The Stars of Line of Fire Make a Federal Case Out of Sibling Rivalry

13 min readImagine if the everyday squabbles between a trio of siblings became a matter of national security.That’s what Kat Cunning, Tommy O’Brien, and Taylor Bloom are dealing with in NBC’s new thriller series Line of Fire, playing members of a family whose personal disagreements quickly escalate into jurisdictional clashes between the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Department of Justice.The Hollingsworth family is a microcosm of the United States’ protective services: Mama Jane (played by Hope Davis) is a U.S. marshal; Michael, the father (Peter Krause), is retiring after a legendary career with the Secret Service; and all three of their now-grown kids followed in their vocational footsteps. Cunning’s Clare is an obsessive FBI agent, Bloom’s Russ is just getting started as an analyst at DOJ, and O’Brien’s Micah (aka Mike Jr.), the middle brother, is trying to escape his dad’s shadow while building his own reputation in the Secret Service. (There’s a fourth sibling, played by Charlie Barnett, but … it’s kind of a “we don’t talk about Bruno” situation, involving spoilers the show itself should reveal.)Cunning is a singer, musician, and dancer who has performed with Cirque du Soleil and appeared in the TV shows The Deuce, Trinkets, and Rap Sh!t, while O’Brien has acted in Grown-ish, Watson, and Shameless and played the drummer “Bermuda” Schwartz in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. Bloom has previously starred in season 11 of American Horror Story: NYC and also has a musical background, having performed the Paul Simon half of the duo in the traveling stage production of The Simon & Garfunkel Story.All three were in New York when they spoke with Esquire about the family dynamics in an unusually intense law-enforcement household.Florence SullivanFrom left to right, On Taylor Bloom: Jacket and trousers by Balenciaga. On Tommy O’Brien: Coat, blazer, and trousers by Dries Van Noten. On Kat Cunning: Coat by Loewe. Necklace by Roxanne Assoulin.Esquire: Did you audition together or do any kind of sibling chemistry tests before being cast?Kat Cunning: Believe it or not …Taylor Bloom: No!Cunning: We had no chemistry reads, and that’s something that we always marvel at, even with the dynamic with the parents. We all gelled so beautifully. What drew us to these scripts is our own families. I have two brothers and I get to play out mommy issues with Hope, who is iconic. I have experience with a powerful woman as a mom. I like to tell my family that this family is just like mine except for better looking.ESQ: Ouch, for your family.Bloom: Don’t take it personally at home, folks. I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t have a chemistry read. When you have actual siblings, nobody tests to see if you’re compatible. They just are pushed into your life.Tommy O’Brien: With these sorts of things, you never know. And when we showed up, we were kind of in this position of: Are we going to get along with everybody? Then it was almost immediate, not just with the siblings but also with Hope and Pete. It felt like a real family immediately.Florence SullivanJacket, trousers, and bodysuit by Gucci.ESQ: Do these siblings have to get along, though? Nobody fights like brothers and sisters. What’s the dynamic between the three characters?Bloom: It’s so situational, because we all have these high-pressure jobs where we have these huge goals. We’re trying to protect the ideals of a nation, we’re trying to keep people alive, and then that leads to conflict within our family. Old, unacknowledged bitterness can sit below the open dialogue. It’s the pressure cooker of this crazy law-enforcement environment that we all participate in.Cunning: Especially Clare to Russ, we definitely play out a real-life little-brother dynamic. Tommy and I both underestimate him, which is a fun, real thing that happens. I actually have a brilliant little brother, I literally call him Bobo. I’m always diminishing him because he’s … my little brother. The cool thing about this show is that those little family dynamics that are personally jabby or bratty shine their way through these high-pressure governmental situations where we’re saving the world. We’re not always superheroes and we’re not always just a family.Bloom: It’s to the credit of our casting directors, Jessica Daniels and Oscar-winner [raises hands in a bow] Cassandra Kulukundis [who won for One Battle After Another]. What they do very well is finding people who A) are not going to be the asshole on set, and B) are good at finding