Though its title makes it sound like one, The Control Room isn’t a workplace crime procedural. Gabe’s story opens at his desk, but it follows him home in every sense of the word. This is a sensitively drawn character drama, which suited de Caestecker’s research-heavy approach to roles. Before playing Gabe, he shadowed control room shifts, read several psychology books relevant to his character’s experiences, and with the team, ploughed through a stack of screen thrillers to work out how they wanted this one to go. Frantic starring Harrison Ford, and French feature Tell No One were a couple of favourites.
“The thriller stuff is the thing that makes your heart race and keeps you on the edge of your seat,” says de Caestecker, but at its core he sees The Control Room as a love story and its writer Nick Leather (Murdered for Being Different) as a romantic. We talk about how the emotional and psychological side can get lost in some thrillers, which take an ordinary character and instantly transform them into an ultra-capable action hero. That’s not the case with Gabe, de Caestecker laughs. “We tried to show the level of fear and discomfort that told the truth about how much he is not built for that world. If it was me going through some of that stuff, within the first hour I’d be having an anxiety attack!”
A Fitting Ending for Fitz
In Agents of SHIELD, the ABC/Marvel comic book series that ran from 2013 – 2020, de Caestecker played tech genius Leo Fitz, a role that involved in plenty of fictional life-or-death situations. He’s still very fond of Fitz, a character he describes as “like me, but a much better version of me. Smarter, kinder, braver, all these different things. It felt good playing him.” So much so that when the story required him to play an evil, alt-reality Fitz, it felt like a betrayal. “I hated it! Because I was very comfortable in that character and you put some of yourself into it. Then suddenly you’re playing a nasty version and you’re making your friends cry!”
After being absent from much of Agents’ final season due to a scheduling conflict, de Caestecker returned to wrap up his character’s story in a way he describes as “very, very fitting.” Fitz and his colleague-turned-wife Dr Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) had been modelled on Agents showrunning couple Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon – Mo and J to de Caestecker, who calls them close friends – so the characters’ ending was inspired by Mo and J’s family life. “They’d had a little girl while we were filming and it felt very fitting to me, after everything Fitz and Simmons were put through in the show, that they and their daughter would live happily ever after.”
If there were ever an Agents of SHIELD revival, de Caestecker is circumspect about whether he’d return. “We had really loyal and supportive and brilliant fans of the show, so I wouldn’t want to disappoint them and say no, but at the same time I think it’s nice that they had their ending and I think it’s nice to leave them.” He would however, jump at the chance to work with co-star Henstridge again “in anything. Just because I love her very much.”
Henstridge isn’t the only colleague de Caestecker effuses about. In the course of less than half an hour, he’s full of praise for the Scottish cast and crew of The Control Room, from Daniel Portman’s “effortless charisma” to Joanna Vanderham’s “incredible thoughtfulness” to the love he has for Stuart Bowman who plays Gabe’s father, and their “incredible” director Amy Neil.
ncG1vNJzZmhqZGy7psPSmqmorZ6Zwamx1qippZxemLyue8yoraKdXa%2B8r7GOopiipl2Zsm6vwJ6qrZ2ToLKzec6nZJuak2LBqb7IpaOeql2ptaZ5wqilraqfoXqzu86mZKKeXZ7BbsPArGSmnV2esW6uxGafmq6Zo7Rurc1mmKewmZrBunnArauam5tk