"PREACHER" para AMC

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- PREACHER | "Both Sides Of The Line" Promo:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFdBsthpGrt/
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- "DC All Access" talks to the "Preacher" cast and crew about bringing the book to life!:

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- PREACHER | 4 Minutes Opening Scene "Be Quiet!":

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- Joseph Gilgun explica por qué él es la elección perfecta para 'Cassidy' (CBR):

Joseph Gilgun explica por qué él es la elección perfecta para 'Cassidy'
Por Kristy Puchko, 18 Mayo 2016

The makers of AMC's new TV drama series "Preacher" had a daunting task ahead of them in casting Cassidy, an Irish vampire whose bloodlust is only matched only by his lust for life. In order to successfully translate the character from the comics page to the television screen, they needed someone with a wild side who could dive into despicable behavior and still come off as mad charming. Enter Joseph Gilgun.

With a wicked smile and tattooed sleeves, the English character actor has brought a roguish appeal to the super-powered series "The Misfits," the space prison thriller "Lockout," and the Vin Diesel fantasy adventure "The Last Witch Hunter." With "Preacher," he's now tasked with bringing the bold character born in Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's comics to vivid life. And going by the raucous cheers each of Cassidy's scenes drew from the audience during SXSW's world premiere of "Preacher"s pilot, Gilgun's take on the smirking vampire will be an immediate fan favorite.

CBR sat down with Gilgun in the thick of SXSW to talk "Preacher," though we admittedly, got caught up in his gift for gab. A simple question about how the festival was treating him pitched the conversation down a rabbit hole about Gilgun's life, passions, vices, and vulnerabilities, as well as lessons in British slang, and his very unusual plan B should this whole acting thing not pan out.


CBR News: How long have you been at SXSW?

Joseph Gilgun: I've been here a few days. I'm like you though, I'm kind of knackered.

You're hitting festival fatigue too?

Well, I got drunk last night.

You have to at some point.

Yeah. It'd be rude not to. It's my job to get into character. You know what I mean?

Sure. I've been told that drinking at SXSW is part of the experience.

Yeah, you have to have one night where you just wake up just full of shame and regret. Like last night, I fell asleep in the lift. Dominic (Cooper, who stars as "Preacher's" Jesse Custer) was like, "Come downstairs and have a cigarette." And I'm like, "Alright." I got in the lift and I'm so fucking drunk that I just [mimes nodding off]. Obviously, the doors pinged open, and I realize I'm on the same floor. I hadn't pressed any buttons. The lift's been going up and down with me in it. And I'm getting bad-tempered like, "This fucking lift's a nightmare. So old."

This festival has made me feel my years.

It turns you into a massive lunatic. I've turned into a feral man out here.

I literally just used "feral" to describe my eating habits here!

I was terrible last night… Ruth [Negga who plays Tulip] texts me like, "Where are you?" I'm looking at my phone, I'm on the back of a pedicab, and I'm pissed now. The reason being is, this girl was knackered and couldn't get up the hill, so I figure I'll give her a push. So I started pushing it --

So you're pushing a pedicab?

Up a hill, yeah. And she was like, "Get on and I'll take you around the block, because it's a bad hill, that." It's the one outside the hotel, a proper sharp one. So I jumped on the back, and then there was another bit where I had to push her again.

I think you're pedicabbing wrong.

[Chuckles] A little bit. It was a little bit like casual pedicab theft. But it was all blocked off, the police had the block blocked off (for foot traffic), so we couldn't get back to where I was. So it ended up being this fucking half an hour tour through Austin, where I kept jumping out and helping this girl because she's knackered. And then we passed the "Preacher" church, the upside down thing. We went to there. And I was like, "Dude, fuck it. Let's do a drive-by! Let's see if I can blag our way in, and we'll do like three laps. I'll give everyone the Vs and all that. And then we'll just get the fuck out of there."

What is the Vs?

