Rectify is the first Sundance Channel produced television series written and created by Ray McKinnon, an actor and writer known for roles in Sons of Anarchy and Deadwood. The series stars Aussie actor Aden Young (Mao’s Last Dancer, Killer Elite) as Daniel Holden, released from prison, thanks to new DNA evidence, after 19 years on death row for raping and murdering his girlfriend. Returning to his small Southern hometown, Daniel rediscovers a world far removed from the prison where he spent 23 hours a day in solitude. 

The series has critics raving in the United States, and it’s cinematic visuals and gentle pacing makes it stand out from your ordinary television series. It’s riveting television thanks to an all-round brilliant cast and a dark underlying thriller aspect to this story – is Daniel innocent or guilty.

Recently Aden Young was in Cannes promoting Rectify, and he kindly found the time to have a chat about playing such a complex character.

Congratulations on Rectify and your role as Daniel – another Aussie hits the mark in America.

AY: Yeah, it’s a great show and I hope it finds an audience in New Zealand for sure. 

You’re Aussie based, but we really should acknowledge your Canadian heritage too as it came in handy when it came to clinching this role?

AY: Well it did. It was a very last minute thing. They found me, I was in Thailand doing a film, and I didn’t have any of my documents with me, and I needed to get a visa in order for me to work [in the US], so they flew me to Toronto to update my Canadian passport prior to the audition and the final test in New York. It was such a quick trip because I had to be back within three days to Bangkok where I was shooting. I then ended up in the passport office in Toronto and didn’t have the required paperwork. It was all going down hill very quickly as closing time approached. And on my iPhone there is an old recording that my father made about what it was to be an immigrant in Canada, what it was to be a Canadian and as a last minute plead with them, I don’t know whether it was this story or that they found the required documents, but I played this recording to the lady and it was almost like something out of a romantic comedy. The office crowded around as my father talked about what it was to be welcomed to this new land and finally, when it was finished she said, “welcome home”. So it was a very beautiful moment to be reminded of where your bones might lay in the end and it was through that I was able to get a visa and do the show. 

Daniel is such a fascinating, complex character, what was the key to getting Daniel right. Was there one thing that once you’d discovered it, the rest of the character just fell into place?

AY: Very much his time, his concept of time. Years ago I was having a drink with the late, wonderful Australian actor Bill Hunter. We were at a pub and this guy walked over and he had quite literally just been released from prison after years and years and he started talking to Bill. He’d meet Bill 15 years prior at some pub in Geelong and Bill actually remembered the meeting which amazed me. But more than anything, what struck me was this man’s posture, his voice, his tempo was something that was so slowed down by that incarceration, that timelessness of prison, the liberties not being yours and the stagnation that occurs inside you as you suffer that incarceration, and he just took forever it seemed like to tell the smallest things. It was quite mesmerising and when I thought of Daniel, I thought of how I would find his voice, I thought of that man, and I thought perhaps in that there is a clue. 

There’s a certain paralysis that Daniel experiences when he’s released. He’s 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, and after all these years on death row he’s released into this world that has tried to shed him, of which he can understand little and which he can communicate to even less because his ability to recognize the symbols in front of him is retarded in some way by his incarceration.

And you know, his knowledge is very much based in literature and based in isolation…it’s almost like he’s a moth surrounded by a world of light – there’s too much happening it almost paralyses him. 

What I love was the pacing. Essentially we’re watching Daniel rediscover the world by doing mundane things, and yes there’s this dark underlying thriller aspect, however, the deliberate pacing just adds to the intrigue.

AY: I feel that it’s a response in many ways to the formulaic, over-exposure of imagery and story, the almost waterfall of information you have to experience when you’re watching something today. Cinema always seemed to me to be a world where you were allowed to take a breathe and you were allowed to in some way invite the viewer to experience that themselves, and make their own reflections within the moments that a character experiences… 

And there’s very little market research that gets to play in ‘Rectify’. I think its very much a unique vision that one man had about what would be the case to watch the story of a man’s release into the world… I think that timing, that pacing allows us to look into ourselves as well and experience the same questions that Daniel might be experiencing.

Did you know whether Daniel was innocent or guilty when filming series 1?

AY: No, I still don’t know and it was a question I posed to Ray. I said, “Are you going to tell me?” and he said, “Do you want to know?” And then began a series of conversations about the nature of that knowledge and what it would mean to the portrayal and what it would mean to the story, who Daniel was and what the memories were and the elasticity of the trauma and how that would have affected him. In the end I felt that the angle of the responsibility that Daniel was carrying knowing that his presence on that night was enough to make him responsible for the death of Hannah, I felt that was enough to communicate the idea in case he was guilty, but I was also very intrigued with the idea that if he wasn’t guilty then he would also follow that responsibility at the same time. It was a conundrum but I felt it wasn’t information that I desperately needed, I wanted to look more at the possibility that maybe Daniel didn’t even know anymore. 

Congratulations on Season 2 getting the go-ahead. Do you know what’s in store for you in this next series?

AY: Well when I got the call I was amazed and overjoyed, but I was also petrified because Daniel is a character that my brain absorbed and he’s difficult character to shed in some ways. I immediately got a call straight afterwards, six weeks after to do a film with Ed Harris as a Sheriff and I snapped it up immediately, it’s just the opposite. I had to in some ways exorcise Daniel because there is a hurt and a loss in Daniel from being put in this box for so long that I just wanted to be free of in so many ways, and the knowledge that we’re going back and I have to reconnect with that psyche and that man again is daunting to say the least, but as an actor its overwhelming and I’m excited beyond belief. 



Rectify starts tonight on Rialto Channel, screening every Wednesday at 8.30pm. Click here for details.