Mare of Eastown Creator Brad Ingelsby Talks His New HBO Show, Task
The Delco-shot series from the Main Line dad premieres this weekend.
Left: Mare of Easttown writer Brad Ingelsby, who returns to HBO with Task (photo by Kyle Kielinski) | Right: Task star Mark Ruffalo (photo courtesy HBO)
I grew up in … Berwyn, which is precisely where I live now.
My current mood is … super tense. Whenever I have a new thing coming out, I get incredibly tense. Gotta put it out into the world and see how the world responds.
The jump from Villanova marketing major to Hollywood screenwriter was … quite the unexpected U-turn. To be quite honest, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. My father, being a very practical man, said, “Go get a degree where you can be employable and have health insurance. So that’s how I wound up at Villanova.
My first car was a … white two-door Plymouth Sundance that was handed down to me by my older brother, who got it from my dad’s secretary.
These days, I drive … a BMW X5.
Brad Ingelsby talking to Mark Ruffalo on the set of Task, Ingelsby’s first HBO show since his hit Mare of Easttown.
When I was a kid I wanted to be … Magic Johnson. I wanted to play in the NBA. But then with each passing year, I realized that was not in the cards.
Growing up, I watched a lot of … basketball and character-driven crime movies, like Mean Streets, Straight Time, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, and Goodfellas.
I learned to make movies and TV shows … in graduate school at the American Film Institute.
I got my big break … when a script I wrote called The Low Dweller sold in 2008 for $600,000, which is pretty unheard of for a first script sale. It had Ridley Scott attached to it, but it was never made. I’m still amazed to this day at the amount. It’s almost embarrassing.
My latest project is … Task, which stars Mark Ruffalo as a former priest turned FBI agent in Delco. He’s investigating a string of violent robberies led by an unassuming family man.
It’s set in … Havertown. We filmed it in Aston, Coatesville, Broomall, Wissahickon Valley Park, the Llanerch Diner, Chester County, a Rita’s, the old Philadelphia Roundhouse, and Ralph’s in the Italian Market.
I left the Philly area in … 2008 to become a professional writer in California and moved back a few years ago to be closer to family.
My three kids are always asking me … to write something that they’d actually be allowed to watch. They are seven to 13.
My junk food obsession is … Old Bay potato chips from Herr’s.
Mark Ruffalo’s Delco accent in Task is … very mild, especially compared to Kate Winslet’s in Mare of Easttown. Mark’s character is someone we imagined had traveled a lot and gone off to college, whereas Mare probably wouldn’t have done that. She was a hometown girl. So we leaned into her “Delco” heavily.
My current bingeing obsession is … Sirens. Julianne Moore is amazing.
I usually wake up at … 5:30. I’m only good at writing in the morning. Anything past 2 p.m. and I am useless as a writer.
My most prized material possession is … my Writers Guild Award for Mare.
The first big concert I went to was … Springsteen. I’ve seen him literally dozens of times and three or four times on his last tour alone.
The last time I was at Wawa was … two days ago, to get soft pretzels and sunflower seeds for my kids.
The last concert I went to was … Waxahatchee. Love her, and I have some of her stuff in the show.
When people ask me if there will be a second season of Mare … I tell them that the door isn’t closed. I just gotta be sure Kate still wants to do it.
My prediction for the Phillies this season is … that we will at least get to if not win the World Series. My dad watches literally every game.
When I go into the city, I eat at … Parc and Alpen Rose. I can’t do cheesesteaks anymore because I have celiac disease. Kills me to not do cheesesteaks. Out my way, we do dinners at Christopher’s in Wayne, White Dog, and Autograph.
The thing most people don’t understand about this business is … that it is nearly impossible to get anything made.
Published as “One of Us: Brad Ingelsby” in the September 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