[Gilgun holds up both hands with forefinger and middle finger extended, palms toward him, like a reversed peace sign] Like, "Yeaaaah!"

What does that mean?

It's like that [Flips me off], but not as aggressive. It's like a playful fuck off. That's an English thing. It's a history thing, I think. The history of the fingers is, I think we used to cut off the French archers' fingers… We used to catch French archers, cut their fingers off, so in battle when you face off, we'd be like [Gives the Vs], "Aaaah! We've got ours, and you're fucked."

I'm including all of this in the write-up, because this is fascinating.

I don't know if it's true. I mean, don't quote me on this, but this is what I've been told. I'd like to be right on this. It'd be nice if I was right. Basically, I think that's where the history of the playful Vs is from.

I'd not heard that before. I like that.

Check it out, see if it is real because it could have just spoken a lot of shit. [Editor: The story Gilgun relates is a popular one, though its accuracy is up for debate.] I do watch a lot of "Time Team" with Tony Robinson in the UK. Nobody knows who that man is or "Time Team" here -- it's one of my favorite shows on TV, because they never find a fucking thing. They find nothing.

What are they trying to find?

They found some shit early on in the series, like in the '90s when everyone had mullets and Tony Robinson still had hair.

Like archaeological finds?

Yeah, archaeological digs and stuff. And they'd be, like, really eccentric hippies. The first episode of "Time Team," it's remarkable how chilled out and fucking useless everybody is. Like, they're just drunk hippies digging holes in farmers' fields. But now, it's become about like, "We'll found this, we found that, and it turns out it's THIS!" It would have been a part of an entire complex block, and we imagine there'd be two men just there, sat like that, chatting, enjoying a cigarette.

So they talk a bunch of bullshit?

I don't want to call it bullshit, because I do love "Time Team," but it's shit. Yeah, it's terrible. They don't find anything. They just dig really neat holes, but it's dead interesting! Tony Robinson makes it amazing.

I'm not sure how this will come across, but I feel like talking with you, I completely get why you were cast as Cassidy.

Yeah, he's a gobshite. I'm a gobshite.

A what?

Gobshite. Somebody who talks shite.

This is amazing. I'm learning so much.

Yeah. I don't know. I've got ADHD. Very honest. I don't hold back. I don't use an editing facility. I don't see the fucking point. You write whatever the fuck you want; it don't make any difference to me. I just think I give meself to America like, "Do what you want. Have me as you will." But I'm not changing.

In the pilot I just saw, Cassidy does some pretty bonkers stuff. None of that was intimidating to you?

No. No.

What was your favorite part of the first episode?

I love the scenes with my friends, actually, with Dom and Ruth. I love the scene in the car between Tulip and Jesse, where she's sort of, "We are what we are, Jesse Custer." I find that really moving. Ruth's really good at playing this. Everybody's vulnerable -- everybody is, but Tulip is like this super empowered -- I just think it's a really brave thing to do, for Ruth and for the guys to play Tulip out the way they have. That's a big, big deal in 2016.

And you know there was feedback where people were like, "What the fuck, man? Tulip's a white girl with blond hair!" Apparently there was [backlash over casting Negga]. I didn't see any of that, but of course there was, man. There's always some fucking dickhead somewhere, some narrow-minded bellend who can't see -- I could carry on ranting on that forever, mate. But yeah.

I think for me, personally, my favorite bits [are between Tulip and Jesse]. I mean, I enjoyed watching my bits too, of course. I'm an actor, a fucking really arrogant, fucking inward wank shaft. You just can't help with that. Of course I love it. I do! I do love it. I'm a narcissistic twat! But, watching my friends do what they've done -- and especially watching them putting on their accents -- they're incredible actors. I wasn't a trained actor, per se. That's not the background I come from. I've been very lucky to be in television.

How did you come into it?

