[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Paradise.]
Summary
- ‘Paradise’ is a crime drama set in an affluent community where a shocking murder triggers a high-stakes investigation.
- Created by Dan Fogelman, the series delves into the hidden secrets and complex relationships that come to light.
- The Hulu series explores the community’s carefully crafted existence as Agent Xavier Collins searches for answers and faces off against inidivuals with sinister motives.
Created by Dan Fogelman (This Is Us), the Hulu original series Paradise is set in an almost idyllic community. But when Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) finds President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) dead on his bedroom floor, it triggers an investigation with the highest of stakes. Searching for answers and uncovering clues along the way is a threat to their carefully crafted existence, and when you threaten those in powerful positions things can quickly spiral, but Xavier is driven to find out what happened, even if it turns his own world upside down.
With episode seven, entitled “The Day,” viewers got a glimpse into the past and the harrowing day that created the need for the community of Paradise. It also showed just how emotionally gut-wrenching it was for Xavier to come to terms with the fact that he was not going to be reunited with his wife, Teri. Back in the present, Xavier and Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) find themselves in a face off where she leverages the information he wants most to try to keep him under control.
During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Brown talked about how forthcoming Fogelman is with information given to the cast about what’s to come and how he prefers to know as much as possible, what Xavier thinks of Sinatra, how far he’s willing to go to get his family back together, how the finale will provide the answers for who killed the president, the breadcrumbs that have been left throughout the season, and how much he loves working and playing with other actors. He also revealed that the writers have already been working on Season 2, that he’s read the scripts for the first three episodes, and that they “slap.”
Collider: Congratulations on Season 2! You never know how a TV series will be received or if people will watch it, so that must always be exciting.
STERLING K. BROWN: Always. Employment is always a good thing. Thank you.
Sterling K. Brown Is Excited To Learn Everything He Can About Season 2 of ‘Paradise’
“The first three episodes of the season have been written.”
Do you have a sense of what the second season will be? Are you the keeper of secrets?
BROWN: I have some secrets. The writers have been gathered for a while, since before the announcement. The first three episodes of the season have been written. And the first three episodes of the season slap. That shits slaps. It’s very, very good.
Because you already have this established relationship and working collaboration with Dan Fogelman, when he comes to you with the project, do you say, “Okay, I also have to be an EP, so that you have to give me more information”?
BROWN: That’s very funny.
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Or do you prefer to not know too far ahead of what’s happening?
BROWN: You know what? I actually like having the information. I did not strong-arm him into the EP credit. Even on This Is Us, we had all the information. We had the timeline from the beginning. We knew when Jack died. We knew how it happened. We knew all of those things. He just trusts his actors to be in collaboration with him, and that trust has continued into this process. Some people don’t [want the information], and I never quite understood that. If you’re doing a movie or a play, you know the beginning, middle and end, so why would you want to do television and not know, if you can know. The art is something that everybody can help to construct together. You don’t have to fool people and be like, “I need you to act this way, so that you’ll be surprised when this happens.” If you’re an actor, you know how to be surprised with whatever it is. Telling a full story is something that you get a chance to do in every other artistic interpretive thing except for television sometimes. So, the thing that I love about Dan is that he did it with This Is Us and he’s doing it with Paradise. I have a sense of how it comes to an end, which is cool.
Sterling K. Brown Has Strong Feelings About ‘Paradise’s Leader
“Sitting here, I still very much want to shoot her in the head.”
Sinatra tells Xavier that his wife is alive, and that if he stops doing what he’s doing, she’ll help him find her, which is wrong on so many levels of manipulation and control. What do you think it says about her, that she would hold on to that information until it’s most beneficial for her? And how far is he willing to go, now that he has this information?
