How did you come to this show? Were you looking to do American television?
DOMINIQUE McELLIGOTT: I hadn’t done any work in America. I’m from Ireland. It was very serendipitous. Ironically enough, I was doing a Western in Bolivia, and my manager, who was an American woman that I met in London, was bugging me to come over to L.A. and I didn’t want to. I was hanging out in London, just back from this Western I did in Bolivia, and I was having drinks with friends who are all flight attendants, and they said that they would get me over to America for free, and I could stay and do some meetings and auditions. Hell on Wheels was the first one. I arrived on the 5th of July, and the Hell on Wheels audition was on the 6th or the 7th. It was crazy! They didn’t know me, at all.
Obviously, I loved the pilot and I loved the character, but I didn’t anticipate ever actually getting the chance to do it. When you go up for these brilliant parts, you just figure, “Okay, well, they’re going to pick some American actress, and that will be that.” But, the opportunity was there, and I really enjoyed the audition. It was fun. Actually, I did do an American pilot, but it wasn’t shot in America, it was shot in South Africa. It was called The Philanthropist, and it was for NBC. But, my character was cut out of it. One of the writing producers didn’t see a future for my character, so it was bye-bye me, and I packed my suitcases and went home. It’s always touch-and-go. You never know what’s going to happen to a show. We just had a lot of wishes and hopes that this would turn out because we’re very fond of it.
What do you think makes this Western different from Deadwood?
I know that comparisons are being made between Deadwood and Hell on Wheels, and having watched Deadwood, I think that the comparisons are going to stop, after a couple of episodes, and the show is going to be seen to be so much more than a Western. It’s so much more than that. You don’t get the diversity of characters in a Western that you get in this show. The authenticity of it, and the fact that it’s not stylized like the Westerns are, makes it much more complex. There are social issues being dealt with. There is such a diversity of characters that you wonder, “How are these people going to relate to each other? How are they going to converse?” There’s going to be conflict. There’s going to be a lot of tension. How is that going to be resolved? What’s the interaction like? Basically, it’s a question of survival, and who’s going to survive and who’s going to die. It’s so much more than just a Western.
Source: Full interview @ Collider
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