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Inside NBC's KINGS with Actor Chris Egan, Michael Green, and Francis Lawrence
by Troy Rogers
 Now that the story of David and Goliath is being retold in the new epic series KINGS, with the second episode about to air Sunday, March 22 at 8pm, a new monarchy has been established on NBC. In the second episode, "Prosperity," Susanna Thompson's Queen Rose prepares for the arrival of the Gath military while King Silas (Ian McShane) and General Abner (Wes Studi) begin their behind-the-scenes plot against David Shepherd (Chris Egan) who the King owes the life of his son. As KINGS kicks off its second week, the action within the new NBC monarchy heats up when David is MIA from the signing of the new peace treaty.
With KINGS now in full season swing in NBC's Sunday night line-up, we recently hopped on the phone for a conference call with KINGS actor Chris Egan, series creator Michael Green and executive producer Francis Lawrence to learn more about the inner complexities of KINGS, its biblical components, how they transformed New York City into the modern day Gilboa, and how Chris Egan found chemistry with Ian McShane.
THE DEADBOLT: How did playing opposite Ian McShane help you with the role of David?
CHRIS EGAN: Well, he is just an incredible guy and very talented. And I had some pretty, sort of frightening stuff to do, some big scenes, and I was a fan of his before from watching Deadwood. So I was a little nervous to meet him and just interested to see how it would all work out. Our characters have such an interesting journey together, so it is kind of this love - hate, back and forth relationship. So him being such a great guy and just so generous, he really gave me a lot of great advice and helped me out a lot. It was a blast working with him.
THE DEADBOLT: How much does religion factor into the show? Are there other biblical stories tied in there?
 FRANCIS LAWRENCE: No. I mean it is really following the template of the original stories, and then with a lot of sort of fun and added creativity to it. I mean I kind of like doing these things, which is that you sort of take an old mythical tale and sort of reinvent it in a newer world because the characters are sort of classic. They are such great archetypes and it just seems to work. People seem to connect with it because it is sort of in our narrative DNA.
But there is not a lot of God of it in this story. There is mention of God. And you can sort of feel the hand of something sort of maneuvering things, that there is a hand helping David along at times, helping other people along at times. But it is not specifically a Christian God, necessarily.
THE DEADBOLT: New York is clearly a template for Gilboa but it's slightly different. What were some of the things you did to make it familiar but not exactly New York?
FRANCIS LAWRENCE: Well, we thought from the very beginning to shoot this in New York. Michael and I, we both really wanted a city that feels like it could be a capital. And New York City feels like it even though it is not the capital of the United States. It feels like it could be the center of the United States.
So we fought to shoot there, but we knew that we were going to have to reinvent it. So the first thing was to change the profile of the city, so that if you are looking at the city it would feel different. So we would erase buildings, the iconic ones. We erased the Empire State building. We erased the Chrysler building. We paint out the sign on the Met Life building. If you are looking south, you do not see the Statue of Liberty.
 We do that, and then we added our own city center. So the idea was that we created our own Unity Plaza where you have Unity Hall and you have got Crossgen and you have got the other buildings that sort of surround that area. We started to map out where these buildings exist. So they really exist in our minds right around the Bryant Park area.
Then what we did, we sort of went to the street level and said, "Okay, what is it we can change about the street that does not cost too much, where we do not have to do too many effects, but that we can sort of change the feeling instantly?" And so we started to think about, "What is it when you go to other countries that change the feeling of the streets?" It is street signs. It is the esthetic of the graphics that are used that the city uses. It is the address systems. It is all those kinds of things. It is how clean a city is.
So we started to clean things up. We started to do wet downs. We put street signs on buildings rather than on signs. We used a different system. We used different color palettes. And without doing that much, we could sort of just shift it a little bit from being straight up New York into our own country.
Other Conference Call Highlights:
Francis Lawrence on whether there are fantastical elements to the series:
 "Yes, absolutely. I mean one of the things that I loved about the script from the first place is the magical realism. I mean it had sort of all the things that I love. One of the things I love most is to create worlds. This was a world to create which was a lot of fun. But it is also a world that is based and it has to feel real, has to feel grounded, which I like, so that it is not complete fantasy.
"One of the other things that really attracts me to stories that this has is magical realism, which is there are moments in the series where things happen that probably normally could not happen, but they have. But they are done in a way, and presented in a way, where you could believe that they actually could have happened. I am really attracted to that."
Michael Green on taking a biblical story and setting it in modern times:
"The challenges of taking something ancient and making it modern is to highlight the ways that it is similar to today. There are so many universal themes in it. Then looking at them and realizing some things do not change, whether it is war, whether it is interpersonal conflict, whether it is sort of the natural law of everyone wanting more than they have. So that is part of the fun of it, of seeing what is so universal and what does not need really that much adapting. Then there are the parts of the story that are baffling and really do not quite make so much sense. And we get to try to find ways to make it make sense.
 "Lastly is just the idea of monarchy at all. How do you take a very antiquated idea, something that is uniquely un-American, and make it feel not only believable but enjoyable to an American palette? And we looked at what we considered American royalty, which is the world of celebrities and CEOs, and occasionally a little bit the President. But I think we look much more the corporate model, and built our world around that esthetic so that the character of the Prince is treated like the way Justin Timberlake is treated in our country, with that level of access and that level of media attention. Then for the adults, really treating them the way the multi-billion dollar CEOs are treated in our world."
Chris Egan on his character, filming scenes, and stunts:
"I wanted to sort of develop the character of David step by step, from the beginning in the pilot where he is this simple farm boy, to by the end as the episodes progressed. And the drama that is surrounding his life with the King and the Princess, and all the dysfunction, all those things sort of bring out his characteristics and he starts to become a man.
"So with Silas it was, as the series progresses, their relationship is constantly changing. There wasn’t really so much stunt work. I mean, Ian has to sort of beat the crap out of me a few times, but [just] a lot of blood on the face. But he just became a great mentor and a great friend and I could not ask for anybody better to work with. So he has been a real champion."
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