Toni Trucks Talks Female Representation on ‘SEAL Team’ and the Evolution of Lisa Davis

On SEAL Team, Trucks plays Lisa Davis, a key female character in the series from the start. She’s also a character who has evolved in major ways throughout the series. But now, as the show’s fifth season nears its end — the SEAL Team Season 5 finale airs this Sunday, January 23 — Davis is in a tough spot when it comes to her career.

I recently had the chance to chat with Trucks about how her character has evolved since Season 1, the importance of female representation on SEAL Team, and the creative ways the show hid her pregnancy this season.

Trucks said she feels that Lisa Davis has “evolved multiple times and continues to do so” since Season 1. “Lisa started out as an intelligence officer—really logistics. So I was packing parachutes, reading books, and shooting drone footage.”

“We continue to see even in Season 5, that hunger to move up and have more responsibility. And so every season, she shines. Season two, she’s able to go to Officer Candidate School, which is a big deal. And then she graduates to become a full-fledged Intelligence Officer on the team. And now we see her in Season 5 going into this fellowship program with the Department of Defense,” Trucks said. “She just continues to push the boundaries of where she can be most effective and try to be more courageous in her responsibilities.”

Trucks also believes that stepping out of her comfort zone makes sense for her character.

“For a long time with Lisa Davis, you saw her looking for comfort and stability [within] the team, because her home life was so chaotic that she was literally clinging to it with bloody fingernails. And now, I think she’s realizing that there’s a price to pay for that, and where else can she be effective? So it’s an interesting adventure and journey for her.”

Of course, we also know that Davis’s career could be in jeopardy because of the paper she wrote for her fellowship, which discussed lessons learned from Afghanistan and how to better protect the country’s warriors.

“I think she kept thinking about what I was really doing, what my larger purpose was here,” Trucks said. “I think what she saw was that although Lisa Davis is someone who likes to color in the lines and follow the rules, there are things that could be done better. You hear her constantly saying that we need to prioritize our warriors over fighting. And that we’re not doing a good job of taking care of the people behind these initiatives, behind these larger goals, and that’s a mockery.”

“Even if Commander Blackburn didn’t like it, it was devastating to her because I think she just thought, ‘This is obvious. Obviously everyone will agree with me.’ And they didn’t agree,” Trucks added. “The only reason she went on this mission [in Venezuela] was to try to save herself and do something that could give her a little bit of leverage if she ended up getting in big trouble because of the article she wrote, which got people criticized for how they treated special operations.” Trucks also discussed the importance of female representation in the SEAL Team and her role in ensuring that representation is authentic.

“I welcome any woman to be on this show. I’ve been able to go on USO tours and interact with the military in a lot of different ways since I’ve been on the SEAL Team, and I really feel a sense of responsibility and pride in representing them week in and week out. So I think it’s important that we continue to represent women in this field,” Trucks said. “I want to see women in the military reflected on our screens because it’s so impactful to audiences.”

“I think when people think of the military, they tend to think of men, which is not true. And so we’ve had days on set where I’ve come in and I’ll be like, ‘This feels weird here—what’s going on?’” And I’d be like, ‘Oh, it’s just male extras.’ On the worst day, we should always have at least 20-25% women in this room, no matter what. I was like, ‘We need to see the women.’ They’re there. They’re in high-level, high-risk, high-level, dangerous jobs. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t see them. So I really celebrate when our show shows women.

On SEAL Team, Trucks plays Lisa Davis, a key female character in the series from the start. She’s also a character who has evolved in major ways throughout the series. But now, as the show’s fifth season nears its end — the SEAL Team Season 5 finale airs this Sunday, January 23 — Davis is…