Exclusive Interview
Inside Rhage & Mary’s TGI Friday’s Date With ‘The Black Dagger Brotherhood’ Stars
One of the most delicious moments from J.R. Ward’s Lover Eternal is Rhage and Mary‘s blind date at TGI Friday’s, and Passionflix’s The Black Dagger Brotherhood TV show didn’t change a thing about it in Season 2. Stars Alexander Cubis and Audrey Hare knew it was important to fans to follow the book beat by beat.
In Episode 2, Mary doesn’t remember visiting the Brotherhood’s mansion or meeting Rhage because her memories have been wiped. Rhage, however, can’t stop thinking about her and needs to see her again. With the help of Bella (Mariah Davis), he determines that humans go on first dates at TGI Fridays. Mary and “Hal” have an awkward but sweet encounter, and their connection immediately obvious.
Ward told Swooon that filming the scene in a real TGI Friday’s was a “high point of [her] career.” She said, “I could not have imagined 20 years ago when I was writing that scene that someday in the future, Tosca [Musk] and I would have that actually shot there.”
The scene was filmed at what might’ve been the one and only TGI Fridays location in Georgia, according to director Tosca Musk. Hare knew her way around, having gone to the restaurant chain growing up in the suburbs of Chicago. (“It was home,” she joked.) Australia-born Cubis, on the other hand, was new to the scene.
“I didn’t know that they still existed,” he told Swooon. “And so when Tosca told me that we were actually filming at a real TGI Friday’s, I was really surprised by that… I thought that it was cool. A little dose of Americana that I get to experience because I’d never been to one before.”
The Black Dagger Brotherhood cast doesn’t always film on location, either, which added to the experience. Cubis added that Rhage’s discomfort being in a human establishment wasn’t quite a stretch from real life. “That’s why I felt so uncomfortable in the scene because I was like, ‘Oh, this is very foreign to me,'” he explained.
Ward noted that the crew had to bring in “illicit nachos that they’d gotten from another establishment,” to make sure Rhage’s enormous food order was book accurate. “It was really important to me, too,” Cubis said. “I also have Rhage’s appetite, and I eat a lot of the same things that he does. So it was, you kill two birds with one stone. I was able to eat and then film as well.”
Passionflix
On the first day of Season 2 production, they filmed the scene throughout the day and well into the night, according to Cubis. Not just because they needed to get it exactly right, but because they hit a major roadblock: The power went out.
“On the drive there, it was snowing, sleeting, and raining,” Musk recalled. “And then we get into the TGI Friday’s, freezing cold. It’s in the middle of March. And then all the power goes out for the entire block for three hours. And then the grip truck breaks down and they can’t get anything out, and so we’re all stuck in a TGI Friday’s in the dark, cold, waiting for the power to go back on.”
There was a silver lining, according to Cubis. “I think we got we got our bad luck all out of the way on the first day of filming,” he mused. “I think it’s a good omen when things don’t get off to a best start, because then you’re forced to figure it out all as a team… I think it probably bonded us even more, when we were just really excited to get to that scene. So it also built suspense amongst the cast and crew to finally be able to shoot that.”
Rhage’s food was originally put under heat lamps, but it got cold. Once things got back on track, the restaurant offered Cubis and Hare tater tots, but they turned them down. “We didn’t want anything that wasn’t in the book,” Cubis noted. Hare added, “Fans would notice. They’d pick it up.”
The dishes had grown cold by the time filming resumed, but Cubis didn’t hesitate to chow down. Musk recalled, “‘I’m like, Alex, I don’t think you should eat this food because it’s cold. And he’s like, ‘I need to eat…’ Anyway, it was we got all of the bad luck done on day one. And then it was smooth sailing for the rest of the show. But it was it was definitely an interesting start to Season 2.”
The Black Dagger Brotherhood, Season 2, Thursdays, Passionflix
Reporting by Avery Thompson
