'Twisted Metal' Star Thomas Haden Church Says Agent Stone Thinks Himself a 'Bringer of Justice' (Exclusive)

The new Twisted Metal series is now streaming on Peaock, and it stars award-winning actor Thomas Haden Church as Agent Stone, one of the show's main antagonists. However, Church is leery of calling Stone a "villain." From his perspective, the character thinks of himself as a "bringer of justice." [Please note: potential Twisted Metal spoilers below.]

In the show, Stone is a no-nonsense cop seeking to bring law and order to a post-apocalyptic America. Speaking exclusively to PopCulture about his role in the live-action video game adaptation, Church said, "It was a product of reading the first three scripts and then having the guru Michael Jonathan Smith... [and] really getting a sense of how he saw the world, which I already had a damn good idea after reading the first three scripts." He then asserted that he "did not ever approach the character" as a villain.

"When you first meet Stone, and he deals with Quiet (Stephanie Beatriz) and Loud (Richard Cabral) in the way that he does, he really believes that he's on the right side of law and that everything that he's doing ... And throughout the series, there's different speeches or witticisms or rants that he goes on, where he always identifies himself front and center as the bringer of justice, the bringer of order. His only purpose is to end chaos, but he does it with an iron fist."

Church went on to explain, "I mean, he goes after everybody that he considers a violator. There's one speech where it's like he doesn't care what they do. If somebody's a petty criminal, if somebody's a graffiti artist, even the most minor violation, he comes down with severe punishment. And he does let a few people kind of off along the way, but he ends up using them for his own sort of ... I think malevolent is a better word than villainous."

Offering an example of his point, Church shared, "I think the guy is definitely capable. There's a scene — and I won't give it away — There's a scene where this older guy is just mild-mannered, mannerly, shining my boots, and he says something that triggers me. And you just see this flash of wrath. This guy couldn't be more innocent, doing a more menial kind of a generous task for Stone. And yet you see, he could snap. He could easily snap, which he does do periodically."

Church also spoke highly of working with Cabral — whose character has an unfortunate arc — saying, "Richard is a great guy. So again, I don't want to spoil it.... [but] sometimes great guys meet ugly ends." He later added of Cabral, "That guy has got crazy energy and is a hilarious storyteller. So if you can, yeah, because he comes back. He comes back... I'm not going to say how or in what form. But yeah, his presence comes back."

The former Oscar nominee then quipped that he and Cabral shared a fanboy moment over one another's past work, though Chuch is pretty sure his excitement over Cabral working with Ridley Scott on The Counselor (2013) overshadows. "All I did was just inundate him with questions about working with Ridley Scott," Church joked. "That's awesome. And he was like, 'I can't believe that movie, man. Nobody saw that movie.' I'm like, 'I've seen the movie about 20 times.'"

heralding the rest of his castmates, Church added, "But you know what, Stephanie was terrific and Anthony and everybody was really fun. Samoa Joe was a ton of fun. I never worked with Will [Arnett] because Joe was always there as Sweet Tooth, but very funny actor... Joe's funny." Twisted Metal Season 1 is now streaming on Peacock.