Brett Dalton portrays Mark Trent in Found. New episodes of the second season premiere Thursdays at 10 PM ET/PT on NBC and streaming on Peacock.

In any given year, more than 600,000 people are reported missing in the U.S. More than half that number are people of color that the country seems to forget about. Public relations specialist Gabi Mosely (series star and producer Shanola Hampton), who was once herself one of those forgotten ones, and her crisis management team make sure there is always someone looking out for the missing. Gabi, however, has a chilling secret: In the midst of grief, she imprisoned her childhood kidnapper, Sir (Mark-Paul Gosselaar). Now Sir has escaped and is on the loose, and her biggest secret is now her biggest threat.

I caught up with the actor over Zoom to discuss how his character handled Gabi’s revelation, what he enjoyed most about season 2, how the storylines will reward continued viewing, the threat of Sir being on the loose, and more. Keep reading for everything he shared!

So the first thing I want to ask you about is one of my most anticipated scenes, Trent finding out the truth about what Gabi did. I was so interested in how that was going to be done, and the scene was just as tense as I was expecting. How did you approach that, and what were your thoughts on how Trent handled it?
Brett Dalton: Well, that’s a very good question. I was wondering about that myself, because at the end of season one, the entire team finds out, it’s a really dramatic moment that actually happened to be the last scene that we shot. That was this really powerful scene and I’m there watching the monitors, watching all of my friends do this incredible work on screen and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing but hey, wait a minute, Trent doesn’t know. When does this happen?’ So I knew that that was coming season two, especially because Nkechi had teased that betrayal was going to be a big thing, and there’s still one member of this cast that doesn’t know about this. And so, I was wondering, I didn’t know it was going to drop in the first episode.

I thought that they were going to tease that out for a long time. The team knew they had some reservations about Gabi, but they weren’t letting on and this was the big secret that, you know, like many times, Trent doesn’t know until the very last minute, or until everybody else already does. But this happened, and I was really surprised that Gabi finally stops resisting and fighting the urge to keep this secret. She’s told everybody else, I guess I might as well tell you. It causes a pretty big rift because Trent is very much a rule follower who happens to have fallen in love with somebody who breaks all of them.

Isn’t that life?
Yeah, star-crossed lovers. So, I think that was actually one of the very first scenes we shot. They just pushed me in the deep end. Yeah, they really did. It’s a whole other side of Trent because it creates a rift that at that point, I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to be repairable and it seems like it’s like that with the team as well. There’s a lot of silence, a lot of tension in the room whenever Gabi is there and the rest of the team is, because there’s this thing, we love the person, but we don’t agree with the action and it’s morally, fundamentally questionable on all of these different levels. And yet, we also know that she’s pulling in the right direction, and still has good intentions behind these things. So yeah, it creates a pretty big rift for all of us and I think, as I said, we get to see another side of Trent, which is kind of, I don’t know, angry dad mode, I guess. I don’t know if that’s the right word.

it’s very interesting because if I remember correctly, in the finale, one of the things I loved about the scene with Gabi telling the team was that it was silent. I know she was talking, Shanola told me she filmed it with a monologue, but we really only got the reactions. So I was very curious now how they were going to handle Trent and they kept all the dialogue in there. I just thought that difference was very interesting to watch. I don’t know if you noticed that, but that stood out to me as a viewer.
Yeah, well, it’s almost baffling. That kind of information is, I mean, there were moments of almost like, I can’t, laughter is not the right word, but it’s something so mind-boggling. It’s almost as if somebody tells you, ‘Yeah, aliens have been here for like 50 years, and they’ve been using space lasers or something.’ I’m sorry, what? What? So yeah, it’s a pretty big deal and you’re right, that’s a very good observation. It’s that scene that gets to play out at the top of the show, and I think Nkechi and all of the writers did such an excellent job of kicking this off, not only right where we left off, but also turning up the dial. I mean, if people expected to tune in and it to be a Martha Stewart’s cooking show or something, it’s like, we have not resolved [anything], there’s so much happening. Sir is still out there, there’s a million things that are happening. It just keeps ratcheting up. 