By auditioning, you know. By getting off my ass and going and not accepting the cards that I was being dealt, which was plasterer and occasional career criminal. That's what I had to work with at the time. My mum and dad had given me everything they could, and it was time that I had to do my own thing.

I was going through this thing -- especially during my teens, which is turbulent for any young man or woman -- but I was going off the fucking rails. If it hadn't have been for this job, I try to think where I'd be. Drugs. Jail. So, I'm very, very, very lucky. And fucking hell, dude, there's not a single day that I don't wake up and know that.

I've got friends who have infinite potential, and because of the place we grew up in and the cards we were dealt, they were limited. I've been incredibly lucky, man. And it's not that they have miserable lives. My friends are happy and good people. [Exhales deeply] But fucking life ain't fair, man. Some people -- like sometimes I feel a bit guilty. Not like I've left them behind or anything, but I'm so lucky. And I know, I fucking know how lucky I am. Sometimes, there is an element of guilt, I think because of where I'm from. There's always that feeling of like, "What if they find me out?"

Imposters Syndrome. I think a lot of us suffer from that, where something good happens in your career and you fear "they" will figure out you don't deserve it.

Yeah. Instead of enjoying it, you just shit yourself. But I think you need that, don't you? Anxiety and worry is born out of the best intentions. The irony of it is, our brains and the way we work as people is not designed for this culture we've given ourselves, is it? Like when you need to be talking to a journo, you need to be really relaxed. I've been doing this all day, so -- but sometimes, you have to dig. You have to talk, and your head's going a million miles and hour, you're not just listening to what they're saying, you're thinking about how you're coming across. It's like we've designed this world for ourselves where there's a lot to think about. It can be very stressful.

I think it's just about embracing it. Embrace it, man. Just let yourself go. This is going back to what I was saying about repressing, because I generally thought in the UK, "Just repress it, man. Don't get in trouble out there. Just keep your head down." A man said to me once, he said, "An actress" -- and I can't remember her name but -- "she said, 'When it comes to journalists, dare to be bland.'" Because that way, you don't have to worry afterwards, you know what I mean?

Sure.

But that's fucking boring. Nobody wants to read that shit. I've got things I want to fucking say, so.

Yeah, and you have a platform to say them.

Yeah, so, bollocks! I don't want to dare to be bland. I want to dare to be a lunatic and see what I can get away with. See how far I can push it before someone writes something really nasty and ruins my career. It's just a waiting game, really. It's just a numbers game before I run into that bastard who sends completely sends me back to the U.K., plastering and fucking selling dope. You know what I mean? [Laughs] Shit.

[Laughing] Well, at least you have a plan B, I guess?

Yeah, yeah I've got a fall back. [Laughs] Yeah, I do have a fall back: an addiction to heroin, then jail. Yeah! Fallback!

This is the weirdest interview I've had all week!

I'm glad, man! Thanks for having me. [The PR person asks, "Have things gone off the rails over here?"] Yeah, a little bit. It's me. It's my fault. I'm terrible.

There's been some interesting deviations from the show from the comic. Is there any in particular you're excited about?

What I love about it, is that it's stationary. It's been a funny one, because in the comic, they're on the move a lot, and we've had to stay very stationary. The reason being, for people who aren't aware of what "Preacher" is, they need to invest into these characters, and you need a bit of stillness for that to happen I think. And I think as well, this will give it a bigger impact when we do fuck off. I hope we kill everyone in that church, dude. I hope we fucking kill them all. Honestly. Like some of them bastards, you've seen 'em. Some of them need murdering, you know what I mean? Some of them need murdering.

The pilot definitely sets up some people that you want to see go down.

Yeah. It's really clever. And some of them like Brian [Huskey] -- he's done so much of Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg]'s stuff as well -- he plays the guy whose mother is constantly giving him a hard time. I'm devastated they're killing him. He's so funny and one of the most wonderful men I've ever spent time with. He lost his entire car in a car park. We went to watch "Mad Max: Fury Road" while we were doing the pilot eight months ago. It was me, Seth, Evan, [showrunner] Sammy [Catlin] and the rest of us. We all went to watch "Mad Max" [in 4D]. It was fucking relentless, wasn't it?

It was my favorite movie of 2015, by far.

Dude, I fucking loved it. I had some real mixed reactions during, but it was constant entertainment. I was exhausted [when it was over]. I left, I was like, [Sighs heavily] "Fuuuuuuuuck." My chair was moving and shit. Sam looks at me at one point, and he's like, "It's fucking brilliant, isn't it, man?" Fucking not enjoying that, I was really baked. I was like, "It's jostling my innards, Sam! I don't fucking like it." Fucking wind in your face, like, whuuh. I didn't know where it was coming from! It was fucking hard work! I got off with sore core muscles and shit! It was hard work, but we had the best time. And as we came out, we lost his car. But that man's amazing. He's a fantastic actor.

Was it stolen?

It wasn't stolen, we just fully lost it because we're actors. We don't think about anything else but ourselves. Like magpies, wandering around like, "Oh shit! There's something shiny over there!" And then, while you're looking at your shiny thing, you've not locked your car, or retained any information as to where it might be, or how to locate it once you've finished fucking around with your shiny thing. So before you know it, your car is lost. Your fucking car is lost. I do a lot that.

And then you're pushing a pedicab up a hill!

Yes! And then you find yourself an enabler, helping a woman up a fucking hill. Honestly. At some stage, it's very dangerous, I got into that last night. Let's just say a lot happened. A lot went on. A lot went on. Fucking hell. I was in another dimension at one stage in that lift, like "Aaaaah!" You know where you've got to close one eye. It doesn't matter how happy you are; you still look fucking furious.

This is my first SXSW, and I had thought people were overhyping how intense and exhausting it can be. But no -- today I hit a wall, like, "I don't know where I am, I don't know where I need to be."

It's horrible. You feel a bit like crying. That's when you know you've had it large. That's when you know you've gone big before you've gone home. When you actually need to have a little cry, like, "Mum! I miss you so." Just the things you've done. The things I've seen, can't be unseen or undone! I feel like Cassidy.

That sounds like Cassidy.

Yeah, if I get quoted on anything, "The things I've seen [Throws his hands over his face] and can't be undone."

That's my time. Thanks, Joe. It was really great talking with you.

Thank you, mate. It was a pleasure. Be gentle, will you?



http://www.comicbookresources.com/artic ... or-cassidy

- Autopista al Infierno: La épica misión para hacer "Preacher" (EW):

Autopista al Infierno: La épica misión para hacer "Preacher"
Por Clark Collis • 19 Mayo 2016 — 9:00 AM EDT

There will be no blood during your writer’s visit to the interior church set of AMC’s new comic book adaptation Preacher (out May 22) in February this year. But according to makeup wizard Howard Berger, cofounder of legendary prosthetics-and-gore company KNB (The Walking Dead), it was a different story the week before. “Special effects went through 14 gallons, for just one scene,” Berger enthuses. “That’s a lot of blood for television. It doesn’t rival [what we do on] Walking Dead, but we’re getting there.”

Fortunately, there is still plenty to see here at the show’s studio base just outside Albuquerque. Today, for example, actor Dominic Cooper is shooting a scene with costar Ian Colletti for the show’s second episode. The British Cooper has adopted a Southern accent appropriate for his titular character, a small-town Texas minister named Jesse Custer who is possessed by a supernatural force that gives him the power to make people do whatever he commands. Colletti, meanwhile, is garbling his lines in a fashion appropriate to the fact that his mouth looks like a sphincter. To be clear, this is no slight to the boyishly handsome Colletti, but rather an accurate description of the actor’s makeup, which has been specifically designed by KNB to look like a butt. The result is both horrific and — to Cooper at least — hilarious. “I have had problems filming this where I can’t quite get through a scene without bursting out laughing,” says the actor, whose credits include 2009’s An Education and playing Tony Stark’s father on ABC’s Agent Carter.

