A.J. Buckley Discusses Working With Real-Life Military on ‘SEAL Team’
Awards Daily chats with actor/entrepreneur A.J. Buckley about working on the SEAL Team, his diaper bag business, and what it’s like to work with real-life veterans on set.
A.J. Buckley, who plays Sonny Quinn on the CBS series SEAL Team, tackles chemical weapons and terrorism on screen. In real life, he’s trying to figure out an even more impossible task: finding a changing table in the men’s room.
“I went into the bathroom to change my daughter’s diaper, and there was no changing table in the actual bathroom, so I had to take my shirt off and lay it on the floor to change her diaper,” Buckley says. “And I had this idea, what if there was a diaper bag with a built-in changing table?”
Buckley was unimpressed with the diaper bags available and wanted to create one that was not only more practical but also appealing to moms and dads. PaperclipLife, a diaper bag company he founded with business partner Artie Baxter, has recently branched out into making travel bags, clutches, and fanny packs.
“I never thought I’d be playing a Navy SEAL and selling diaper bags.”
Founding the SEAL Team
Five years ago, Buckley might not have been a member of the SEAL Team.
“When I got on CSI New York, I was probably 145 or 150 pounds and I was doing Supernatural a lot at the time. I was really worried that I was going to be typecast, so after that, I decided to get in the best shape of my life. I probably gained 30 pounds of muscle in the last five years, and that weirdly prepared me for this opportunity.”
He now works out twice a day to stay in shape, with the goal of representing the military community as best he can.
“I didn’t have any military background growing up. I had never shot a gun before. The technical advisors on our show are all former SEALs. One thing I’m really proud of about our show is that we employ a lot of veterans in the writers’ room, behind the camera, on set, so we’re really proud to work with men and women who serve our country every day. There’s a pressure in the sense that you want to represent this community that has done so much for our country, in the truest sense.”
On Working with Real-Life Veterans
Showrunners Chris Chulack and John Glenn encourage technical advisors to speak up if something on screen doesn’t feel authentic, including movements, learning how to shoot, how the team moves as a cohesive unit, understanding dialogue, and what different acronyms mean.
“This season, we’re really going back to muscle memory. Every episode, you get a little more comfortable and the brotherhood gets a little more bonded, and that in itself is something really special.”
The show simulates what veterans go through when they return to the United States and ease into the new normal, while also giving real-life veterans the opportunity to jumpstart their post-military careers.
“When a lot of veterans come back, they have no transferable traits and feel like they’re lost. They feel like they don’t know where to go to use the tools they learned while serving and the climate of returning to society and using the incredible gifts and talents they have in a business setting. The great thing about this show is that we really open our doors. It’s great to see these veterans talking on set. These guys have met before but never met in person; they’ve been on the same battlefield, fighting the same war. It’s pretty powerful. I’m incredibly lucky and grateful to get to work with these guys every day.”
Season 2 of the CBS series will delve deeper into what the troops go through when they return home from deployment.
“It really goes into how tough it is for these guys, the invisible wounds of war and PTSD and what they go through, how they deal with their families, how their families deal with them, and when they feel comfortable, they get the call that they have to leave. What these men and women do every day, it takes a special individual. Knowing that when you leave, you might not come back is something that I still can’t fathom.”
Pure on Hulu
In addition to his work on SEAL Team, the half-Canadian Buckley has a CBC series called Pure, which will air on WGN America in 2019 and is currently streaming on Hulu.
“It’s based on a true story where a group of Mennonites had a giant pipeline of cocaine and methamphetamine and they hid it in cheeseburgers and wagon wheels and all sorts of crazy stuff.”
To play alcoholic cop Bronco Novak, Buckley had to gain 20 pounds.
“I worked