BROWN: These are all great questions. It is proof of just how much Sinatra sucks and how awesome Julianne Nicholson is at making her suck. He’s getting met with so many things, all at one time. There’s his daughter’s safety and well-being. There is the knowledge that his wife could be alive. The level of trust that you can have for Sinatra, at this point in time, is minimal. But you hear Teri’s voice and, after three years of not thinking anything is possible at all, there’s now a glimmer of hope that his wife could still be alive. For Xavier, seeing the level of grief that he’s in at the beginning of our show, over his wife’s absence, this is the thing that Sinatra knew she could control him with. Control is everything for Sinatra. This chick has just been collecting information on people, so that if and when she needs it, she can use it. She did it with Billy. She’s probably got something on Jane. She’s Machiavellian, in that way.
Control gives her a sense of stability. Control gives her a sense of calm, that she’s gonna be able to stay on top of things. Is that the way to go about it? Absolutely not. Sitting here, I still very much want to shoot her in the head. But as far as what she’s going to do, he’s gotta know now if Teri is alive and he’s gonna do whatever it takes in order to figure it out. That means, number one, he’s gotta figure out who’s killed the president. He now knows that it wasn’t Sinatra. At the end of episode 107, he knows that if it was her, she would owned up to it. She owned up to killing Billy. She would have owned up to that. Having somebody in her place is not anything that’s beneficial for her or for [Xavier]. He’s gotta get his daughter back, and he’s gotta figure out if his wife is alive.
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We get this little nugget that someone from outside the bunker is the one responsible for killing Cal. Did somebody forget to lock the door? How did that happen? Are we going to learn more about how someone got in?
BROWN: In episode 108, you will find out who killed the president. This is one that I’m very curious to see how the audience reacts. Everybody has their ideas and their thoughts and their suspicions, and it’s somebody we’ve met. We know them. I’m not saying anything [else]. Dan didn’t give you the last episode for a reason. If he wanted you to know, he would have given it to you, so let me not say anything that I’m not supposed to say.
What was your reaction to reading that finale script? Did you feel like you already knew all the answers going into it? Were there things that still surprised you, reading how it all played out?
BROWN: There are things that surprised me. As an actor, I would be reminded of things. I was reminded of the cigarette from the pilot and the number on that. It’s so hard to talk about. There are lots of little things that happen. More than anything, Cal did a lot to leave breadcrumbs. We saw his last days in episode 105, making a mixtape for his son and wondered what that’s about. Episodes 105 and 108 connect in a really cool way. That’s really all I can say.
Sterling K. Brown Loves the Play and Mischievousness That Comes From Working With Other Actors
“I love actors and I love acting.”
When I spoke to James Marsden about working with you on this, he said that you come in and you caress a scene with your presence, which just made it all so much easier for him. And I’ve actually heard nothing but great things from anyone I’ve ever talked to that’s worked with you. What do you enjoy most about really digging into it with other actors? You’re not in control of the end product, so really the only thing you’re in control of is the moment with whoever your scene partner is. How important is that to you?
BROWN: Wow, that’s a really kind statement that he made, and it’s nice to know that people have good things to say. That’s cool. The control of the environment is the one thing that I can have some sort of active participation in, just in making sure that people are happy to be at work. I try to show up prepared. If somebody wants to go over the scene beforehand, I’m happy to go over the scene. If they’re like, “Let’s just see what happens in the moment,” then I’m happy to do that, as well. I love actors and I love acting. We are naturally curious people who love observing the human animal. When you come up against somebody who is kindred in that way, there’s a level of playfulness that exists in the moment. You know it’s scripted and you know it’s a job, but the job is fooling yourself into thinking that you’re seeing these things for the first time, and you’re living this experience for the first time. And then, your scene partner could do something that’s slightly off the page or changes it in the most subtle, beautiful way, and if you pay attention and you are attentive in that moment, it will unlock something in your performance, as well. When you meet people who are open to playing in that way, and there’s a certain, for lack of a better term, mischievousness, and then we’ll start playing, and we’ll put spin on the ball, and then it’ll be top spin, and then I’ll do a lob, and then I’ll slice it and then you just have this crazy, awesome game of tennis where you get a chance to play with each other and you’re like, “That was fun.” I live to have that fun, in that moment.
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Paradise is available to stream on Hulu. Check out the trailer:
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