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For Paradise star and executive producer Sterling K. Brown, having a deeper creative stake in an overall series has come with meaningful benefits.
“I do make more money now,” Brown joked during the series’ panel at the Deadline Contenders Television event alongside co-star James Marsden. But Brown turned serious when revealing how having the opportunity to have a say in casting and staffing the series had been a special treat for him.
“‘Oh, James wants to come play with us – what do you think about that?’ ‘Please, and thank you!’ Brown recalled about weighing in on Marsden’s casting as the uniquely burdened president to Brown’s Secret Service agent. ”I’ve loved this dude for such a long time, and after Jury Duty, where the man makes me pee on myself…to have a role that I knew was going to be rich and layered and fun that he could bring his loveliness to, because he’s a warm and likable human being, but also have these layers – I don’t think I’ve seen this part of you on screen before. I think James kills it. Kills it.”
Brown said he’s relished the ability “to be able to sign off on the cast and whatnot, and the writers and the directors we got a chance to bring in as well. John [Requa] and Glenn [Ficcara], who directed the pilot of This Is Us, they directed the pilot of this, One and Two, and then they directed Seven and Eight as well. So to be able to say like, ‘Yes, bring these people in’ – they just have some level of say on the ingredients that go into the soup.”
Brown also got to bring in one of his contemporary acting idols, actively lobbying for Julianne Nicholson to play Xavier Collins’ eventual adversary, the tech billionaire known as “Sinatra.”
“Xavier hates her…Sterling loves Julianne,” said Brown. “I met her at the Emmy’s the year that she won for Mare of Easttown, and I saw her after she picked up her Emmy and I was like, ‘Can I give you a hug?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll take a hug.’” He was thrilled when she became available for Paradise. “I have a huge acting crush on this woman and she made it easy for me to hate her, which is what you want from that villain…She was absolutely wonderful in her commitment to it.”
“And I think also having Episode Two sort of showing her backstory and the sense of loss that she was coming to that led her to build this place in the first place,” he added. “Hopefully we’ll have a payoff later on, because [series creator] Dan [Fogelman] doesn’t like anybody to be purely evil or purely good. We’ll see how people feel about her when we get to the end of Season Two.”
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Brown also offered tantalizing hints about the hotly anticipated second season. “There will be an exploration of the world outside of the bunker and what’s transpired over the past three years, so you’ll get a chance to see some things up close and personal,” he revealed. “It’s not the same. We were able to plan, with infrastructure and money. They were not, so you’ll see the difference between those two things.”
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“We’ll find out whether or not his wife is alive. Was she alive at the course of that tape? Has she survived up until that point, et cetera?” he added. “You still get a chance to find out what’s going on in the bunker…You get a chance to see a little bit of everything and then I’ll say this much without, and then the worlds will converge and things get interesting.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
