David Lyons on The Cape: "At the Heart of It Was a Very Real Family — He's Not a Superhero, He's a Family Man"

Australian actor David Lyons — known for ER and a cameo opposite Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love — stars as Vince Faraday, a cop framed for crimes he did not commit who becomes "The Cape" in NBC's new action series, airing Mondays at 9 p.m. Premier Guide Miami sat down to find out what that means — and what comes next.

Australian actor David Lyons — known for his role as Dr. Simon Brenner in season 15 of NBC's ER and a high-impact cameo opposite Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love — stars as Vince Faraday, a cop framed for crimes he did not commit who becomes "The Cape" in NBC's new action series, airing Mondays at 9 p.m. Produced by Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun, the show follows Faraday as he teams up with a group of carnival misfits to take a new identity, fight crime, and win back his wife Dana and son Trip.

On approaching the role not as a superhero: "As a kid, I don't specifically remember having a superhero that I was attached to. Obviously, Superman — Christopher Reeve's Superman — was something that was in the forefront of my mind. But in terms of approaching this, I didn't really view the character, Vince Faraday, as a superhero. He was more the everyman that's caught in an environment that is so extreme that has to go to an extreme length in order to reclaim what it is that he's lost. I was kind of more obsessed with the everyday heroes — the concept of ordinary people doing the extraordinary."

On what attracted him to the role: "What attracted me to it was knowing that it was a Sci-Fi comic book genre, but at the heart of it was a very, very real family. The way I approached the script was not in terms of being a superhero. It was in terms of being a family man that's torn away from everything that he loves and he's using this last vestige of hope in order to get it all back."

On the physical demands and training: "It's been incredibly physically demanding — fully more so than any other role that I've ever taken on. Prior to starting the pilot, I was training with a fight choreography crew called 8711 that work in mixed martial arts. Every fighter has their own technique, and he's got a particular one which kind of comes from a military background, so we're focusing on close-quarter combat. It's a process that I'm still very much entrenched in and still learning my limitations as well as Vince Faraday's limitations."

On the costume: "I don't think any superhero costume, other than Superman — well, Spiderman has a bit of maneuverability as well. But in terms of just the way it's constructed, it's a little bit more like the shining armor of a knight as opposed to the Lycra flexibility of a Superman costume. The mythology of the world is that he uses a breastplate — an old Samurai breastplate — leather pants, big boots, and on top of that, a mask and a cape. Everything that you see the way he moves is the way he actually moves. I'm not putting anything on. There's no posturing."

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