This past spring, I visited New Orleans to pay a visit to the set of Preacher: Season 2. And what a set it was, as the show was filming at a huge and opulent mansion that day. I have to be vague about what exactly was occurring, but it did involve Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) once more using his “word of God” abilities to make others do his bidding – and Tulip (Ruth Negga) responding with her trademark deadpan “Really, Jesse?” vibe, in another fun and funny sequence. But as another scene I watched cast members film later in the day proved, things would get much more dramatic and intense during Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy’s stay at this place.
I spoke to Preacher’s central trio about what’s to come in Season 2, as the show more closely resembles the comic book source material than it did in its first year, the characters travel to New Orleans, and new foes surface.
Ruth Negga as Tulip O'Hare, Joseph Gilgun as Cassidy, and Dominic Cooper as Jesse Custer in Preacher: Season 2.
From the start, Preacher’s producers noted that while they were never going to be doing an exact, page-for-page adaption of the comic, Season 1 was intended as more of a prequel to the events fans consider to be Preacher’s main story – all taking place in the town of Annville, which in the comics was already destroyed when the story began.
Season 2 begins with Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy on the road, searching for God – the main quest that fuels them in the comics. The cast acknowledged that some fans of the comics would have liked to have seen this from the start, but that they felt it was important to lay the groundwork that they did.
Dominic Cooper: It was such an odd balance in the beginning trying to work out who we were and what we were doing. It made sense that we needed to establish who these people were and what they came from. What’s wonderful now is that we go back in time and start to see who they are, like a jigsaw puzzle, and everything starts to make sense. I love TV like that where it dawns on you, the realization of why someone is behaving the way they are and what motivated their behavior. And it was odd to play a character that seemed slightly removed from the person I came to learn about in the comics. It really feels like it’s been bubbling under the surface and now we’re letting loose these characters which the comic is so full of. We were slowly introducing them. Now I feel like the dynamic, certainly between the three leads in this, and knowing what we know as an audience and what they don’t know about each other makes for a compelling story - they’re completely locking heads with each other. It’s great when they know more backstory and information about them and slowly it’s being revealed how they behave toward one another and how they are with themselves. They’re all despicable in their own way.
Joseph Gilgun: This is going to be what I think the fans were looking for. But one thing we want to inject into the season is the reality of these kind of missions. The Hollywood version is high fiving and everything going great and in real life, that’s not how it works. People get in the way and effect what you’ve set out to do, which is ultimately to find God. Each one of us has a past in New Orleans that are holding it up for them and also are a distraction. The main drive is Jesse and this search for God. That’s what it’s about. That’s what the comics are about and what Jesse is about to some extent. But for Cassidy in particular, speaking for myself, there’s a whole bunch of s**t that’s going to f**k that up - that good fun search for God that he had in his head, the reality is different. That’s just life. That’s the way it is.
Cooper: I think [the producers] very much listened to the fans and what they appreciated in the first one and what they maybe thought was lacking. They always said it was like holding a race horse back. But if you did it with the speed as the comic did, the comic begins with such a smash. You’d be confused with what was happening. This has been a very clever way of starting it out and now we can really run with it. Where they’re full established and you can do anything you like.
Jesse, Tulip and Cassidy begin the season united and on the same mission. But suffice to say, it won’t be that way all the time.
Cooper: What’s great is that you expect it to be so joyful. And it is. It’s a joyful moment in their life. They’re in search of something. They have a purpose - certainly Jesse does. He truly thinks he knows what his aim is. And you see the wheels start to fall off and it becoming more clear that everything is not what it seems and the conflicting viewpoints and struggles of what they want and the lies that they’re hiding start to infect the relationship. Three is a tough relationship in any capacity. That dynamic is very interesting as well to see who sides with who, who harbors secrets from each other to protect the other. All that is happening and then we’re introducing other people into that dynamic. It should make for quite explosive television. It certainly does in the comic and that’s what we’re doing now. I think it was clever to take time and space with the first [season] and get the temperature of it and gauge what the audience.
Ruth Negga: I don’t think the vibe is different. We still have our threesome. But I think we can dig a little deeper and kind of explore the depths of their relationship and the nuances and the history of Jesse and Tulip and the fracture lines of their relationship. Certainly for Tulip a lot of the past comes back to haunt her in a very tangible way, a real way when they hit New Orleans. There’s a reason that she’s reluctant to come back here and it’s something to do with the very recent past. It’s exploring that unknown time between leaving Jesse and coming back and what happened to her. We can explore that a little further. I think the three of them and how their relationships deepen and also how the things that happened to them can also pull them further apart from one another. This idea that Jesse is a man on a mission, quite literally and how that kind of can create a dissonance between what he desires and their desires and what they want from him.
Gilgun: Familiarity breeds contempt. We all know that. We have all had that at some stage with our friends or our family whatever that may be. They’re essentially living out of a car really, all of them together, every day, off the back of this really intense experience. They’ve got this f**king lunatic after them that they don’t understand. There’s a lot of tension and irritation. They love each other but I think tensions will only get worse. But it’s not this -- we’re trying to make it real. It’s an insane storyline. A f**king preacher, his assassin girlfriend, and they meet this vampire. That’s enough. The reality of a mission like this, it’d be really f**king hard work to stay on track, especially if you’re a wayward vampire or a f**king assassin. Definitely tensions get high.