people who can be genuine, be honest, bring your actual [self] to this character. Kat was talking about having brothers, and I am the youngest of a large family of five brothers and big personalities and heavy hitters and people who get things done.Florence SullivanJacket, vest, shirt, and jeans by Polo Ralph Lauren.ESQ: That is a lot of brothers. Bloom: Finding your space at the table at Christmas dinner is a really unique little dance. And it’s something that I can bring to Russ because he’s a part of this family that is one of the most high-achieving, high-pressure families you could be part of.O’Brien: Underneath everything with this family, as in most families, what people can relate to is the foundation of love for one another. In these scenes where Russ and I are in conflict, or my dad and I are in conflict, underneath all of it they’re just trying to be seen and see one another. Our time off camera has really lent to that dynamic on camera.ESQ: For people just discovering the show, what’s the one thing viewers should know about who you’re playing? Let’s start with the oldest of the kids.Cunning: It’s a hierarchy! The main thing that I relate to about Clare is that she is obsessed with her sense of purpose. When there is a case to solve, she will stop at nothing to solve it. Frankly, that’s the kind of tenacity it takes to get anywhere in this career. She might be a little hotheaded and fiery along the way, but I personally think that’s exciting to see. We need more women on screen throwing fits.ESQ: What else is in her life besides the FBI, or is that the single focus for her?Cunning: She does hope that she can balance her career, as ambitious as it is, with a love life, and she is trying to find a boyfriend. All we can do is hope and pray because she doesn’t have the softest tone or direction toward them. She’s like, “You’re lucky to be here.” I love that about her also.Florence SullivanFrom left to right, On Taylor Bloom: Jacket by Balenciaga. On Tommy O’Brien: Coat and blazer by Dries Van Noten. On Kat Cunning: Coat by Loewe.ESQ: You said everything else falls away when she becomes single-minded. I like the scene where you show up at this upscale Washington, D.C., party wet and covered in mud after being in the field investigating all day.Cunning: Me too. Yeah, she doesn’t care about the gala. She doesn’t care about the people looking at her funny. That is absolutely a scene that drew me to this character because, yeah, she’s a messy little gremlin rat in that moment, pursuing her agenda.ESQ: Tommy, what’s Micah’s relationship with his older sister?O’Brien: I honestly think there’s a kinship and a camaraderie there. They’re in different lanes a little bit. Our relationships to our parents are very different. She has a difficult relationship with Mom, and I have a very interesting and difficult dynamic with Dad. And so there is a knowingness between them and a familiarity between them that we see. It’s very different from mine and Russ’s dynamic, who are two of the boys in the family. I personally have been the baby of my family, so it’s very interesting to play an older sibling to somebody like Taylor, who plays that part so well. Let’s just say I have a lot of empathy for my older sister now.ESQ: Do you have just the one sister or do you have more siblings in real life?O’Brien: One older sister. We’re very close now, but we butted heads a little bit growing up.ESQ: Do you two feel that Clare and Micah, as the elder siblings, have a more contentious relationship with their parents?O’Brien: Yeah, we see that for sure. My character is named after his dad. It’s about trying to figure out how to be a man when that path has literally been set before you. He learned so much from his father and sees him as this invaluable resource of how to navigate the world, but also understands: I’m an individual—how do I carve my path? With Micah, he’s trying to meet his dad’s expectation, so we sort of see him falling upward toward that.Florence SullivanJacket, cardigan sweater, shirt, tie, trousers, belt, and loafers by Versace.ESQ: You can genuinely love a parent and still want to be different from them.O’Brien: Completely. The older I’ve gotten, the more affection I have for my parents, and for my dad. You start to be in the position that they were as an adult, navigating life for the first time autonomously. That can be a tricky thing.ESQ: The more you admire that person, the harder it can be to live in that shadow. Kat, do you think that’s true of Clare as well? Does she have a similar issue with her mother?Cunning: Are you kidding me? Yes. We literally have