Note: The following story contains spoilers from “Task” Season 1, Episode 4.
When Raúl Castillo first came on board Brad Ingelsby’s “Task,” the overwhelmingly characteristic he understood about his character, Cliff, was his longstanding devotion to Tom Pelphrey’s Robbie, a quality that came through in a detail as small Cliff’s tattoos of his late dogs.
“As an actor, you take little nuggets and you run with them,” Castillo told TheWrap, explaining that while Cliff operates as a lone wolf, the dog tattoos underscored his loyalty to Robbie, the co-worker with whom he robs the Dark Hearts’ drug houses. “[Dogs are] loyal and they’re true and and that’s very meaningful for him and and his friendship to Robbie is one of the only pure and real things that he has.”
Cliff never wavers from his loyalty to Robbie, even in Episode 4, when Cliff finds himself in the middle of a setup from the Dark Hearts crew, led by Jamie McShane’s Perry and Sam Keeley’s Jayson, who threaten his life to get him to reveal his accomplices, which he, of course, never does.
“It’s a testament to their devotion to one another, that even to the end, he’s dedicated to his friend and willing to do what it takes to at least keep his friend alive, if that’s all he can do.”
With Cliff holding strong on not revealing Robbie’s involvement in the robberies — and the kidnapping — he meets his end in a “brutal” act of violence led by Jayson. Castillo breaks it all down below.
TheWrap: What did you first think when you read the Episode 4 script and found out Cliff’s fate?
Castillo:It’s interesting now that the series is out, and I’m hearing from friends and family who are watching the show and who are really invested in the characters, and that’s a testament to Brad’s writing. People are at the edge of their seats. They want to know what happens next. I’ve been getting all these interesting messages from people in my life and their extreme anxiety about Cliff’s future. I knew it was coming, because of those conversations we had pretty early on, but I was excited to dive into that script because Brad, he’s such an artist, and there’s nothing that is sensationalistic, just for the sake of it — it’s always diving deeper into character and the way that he teases his story out and really sucks an audience in is pretty masterful. It was unnerving to read, for sure, but also exciting as an actor, knowing that we were going to have this very meaty material to work with.
Did Brad talk to you about any alternative storylines where Cliff gets to live longer?
No, I felt like that was always his fate. There was always that fantasy of our life in Canada — I think even a lot of audience members are still holding out for that possibility, but the scripts were pretty set from the time that they came to be. Sometimes in television, things change a lot and drastically, because there’s so many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak, but with “Task” and with Brad’s scripts, they were just so well written. There wasn’t a lot that changed from the early drafts to what we shot.
Going into the night, is there any part of Cliff that thought this might be the last time he saw Robbie?
For the characters, it’s happening so fast. They don’t have time to get sentimental. They’re just flying by the seat of their pants. As soon as everything goes down in Episode 1, it’s just pumping adrenaline until the very end.
When we see Cliff again, he’s been beat up so badly. What was the experience of getting those prosthetics and makeup on?
I have to give a shout out to Adrienne Bearden, who was the makeup department head, and Bill Johnson, who built prosthetics. I got flown down to Atlanta a couple months before we shot that scene to have my head cast, which is the first time I had ever experienced anything like that. I’m pretty claustrophobic and that was pretty intense. They kept two holes in my nostrils, and that’s where I was able to breathe, but I wasn’t able to communicate. It was like going underwater and not being able to see.
When we finally got to set that day, it was a four-hour process sitting in the chair, applying those pieces to my face and around my head. Once I had that stuff applied, there was no way to escape it — everyone that came into contact with me from that point forward was responding to the absolutely gruesome nature of the work that we were depicting. Because filmmaking, it can be fun. It could be light hearted. There’s opportunities at times to find joy and laughs, and we did that a lot in this production, because it was such a wonderful group of people to go to work with, but then there were days that we were coming to work to depict the darker elements of humanity.
What was it like filming Cliff’s final breaths?
It was brutal, but you can only depict the most brutal elements of humanity, if you are going to work with people who you have utmost trust with, and I felt with Sam [Kelley] and Salli [Richardson-Whitfield] — the three of us really hunkered down because that scene was quite technical — there was plastic wrap, there was spit, there was these technical aspects of the scene that were quite tricky, and we still wanted to stay focused and remain loyal to the tone. You find out in those moments what your scene partners are made of and I have to give it up to Sam — we really met each other halfway, and I feel really grateful to him that we were able to communicate in those moments, to be able to shoot those scenes in an efficient way and keep it safe, keep everyone taken care of, and then tell the story ultimately.
The reverence that was taken, and the real care that was taken to choreograph that scene and ultimately shoot it was incredibly meaningful for me. Sometimes you have these moments when you’re filming where everyone knows that you’re filming something very special. That was certainly one of those scenes.
Do you think Cliff ends his life with any regrets on the situation, especially about taking Sam?
Cliff is dealing with the repercussions of their actions and emotionally and psychologically from the moment the shootout happens in Episode 1, so he is trying his best to make amends and get out with as little damage as he could do moving forward. Once they encounter Sam, he and Robbie know that there’s no way that they can walk away from this in any clean fashion, if they ever had, for a moment, aspirations of it.
What hopes does he have for Robbie?
He’s hoping that Robbie can make it out. I think Cliff understands what Billy was to Robbie and how meaningful that brotherhood was in their love of family and their dedication to one another, and that’s why he’s so dedicated to Robbie. It’s Robbie’s own dedication to Billy and he understands that greater mission, and his dedication to Maeve and Robbie’s dedication to Maeve and his own children. I think Cliff understands that, and so he wants the best for Robbie in the end, and he’s hoping that he can at least help save his friend.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
New episodes of “Task” premiere on HBO and HBO Max Sunday nights at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET.
