Sterling K. Brown addresses ‘my booty’ scene as ‘Paradise’ creator Dan Fogelman teases Season 2 (and 3!)
Paradise kicked off its Emmys campaign on Friday with a "cheeky" panel featuring creator Dan Fogelman and the cast from the Hulu thriller. The jovial Q&A was held at the Television Academy's Saban Media Center following a screening of Episode 7, "This Day." While the discussion mostly centered on the stellar performances and twists that kept viewers guessing all season, the moment that had fans roaring was star Sterling K. Brown addressing his own personal assets.
"He talkin' about my booty," the three-time Emmy winner joked when moderator Gerrad Hall mentioned his nude scene in Episode 3. "Here's the thing. My wife is blessed in her posterior chain. For me, there's a little bit of internal competition because I don't want her to think that she is the only one who is blessed. Shout out to Peloton! You take the treadmill up to 15 percent, you go at about 4.0 for half an hour, and things will start to rise! They will start to rise. Hallelujah!"
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While spoilers were generally avoided, Fogelman did reveal they were already "deep into" Season 2. "We have the scripts written. I'm really excited about it. We have a three-season plan for the show, and we're executing that right now. I think people are going to be surprised. We're going to give people what they love about the show so far and take it in a new direction at the same time. People don't really know what the show is entirely about just yet."
In Paradise, Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (played by Brown) investigates the murder of a former president (played by James Marsden) in a seemingly peaceful community that is revealed in the show's pilot to be a massive bunker where the country's elite escape at the end of the world. The political thriller also stars Julianne Nicholson as billionaire puppetmaster Samantha "Sinatra" Redmond, Krys Marshall as Secret Service agent Nicole Robinson, Sarah Shahi as psychotherapist Dr. Gabriela Torabi, and Nicole Brydon Bloom as the Wii-obsessed Agent Jane Driscoll.
The character of Sinatra was inspired by a dinner Fogelman had "with a very wealthy individual." He recounted, "I was in my early 20s and he struck me as somebody with a billion dollars. He was talking, and his mouth started turning into Charlie Brown's mother. I couldn't hear anything because I wondered how much money this guy had and how much power he had. As I was driving home, something dropped off a crane in Culver City and made a loud boom, and it occurred to me, when sh-t really hit the fan, that guy was going to be as screwed as I was. That was the kernel of the idea."
Moderator Gerrad Hall with Paradise creator Dan Fogelman (Photo credit: JC Olivera/Variety)
In the series, Sinatra brings a team of brilliant people to a secret excavation inside a mountain and asks them to build her a city. With the world on the brink of an apocalypse, she enlists Dr. Torabi to select 25,000 individuals to populate the city within a cave. Soon, distrust builds between Sinatra and Agent Collins, leading to a battle for power as the mystery of President Cal Bradford's assassination looms.
While discussing Sinatra's complex role, Brown said, "She's messing up my world. She's effing up my ish, and I need her to stop doing that. The only recourse she has left me is [to shoot her]... step down from power so I can take sh-t over. "
Paradise stars Sterling K. Brown and Julianne Nicholson (Photo credit: JC Olivera/Variety)
As fans now know, it isn't Xavier who ultimately shoots Sinatra in the show's finale, but fellow agent Jane, who has displayed sociopathic tendencies throughout the show. Season 1 of Paradise ends with Sinatra on life support, although Fogelman quickly revealed the character is a large part of future seasons.
"She's a deeply complex person," Nicholson said of her character. "It's one of Dan's superpowers to write this person with so many layers. One thing I really wanted to do was honor the experience of losing a child and how that can color someone's whole life. Then, it was just scene by scene. Dan doesn't want a mustache-twirling villain. He wants the person who is also a wife and a mother and loving in certain areas of their life, but also a little controlling. I have to take it as it comes."
Fogelman then teased that we hadn't seen the last of Sinatra and that there was plenty left to unpack. Comparing her to the character of Miguel (played by Miguel Rivas) in his previous series, This Is Us, the writer revealed, "At the beginning of the show, people loved to be suspicious of Miguel and hate him. I always used to say, 'Wait to the end of the series and you might have a different view. I think what Sinatra, Julianne's character, is doing right now is — we've kind of scratched the surface. What's at stake here is actually deeper than we see in the first season. I would be curious to check back in with everyone at the end of the second season."
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