superhero parents. I also think when you’re trying to fill the shoes of someone amazing as a person, you have to climb an extra rung on the ladder and try to outdo them. There’s naturally tension there.ESQ: Is her mother a little extra hard on Clare?Cunning: Jane’s a little hard on everybody! It’s a fun tête-à-tête between us. Like Tommy said, no matter how bad the fight gets, you have the safety of the love. And at the end of all the murder and the espionage in our show, there is this reminder of family and what family can endure.ESQ: Taylor, let’s talk about Russ, the youngest. Do his two older siblings draw fire from the parents and give him cover? Bloom: Yeah, I’m so glad that I got to listen to this conversation because it’s really made me think about how Russ’s whole family are superheroes to him. It’s not just Mom and Dad. When you grow up with older siblings who kick ass, like Russ’s siblings do, you’re trying to fill everybody’s shoes. He has a feeling of not being enough, and always wanting to achieve more.ESQ: How does he approach that?Bloom: The other part of it is this innocence and this openness that he has in the world. He’s seen a lot. I mean, he’s a retired Marine, he’s starting at the DOJ, but there’s a real optimism in the way that he moves through the world. We’re going to watch that optimism be challenged throughout his arc. We’re going to watch his loved ones let him down. He’s a high-achieving badass who also feels like he doesn’t belong. They each have their foils, but Russ is often left to his own devices.Florence SullivanJacket by Fendi Men’s.ESQ: Maybe you’ll disagree as the youngest of five, but typically doesn’t the baby of the family always get to have a little more freedom—if only because the parents are worn down?Absolutely. It’s like the opposite of the squeaky wheel gets the grease. He didn’t get a lot of attention, but everyone’s kicking ass all the time, so he’s just got to figure out how to kick ass himself. He has to grow in independence as a young person in the Marines, because he’s not getting that kind of attention and guidance from his parents. There’s no room for him to screw up.ESQ: Do you discuss, intellectualize, debate, the themes of the show with creator Joshua Safran [Quantico, Gossip Girl], or do you roll more by instinct in shaping the characters?Cunning: I feel like I’m in the business of trusting and learning who Clare is. And every day, I gain more trust in a story and in my showrunner. I always say my little one-liner about the show is that the reason I want to be a part of this is to [portray] the government I want to see in the world. It’s escapist for sure. It’s not a direct reference to our government right now. It’s not necessarily a commentary on it. It’s just an imagined idealistic world that is as much about family as it is about people that exist in these high-level dramatic situations.ESQ: Every one of these different divisions—the U.S. Marshals, Secret Service, FBI, Department of Justice—they all do different things and they work together. But also they have their own competing interests. That’s very much like a family, isn’t it?Cunning: Yeah, there are times it’s convenient and times it’s horribly annoying that your mom is fighting to find the answer too.O’Brien: You bring up a good point with that: family as a metaphor of the nation we live in. The stakes of our family dynamic are national-security issues. With Micah, we get to see a particular relationship where he has to face every day a particular secret that he’s hiding.Florence SullivanFrom left to right, On Tommy O’Brien: Coat and jacket by Dries Van Noten. On Kat Cunning: Coat and trousers by Loewe. Bra by Araks. Necklace by Roxanne Assoulin. On Taylor Bloom: Jacket by Balenciaga.ESQ: This is the storyline about him having a romantic relationship with the president’s daughter [played by Savannah Lee Smith]?O’Brien: Has a thing with the president’s daughter, which to him is a very earnest dynamic. They see each other, and they see themselves in one another, and they’re both kind of dealing with how to grow up in the shadow of a leader. That’s something that they can’t really relate to with anyone else. While it is a secret, while it is a national-security issue, it is this very intimate relationship that Micah doesn’t have with anybody else. So it’s very precious to him.ESQ: What are the actual rules about that sort of thing? I know Jenna Bush is a producer on this show. She was an actual president’s daughter when George W. Bush was in office. O’Brien: We did have [Secret Service consultant Steve Hughes] who was on [Jenna’s twin