It’s a hotel suite in downtown Toronto as I wait for my interview, there are always nerves but never in a negative fashion and all those nerves melt away when the beaming, easy going smile of TV and film veteran, Mekhi Phifer walks in the room.

One of the stars of the young adult, action/adventure franchise The Divergent Series, Insurgent out today is the second installment in which we follow young Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) as she fights with her inner demons in order to help to save society as she knows it from being torn apart by nefarious forces.

Mekhi plays Max the leader of one of the sub sects of this near future society and while he’ll be the first to admit that he doesn’t say a lot in the movie, he says plenty to me as we talk about the perils of an actor committing to a global franchise, the balance between indie and big budget work along with the art of not only acting but reacting and how lucky he feels to be a part of an all-star supporting cast.

Dave Voigt: Anytime an actor commits to a series or a franchise like this series is, I can imagine that it can be a little daunting for an actor since you have to commit to an undetermined amount of time on something like this.  What was it about the material in Divergent and Insurgent  that made you want to make this commitment?

Mekhi Phifer: Well to be perfectly honest I wasn’t familiar with the books before I signed on, but I just thought that it was all very cleverly done and plus you never really know if a trilogy or a series like this will ever take off, and I just really enjoyed the character.  I thought it was something that I could have some fun with and be a part of this project in a really special way.

DV: How hard it is for you to be able to make your mark and be creative on a big set like this, particularly when you are more of a background player in this film?

MP: You see, that’s the really interesting thing.  In this particular piece, it’s not that hard at all.  I mean for myself, Octavia (Spencer), Kate (Winslet), Naomi (Watts) and Daniel (Kim) everybody was sort of playing in the background to Shailene and Theo who I really think are the driving force of the entire piece.  I mean despite the Academy Award winning and nominated pedigree that we have on this one, none of them are on the poster.  We are all truly supporting this film, and to be in a company of supporters like this, is so much more enjoyable then being the lead in a movie that is just mediocre.  The impact and the viewership that this movie gets, not just domestically but worldwide is so much bigger than anything I have done before.  Not to say my stuff hasn’t gone worldwide, but the anticipation and awareness of it all is just so huge because we are all supporting Shailene and Theo.  I mean how can I have an ego about playing a backseat to those two when everyone else as actors in the supporting cast is doing the exact same thing.

DV: I’ve also got to imagine that there is a bit of a ‘Big Brother’ dynamic going on, along with a strong sense of pride as well, especially as someone who has been around in the business for a bit to see the pedigree of the young cast with Shailene, Theo and Miles Teller to know that this is next wave of quality young actors who are going to be doing some great work going forward?

MP: Oh absolutely, I mean the good thing about these guys with Miles and Ansel as well, they are just so youthful, but they aren’t immature at all, right down to Ansel (Elgort) who just turned 21.  He told me that at the premiere party and I joked with him that he was finally allowed to have a drink, I mean he told me that less than a week ago!  But he is very, very professional in his approach.  I never saw anyone who had to ‘school’ the younger generation on set, because they all came very prepared and knew exactly what they had to be doing.  This isn’t back in the “Brat Pack” days (laughs).  Everyone came ready to go everyday and it was a great experience.

DV: I’ve always been fascinated in something and especially for an actor like yourself who has done big budget films, and indie stuff like The Suspect which came out last year, along with big budget and small budget TV.  What is the difference in the dynamic for you when preparing for the job at hand?

MP: Oh the craft services for sure, I’ll tell you that shit right now (Both laughing)

DV: I knew you were going to say that… (Both still laughing hard)

MP: Yeah multi course lunches vs. someone doing a run down to Popeye’s for a two piece is a bit of a difference…but in all seriousness putting that aside for a second, it comes down to production value.  I mean on this Divergent series with the sets that they build and the hundreds and hundreds of extras, the wardrobe, the music , the whole look of it puts you in a different mindset.  Let’s compare that to The Suspect, a very character driven thing and clever in its storytelling with its twists and turns but very small.  That’s kind of why I am kind of dying to see what they do with my character Max in Allegiant because in this particular series, I’m not necessarily working as hard as I usually do as an actor, to be frank.  It’s still fantastic to be a part of, considering the impact that it all has and the money is great, but I really just enjoy the meat of it all  with the character and running lines with the other actors.  I mean on The Suspect we really didn’t even have time for rehearsals.  We would shoot and then just meet in my room and run lines so we were good to go for the next day and had a grasp on the thing but for Divergent & Insurgent  we would be in for a few days or week here or there…and then we fly out and go do whatever else we were working on.  So many of us in the supporting cast really were like ships passing in the night.  As I might be wrapping, Naomi Watts was just flying in, we had it much different from Theo and Shailene who were there practically the entire time, because they are the leads of the whole thing.

DV: Almost like a working vacation for you guys?

MP: Oh, absolutely!  (Laughs) I mean in the first one I was delivering a lot of speeches and things like that but here while I had more interaction with the characters, I didn’t have a lot of dialogue and so much of my work was about reacting to others through body language , which has its challenges because I am very used to doing all of that, the acting and the reacting.  Stuff like O and even something like 8 Mile with the big battle rap sequence at the end, I just ad libbed all of that, it wasn’t in the script at all, NONE OF IT (laughs).  It is so much fun to be able to know your character so well that you can get away with stuff like that and be believable doing it.  I mean  I’ve never hosted a rap battle…

DV: You have to sell that your wife is giving birth to a zombie baby…

MP: EXACTLY…I mean that’s not real  but you have to sell it because you know that shit isn’t real, but you have to make it feel real.  You have to sell these things that aren’t based on reality like running from zombies and especially in this film, I am really having a blast getting caught up in the world wind of it all.

DV: In any walk of life, there is always going to be the ‘paycheck’ type of job.  Which you can never begrudge in anyway because we all have to eat, keep the lights on, etc, etc.  In your career to this point, do you feel like you have found that balance between the jobs that pay the bills and then ones that keep you engaged creatively?

MP: Yeah I think so, I mean after we wrapped on Insurgent I went and did another  great film that I think audiences are really going to get behind and while we were shooting it, it was called Viral but I think that they are changing to Pandemic.  It’s me Rachel Nichols, Missy Pyle and Alfie Allen, it’s a bit of a World War Z/Dawn of the Dead hybrid and the way that they shot it was just insane.  They had us  in these bio suit type things as we are trying to save some people and they shot most of the movie through surveillance cameras or our helmet cameras and we had to do all of our own shooting coverage.  It wasn’t like just over the shoulder stuff, but if I literally took my helmet off and put it on the table facing you and that would be your coverage.  We were being the actors AND the cameraman, which was fun and there is a lot of action, running, shooting, bats and axes and that should be out in September and soon I go to work on Allegiant.

DV: Living the dream, huh?

MP: You know it, that’s all I’m trying to do (Smiles)

Insurgent is in theatres now.