Because the new ABC series The Nine explores the unexpected bonds formed—and shattered—among a group of people trapped inside a bank during a two-day hostage crisis. Hollywood.com asked three members of the cast if they’ve ever found themselves in a traumatic moment in real life, and how they handled it.
Scott Wolf (Jeremy Kates)
Hollywood.com: Have you ever been the victim of a crime or traumatic experience that’s bonded you to someone else?
SW: I’ve been robbed, but I’ve never had a gun held in my face. I’ve had stuff robbed from apartments. No. The only comparison that I can make in terms of dynamically understanding how a situation like this arises was that there was an accident that my wife [Real World New Orleans alum Kelley Limp] and I were involved in, and it became moment where our lives were potentially on the line and you had had to make quick decisions. It was something that, when I came away from it, I realized that happens all the time to people everywhere, and it can literally can change the trajectory of someone’s life. I mean, if you—as [John Billingsley’s character] Egan does—respond above and beyond what you believed you were capable of, well, then your life goes in that direction. If you’re like Jeremy, my character, and fail potentially what you believed your potential to be or things didn’t quite go overall as well as you believed you could’ve controlled them, then there your life goes.
HW: Is it scarier when your wife is involved in the accident with you, rather than just when it’s you?
SW: Yeah, there is no question. I think that in that moment my first thought was, “Where’s Kelley?’” And I found her and I did my best to take care of her, but it occurred to me afterwards that I could’ve just screamed bloody murder and said “Help me!” I mean, any of those things are possible. So I came out of that experience glad to know that at, least as far as I know, I was a person who would maybe make decisions that I could live with for the rest of my life. And I think that one of the great things about The Nine is that as we go forward here, every decision that they made in the bank, every decision that they’ve made since, is really sort of wonderfully ambiguous in a real-life way. I mean, whether they’re right or wrong or good or bad or heroes or villains depends on who’s watching, and that’s exciting to me.
Kim Raver (Kathryn Hale)
HW: Have you ever been the victim of a crime, something that’s given you pause to think about your life?
KR: Well, this is the extreme of the extreme, but I definitely use it: I’m born and raised a New Yorker and I was in New York and very close to the Twin Towers. So, yes, 9/11. I was making peanut butter sandwiches at St. Vincent’s the night of. And then we were there handing out water and food to the paramedics and firefighters that were going down the West Side Highway. I have a truck and I piled in ten or twelve nurses and doctors and took them down to Ground Zero. I’m reluctant to talk about that because that’s just such an enormous example of it, but yes.
HW: Did you form unique bonds with the people who experienced that particular event alongside you?
KR: Yes. More so to the extent of the people that I worked with, like the advisors who were police chiefs and fire chiefs and paramedics—talking to them afterwards and going through that with them. Because I wasn’t in The Twin Towers—I think that would be very different, but this was more me being on the outside and helping. So the bonds were definitely created there, I think, because of the event with certain people and certain family and certain friends. We had to get through it all together.
John Billingsley (Egan Foote)
HW: Have you ever had to act in a moment of crisis?
JB: There was one time in Bridgeport, Connecticut, when I was at a train station. I was on the platform and across the way on the outgoing platform there were these two big guys that seemed to be harassing this woman, and she was kind of backed up against the wall and there wasn’t really anyone around and I didn’t really know what to do. My heart was pounding because I thought that they were assaulting her and so I started screaming at the top of my lungs running across the train track waving my arms around, thinking that perhaps if they thought a lunatic had escaped from an asylum…All three of them—including the woman—just stopped and broke out into laughter, which clearly told me that I had misread the situation and it was a very embarrassing walk back across to my platform. That wasn’t exactly traumatic, although in the moment I thought that I was risking something. I thought that I was being very noble and virtuous. And then I felt like a real sap.
