As has been proven by HBO, Showtime and AMC, television viewers are more than willing to turn to cable channels rather than network stations for riveting programming. And on April 3, DirecTV takes things one step further with the premiere of Rogue, it’s first original series debuting on its Audience Network. Rogue stars Thandie Newton (ER, Crash) as an undercover cop who gets sucked into the criminal underworld while trying to figure out who is responsible for the drive-by that inadvertently killed her son. While her dedication to this vigilante crusade creates problems in every aspect of her life, Rogue gradually reveals similar nuances within the lives of the other characters, giving the show a depth not often seen in cop dramas. And given the often violent and graphic nature of the crime business, when we see into the lives of these criminals and the dirty cops that are after them, we really see what makes these people who they are.

Some of the more polarizing characters are Alec (Joshua Sasse), the eldest son of gang leader Jimmy Laszlo (Marton Csokas), and his wife Cathy (Leah Gibson), who have a home life that is pretty normal considering Alec often goes around killing people in rather brutal fashion. After getting a preview of the first few episodes of Rogue, Wrestling with Pop Culture got to talk to Sasse and Gibson about being part of this innovative new show.

Based on what you’ve seen of the show and the reaction you’ve gotten at promotional screenings, how do you expect viewers to react to Rogue?

Sasse: Based on what we’ve seen already, our expectations are pretty high. The show hasn’t come out yet and we’ve already reached 46 million people, and 2,000 people are liking it a day on Facebook. For a show that hasn’t even aired yet, that’s pretty unprecedented. That combined with the response we’ve had in person at the screenings and from all the reporters who have seen the show, it’s been very, very positive. So our expectations are very high.

Given the fact that there are no huge stars in this show and most of you are relatively unknown, what do you think will attract people to this show initially?

Sasse: It’s much more interesting to an audience to have breakout stars than it is to have established stars rehashing what we’ve seen before. I think Thandie’s decision to move into TV is a really interesting and bold one that is going to pay off.

Gibson: But Thandie is very well loved and very well respected in Hollywood for her past work, so it’s great to see her in a dynamic role like this.

Based on what you’ve done previously, Leah, Rogue seems to cover grittier subject matter than what you might be used to. What attracted you to this role and how did you like being part of something unlike your previous roles?

Gibson: Oh, yes. This is very different from anything I’ve worked on before. I’m Canadian, so I’ve been working out of Vancouver filming TV for the last six or seven years. I grew as an actor working on indies and that can be a gritty process because there are no real boundaries on indie film. But being that this is DirecTV’s first original scripted show, and being that the medium is cable TV, they were able to take a brilliantly-written script and a great story and express it without the boundaries and limitations that you would see in network television. To be a part of this new front with DirecTV has been an exciting process.

I haven’t really seen much of you previously, Joshua. How did you get involved with Rogue and how does it compare to what you’ve done previously?

Sasse: You haven’t seen much of me because I’ve done mainly theater. I trained classically and worked the last 11 years doing theater in England. I mean, that’s my main love. For me, making the decision to move to TV – especially American TV – was  massive because the saturation that you get can be life changing. There’s a seven-story building with my face on it L.A., so it really changes your life. In the theater maybe 150 people see me and now 150,000, or whatever it is, pass by that building every day. So it’s a really big decision and the reason I did it was the writing. To be able to portray the hothead in a crime family on a U.S. TV show isn’t something I wanted to pass up. I’ve got such scope to create something new and original and, hopefully, lasting. That’s what any actor wants. When the script landed on my desk and I read it, I was actually filming a feature in the Czech Republic at the time called Frankenstein’s Army and I thought I had missed the boat and wouldn’t be able to do it. And three months later they still hadn’t cast. They were searching across the whole of Europe and the U.K., the whole of the United States, so I was really lucky that they liked my work and gave me the job.

Do you know why they were searching in Europe for such an American role?

Sasse: Because there’s a lot of talent coming out of Europe – France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, Spain. How many Oscar winners have come from Europe in the last few years? Javier Bardem, Jean Dujardin – there’s an incredible lot of talent there and I think that’s a well that anyone would seek to draw from.

Your characters seem secondary during the first episode, but develop a little more as the series goes on. What can you reveal about where these characters go, without giving too much away?

Sasse: The thing that’s interesting is that the four co-leads – Matthew Beard, myself, Marton and Thandie – have a real strong development through all those characters’ plots. Mine and Leah’s dynamic is obviously a very prominent one; I’m the eldest son of this crime family and we represent the future there. We really wanted to grow that and sort of bring the audience along,  because we do represent the humanity of the crime family. I think that’s what’s really challenging the audience’s morality. Are we good or are we bad? You see Alec doing these incredibly dark things, then he’s going home and he’s got this loving family, this 4-year-old daughter he’s besotted with and he’s an incredibly caring, loving, loyal man. Seeing the two sides of somebody like that really puts things into question. I think that’s what this show is all about is what’s good and what’s bad.

