Fans finally got to see Riley Green make his Marshals debut last night.
Riley will appear in four episodes this season as Garrett, who is a former Navy SEAL teammate of Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes). He arrives at the ranch unexpectedly, hoping to lean on his friends Kayce and Cal (Logan Marshall-Green) to help “put the demons of his past to rest.”
Riley’s character has “extreme PTSD,” which viewers got a glimpse of last night, and you can watch a clip of it here:
We see Garrett appear at Kayce’s ranch, saying he just wanted to see an old Teams buddy, though not everyone is convinced he has pure intentions. It’s clear he and Cal have a history, and I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more about that over the course of the show.
And also during this episode, Riley has to slam his home state of Alabama over drinks with the other Marshals, where Garrett is also from:
“The only good thing to come out of there is the I-20, myself included.”
During an interview with USA TODAY, Riley explained that he needed to “clarify” that it, of course, does not represent how he feels about his home state:
“I certainly need to clarify that. One thing about my fans, especially my Alabama fans: They know how I feel about being from here, and I am proud of this area where I’m from. I did think it was cool that my character was written as being from Alabama.”
His fans know how proud he is to be from Alabama, but it paints a larger picture of how Garrett grew up:
“Rough, and that growing up where he did caused that.”
Riley says he never really had time to get nervous because of how fast it all happened, and of course, playing someone with such complex emotions had to be difficult, especially considering Riley has never acted in
“They threw it on me so fast I didn’t have to get nervous about it. I wanted this to be a real acting gig, and I was lucky. This character has a lot of range and there’s a lot of emotion. He’s a really kind of damaged guy.”
I thought he did a great job considering he’s not a professional actor by any means, and Riley previously told Military.com how difficult it was to portray, because he really wanted to get it right.
Of course, that’s something Riley says he knows “nothing about” beyond what he’s heard from friends that has served, making it an extreme challenge due to the sensitive nature of that topic specifically, especially for someone who has never acted before. You want to get that right, and Riley put a lot of effort into doing so:
“That’s something I know nothing about beyond just relationships and friends that I’ve got that have served.”
Riley says there were real Navy SEALs on set while they were filming, who helped with technical advising from a practical standpoint, but also provided personal insight to the actors, which Riley says was “extremely helpful”:
“I think we were beyond fortunate that there were Navy SEALs on set that we could kind of lean into if we had questions. That was extremely helpful for me.”
Riley is no stranger to weapons, he’s an avid hunter and outdoorsmen, but obviously the kinds of weapons they use in military and as Navy SEAL is a completely different thing, and Riley says he spent a ton of time practicing in between takes. He hopes that translates on screen for people who know what is really takes in military veterans:
“They said you need to be able to do it without thinking about it, without looking at it. We might have a 30-minute break, and I’d be over there just constantly changing the magazine out, putting it back in. That’s what’s going to make it seem real to somebody who actually has been in that situation.”
To be honest, I think learning about Kayce, Cal and Garrett’s past as Navy SEALs will be one of the more interesting parts of the show, and it sounds like Riley has caught the acting bug, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him continue to do more of it as his country music career is firing on all cylinders, too.
Riley put out “My Way,” which he will play on next week’s episode:
