TNBT Cast: Mishael Morgan (Esther Brooking)

Want to know what this is about? Check out this blog entry! For those who want to cut to the chase and get right to the podcast, scroll all the way down. For the rest of you (and we hope all of you!), read on about Mishael’s role with Epic’s The Next Big Thing cast.

Admit it. You’ve been waiting for this one.

There are hundreds of named characters in Epic. It has more than its fair share of stars. But if you had to break everything down, if you had to name one – just one – character who transcended all of that…one superstar…you’d be hard-pressed not to consider our next entry. Yes, this is Scott Remington’s series. Yes, characters like David Jurgan, Becan McCrae, and Jayden Timmons have been there since day-one. Yes, Svetlana Voronova came onto the scene as a stalwart. But to put it simply, there is no character, in any series, in any medium, in any anything, like Esther Brooking.

If you wanted to define Esther by the book, you’d say she was a tactical observations specialist from Cambridge, England. But if you’ve read Epic, you know that nothing about Esther could remotely be described as “by the book.” Just the same, tactical observations is her role. She’s a Type-2 scout; that’s what Type-2 scouts do. While the rest of the squad is laying down suppression fire in the city streets, Esther’s the one scaling the rooftops and slinking behind enemy lines to slit a few throats and tell her sniper where to shoot. She’s black ops. And do fans love that? Absolutely. But that’s not why they love Esther.

They love Esther because of the other things she brings to the table. Attitude. Unpredictability. An insane amount of cleverness and wit. She’s biting sarcasm with a side of romantic drama and a pinch of slapstick comedy. She’s entertainment and intensity. Epic’s official little spitfire.

[stextbox id=”black” image=”null”]The American was on Esther’s side of the corner. He shouted between bursts of gunfire. “There’s no way all twenty Bakma took the same hall! I’m guessing there’s six down there, tops. We can take six if we charge.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m never wrong.”

Esther looked at his nametag. When she read it, her mouth fell. “Custer? Your last name is Custer?”

The soldier fired again. “Yeah, so what?”

Esther fell back to the wall. “We’re all going to die.”[/stextbox]

It’s no secret that Esther is one of my favorite characters. Heck, I made her Epic’s official character ambassador. She’s also, by far, the most inspired character in the series. She’s the only one with whom I regularly argue. I have planned out more scenes that you could possibly imagine, only to have Ms. Brooking show up and say, “You know that plan you thought you had? Yeah, I’m going this way instead.” She challenges me as a writer, which makes her incredibly fun to write.

I have to watch how much I say about Esther, because I know a lot of people reading this will be unfamiliar with the Epic series. The most entertaining aspects of her would definitely fall into “major spoiler” territory. But for the purpose of this entry, I can give you the basics. Esther makes her debut in the second installment of Epic, Outlaw Trigger, as a rookie scout straight out of EDEN Academy. She joins Scott Remington’s unit with high marks from her combat courses and a skill-set that ranges from extraterrestrial culture to world-class swimming, eager to prove herself a battlefield game-changer. She’s highly ambitious. She’s also never seen live combat. And that’s the best way to introduce Esther without giving away too much. But trust me when I say that her story alone is worth the price of admission. There’s a reason she’s known (by fans) as Epic’s most complex character. Some characters are scene-stealers. If it was up to Esther, she’d steal the whole series.

[stextbox id=”black” image=”null”]“For whatever reason,” Esther went on, “their captain is choosing not to respond. If there were any outward signs of a fight, not only would we have heard it on the ground, but it would have been seen from the Vindies in orbit. Even if he’s under duress from hostiles outside his transport, he should be able to relay that to us.” She paused. “I think he has a gun to his head.”

That was much more in-depth than Scott had ventured to think. He’d simply reached the conclusion that something was wrong.

The scout continued. “That tells me there are Noboats on the ground, which in turn tells me they’re waiting for something—possibly for us to approach. I think it’s an ambush. If I may make a prediction, I believe we will continue to have no communication until we’ve drawn close, literally in the Bakmas’ sights. The Bakma are extraordinarily cautious, particularly in ambush situations. They play things remarkably safe, when they can muster up the courage to gamble at all.”

Scott stared at her in silence. He had no idea how to respond.

“Bakmanese Tactics and Customs.” The scout smirked. “It’s a 300 course.”

Scott looked ahead once again. “Well, there we go.”[/stextbox]

Normally, this is the part where I’d tell you something interesting about Mishael Morgan, the actress cast for Esther’s role in The Next Big Thing. But I don’t need to. Not this time. We’re upping the stakes here at Epic HQ, brazenly going where no series has gone before!

Get ready for fifty minutes of awesome. That’s right. Fifty minutes. It’s like Inside the Actors’ Studio meets Late Night, as Mishael joined me in cyberspace to talk about everything from her life as an actress to whether or not a dwarf planet still counts as a planet (for the record, I say no), the latter of which became a topic for debate in the Lightning Round, where Mishael experiened the joy of trying to answer ten random trivia questions in sixty seconds. Trust me – this alone is worth the listen. I won’t tell you what she scored, but, well…let’s just say her law background came in handy. Needless to say, Mishael Morgan is currently #1 on the Lightning Round leader board. By default. Will anyone top her? You’ll just have to wait and see.

Enough of this sodding chin-wagging!

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