TASK – Season 1 – Key Art | ©2025 HBO

HBO’s TASK is the latest drama from MARE OF EASTTOWN creator Brad Ingelsby, who also serves as the new miniseries’ writer, executive producer, and showrunner. TASK premieres Sunday, September 7, with episodes thereafter available on HBO on Demand and streaming on MAX.

Mark Ruffalo stars as Tom Brandis, an unassuming FBI agent in Delaware County, Philadelphia, more accustomed these days to representing the Bureau at job fairs than to field work. He is also dealing with a family crisis, as his son has committed a serious crime. However, Tom’s short-staffed supervisor (Martha Plimpton) taps him to head up a task force to take down a gang of murderous robbers.

The robbers are led by Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), a man desperate to take care of his young children, especially now that his wife has left. He shares a house with his late brother’s teen daughter Maeve (Emilia Jones), who hates what Robbie is doing but feels like she can’t leave her little cousins untended.

Ingelsby, Pelphrey and Jones come together for an online press conference moderated by VARIETY executive editor Brent Lang, who has questions of his own, along with those submitted by journalists.

After the success of MARE OF EASTTOWN, how did Ingelsby decide to do TASK?

“I think it’s always about the characters for me,” Ingelsby replies. “I think everything I’ve written in my life has come from characters. I knew that we probably couldn’t do a whodunit again. That was the engine that we used in MARE. So, when I came up with the characters Tom and Robbie, I felt like, ‘Okay, what’s the engine that’s going to join these guys, or what’s the engine that will carry the audience through the story?’ And so I felt like, ‘Maybe the tension can be a collision course.’

Although it’s a different type of thriller, TASK shares its setting of Delco with MARE, Ingelsby observes. “Once I started to put those pieces together, I wanted to tell another story in Delco. It’s the blood in my veins, it’s the people I know, it’s people I care about, and it’s the way I grew up. And so, I feel a certain ownership of that, and a certain obligation to tell it right.

“So, I felt like, ‘If I’m going go back into Delco, I want to make sure I’m telling it with the same level of complexity and care that we did in MARE.’ So, I was okay embracing Delco again.

“I just had to figure out what the draw would be for the audience, and once we got these two guys on opposite sides of the law, I felt like that was a different kind of tension than MARE, because MARE was a guessing game in a way, but the tension could be equally potent, and I think it’s a testament to the actors we have that it is equally potent, because you care about every one of the characters in the show much that I think the real tension is the fear of what’s going to happen when they collide.

“It’s also a drama about lives under pressure, people who are backed into a corner, who don’t have choices. As an audience, you don’t have to agree with all the decisions that are being made on screen, but I hope you can understand why they’re being made.”

Asked to describe the dynamic between the characters of Robbie and Maeve, Pelphrey says, “I was shocked when I met Emilia and she told me that she’d just turned twenty-two. She is so incredible, she’s so talented – we’ve all seen that before, but her preparation, the level of maturity and being so utterly present and focused that she brings on set blew me away.”

Jones appeared touched. “Thank you.”

Pelphrey isn’t done with his praise. “You would put actors twice your age to shame in those categories. I mean, I was a liability at twenty-two,” he laughs. “So, it was easy for me, because I so deeply, naturally admired your maturity and your hard work and your ethic. It was very easy to shift how I felt about Emilia right onto Maeve.”

As Pelphrey is playing her uncle, Jones quips, “Uncles are biased, for sure.” More seriously, she adds, “I love you.”

Her take on the dynamic is, “I feel like Robbie is such a complex character. On set, Tom brought such levels to him. When I read the script, I was like, ‘Maeve’s very angry at Robbie all the time and resenting him because she feels this loss, and she’s just struggling with her identity, because she’s in this repeating pattern of cleaning up his mess. But on set, when I was working with Tom, he made Robbie so likable that you almost understand why he’s doing what he’s doing, and you respect him for having such a strong sense of love for his family.

“Tom is an amazing actor and I was so in awe all the time, because he never does a take the same, and so I was constantly on my feet and I found it so exciting working with him. He really challenged me and I felt like I was playing off you [Pelphrey] being a lot more likable than I thought and it made me really love Maeve and Robbie’s relationship because there’s so much love there. They butt heads, but I think that’s because they’re kind of similar.”

Ingelsby provides his view of both Tom and Ruffalo’s performance as the character. “When I talked to Mark about his character, I said, ‘Listen, there’s nothing particularly special about you as an FBI agent. You’re not the first guy through the door. You’re not good with a gun. You’re not going to walk into a room and pick up clues that other people missed. That’s not what makes you interesting as a detective. What makes you interesting is, you’re approaching the job from a unique spot.’

Ingelsby then explains that Tom was “a theologian, he was in the seminary. He ran a parish. He had people come into his confessional booth. That job is a job of service. And so, what is that character like as an FBI agent?

“Tom, and also Mark as a person, he’s such a kind, compassionate person, but what I was interested in with Tom Brandis is that he wasn’t the hard-charging detective, he’s a guy who is constantly searching for good in people, and when our two guys eventually collide, makes the connection work.

“What was interesting to me is a [former] priest as a detective, a guy that was able to manage a parish and counsel people when they were in need or in trouble or scared and afraid. What’s that character look like? And so, when I talked to Mark about it, that was what I said his super-power was – the ability to see into people and to see their problems and their fears, and to counsel them. That, to me, felt like we hadn’t really seen [in] a detective in a series before.

“And I think Mark shares a lot of the characteristics that the character possesses. I think in many ways, [Ruffalo] is a lot like Tom Brandis in real life, in the best ways, he’s compassionate, kind, inclusive. That was interesting to me.”

TASK was shot on location in Delco, using Ingelsby’s home as one of the primary sets. “I have to say I loved it,” Ingelsby laughs. “I got to sleep in my own bed every night. So, selfishly – but the crew was fantastic.”

Even though the actors didn’t live there, they were happy about it, too. “I love filming in Delco,” Jones relates, “because it just felt authentic and it’s always nice when you get to film exactly where the show is set, and it really helped me with the accent and the energy, and just being there.” She turns to Pelphrey. “I don’t know about you.”

“I loved it,” Pelphrey agrees. “I was in heaven. It was so great to be back on the East Coast. I grew up in Jersey, not too far away from there, and I loved every minute of it.

Even the locals were pleased, per Ingelsby. “The people in that area love that we make shows about them. It’s one of the things I love most about making these shows, is how much the people in Delco and Philly and the areas really appreciate it. It’s part of why we try to get it right – you feel a certain debt to these people.”

Pelphrey recalls, “That was special. There would be a lot of days where people would be out on their porch watching us film, and they were just excited about what we were doing, and then they’d get quiet when we were filming, and then just say, ‘Good job’ or whatever at the end. You felt really embraced by the community that we were filming in, in a way that you don’t always get.”

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Article: Interview: Creator Brad Ingelsby and actors Tom Pelphrey and Emilia Jones chat new HBO limited series

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