‘Fargo’: Dave Foley on Straying From Comedy to Play Danish Graves

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Fargo‘s fifth installment is filled with a unique array of characters, among which is Dave Foley‘s Danish Graves. Yes, his moniker resembles that of a breakfast pastry, but don’t expect any deeper explanations because none were provided.

Introduced as “the bite to [Lorraine’s] bark,” Foley says, “he executes on the terrible things that Lorraine wants to have happen.” Played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Lorraine is described as the Debt Queen of the Midwest, and she’s the mother-in-law of Juno Temple‘s Dot Lyon, the woman at the center of Noah Hawley‘s latest FX anthology chapter.

As Lorraine’s right-hand man, Danish “gets his hands dirty,” Foley shares from the Calgary set. “He does it because he aspires to be Lorraine. I think he admires her and wants to be as ruthless and cold as she is, but it isn’t quite entirely in his nature.” As for the dirty work Danish gets involved in, he sends messages to Lorraine’s adversaries, serves as her legal counsel, and even delivers reprimanding actions against her own son, Wayne (David Rysdahl).

(Credit: Frank W Ockenfels III/FX)

“He has a vein of conscience,” Foley admits of Danish. “He’s struggling to get rid of it.” As the season progresses, the actor teases, “It’s very much about someone who has done terrible things and enjoyed doing terrible things but gets to a point where he starts to weigh out what’s too far. And that’s kind of the conflict that he comes into.”

In an installment that revolves around a theme of debts, Foley says, “His biggest debt is that [Lorraine] gives him his only sense of belonging, as far as you can tell from the script and the story. Danish has no life outside of serving Lorraine. He has no family, no friends. The only person he interacts with is Lorraine. He has a desire to be part of her family, which she doesn’t seem to have any desire to be a part of…”

One of Danish’s defining visual features is his eye patch, which won’t be further explained, according to Foley. “All it says in the script is that it’s from a childhood injury,” the actor shares. “I know at one point, I said to Noah, ‘I’m wondering if there’s a symbolism in this, does the eye patch represent his willingness to turn a blind eye to the terrible things he does?’ And Noah just said, ‘I don’t know. I never thought of it like that.'”

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The eye patch offered some behind-the-scenes challenges for Foley, who admittedly struggled with the changes to his depth perception. From walking downstairs to drinking coffee, the performer had to make some adjustments to his usual approach to daily activities. “I also had to drive a really expensive Porsche with an eye patch,” he says.

Set in 2019, Foley points out, “Before 2016, there was the notion that you would at least try to disguise your cruelty. You would try to dress it up as something else, and then suddenly, we had this awful man in real life who said, ‘No, you can just say every terrible thing that comes into your head and do every terrible thing you can think of, and you’ll keep getting away with it.'” When it comes to Danish, Foley says the character “aspires to be as horrible as [the person he’s] emulating.” And in doing so, that’s “just rippling through the culture.”

It goes without saying that Foley is better known for his comedic work with credits ranging from The Kids in the Hall to NewsRadio, so how did he land in the world of Fargo? “As a fan of the show, it’s great to get to play in that tone and also, it was a challenge for me,” says the actor. “[Noah’s] had a lot of friends and colleagues on the series in the past who get to come in and break away from their comedic history and get to play things a little darker. So that was exciting.”

See what Danish gets up to as Fargo Year 5 unfolds on FX, and stay tuned for more on the latest chapter.

Fargo, Year 5 Premiere, Tuesday, November 21, 10 pm ET/PT, FX (Next day on Hulu)