sister] Barbara’s detail, and I will say he’s a very dapper gentleman, but it’s a hard no. This never happened. This would never happen. It is very out of bounds for something like that to happen. What we get to see is the ramifications of that as the show continues to move forward.Florence SullivanVest and shirt by Marni.ESQ: Does this make Micah the loosest of the loose cannons among the three siblings? Who is the most volatile or unstable or irresponsible of the trio?O’Brien: I’d say the consensus is it’s Micah. No contest. He takes the trophy.Cunning: I’d like to think Clare can be rock ’n’ roll for the case. I would go out of bounds. We all have limitless boundaries when it comes to setting our mind to something. That’s a family trait. We’re going to find a way when we believe in something. Micah’s just kind of doing whatever he wants though.ESQ: Who’s the good one, the overachiever? [They all point toward Bloom.]Bloom: Russ is—on paper. He’s the easy one. We never have to worry about Russ. He’s always on time. He’s always well-dressed for whatever the thing is.ESQ: Are there other elements of the characters where you see your fingerprints? Cunning: I totally have a bullishness when I want something, when I believe in something. I have an incredibly single-minded focus. The things that don’t matter are not consuming her, and the things that do will not be stopped. I just think she’s a really driven person who doesn’t really care about pleasantries. She is really confident. She thinks she deserves all of the things. She deserves a good boyfriend. She deserves a good job. And I wake up confident like that where I’m like, “The world should see justice. I should be allowed to be myself. I should be loved.” There’s an optimism there and an unwavering thing that I try to bring to her.Florence SullivanHeadpiece by Lynn Paik. Dress by Willy Chavarria.ESQ: How about you, Tommy? What’s in you that’s also in Micah?O’Brien: We’re two sides of the same coin. He’s an external processor. I’m an internal processor. He’s everything that I want to be—and also try to avoid. He’s very big, rambunctious. He has a bit of an attitude. He does act on impulse. He’s reckless in a scary way and in a fun way. As I continue to grow older, I’m trying to explore those parts of myself. On the outside we behave very differently, but at the core, we want to be seen, we want to be loved, and the root issues there are still the same.ESQ: How about you, Taylor? Same question.Bloom: For me and Russ, we have a lot in common. Neither myself nor Russ is naive to the fact that there are bad things happening in the world, but we both believe that the good is stronger and will win, and that’s on the macro and on the micro scale. That pretty much informs every aspect and avenue of Russ as a character. There’s always just a little shadow in the back of your mind about, am I actually enough?Florence SullivanOn Kat Cunning: Shirt and pants by COMME des GARÇONS COMME des GARÇONS. Sandals by Jimmy Choo. On Taylor Bloom: Shirt, jeans, loafers, and belt by Gucci. Socks by Punto. On Tommy O’Brien: Tank, trousers, shoes, and belt by Prada. Overseas Self-Winding watch by Vacheron Constantin.ESQ: Whenever actors do a show that has a lot of jargon in it—medical, legal, scientific—one of the hardest things is just memorizing the language and making it flow naturally. That’s something you have to do on this show, isn’t it?O’Brien: That’s a Kat question. Kat's carrying the whole team on their back.Cunning: I don’t know where to begin! It’s the most words I’ve ever said in my life. I feel like I’m getting a master’s degree through playing Clare. For the first episode, the procedural situation was actually so confusing to me at first, just because I don’t think very strategically that I drew out little game figures and charted a course. I was doing all sorts of things to physically understand what actually happened in the case so that I could believe it, so that I can memorize it. I feel really lucky, jazzed, and excited every time I get a gigantic monologue of facts because I’m learning a lot all the time.Opening image credits: On Kat Cunning: Shirt by COMME des GARÇONS COMME des GARÇONS. On Taylor Bloom: Shirt by Gucci. On Tommy O’Brien: Tank by Prada. Overseas Self-Winding watch by Vacheron Constantin.Photography by Florence SullivanStyling by Alfonso Fernández NavasGrooming for Tommy O'Brien and Taylor Bloom: Andrew LyKat Cunning Hair: SeijiKat Cunning Makeup: Todd Harris WolfSet Design by Sage LeopoldEsquire executive design director: Martin HoopsEsquire visual director: James MorrisEditor in chief: Michael Sebastian