The “f**king lunatic after them that they don’t understand” that Gilgun mentioned (and yes, he curses constantly, in a wonderfully amusing way) is, of course, the Saint of Killers (Graham McTavish), a popular character from the comics whose own origin we saw play out in Season 1. We’ll also meet another iconic comic book character villain in Season 2 as well, Herr Starr, played by Pip Torrens.
Cooper: They’re vital to the overall arch and journey of the entire comic. What they’re finally threading in is to embed it in a reality. You have these larger than life characters that they need to establish and are integral to the story. I don’t know yet how that’s really going to unfold. But that’s going to be the main [obstacle] -- certainly for Jesse and what he is and what he thinks he can achieve, the good he thinks he can do where he’s constantly fighting and struggling against this darker, evil side. With that looming over him, we just slowly discovered these characters and who they are and the grail and Herr Starr and what he represents. They’re still just giving us enough and in certain scenes so far, I’m still finding out as well as the audience at the same time, “Who are these people? What is this entity? What is my purpose, my role? What can I do for the greater good?” They’ve been constantly fighting this terrible darkness. But they’re all going to come about and I’m like a kid in a candy store. And I’m thrilled by who is playing Herr Starr because I’ve worked with him before and those scenes are going to be very imaginative and fun to play out. Same with Saint of Killers. There’s going to be some great stuff where their full power, their strengths will come head to head and you can’t imagine how that will unfold.
Negga I’ve read some of his scripts and it’s brilliant. [Herr Starr’s] humor is there and that dry, twisted vulgar human being is there. All there.
Preacher made an impression from the start with its wild fight scenes mixed with wild, gory moments – all of which will continue in Season 2. And perhaps even go bigger.
Cooper: I think they’re being pushed to get more of the gore, more of the fighting. We’re on the road and you see what they’re capable of and what they can possibly do. I’ve had a lot of fight training and done a lot with our stunt director and he’s been given much more freedom to do whatever he pleases. Because he’s absolutely brilliant. He came up with our original bar fight in the first one. I think people wanted a little bit more of that or felt like they wanted to see more. You know he’s a dangerous, volatile man and what he’s capable of. You want to see the man he could be and how dangerous he could be.
Negga: I think that’s one of the huge driving forces behind why Seth [Rogan] and Evan [Goldberg] got this off the ground. That’s what people fall in love with is that kind of really elegant punch in the stomach. Because it is. The thing about our fight scenes and all these blood and guts and gore, it’s very base but there’s an elegance to it and an intelligence to it. So yeah there’s lots more of that and we have [John] Koyama, our fight director. He choreographs everything so beautifully and in tandem with the spirit of the comic books. It’s a thrill. It really is. And the thing is, I don’t think anyone goes “You shouldn’t be doing this.” Yeah, we should be doing this! Let’s go there. That’s the whole point. For me, that’s the whole point of Preacher is that he wanted to push the envelope. He wanted to shock and awe. But not just for the sake of it, to actually generate thought and I think that’s what we do. Plus it looks really beautiful.
I love the fights. I think they’re brilliant. And I love the contradiction. They play brilliantly with the size of the dudes Tulip assassinates and me. That’s pretty cool. We’ve got a few cool fight scenes. I love the attitude of these characters. This is an everyday kind of occurrence. There’s always something up her sleeve but not in a mercenary kind of way. You get the feeling that she’s naturally good at this but it’s always in a thinking on her feet kind of way. There’s nothing premeditated about Tulip. That’s the thrill of watching her fight and doing those fight scenes. It comes from self taught, street fighting. That’s what people love about it, that’s what I love about it. There’s a ruggedness, an off the cuff ness. It’s not slick. That’s what makes it all the more exciting to watch and thrilling to watch.
Gilgun: Seth’s episode has all that. There’s one thing in particular where like this guy’s brain just sort of craps out of a hole in his head. It’s f**king appalling, dude. It’s my fault as well, I did that. It was on me, that one.
The destruction of Annville at the end of Season 1 seemed to wipe out, essentially, the entire original supporting cast of the series. But should we assume they’re really all gone, or could some have made it out?
Cooper: They just blew up! They blew up and they’re dead. …I think. That’s mainly what happened. But who knows. Again, with this project, what I love about it and what’s always so surprising is you never have a clue. You might suddenly discover that one of the characters is somewhere or escaped or got away. They can decide that on a whim. They can suddenly have a creative idea and expand upon it and risk going completely into it. That’s the nature of it and the fun of it.
Negga: I think you will [discover more specifics about Annville]. And it’s tied in to a lot of different things. There will be a lot to absorb. A lot will start to make sense and a lot of things will make you more curious, which is what Preacher is really good at.
Gilgun: F**k the town! I’m glad to be out of it man. I’m glad to be on the road. New Orleans is sweet!
Preacher: Season 2 premieres Sunday, June 25th on AMC.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at http://ift.tt/LQFqjj.
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