Jason Clarke is having a spectacularly fine October, starring in no less than three prestige presentations.
Today he’s a wily, resourceful action hero in the Alaska-set AppleTV+ 10-episode series “The Last Frontier.”
In theaters the same day, he’s a commanding military major in the nuclear suspense drama “A House of Dynamite,” which marks Clarke’s reunion with Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow.
And on Oct. 15 Clarke is the murderous patriarch Alex Murdaugh in Hulu’s “Murdaugh: Death in the Family.”
In a virtual interview, Clarke, 56, cherished the moment. “Three projects that I’m enormously proud of, all coming out at the same time? It’s just wonderful.
“To return with Kathryn Bigelow after 12 years was just one of the best things to ever happen.”
Death and terror trigger “Last Frontier.” When a prison transport plane loaded with violent inmates crashes near Fairbanks, Alaska, a murderous bunch is loosed as Clarke’s Frank Remnick, the lone U.S. marshal in charge of the snow-covered barrens, immediately discovers.
Clarke made a personal connection with “Last Frontier.” “Frank Remnick stuck with me. There’s a lot of my father in Frank.
“With his wife and son, it all actually starts off well. They get great news about their house. Frank’s moving towards retirement and going to set up a bed and breakfast. Spend some time as a husband and a father.
“As he brings donuts to his buddy at work he gets called about a fire in the distance — and all hell breaks loose.
“As for Alec Murdaugh, I was happy to put it behind me. Whereas Frank is a part I’ll be happy to revisit, a great ‘coat’ to put on.”
Clarke’s road to Murdaugh began, he said, “By eating a lot. I had to put on 35-40 pounds because it’s very difficult to do prosthetics for a TV show with just the limited hours. The length of time for a movie is much more simple. In a month or two you can get it done.
“But to do full on prosthetics for six or eight months is impossible. So I put on a lot of weight for that, eating as much as I could.
“I couldn’t have done that without having played Frank. The problem with playing Frank was I was in great shape, my metabolism was burning. I was very healthy — and I had to destroy that to get up to 235 pounds in American weight.
“I got there, it hurt a lot. It changed the way I felt. And I had a weight suit on top of me as well.”
As for those 35 pounds, did they leave?
“They came off pretty quick. The last episodes, I had to drop as much weight as I could, as quickly as I could.
“So at a certain point I just stopped eating. And I, literally, did.”
“The Last Frontier” streams on Apple TV+ Oct. 10