Gibson: There’s an interesting profile for all the characters from the beginning to the end of the show. They’re all motivated by different things and they’re all trying to find answers and struggling with certain things. All of them change and grow and stumble along the way, so I think it’s an interesting journey for all of the characters in that they’re all on a very dynamic arc.

Sasse: That’s always the question when you go home with a character, isn’t it? You look at some of the detectives like Mitch and Ian Hart’s character and when you see what’s happening behind closed doors you suddenly feel for them so much more. You want to pull for them and you want them to do well, you want us to do well and it’s hard to figure out who you’re going to root for. I think that really keeps audiences on the edge of their seats.

One thing that strikes me about Rogue is that it’s very macho subject matter, yet the main character is a female and the other female characters have prominent roles in what happens. How do you think that balance was struck while making the show?

Gibson: I just like that it’s an interesting take on the crime world. It’s a cop show in a modern-day mafia mob world, but there’s so much more to it. Thandie’s role typically would be a male’s role, yet she’s a mother that’s lost her son and is grieving, and has a family that is struggling to stay together. It’s rooted in heart. It’s not all action and guns, but it’s a very human story. The female energy in the show kind of grounds it into a softer place that shows a different side of the coin.

This is DirecTV’s first original series and there seems to be a growing trend of non-traditional outlets presenting original material. Where do you think that means things are going for TV, with people now going to these non-traditional venues for entertainment?

Sasse: This tradition that’s built clearly wasn’t working for what the audience really wanted. Content is so important and media is so easily accessible to people – whether it’s computer games or feature films on demand – the graphic content of what we’re watching is so hard that, were it not on TV, which it wasn’t, people would go through a period of chronic dissatisfaction with what they are being supplied. They’re paying for this television and what DirecTV wanted to do was just start breaking new ground and take their gloves off. They had the opportunity to do whatever they wanted and I think they’ve chosen a script that really is an amazing vehicle for them to do it. We want people to be entertained, and art mirrors life in that respect. If the glass is frosty we’re not going to be able to see the clear picture. Whether it’s the sexual content, the violent content or even the dramatic content, we’re able to do whatever we need to do to tell the truth and be honest in that situation. I hate watching shows and seeing people have sex with their clothes on or not swearing or not hitting each other properly. All that stuff is clouding and then I’m not hooked and I don’t believe it and I’m not on the edge of my seat. I think if people are paying for television they deserve that quality and it’s important to deliver that.

Gibson: Given the nature of where some of the writing goes and what was demanded of us as actors, I had my questions and had to make my own decisions as an actor because I had never done things of this nature before. But it really all came down to just wanting to honor the character in the most truthful way and knowing that all of us were in this venture together with DirecTV and we were really breaking new ground with it. So it’s been very exciting to be part of this TV show that there’s been nothing like on TV so far.

Things do get pretty graphic very early on in the series for your characters. Was there anything that was difficult for you to do even though you knew it might be best for the show or the character?

Sasse: There are a lot of things in this TV series that the audience is going to see that have never been shown on television before, not just in the U.S., but anywhere. When you’re the first one through the fence, you’ve got to get a little bit dirty sometimes. We were all very aware that what we were doing was very groundbreaking and I think we all just knew that and went into it with our arms open and took that challenge on. We all had an incredible faith in the producers and writers, who were present on the set at all times. DirecTV gave us an incredible amount of freedom and leeway to do what we needed to do, so all that was left was for us to have trust and faith in each other. We’re actors at the end of the day, so we try to not have any limitations and have a bit of fun with it. You try and treat it as any other scene. Whether it’s violence or sex or whatever, it’s all there for a reason. We’re not just putting it there as a tagline for the show. It serves a purpose, it’s telling part of the story and that affects the way the actors view it. It’s not just gratuitous or grotesque.

You mentioned that you were filming a movie when you first heard about Rogue. When will that be out?

Sasse: Frankentstein’s Army is a new horror film that Momentum is releasing and it comes out in a couple of weeks at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. It’s really exciting because all the special effects were done by The Lord of the Rings team, so it was a new venture for them, as well.

Leah, do you have any other projects coming out in the near future?

Gibson: Yeah, I do. I have a miniseries that I filmed over the summer called Eve of Destruction that will be out April 15 on Reelz. I just finished filming a movie called Crook with a Canadian filmmaker named Adrian Langley.

www.directv.com/rogue