was. So I think we’re delivering the same exciting episodes that Manifest was known for the three prior seasons. Except for the added cuss word we threw in there. (Laughs.)

You made your directorial debut with episode 407, so when did the subject of directing first come up?

That came up in season one. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and I felt that this could be a good avenue for me to get my legs wet. It’s something I’ve been talking with Jeff Rake about for a while, and we were going to try to make it happen in season three. And then, of course, that’s when Covid happened, and we came back into a situation of filming where nobody knew if we were going to be able to pull it off. So I felt that it wasn’t the right time to direct because I wanted to be able to have my first time in the chair be as full and as supportive as possible.

So once Netflix saved us, that opportunity was there again, and I jumped at it. As an actor, your view, most of the time, is very singular of what you’re doing on set from day to day. And what I loved so much about being director is that I got this whole 360-degree view of the process and of the story, and I got to hang out with this entire tribe of brilliant craftsmen and artists and filmmakers who all have a very unique and specific job. So that collaboration was my favorite part of the whole thing, and I can’t think of another art form, except for maybe an orchestra, that employs that amount of people to produce one specific moment. I think that’s magical. So I loved it, and I can’t wait to do more.

First-time actor-directors often have the same issue as they’re so concerned with doing a good job for everybody else that they don’t leave enough time for their own coverage. So did you manage to avoid that trap?

I don’t know, actually. That’s the part that I look forward to doing again, because I think I could get better at that. You don’t want to spend a lot of time saying, “Let me look back at my coverage.” As an actor, I can at least be sort of aware of where I’m pitching a performance or if it landed or if it didn’t land. So I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at playback of my own performance, but next time, I’ll spend a little more time looking back at it. But I think it came out pretty well, and I’m very proud of it.

You touched on it earlier, but Ben is in quite a tough spot at the end of season three. His son Cal has gone missing, and he’s not yet aware that his wife Grace has been killed and that his daughter Eden has been kidnapped. So what can you tease about Ben’s road ahead?

It’s difficult. Ben’s road ahead is very difficult. We start part one of season four two years after where we left season three. So he has had a lot of time to throw anchor in this profound depth of anger and grief, and he’s questioning everything. He’s questioning everything about the callings, because as far as he’s concerned, they’ve given him nothing. They’ve only taken from him. So he wants nothing to do with them anymore, and he’s also questioning everything about God and the universe and his own goodness, versus evil, and maybe perhaps wondering if Adrian [Jared Grimes] was right all along about Ben and the passengers being agents of the apocalypse and actually bringing on this flood.

So he’s in a tough spot where he’s holding on to that anger and grief, and he can’t really see a way out of it. That’s the thing about anger. It begs to stick around, and it makes you mistreat the ones that love you the most. And he still has a family around him. He still has other children, he has his sister, but he is so stuck in that void of Grace [Athena Karkanis] and his daughter that he can only concentrate on one thing. And that’s finding Eden. The one reason he doesn’t want to give up his grief is because if he gives it up, I think he feels that he’ll lose Grace forever in some kind of way. But I also think in finding Eden, he feels like he’ll get Grace back as well. So that’s what he focuses on, and unfortunately, he leaves his very strong and smart and capable sister [Melissa Roxburgh’s Michaela] alone in leading the Lifeboat.

How would you compare the emotions of your final day on Manifest, versus the final day of your last series, Once Upon a Time? 

Oh wow. They were both extremely emotional, because we’re not only saying goodbye to these characters, but we’re also saying goodbye to these families that we create over the years. With these long-running series that I’ve been so lucky to be a part of, you create a real family and a real love for your fellow actors and crew and writers and producers, so it’s a tough thing. And in both scenarios, what’s happening on the screen really reflects what’s happening in real life. A goodbye is happening, and it’s emotional on both ends.

And after making an insane amount of television the last 11 years, what do you want to do next in response to it all? 

I’m going to take a couple months and stay home and be a dad in real life, with my boys and my wife. Hopefully, I will continue to tell great stories after that through more TV. I love TV. I love TV so much. I love the format, I love the storytelling possibilities of television and the possibilities of character within television. So I’m hoping that that continues, and I’m hoping that some exciting stories and characters are to come.

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Part One of Manifest’s final season premieres Nov. 4 on Netflix. This interview was edited for length and clarity.