Entertainment Weekly (EW) interview in promotion of Miracle Workers: Dark Ages (series 2). The show premieres tonight on TBS.
When you signed on to the first season of Miracle Workers, there was always the plan to make it an anthology series. How did Simon decide on this Dark Ages setting and story line?
Simon is
somebody who is a bit of a history nerd, and Simon’s brain looked at a
lot of the potential situations in that world and just saw something he
could make very, very funny. There is some stuff in the show that is
really obviously heightened, that is very crazy, but it’s not that far
off from the kind of stuff that was going on in medieval Europe. We have
a goat on trial, and that is actually something that is completely true
and something that happened with semi-regularity in medieval Europe.
There really were animals put on trial for things, so it’s quite rich
pickings for comedy.
The
first season played with our common perceptions of the afterlife and
God, and this is certainly a different take on the Middle Ages than
we’re used to seeing — less Game of Thrones, more medieval sitcom. What do you most enjoy about the expectations or world this is subverting?
As you say, it complicates people’s notions
of what these archetypes of certain characters would be, and Simon finds
the means to subvert them. My character, for instance, is essentially a
stupid prince in the way you might expect one to exist, but then we
gradually watch him become more human as the series goes on. With how
beautiful the sets are and how well lit it is, it has the look of Game of Thrones, but the jokes and the format of The Simpsons.
It’s
so fun to see this repertory company of actors shaking things up,
taking on very different roles from season 1. Did you draw straws for
them? How did that all shake out?
No, not at all. My one request, or the thing
I was most excited about, was that we would actually all be on set
together for this series, because certain structural things in the first
[season] — I never had scenes with Jon Bass, for example, because he
was on earth and I was in heaven. I was very excited to actually have
the cast all combined for this series this time around, and get to do
stuff with them. It was me, Steve, and Geraldine’s characters that I
remember Simon talking about first. The joy of working with somebody
like Simon is that I don’t know if there’s anybody else that I know well
enough that I could just trust and be like, “Whatever you write for the
next few years, I will be happy to perform.” I am in such awe of his
ability. I’ve been in the writers’ room with him and watched him be
forensic and amazing about a story in a way that I have admiration for. I
feel very safe in his hands. I would pretty much do whatever he writes —
I have to be careful saying that.
Your
character has… I guess we could call it an affinity for ducks. What is
one surprising thing you learned from working with live ducks?
[Laughs] It’s unfortunate to say
that the one thing I learned about them is that they smell worse than
you’d expect, but there was a lot of duck s— happening when you’ve got
multiple ducks on set, and it is a very distinctive smell. Karan Soni
will confirm that once you’ve smelt it, it’s a smell you can identify
anywhere, and as soon as they’re around you’re like, “Oh, the ducks are
here.” They’re quite hard to train. Originally it was going to be geese,
and they were like, “No, geese are a nightmare. That’s not going to
happen.” We had three ducks that were the main ducks — they were called
in British film terminology the hero ducks — and they would be brought
to set. They were very good. You would set them in a certain spot and
they would kind of do what they were told, and then you would get the
other ducks on set and it’d be like, “Okay, let’s see what happens.”
It sounds like a bit of a clusterduck.
[Laughs] Yes, you could say that. I can’t believe I never thought of that in 10 weeks of filming!
How would you describe Chauncley, and in particular his relationship with his father? What journey can we expect this season?
At the beginning, Chauncley is intensely
lonely and psychotically stupid. He’s an individual who has no empathy
or self-awareness whatsoever, and the journey throughout — he meets
Alexandra, Geraldine’s character, and she begins to open him up to a new
world and between her and Karan, he gradually learns he does not have
to follow in his tyrannical father’s footsteps. [She] helps him become
more human and nice toward the end.
You
and Geraldine have an easy rapport and natural chemistry. Is that story
one of friendship or her making you more politically aware?
That friendship grows and maybe blossoms
into something else, but Chauncley’s obviously not very good at that. He
doesn’t really know what to do with these new feelings. But it is also
about her just making him realize that there is life outside of the
castle, and there is life outside of the line of murderous tyrants that
he comes from. He does not necessarily have to follow in their
footsteps. I would say that she learns stuff from me, but I don’t think
she does — I think I just kind of help out at key moments, but it’s very
rare that I’m speaking out as a character. Chauncley does not have a
lot of speeches, bless him.
This
is the first project you’ve done since Harry Potter where you got to
have that experience of coming back together as a group to tell a story
with deepened relationships and familiarity with one other — but now
with the added element of taking on a new set of characters. If you had
the luxury of doing that on Potter, which character would you have
wanted to jump into?
Oh God, I guess Lupin and Sirius Black are
both incredibly cool characters. Though I have to say, it’s also
[because] I probably am biased a little because I love both the actors
[David Thewlis and Gary Oldman] that played them. But yeah, I’d probably
have to say one of those two.
You’ve been in rehearsals for Endgame on the West End, and I saw Alan Cumming’s photo with your director’s notes saying, “Actors fried.”
You’ve done classic musical theater, Martin McDonagh, Peter Shaffer.
Where does Beckett rank in difficulty level for you, in terms of
language and approach?
Right up there at the very top. It’s tough,
and I’m so glad I’m subjected to it with Alan and with [director]
Richard Jones. It’s an amazing team that I’m getting to work with. It’s
really tricky material, and it requires a lot of precision. Hopefully,
it will come out right. But you’re definitely talking to me at a period
of rehearsals where I’m like, “Oh my God.” It really is the hardest
thing I’ve done.
Prince
Chauncley is a bit more song-and-dance than warmonger. Do you want to
do another musical, and if so do you have one in particular you want to
do?
I would love to do another musical, but you
have to genuinely commit for a long time. That’s not the case with
plays, normally. You generally have to commit for a lot longer, and then
you have to really love it. You have to absolutely know going in. You
have to love doing that show, and be able to love it for a year. So I
definitely want to do a musical again, but I’m not going to do it until
I’m sure of that.
source: ew.com
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Entertainment Weekly interview
Marion
|
28 January 2020
|
18:05
Labels
Daniel
executive producer
Miracle Workers
Miracle Workers
Labels:
Daniel,
executive producer,
Miracle Workers
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