Eric Ladin Talks Lt. Glenn Taylor & Pablo Schreiber In HBO's 'The Brink' Finale! EXCLUSIVE

HBO will soon air the first season finale of the hilarious political satire, The Brink. In an exclusive interview with MStars News, actor Eric Ladin talks about Glenn "Jammer" Taylor, the ace co-pilot of Zeke "Z-Pak" Tilson (Pablo Schreiber), and using board humor to save the world from World War III.

In our previous recaps, Alex (Jack Black) and Rafiq (Aasif Mandvi) found themselves reluctantly teaming up together after a rebel army seized the Pakistani government. While President Julian Navarro (Esai Morales) is trying to prevent war, smarmy Walter Larson (Tim Robbins) is trying to stay cool in a room full of trigger happy politicians. Two stoned pilots, Glenn (Ladin) and Zeke Tilson (Schreiber) are all that stand before the world enters World War III.

Before the season finale airs this Sunday night on HBO at 10:30pm, Ladin dishes on the most-talked about vomit gag, being directed by The Shawshank Redemption actor, Tim Robbins, and reminisces about his earlier days working on The Killing.

MStars News: Tell me what interested you about the character Glenn?

Eric Ladin: First of all, the show itself was what interested me the most. The story and trying to do a comedy that was as broad as that one was and as satirical as that one was, different than anything on TV. And then in terms of Glenn, I just had fun to be honest with you. I started to kind of dig into him and he was a blast to work on. And once I got in the room with the creators of the show and Pablo, it came to life and I had a blast.

MS: The show mixes absurdist humor, slapstick comedy, and political satire. Tell me how you approached the material?

EL: You've got to approach the material at the root of it, which is the same way you would approach any material to make sure it's coming from a realistic, grounded, place. And then, as you start to do that, you start to be able to find the humor in it. But humor comes in stakes, so the higher the stakes, the funnier it's probably going to be. And we've got just about the highest stakes that you possibly can being that it's the end of the world, or possibly WWIII coming. So with that, we then try to find the humor that comes from within that. And I think that we've been able to do a pretty good job of that.

MS: Tell me about working with Pablo Schreiber. Glenn at times comes across as Zeke's conscience as well as his best friend.

EL: I think Pablo, Zeke and Glenn kind of have a brotherly relationship. I see them as having a relationship like you would your brother; obviously you're going to be there for one another and we have each other's backs, we trust each other immensely, have a lot of respect for one another. But then, you also have that bond where you can basically tell them to shut the f*ck up. And you have arguments or whatever!

MS: With the season finale coming up, do you have a favorite episode from before or a favorite line that Glenn has said?

EL: I think my favorite episode or two episodes were kind of our time that we spent with the two British antiquities smugglers. I felt that was really different and it was a standalone two episodes for us. I had a blast doing that stuff, I thought it was bold and broad, which is a little standalone; so that was nice. And I have little lines here and there that I remember strictly because of how they came about, or we found them on the day; so those are the little special ones for me

MS: In episode two, you had the gross out vomit gag in the aircraft. What was filming that scene like?

EL: Everybody's vomited before. Little did I know that Jammer would be vomiting again in episode nine, which was last week. And then I got to vomit again! So I'm starting to think the writers just keep writing Jammer to vomit just to see how I can come up with new and inventive ways to vomit. But it was a lot of fun! I mean obviously we're inside a cockpit! So when we were shooting that scene, we had pieces of vomit dripping from the top of the cockpit down onto us, which was kind of disgusting!

MS: The episode was also directed by co-star Tim Robbins (Walter Larson). Do you communicate better when there's a director who's also an actor?

EL: Well, I think it probably depends on that director or that actor who' directing. Tim was great, being that he's an actor and he's an actor's actor. I say that because he comes from the theater and he loves the craft of acting and so he respects it, he appreciates it. Not that our other directors don't. But when he was directing us, it was kind of nice to have somebody there to lean on to be able to ask opinions, or talk to about certain scenes, and he's a pretty good person to have right there. I respect him immensely.

MS: I loved The Killing and that emotional scene when your character, Jamie Wright, confessed. I was wondering if you had any anecdotes from back in the day?

EL: That was one of the hardest scenes I've ever had to do. It was so intense and I drove myself so! I was so guilt ridden during that scene that I actually went off to the side and threw up. But luckily I had an amazing director, Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman).

We spent a lot of time way well before we even got to the day of shooting talking about how we wanted to orchestrate that scene, how we wanted to approach it in terms of storytelling, and how technically we were going to shoot the scene because it had flashbacks in between. But we didn't want to give it those breaks when we were shooting it on the day.

So luckily I had somebody that was very, very invested in making sure that it came across the right way in Patty; so that was great. The death of a character is always difficult. I spent two years with that character and to know that was going to be the last scene I put on screen for him was a little bit emotional and difficult. But I was happy with the way it turned out and loved being a part of that show!

MS: Because you can do both drama and comedy, do you have a preference over which role you would like to choose?

EL: It depends on the project. I love both! I love, love, love doing drama, digging in, and finding new characters, and having new challenges. I also have enjoyed being a part of a comedy. I find that because of the nature of our show, I'm usually coming home from work in a really good mood and having had laughed all day. As opposed to when I'm doing something like The Killing or J. Edgar Hoover, something where it takes me a little longer to wind down at the end of the day. But I really love both in their own way!

MS: What other projects are you working on now?

EL: I'm working on a project right now that is very secretive, so I can't talk about. And then gearing up to start season two of The Brink.

The first season finale of The Brink airs Sunday, August 23 on HBO at 10:30pm.