By Kenn Gold

Eddie Izzard stars as Wayne Malloy

The show’s stars, Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver (Wayne and Dahlia Malloy) recently sat down with the online media to discuss the show’s second season.

Question> What did having only seven episodes for season 2 do to the storytelling?

Eddie Izzard>  Well, obviously, it’s seven episodes because of the strike.  I think the writers were obviously aware of this beforehand, and so we built a sort of cliffhanger halfway through the season.  So it really didn’t hurt us in any way.  I think they’re seven very strong episodes.  The first season, if you watched it all the way through the tone does move around somewhat.  The second season, we just sort of knew where we were going, we locked down, we got on the railway lines, and we just went full steam ahead.  So I think it makes it like a tighter punch, and we’re coming out now.  It’s a great time to come out, because there’s a lot of stuff normally out on television, not all of it is back on television.  So we’re very happy to come out, do seven, and give it a big smack in the face.

Minnie Driver>  Yes, I agree with that.  It’s true.  Everybody got hammered by the strike.  And whilst we all support the writers, I would have loved to have done a full season.  I don’t think the show suffered.  I think it’s going to leave the audience wanting more, which is a really good way to end a season at all, and the addition of Jared Harris to our cast I think has added a kind of weight and a danger that’s really fantastic.

Question> Do you think a viewer could start the second season without having seen any of the first season?

Minnie>  I honestly think that condensed trailer that you get at the beginning of any new season is enough to fill you in on where you’re at.  And really, if you just read a blurb that says, “A couple of con artists and their kids trying to steal the American dream, move into a rich neighborhood in Louisiana,” you’re kind of good to go.  I mean, I think that’s what’s wonderful about our show is that you can explain it really quickly, it’s high concept, and the characters are very immediate.  And certainly, we pick up literally 15 seconds after where we left off at the end of season one, so you’re coming straight in, in a really dramatic place.  I don’t know, I think people will just jump on.

Question> Do you have a notion of how the story will be playing out over the next few seasons?

Eddie>  Having been in on one big group meeting; it’s all ideas and theories and maybes, and nothing really gets locked down until we actually shoot it, like minutes before we’re shooting we’re fine tuning things.  But the writers, nothing is nailed to the floor, but it is this big long journey of how far can we steal the American dream.

Minnie>  Yes, and neither should it be nailed down.  I think it would be incredibly inflexible and boring if it were, because it leaves no room for life and spontaneity and an idea born in a moment.  It doesn’t leave any room to have an impact.  And I think that’s what so great about Dmitry and Dawn and Nicole and Wendy and the rest of the guys, is that they’re inspired by the moment.  I mean they have sort of rough outlines.  I think that scares networks, frankly.  They’d love to have it locked down in a tiny box so they could look at it and say, “This is what it’s going to be.”  But the reality is that it’s organic and it’s constantly evolving, and there’s stuff that Ed will say or that I’ll say or the kids will say that will change an idea of plot line or story line ... they want to incorporate that, so it’s more fluid.

Question> What’s the most challenging part of portraying these characters for you both?

Eddie>  For me, I think there’s a technical thing, I’m still catching up on dealing with all this stuff that’s around me, these cameras, trying to push them back in your mind so that you’re sitting in the moment and not worrying, and you have to not worry about all these 100-150 people standing around you wanting you to do this right.  Having done so much time on stage, I just ignore everything else, and then suddenly there’s all this stuff, and that is probably my most challenging thing is learning to just push that back, ignore, and be in the moment, and just relax and get on with it.

Minnie>  I think I just get so emotionally wound up by this character, by where she’s coming from, where she’s so high octane, 99% of the time.  It can become super inflammatory —you know she’s just a huge character and I definitely get exhausted, but also get very over emotional, which is a challenge.  You kind of exhaust yourself and exhaust the people around you as well.  So I think that’s probably the hardest part of playing Dahlia.

Question> Out of all the episodes that you’ve done for this season coming up, which one is your favorite or was your favorite to film?

Minnie>  I’m confused about the numbers now, but it was the one, it’s the penultimate episode where there’s a huge ’70s costume party that Nina throws for her husband’s birthday, and so much goes down at this party.  Pretty much the whole episode takes place in her house at this party, and there’s drugs, there’s death, there’s sex, there’s kind of destruction, and revelation, and it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done as an actor.  I enjoyed it so much and it was such hard work, but it was like shooting a movie, it really was.  It was like shooting a movie in a week.  It was outrageous.  I loved that.

Eddie>  Yes, yes, I liked that one.

Minnie Driver stars as Dahlia Malloy

Question> Each of the characters seem to be getting cornered.  Are we going to see that continue, or ease up a little for them?

