The fantastic thing about being a part of a weekly tv sequence is, as Alexander Hodge tells it, the morning-after-airing group chat.
“All of us textual content one another on Monday after the episodes come out and we ship one another good messages,” Hodge says of his fellow “Grosse Pointe Backyard Society” forged members. “It’s fascinating if you learn the scripts — and we learn them months in the past — after which we filmed them possibly six weeks in the past, after which as soon as the edit comes again, it goes to air, and it’s good to see the development and see what work all people else did.”
“Grosse Pointe Backyard Society,” on Peacock, is a murder-mystery drama set in a rich Michigan suburb’s gardening society. Hodge stars — alongside AnnaSophia Robb, Aja Naomi King, Ben Rappaport and Melissa Fumero — as Doug, husband to Robb’s Alice.
Hodge burst onto the scene within the Issa Rae-helmed sequence “Insecure” in 2018, wherein he performed a love curiosity of Yvonne Orji’s Molly, who turned often known as “Asian bae.” Within the years that adopted, Hodge was regularly provided comparable love curiosity roles, which is one thing he contended with for various years.
“I might inform my crew, ‘I’m able to not play the love curiosity or the best man in somebody’s life,’ which is hilarious and ironic simply because that’s such an incredible stereotype to be typecast in. What an exquisite profession that will be if I used to be the best man, the love curiosity,” Hodge says. “However I believe I felt like there got here some extent the place I didn’t really feel challenged by it. And I needed to really feel challenged. I needed to really feel the stress of ‘can I pull this off?’ I believe that’s the place issues really feel alive and issues really feel difficult.”
Alexander Hodge
Courtesy of Derrick Leung
For just a few years following, Hodge sought out a wide range of movie roles, prior to now discovering himself again on community TV.
“As we’ve seen, Doug’s not likely the best accomplice,” Hodge says. “So it was a problem.”
Hodge initially was closed off to the thought of doing one thing like “Grosse Pointe.” In his phrases, he was “throwing a tantrum” to his crew as a result of “one thing hadn’t gone my manner and I’d thrown within the towel, as I do every year.” After experiencing the lack of somebody near him, he got here again to the dialog together with his crew able to “end the job” — and was inspired to check out an audition for “Grosse Pointe.”
“Earlier in my profession, I had all these aspirations and goals of being a extremely severe, struggling indie actor who got here up by way of the award circuit at Sundance and actually, actually sunk my tooth into the nitty gritty. And I spotted, particularly being part of this venture, that there’s a cause that these tasks exist,” Hodge says. “I speak to individuals who I’m working with, like Melissa Fumero, and other people would say to her, ‘I watched [your show] “Brooklyn 9-9” with my mom as she was dying of most cancers,’ or different issues like that. Folks going by way of a foul breakup or folks going by way of a extremely onerous time of their life — they weren’t placing on a f–king heartbreaking indie movie. They have been placing on a community tv present. And I spotted that this was one thing that reached lots of people in a spot of their lives the place it meant loads. And I realized loads about why we do what we do.”
Alexander Hodge
Courtesy of Derrick Leung
Being a part of “Grosse Pointe” then was a little bit of a therapeutic expertise for Hodge to take care of his personal loss, and to domesticate a lighter method to his work, whereas seeing the nice worth in that.
“It turned one thing aspirational for me. To embrace one thing a bit of bit extra playful to embrace one thing a bit of bit…god, I believe all people concerned with the present hates the truth that I say ‘foolish,’ however to me, foolish is such a blessing. Foolish is such an exquisite privilege, to be taught the artwork of play and to have the ability to embrace that as an grownup,” Hodge says. “So I’ve taken to this present with a way of silliness in myself, and I’m so grateful to have the ability to, in my 30s, be capable to embrace that and discover that and see the place that lives in me.”
