Beau Mirchoff wasn’t even a twinkle in his parents’ eyes in the late 1960s, the era featured in Aquarius, NBC’s new 13-part series he’s appearing in.
So you can’t blame him for his incredulous reaction to the prejudice, police brutality, warped idealism, free love, drugs and other trippy Summer of Love hallmarks.
“It’s fascinating, but I’m kind of happy I didn’t grow up in that time,” said Mirchoff, 26. “It’s a tumultuous, crazy period — socially, politically, everything.”
The Victoria-raised actor best known for playing Matty McKibben, the hunky high school quarterback on MTV’s hit series Awkward, portrays a different type of chick magnet in Aquarius.
He appears in four episodes of the Thursday-night series, which stars David Duchovny as Sam Hodiak, a cynical L.A. homicide detective tracking a fictionalized version of criminal and cult leader Charles Manson.
“Luckily, I have pretty good hair,” joked Mirchoff, who grew it out so the show’s hairstylists, using “a whole bottle of hairspray,” could flatten it out.
The Mount Douglas Secondary School graduate plays Rick Zondervan, a brash UCLA student whose misbehaviour at a drug party in Laurel Canyon kick-starts the plot.
Zondervan succumbs to sexual temptation from Manson’s free-spirited disciple Susan Atkins (Ambyr Childers). When he abandons his date, Emma (Emma Dumont), a Republican attorney’s alienated daughter, she’s whisked away and recruited into the notorious Manson family.
To get ready for the series, which begins two years before the Tate-LaBianca murders, Mirchoff said he talked to his dad and got Life magazines from 1967.
In the show, things get off to a rough start between Zondervan and Hodiak, who threatens him with physical violence and calls him a “dirtbag,” arousing the ire of Mirchoff’s fans.
“That’s no way to talk to Beau!” admonished one Facebook fan.
Off-camera, the two actors got along nicely, although Mirchoff, who appeared in the May 28 première and in the final three episodes, admits he was initially intimidated.
“It was because David was kind of quiet, and really into it, and we were both there just doing our work. But he’s a very nice guy and humble, extremely knowledgeable, and fun to talk to.”
If anything, Mirchoff says he thought the series’ laconic star was initially going too easy on him as the camera rolled on a scene in which Duchovny’s character brutally assaults him.
“At first, I said: ‘You’re not really stepping on my throat very hard. C’mon man, get in there,’ ” Mirchoff recalled with a laugh.
He said Duchovny’s “dry and understated” humour lightened the mood during filming at Paramount Studios last summer.
While Zondervan might get lucky with the ladies in Aquarius, he’s short on integrity — a character trait Mirchoff says was both “fun and challenging” to convey.
“I saw him as someone who is ostensibly very confident and cool, yet underneath the surface, he’s really spineless,” he says. “He’s going to sell people out to better himself.”
Mirchoff, who describes doing Aquarius as “a wonderful experience,” isn’t an actor who shies away from playing unsympathetic characters.
“A lot of people are like that,” he says. “I think we all want to be the hero, but when it comes down to it, not all of us are.”
Despite Mirchoff’s rising profile — with credits that include playing brooding teenager Danny Bolen in Desperate Housewives and Stan Jeter, the resourceful rookie cop in Greg Francis’s crime thriller Poker Night — he had to audition with other seasoned young rising stars for Aquarius.
“With every next level you reach, you find yourself in the ring with those types of actors,” Mirchoff says. “It never gets easier.”
While doing another series tailored for binge-watchers would be “the dream, the pinnacle,” Mirchoff is busy with plenty of other projects.
Before arriving on set to shoot a fifth-season episode of Awkward in L.A. on Wednesday, he had to scout locations for an episode he will direct next week.
“I’ve been around set a long time and doing my homework, so I’m ready to rock,” said Mirchoff, who also wrote a screenplay for a dark comedy Poker Night’s Francis is slated to shoot.
Meanwhile, he’s continuing to present monthly staged readings — including Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy tonight — with Earthworm Players, the theatre company he co-founded with his live-in girlfriend, Jeanine Mason, and fellow actors Josh Zuckerman and Amanda Fuller.
Mirchoff’s Twitter fans are also discovering his lighter side, as when he recently joked about news stories reporting that in Sweden you’re not allowed to name your child Ikea.
“That’s crazy! I hope my future twins, Nike and McDonald’s, know how lucky they are,” he tweeted.
“I think my whole life is tongue-in-cheek,” Mirchoff said. “Maybe just a little too much cheek.”