Sleepy Hollow Season 2 – Exclusive Red Carpet Interviews and Premiere Date Info
Steve Barton
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Amongst the headstones at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, fans gathered to catch a glimpse of their beloved headless horseman TV show, Fox’s “Sleepy Hollow”, which will be returning for a much-anticipated second season on September 22nd.
In case you’re not familiar with the show, basically it’s about a magically resurrected Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) who’s pulled two and a half centuries through time to unravel a mystery which dates all the way back to America’s founding fathers. Along for the wild ride is a modern day cop, Lt. Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie).
Joining the show this coming season are Timothy Busfield (best known for his role on “thirtysomething”) as Benjamin Franklin, plus “House of Cards” star Sakina Jaffrey as the new sheriff and “One Tree Hill” alum Matt Barr as a bounty hunter.
On their way to the Masonic Lodge to show a few clips (they’ve only got two episodes in the can so far) and do a Q&A, the show’s two leading stars and producers walked the red carpet and answered our questions.
September seems a long ways off, and so of course we wanted to know how soon in the season some of those nail-biting cliffhangers are going to be addressed.
Executive producer Mark Goffman told us, “We left everybody in some pretty tough situations, but you have to be true to those situations, so I don’t think it’s going to be easy, and I don’t think people would expect it to be. So, we aren’t going to resolve it right away. We need to give every character their just time to figure out where and how to get out of their situations… if they can figure out how.”
At least there will be 18 episodes on tap, up from the 13 of Season 1. Producer Len Wiseman admitted, “Going from 13 episodes to 18 is a lot more work. It just is. But it’s two-fold. It allows us to really expand and take a little bit more time with the storylines that we want to, but it also means that we really, really have to prepare because we are trying to pull off a little movie every week. We’ve got a fantastic crew that’s up for the challenge of it, and it is a real challenge to just keep the bar up when you add more episodes.”
The show’s co-creator, Roberto Orci, said of the stretch, “We’re trying to not have any filler. Every episode is meant to be epic and to feel like a season finale.” The main thing is, “How will our characters deal with the fact that our classic villain is someone they are related to by blood?”
That was, of course, the cliffhanger: that Ichabod Crane’s own son was the bad guy. Orci said, “Obviously [Crane’s son being evil] was a big shock to him! Which makes his fight in this season difficult. It’s difficult enough fighting a villain, but when the villain is someone whom you may feel responsible for their villainy… he asks himself, is it because he was a bad father? How much can he blame himself? How much can he believe he can maybe help his son not be the villain that he is? Is he going to have to face off again his own son and do something he doesn’t want to have to do? Is there any reconciliation there possible? That’s drama.”
It’s not just drama for the fans, but the actors as well. When I asked Tom Mison, “How would you like to see Crane handle his son’s villainy?” He replied, “It’s something that, throughout the break in filming, has been on my mind constantly. Desperate emails to Mark Goffman asking, ‘What happens? What happens?’ Never mind Ichabod having to prepare for it… I have to prepare for it! It’s a big one. It’s a tough family dilemma.”
Orci wouldn’t reveal any spoilers, but he did say, “Their physical jeopardy wraps up in a few episodes. But their souls’ jeopardy… never! Or at least until the end of the series… And yours too!” he laughed.
That’s all fantasy, fiction, and drama – the dilemma, I mean… but how do they approach real life figures from history? Since Timothy Busfield will be joining the cast as Benjamin Franklin, I asked producer Heather Kadin what they draw on. “Well, it’s a combo” of fact and myth, she said. “That’s how we approached the pilot, like, when we were doing research and found out George Washington’s body was moved. I mean, wow, did you know that George Washington’s body was moved? And why? So there are some things in history that are just kind of insane on their own and so it’s a jumping off point.”
Orci agreed, “Yeah, history is not written in stone. History is being revised all the time, as we learn new things. History is a living document for a lot of academics, and so finding out what the very latest theory on what’s going on is actually part of the fun. You think you knew everything but [surprise] you don’t. When it comes to Ben Franklin, of course everyone knows about the kite and the key. But some people don’t know he was quite the ladies’ man.”
“And he liked to be naked a lot,” Kadin chimed in. I asked how they handle that on commercial TV, and she said, “We can imply his nudity, but I don’t know if anybody really wants to see Benjamin Franklin naked.”
Orci rejoined, “Hey, Timothy Busfield is a very good looking man.” To which Wiseman added, “Yeah, he’d just be free-ballin! No, not really. He’s not naked ‘a lot’… The man has clothes!” Goffman said, “Anyone who knows Franklin history knows he was not a modest man, so we play with that.” Wiseman deadpanned, “Yeah. We thought that would work great for our show!”
Since the show’s creators and producers have worked so heavily in genre (Orci with the Star Trek films, Wiseman with the Underworld films, and so on), a genre that has such passionate fans, I asked if they can indeed guide the series.
Goffman hedged, “Well, in the first season in particular, it was fun to just interact with the fans and see how they would react to what we’d shot. More than guiding the season. A show like this really does have to be mapped out pretty far in advance.”
Beharie countered, “I would venture to say that some of the things the fans have said online have actually swayed the writers… like when people are talking about his clothes and the whole skinny jeans thing. I think that came from the pressure online, a little bit. We care about what they think. We honestly want to please them. I feel like they have a lot more power than they may know.”
Wiseman said, “I find that [fans can influence the show] more in its fine detail than the overall plots and structure of it. For instance, there was so much reaction as to whether or not Ichabod was ever going to change his coat. So because of that, we listened. My point of view on it was actually, no, he wouldn’t change his coat because he’s stubborn and he’s not somebody who has any interest in the people of the modern era. That’s part of his character. And he also feels safe in this. This is what he’s comfortable in. But that’s something that came up so much, we addressed it. But we addressed it in a way that fit with his character; he tries it, and he does change his clothes, but they’re period.”
Mison said of all the thing to talk about, “Fans mostly talk about the coat!” I told him, “Yes… we know that. So, what else do they talk about?” “I think we are fortunate that we’ve got a really, really nice fan base. They get really invested in it, so much. ‘Sleepy-Heads,’ we call them,” he said. “I think it’s just so nice that we live in an age [of social networking] where they can constantly say to us, ‘This is amazing.’ And we can in turn see what they are doing: the art work, the fan fiction that’s inspired by the work that we are doing. There is no greater compliment for an actor or creator.”
And of course, I had to ask, as my final question, “What can the fans look forward to in the very first episode of Season 2?” Mison answered, “In the first episode fans can expect it to take off exactly where the Season 1 finale ended. So, you can expect the absolute peak of our last 13 episodes to be the starting point. It’s very exciting stuff!”
For more info visit “Sleepy Hollow” on Fox.com, “like” “Sleepy Hollow” on Facebook, and follow “Sleepy Hollow” on Twitter.
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