Eddie>  Well, I’d say since they haven’t written the rest of the season I would assume that it’s just going to keep ramping up, and then there will be some turn at some point.  It’s really difficult to fathom this, because it’s just conjecture, but logically it’s just going to keep piling it on and then around episode 8, 9, 10, 11, it’s going to turn and go somewhere else, and then we’ll have a cliffhanger.  But it’s difficult for us to say more than that, because no one knows.  It is weird that we get to this place.

Minnie>  If there are easy moments, it’ll sort of be like being in the eye of the storm.  There will be pockets, but they won’t be really what’s going on.

Eddie>  I can tell you what’s going to happen for the next seven seasons, which is that this is just going to keep ramping up and up and up and we’re just going to keep stealing more of the American dream, and the stakes will just get higher and higher.

Question> Minnie, you’ve done so many movies, how does doing a television series compare?  Is it much faster paced?

Minnie>  It’s much faster, yes, my God, it is much, much faster.  In a movie, you’re lucky if you shoot a page a day, and we’re shooting like eight pages a day.  It’s a very fast pace.  I just love this character.  I don’t really care too much about the medium, I just want to really do good work, and she’s the best part I’ve ever had.  So I kind of set myself to whatever’s going to accommodate me getting to act in the best that I can, and I love it.  I absolutely love having a regular paycheck.  I love going to work everyday.  I love knowing when I can plan a vacation for the first time in my entire adult life. 

Question> Since this season was shortened by the strike, is there any possibility of doing a longer season 3, maybe 18 or 19 episodes?

Eddie>  I’m not sure about Minnie, but I’m up for that.  As I said to everyone else, it doesn’t matter when we do the next six.  It just matters that we do 91.  So, yes, if it turns out to be 19, if there’s a break in the middle, whatever, we want to do this and we love doing it, and it takes a lot out of us, but it’s the right time and right place to do it.  It takes so long to get this right in this place with the tramlines lining up and everything that we want to do this and put it down so it becomes a piece that sticks around.

Minnie>  For a TV show to be successful, to be well reviewed, to have actors who kind of dig each other and keep getting more interesting, to have great writers, to have a studio or a network that’s behind you, it’s like lightning in a bottle.  I mean, it’s so rare that you, and it does happen once in awhile that wonderful stuff ends up on the trash heap, and I don’t understand how Freaks and Geeks how they didn’t carry on.  And you really feel like no one is safe, because I sometimes feel it doesn’t matter how good you are you might not stay on the air, but I feel like we will keep going and if they said to us that we want you guys to do 19, I don’t think that there’s anyone that would go, “No, I don’t want to do that,” because everyone who’s in the show is so behind it.

Question> Have you ever had people who might recognize you from the show who might be in this line of business, who might be Travellers come up to you and say, “Hey, you know, you’re doing it right,” or “Hey, you might think about doing this, this way?” 

Eddie>  Well, I’ve interacted once, but they just took a photograph of me, and …

Minnie>  I’ve been yelled at in e-mail.

Eddie>  Really?

Minnie>  Portraying.  Yes, portraying, actually on MySpace.  I have a music MySpace page, and I’ve gotten some e-mails from purported Travellers saying that we’re doing such a huge disservice portraying them as con people, and I literally couldn’t help writing back to them, “But you are.”

Eddie>  It’s like saying there are a number of Italian people in the Mafia, and Italian-Americans, the number of Italian-Americans who are completely legitimate are probably the majority.  We’re just portraying one family who happen to be Travellers.  And it’s just because there’s not a lot of media about Travellers, everyone’s thinking well, this is all about everyone.

Minnie>  And the media that there has been has been about that woman and the kid and of thievery …

Eddie>  So, you know, the Mafia doesn’t mean that all Italian-Americans are in the Mafia, you just …

Minnie>  But it does mean they all eat spaghetti.

Question> So there are Travellers that are okay or that are not thieves?

Eddie>  We haven’t gone around and met them all, but yes, they just love …

Minnie>  It’s not like we can find out a whole lot of stuff about this, but there had to be a certain amount of poetic license taken.  When people write e-mails going, why oh why oh why did you do this so completely wrong, and it’s like because you wouldn’t tell us how to do it.  It’s a very closed society.  It’s very hard to get any true information. And we cobbled together with Dmitry cobbled together really great ideas from Irish Travellers.

Eddie>  But we also had it from certain sources of people who dealt with people who were doing stuff that was somewhat illegal.

Minnie>  Yes, exactly.

Eddie>  And that was what we were looking for, but this is about one family of Travellers and we’re not even a typical family of Travellers, because we’re going off to do a very crazy thing, which …

Minnie>  And I’m actually English and so are you.

Eddie>  Yes, but it is about outsiders becoming inside, so trying to get inside, and so with most of us in the family are actually not Americans.  And Shannon is American, but she’s from Florida and that was Spanish in the 1600’s.