If that sounds weird, hold on to your Stetson. This mix of comedy, horror, action, love story, and modern-day Western is the brainchild of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, two of the show’s executive producers, and the writer-directors behind the 2014 film, The Interview. That movie, you may remember, about a murder plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, resulted in North Korea threatening military action against the U.S. and may have led to the hack of Sony’s computer systems. While it’s hard to imagine Preacher will create enough controversy to require the State Department’s attention, the series’ source material has no shortage of hot button topics, including an insane amount of violence and religious-heavy plotlines. It was also one of the first things Rogen and Goldberg bonded over when they first met at Bar Mitzvah class in their native Vancouver two decades ago. “My brother and I were big comic nerds,” says Goldberg. “He was just like, ‘Read this, it’s the best comic ever.’ [Seth and I] became friends very soon after I read it. It was one of the things we clicked on.”

So, does Rogen think the show will be controversial? “I don’t know,” he says, unleashing that distinctive laugh-bark. “We clearly are not the best gauge of that.”

Fans of the Preacher comic have been waiting to see a screen adaptation for years and instead have merely witnessed a string of false dawns. As Scotland-based pop culture writer Laura Sneddon wrote on her website ComicbookGRRRL back in 2011, “One of the greatest series of the 90s, various adaptations of Preacher have been undeservedly rotting in development hell for years. HBO bailed on a television series, Sam Mendes jumped ship for James Bond, and even Darren Aronofsky expressed an interest that turned into a dead end.”

Published by the DC Comics imprint Vertigo, Preacher appeared at the end of a decade that saw Alan Moore (Watchmen), Neil Gaiman (Sandman), and Grant Morrison (Doom Patrol) rewrite the rulebook for superheroes. When writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon’s saga first landed on comic store shelves in February 1995, the audacious, lunatic, and hugely imaginative saga set about torching that tome for good. 75 issues in length, Preacher details Jesse Custer’s mission to find and confront God about his recent abandoning of heaven. Custer is helped by an old flame (and fellow ex-car thief) named Tulip O’Hare and an alcoholic Irish vampire called Cassidy. Another fan-favorite character from the comic is the one Colletti plays: a depressed young man who tries to take his life with a shotgun in the manner of his hero, Kurt Cobain. Instead, after plastic surgery, he winds up looking like a walking rectum. That’s the bad news. The good? His disfigurement helps him become a pop star known to his army of fans by the name gifted him by Cassidy: Arseface.

“I remember drawing the first issue thinking, ‘This is either going to bomb completely or enough people will get it to make it a cult success,’” recalls Dillon. “Luckily, enough readers did get it and realized where we were coming from with it. We had a strange mix of letters coming in. Everything from ‘Wow! This is crazy stuff, man!’ to long, well-thought-out analysis of each issue. We also had a fair number of letters from guys locked up in jail. That was interesting. I was very conscious that nothing like it had been done by a big, mainstream comic publisher before and I wondered if we’d get away with the stuff we wanted to do. As it turned out, DC, and Vertigo’s Karen Berger (the imprint’s longtime executive editor), in particular, were great. There were a few battles but, for the most part, we managed to get it done the way we wanted it.”

Preacher earned Best Continuing Series at the 1999 Eisner Awards and attracted a diehard following of fanboys — and fangirls. “Preacher was the first non-Batman series I ever read,” says Sneddon, today. “Tulip O’Hare is a fantastic character, who could so easily have been portrayed as the buxom blonde for the men to fight over, but instead is her own character with her own story arc and growth. I found Preacher was actually bought more often by women than men. It’s one of the few comic adaptations I’m looking forward to seeing!”

