Meet the Lexington native behind new Cinemax drama ‘Quarry’

A Lexington native is behind a new show that has the potential to be your fall TV obsession.

Michael D. Fuller, a Lexington High School grad and College of Charleston alum, co-created an eight-episode drama series called “Quarry.”

The show is about U.S. Marine Mac Conway, who returns home to Memphis from Vietnam in 1972 and finds himself shunned by those he loves and demonized by the public he fought for. Logan Marshall-Green stars as Conway, a.k.aQuarry. As he grapples with unemployment, a strained marriage and PTSD, Conway is unwillingly drawn into the dark world of contract killing.

Fuller is an executive producer of the show with his writing partner Graham Gordy. The two first worked together as writers for the SundanceTV series “Rectify,” and then on their own TV project for AMC about college football (Gordy, who is from Arkansas, is a diehard SEC football fan like Fuller), although the show was not picked up.

“But it got me representation and got me on people’s radars,” Fuller said.

Fuller has lived in L.A. for the past 12 years. It’s where he met his wife, former Miss South Carolina USA and Gamecock cheerleader Jamie Hill.

Below are five questions with Fuller about “Quarry.” Watch it on Cinemax at 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9.

Q: How did “Quarry” come together?

Fuller: We knew we wanted to do something set in the South, like a Southern “Sopranos” in a way. While we were developing our own ideas, I was looking at books online and I happened to see on Amazon’s “customers also liked” list a series of books by Max Allan Collins [which the show is based on].

First and foremost, they’re just great crime novels; Max is a terrific writer who’s able to craft witty characters and brutal action. We saw a real opportunity to tell the origin story of this character who’s so fully detached in the books and dramatize how he got to that point.

Q: Who is the main character Mac and what drives him?

Fuller: He’s a guy who was born and raised in Memphis. He gets drafted, does one tour, comes back and feels restless, like he can’t fit back in. So he re-enlists, much to the chagrin of his wife. The series starts as he comes home after the second tour. He’s been involved in some kind of atrocity, and it’s brought some shame onto him back home. It’s about him thinking he’s coming home as a hero and he’s shunned in so many ways. There was no support system there. No one understood PTSD at the time. Mac is haunted by what he endured and is trying to put it behind him. He gets manipulated by this man called The Broker. This guy does understand PTSD, but bastardizes it to recruit these young men into doing his criminal bidding.

Q: How did you capture the feel of the ’70s?

Fuller: So much of writing to me is the chance to do research. I wasn’t alive then, and neither was my writing partner. We were trying to be as authentic as we could be, so we did interviews with people who lived through it and read up about veterans’ experiences coming home. It’s an interesting time because it doesn’t have the narcissism of the ’80s or the idealism of the ’60s.

Q: Cinemax is owned by HBO, which is known for pushing the on-air envelope. On a scale of one to “Game of Thrones,” how violent or graphic is “Quarry”?

Fuller: “It is HBO, so there is violence on the show. But so much of what Graham Gordy and I do is not to glorify or be gratuitous with violence. We want it to come from character first. There’s blood and murder and sex ... but it’s always done from a place that serves the story and keeps to the character.”

Q: You started this project in 2012. How does it feel now that the show is finally about to air on TV?

Fuller: “It’s very surreal. It’s been a long process. There have been a lot of life changes since I started this project. I remember working on the pilot for “Quarry” and watching the London Olympics! Now I’m married and have a 2-week-old daughter. It’s awesome to work so hard on something and to see it coming out. There’s relief it’s finally getting out there.”

This story was originally published September 4, 2016 at 10:19 AM with the headline "Meet the Lexington native behind new Cinemax drama ‘Quarry’."