Yeah, and speaking of Sir, even though Trent is not the center of his cat-and-mouse game, he’s getting to kind of see firsthand how Sir plays with them while trying to find Lacey. I feel like it’s one thing to hear about what someone does but it’s another thing to be a part of their game and I think you even had a line, like, ‘We’re playing right into his hand, this is exactly what he wants,’ that sort of thing. I feel like experiencing it is very different.
Yeah, I mean, that’s a very interesting point. I don’t have anything smart to add to that, other than you’re right, at least up until now, season one, there were isolated incidents, I was piecing together things. But now the cat is so far out of the bag. He’s so smart, he’s so manipulative, he is so much ahead of the game, that it feels like now he’s just playing with us as if we’re his toys. He’s trying to rain on as many parades as possible and it’s kind of genius. I mean, he is really that good, and yeah, he’s trying to frustrate every effort and it seems to be that he’s enjoying it at the same time. These are almost specific threats to each one of the team members. We’ll see later on, I mean, he’s very good at this game. He is a criminal mastermind. And so yeah, that threat being out on the loose is crazy and makes all of our lives that much harder.

Fun to watch, not good to have to live.
Exactly. That’s exactly it. I know, that reminds me of something my mom said when I was on another show, but she’s like, ‘Well, I mean, you play a great bad guy, but you’re always just so bad. Why can’t you guys just resolve the issues?’ I’m like, ‘I hear that, but if you resolve all the issues, then you don’t have a TV show.’

Was that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
Yeah, exactly. We can’t sit down and have milk and cookies, as much as I want that, that would be great, I would love just one episode of that.

You tortured me with that show, Brett.
I know and she was very glad I did not play the bad guy on this one ‘cause she’s like, ‘That’s a bad guy on a different level, that’s something I’m glad you’re not, because then, nobody will look at you the same.’

I was deep in the defense club for you on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I was in the trenches for you.
Oh, thank you very much. He’s a misunderstood character.

Misunderstood, that’s exactly what I said.
Well, I get to play a good guy on this one and the thing that I enjoy about season two is I really do think that we get to know this character in a different way. In season one, he was the romantic interest and he could look the other way and he could sort of bend some rules, but not break them. This time around, we get to go home with him. We get to learn a lot more about his family. I think that there’s much more of a spotlight on this character and the dynamic, and it makes sense because now we’re talking about a legal issue here. Gabi not only did something above the law, beneath the law, she broke many laws and there are actual, real-world consequences for that. That’s not friends being disappointed, that’s crimes possibly being committed and what exactly is this person going to do? Is he going to take it on himself as, ‘Well, at least I’m doing it, nobody else is, I want to be the one to do it,’ or is he actually going to look the other way? 

Is this going to be something that love will find a way to a resolution because I don’t know, then what would happen? Then I would have this department who really doesn’t see things the way I do and I’m going to be frustrated. Like, she’s necessary because the department is what it is. That team is necessary to be solving these cases in the way that they’re doing it. And so, yeah, it’s a really interesting thing to put Trent in the middle of all of these really important, complicated, complex questions and that’s really done pretty darn well in season two. So you have a lot to look forward to.

We have to talk again after we get to watch more episodes.
You know where to find me. Yeah, absolutely. That’d be awesome, I would love that.

In the final moments of the second episode, Trent and the team go into the house and Sir literally left minutes before with Lacey. That was where we left off and I just want to get your take on why you think it’s necessary to have the plot continue for multiple episodes rather than just tying a neat bow on it in the premiere. I really like that it’s continuing and going longer.
Yeah, I do too. I mean, I’m not the writer on this, but I do think that what we’ve done with the first season is we’ve now had this dedicated audience who know what the show is about. We solved a lot of crimes, we know and love these characters. So now we get the opportunity to reward continued viewing and something about that makes you kind of lean in. Of course, you’re gonna tune in cause you want to see how these things are resolved, but to have a cliffhanger in the middle of a story makes the viewer a little bit like, I am dying to see this, and you can still tune in, I mean, I think it does this really good tight rope walk. You can still tune in having missed that and still have a complete story beginning, middle, and end, and still understand, and the previously on, great. You can watch it as a unit, but there’s something there that really makes you invested in this show in a different way and sort of leans into the sort of streaming way of going about it, where they’re all given to you at a block of time and you’re watching them and you’re binging them over, and over, and over again.

This does premiere on Peacock the next day and not everybody does watch appointment television anymore. And so, if you are there waiting for ten to drop, and then you want to watch them all together, it goes back to back to back and it does work out. So it’s this kind of like threading the needle thing, which I think they do such a good job of because even though this is a network show, it’s a different mold than a Law & Order or something, and as much as I love that, those can be watched as single units and you get it. There isn’t necessarily a through line throughout these things. So, it’s kind of leaning towards that, but still being network. It’s leaning towards streaming, but still being network and it’s this nice in between, I think it’s an elevated procedural and it’s incredibly good, if not the best at what it does.