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The Hunting Party: Roxburgh & Dallas on "Elliot Carr," Manifest Legacy

The Hunting Party star Melissa Roxburgh and guest star Josh Dallas discuss being on opposite sides in tonight's episode, "Manifest," and more.

When it comes to the format of The Hunting Party, the interactions between our heroes and the serial killer of the week are often sparse, since the bulk of the episode is always about the chase. In tonight's episode, "Elliot Carr," Josh Dallas's killer is a former renowned fashion designer whose specialty is a macabre practice of using human skin as leather for his line of shoes. After getting exposed for his crimes, he's sent to the Pit, where he's left changed, still a danger to the world he was imprisoned in, and it's up to Bex (Melissa Roxburgh) and her team to stop him. Roxburgh and Dallas spoke to Bleeding Cool about reuniting on set following their long run on the Jeff Rake-created NBC/Netflix series from 2018-2023, Dallas's challenges on being the opposite side of the law with his former TV sibling, Roxburgh breaking down the relationship of Lazarus (Kari Matchett) and Shane (Josh McKenzie) and how it creates complications for her team, their favorite Manifest moments as siblings Michaela and Ben Stone, and what dream project they would like to do next. The following contains spoilers.

The Hunting Party: Melissa Roxburgh and Josh Dallas on Elliot Carr, the Killer's Psychology, Lazarus-Shane, Manifest & More

BC: When you both reunited on set for The Hunting Party, did it feel like any time had passed since your final day of filming Manifest?

Roxburgh: I bombard Josh quite a bit, regardless, so since Manifest has ended, I think Josh wishes it feels like time has passed [both laugh].

Dallas: I mean. "It's her again." I've been bombarding Melissa since this show premiered to come and play. I love it so much, and I love her in this part [of Bex Henderson], and it did feel…that was the great thing, even though the dynamic between these two characters [of Bex and Elliot Carr] is quite different, because of our history as people, as actors, and being on Manifest for so long together, there was this shortcut that we were lucky enough to have to where you just come onto the set, and we don't have to find each other. We're already there, so we can do the work and be free in that. That's a real gift, so it was great.

Josh, what were your initial thoughts when you were pitched to play Elliot, and how did it challenge you in a way that other roles didn't? I can't imagine filming those memento mori scenes was all that fun, much less comfortable.

Dallas: [Laughs] Well, I wouldn't say it was "fun." We got a funny story about that particular day, where we filmed all that stuff altogether. Back to the beginning of your question, I've never had the opportunity to play a character that's so skewed within his moral code, and to be able to…the writers of The Hunting Party do such a great job on these particular characters. This one was so interesting because he wasn't simply a straightforward serial killer, if one exists. He was abused from an early age, and then that morphed into this craving for power and domination mixed in with this incredible craft that he has of making shoes.

Of course, when he's imprisoned in the Pit, which is quite a unique place. It's not just a prison, and as you mentioned, he goes through this form of therapy where he is reformatted in his psychology, and he comes out different and changed. He's still obsessed with his craft, ritual, and domination, but it's now really tangled up with something like remorse or at least a really warped version of it. That was so interesting to me and so juicy for an actor to come in and try to take hold of, so I couldn't wait. I was really excited.

Melissa, the way that things are with Bex and Shane, and now you have that wrinkle with the way the Lazarus is entrenched in both your lives, how did you navigate that with Kari Matchett and Josh McKenzie through the season?

Roxburgh: Kari plays her character phenomenally. She's found this…I want to say "Robotic," but she doesn't play it robotic; it's this emotionless, yet still somehow finding the emotion in that. Then, on the Shane side of things, Josh McKenzie is so full of life, and he brings that to the screen. To see this woman who's a bit muted, because of her psychopathy, and then her son, who's so not, yet still, as an audience, you're finding like, "Oh, does he have psychopathy in him, because of who his mom is?" This triangle is not a love triangle, but it's a relationship triangle, because I'm not on the same side as his mom, and yet, he's trying to get to know his mom. His mom's trying to get to know him, but is she bad? Is she good? By the end of the season, it comes to a head, and yeah, it's a very interesting climax of it all.

I wanted to shift real quick. Do you have a favorite Michaela-Ben moment from Manifest or perhaps an on-set memory?

Dallas: Oh my God, there are so many…so, so many. I always go back to the pilot, and I always go back. I don't know why this is the moment, but it was the moment in the pilot where Ben and Michaela meet outside that junkyard, and it's not even about the scene itself. It was just about that day of filming. It was so freezing cold. It was snowing. Melissa, you were so cold, but there was something about Ben getting out of the car. Michaela…did you come on a bike? I can't remember you showing up.

Roxburgh: I was on a bike in the middle of a New York winter [laughs].

Dallas: In the middle of New York winter, we just connected in a way, and I can't even really explain it. But for me, it was that moment, and it's them looking at each other, about, "What is this?! What's going on?!" It's that moment and the moment in the church towards the end of the pilot episode where she says, "What is that?" And he goes, "You know? I don't know." Those two moments stick out. I don't know about you, Melissa?

Roxburgh: I'm going to steal that moment as well. There are so many moments, and a lot of off-screen moments too. I remember our chemistry read, and that's the first time I felt like I had a big brother suddenly, even though I didn't know you. In our chem-read, I said something so stupid and dumb, and [Josh] handled it the way a big brother would handle it. I was like, "That was way too easy. Why wasn't this stranger like, 'What are you saying?'? Instead, he laughed it off, and he handled me like a little sister. That was the moment I was like, "This is cool!" When Grace (Athena Karkanis) dies (at the end of season three), I felt like I got to see this other side of Ben as well, and that was really interesting to play with as well.

If there's another genre that you can work together in, what would you find yourselves working in, like, would you do some comedy?

Roxburgh: [Stretches her arms out] Comedy!

Dallas: Literally, right before you got on with us, we were like, "We have to do a comedy next." We want to do comedy, like right before we got on. We want a comedy.

Roxburgh: BC, if you want to create a comedy, let's go!

Dallas: Yeah!

The Hunting Party, which also stars Patrick Sabongui and Sara Garcia, airs Thursdays on NBC and is available to stream on Peacock. All four seasons of Manifest, which also stars J. R. Ramirez, Luna Blaise, Jack Messina, Parveen Kaur, Matt Long, Holly Taylor, Daryl Edwards, and Danny Lux, are available on Netflix.

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