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A
Foreign. This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Thank you for joining us for part of your day. For the whole show, we're going to be talking about some television shows that were popular with our Instagram followers. If you don't follow us, we're at all of it wnyc Instagram is our social media home base. So if you want to keep up with us on the web, get tune in alerts and continue to follow the conversations we have on the air, give us a follow. So let's get into our next conversation about a series that has been nominated for outstanding drama series at this year's Emmys. It's called Paradise. The series starts as a murder mystery who killed the president, but then it morphs into so much more. Climate change forces humanity's last 25,000 survivors into underground bunkers. The Pleasantville kind, not the they are the brainchild of Samantha Redmond, played by Julianne Nicholson, who joined us to talk about it when it was first released. Season two of the series is scheduled to premiere on February 23rd. I started by asking Julianne why it was important for her character's backstory as a tech billionaire to be front and center early on in the series.
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Well, for me, I had never seen an a single episode that delved so deeply into one character's life. And so just to be able to play that felt very exciting. And also it just allows the audience to know Sam a little more deeply and maybe understand the choices she's making that they're led, you know, they, she's led by her grief, basically. So there's just a little bit more humanity there than someone just sort of being evil for evil's sake. I think Dan's very smart that way with his use of backstory and getting to know these people outside of the present day story we're telling.
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A
Yes. Early she's sitting at the bar.
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She's a young woman. She's just made a deal to sell.
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Her startup to make her a rich, rich woman. In that moment, what's really important to her?
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B
I think in that moment, every, everything, you know, the future is bright. I feel like she's bright and worked really hard. I don't think she comes from money. So she's, you know, it's all been of her own volition that she finds herself in this place and, you know, she meets someone who's interesting to her. She's thinking about kids and, you know, maybe a white picket fence and sort of doing the thing that she loves in her work, but also having a family life. And then we discover that that goes off the rails.
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C
It's interesting. When she's at the bar, she meets this guy. We find out it'll be her husband. And she. At first she tells her I'm gonna be worth, I think, $14 billion. And she lies about it because she could be worth. She finds out, well, I'll be worth 3, 34 billion dollars. And I thought that was an interesting detail in the writing.
- [03:23]
B
I know. I think Dan sort of sprinkles those throughout each of the characters where he just drops these little clues about who they are. I know. I thought that was so interesting, too, about sort of, you know. Well, it's being a woman in that world in particular, which would have been, you know, 20 years ago, and making apologies, trying to, you know, make yourself. I mean, it's not. I can't say small. 14 billion. Still pretty large sum, but, you know, shrinking yourself to, I don't know, make the man feel good or something. Luckily, she comes clean immediately.
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C
We see her go on to become a young mother of two kids. And she and her husband, they seem like good partners. Her son falls ill. We learned this in the second. In the second episode. What does her son's illness do to her?
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A
What is.
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She describes herself as being broken?
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B
Yeah, I. I think it's a couple things. One is just. I mean, the size of that loss is something that just shifts something in her DNA. She is not prepared to deal with that grief. And I think it also rocks her to her core and that she thought that she was smart enough, worked hard enough, had enough money that she was going to everything she could control. Everything. Sort of quite a type a control freak. And this just knocks that idea on its backside. And so I think that sort of really rattles her as well realize her powerlessness in the face of bigger things, and she just can't handle it.
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A
It's interesting. She just. Initially, she just keeps trying to throw money at her son's health. We'll get better doctors. Better doctors. And I thought that was an interesting signal. What has money done to her sense of self?
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B
Well, I think she thinks she's untouchable. I mean, it's not exactly immortal, but not far off from that. You know, she thinks that with enough money, you can. You can fix anything. You can have anything, you can do anything you. You want to do. And she discovers that that's not the case. The thing that matters the most, she can't hold on to.
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A
Julia. You know, it's so interesting. Cause I was watching a video of you and you're at home in London and you were saying, you know, I haven't really worked by choice necessarily for a while and that you and your family, you don't have what you call the Hollywood life that you like, have dinner together and talk about stuff. What does that give you personally when you do pick roles and when you do choose to work?
- [06:20]
B
I mean, it's always hard because, you know, whenever I get a job, it means leaving home. Mean, I guess that means that for everybody. But normally it's like a, you know, nine to five thing and not a couple of months, but it just, it allows me to just, I don't know, come back to earth and just feel like my, my blood pressure evens out, my shoulders go down. It's just much more relaxed and it's just joyful in a, in a different way. I also feel so lucky that I can do both, you know, I. But it's important my family is number one and that I get to also continue acting and doing the job I love. Now. I try to appreciate whichever one I'm in, whether it be home, don't worry about the next job. And when I'm working, know that I'll be home on at the end of it. So it's sort of a work in progress, but I feel pretty lucky.
- [07:20]
A
That was my conversation with Julianne Nicholson, who plays Samantha Redmond in the series Paradise. Season two is scheduled to premiere on February 23rd. Coming up, comedy actor Eugene Levy will talk about his travelogue series called the Reluctant Traveler. Stay tuned. This is all of it.
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