Ennis’ fantastical but also from-the-heart writing had a similarly seismic affect on Rogen and Goldberg. “It as just the most the most unapologetically honest expression of some guy’s thoughts I’ve ever seen,” explains the latter. “No one says that much about themselves that bluntly in their art.”

“It’s like that expression: in your dreams, you’re everyone,” laughs Rogen. “In Preacher, Garth is everyone, kind of.”

“It’s just like, ‘Here I am! Like it or not!’” says Goldberg. “It’s just f—ing crazy.”

Rogen and Goldberg joke that they have been trying to get their hands on Preacher ever since they acquired agents — except it’s only half a joke. As their writing careers gained traction with Super Bad and Pineapple Express — and Rogen became a major movie star — they never left dreams of Preacher behind. When Mendes was attached to direct a movie version in 2008, Rogen contacted the filmmaker about appearing in the film. “I just found an email that I sent asking if I could audition for the role of Arseface,” says Rogen. “He said I could. But then the movie fell apart.”

Mendes wasn’t the first person to try and get a Preacher adaptation off the ground. Starting in the late ‘90s — before the comic had even ended its run — Tank Girl director Rachel Talalay spent years unsuccessfully attempting to bring the comic to the big screen, with James Marsden in the frame to play Custer. In 2006, HBO announced that Mark Steven Johnson, director of 2003’s Daredevil, was developing Preacher as a TV show. Two years later, Johnson told the website Comics Continuum that the channel had aborted the project because it was “too dark and too violent and too controversial.” That was when Mendes stepped in, hired by Columbia to develop the comic as a film, which would be produced by Neal Moritz (The Fast and the Furious franchise). But Mendes left the project when he found himself unable to wrangle the sprawling tale into a movie. In 2010, it was rumored that Aronofsky (Black Swan) was being targeted to take over the project, but the following year Disturbia director D.J. Caruso tweeted that he had just closed his deal on Preacher and was “pretty f—ing pumped.” That pumpedness subsequently diminished, with Caruso admitting to the website I Am Rogue in August 2013 that the project had gotten “put on the back burner.”

Ultimately, it would take the intervention of a superhero for Rogen and Goldberg to get their shot at making Preacher. The duo had co-written 2011’s The Green Hornet (which Rogen also starred in), and although the film performed modestly at the box office, it brought them into the orbit of Moritz, who produced the movie. “Neal ultimately controlled the rights to it and he knew we were huge fans,” says Rogen. By the summer of 2013, Moritz also knew that Rogen and Goldberg could craft a hit, as the pair had done so with their co-directorial debut, This Is the End. Meanwhile, the growing sophistication of TV shows and huge success of AMC’s The Walking Dead made the concept of a small screen Preacher adaptation increasingly appealing. “Through some weird series of circumstances, we became the most viable option,” says Rogen. “It was in movieland for a long time and then the idea of making it a TV show was something that people were enthusiastic about again. And, to us, that was always the best way to do it. It always seemed weird to try condense it into a movie.”

The pair’s first recruit was writer-producer Sam Catlin (Breaking Bad), who despite being unfamiliar with the comic when Rogen and Goldberg approached him, turned out to be an ideal collaborator and showrunner for the series. “It’s a good mixture,” says Catlin, who is another of the show’s executive producers. “Because they’re devoted idiot fans and I had no history with it.” In February 2014, it was announced that AMC and Sony Pictures Television had come on board. “There are a lot of people who say what they’re doing is original,” says Joel Stillerman, president of original programming and production for AMC. “This is one of the few things that really is.”

Rogen had been impressed by Cooper’s dual performances in 2011’s The Devil’s Double and invited him to meet with the producing team. Cooper, in turn, was intrigued by the script for the pilot. “When we had our first conversation with him, he said, ‘So, what happens later in the show?’” recalls Goldberg. “By the time we finished, he was just like, ‘This is crazy!’” Cooper remembers thinking Rogen, Goldberg, and Catlin might “have all gone mad,” but the actor was also fascinated by their pitch. “It sounded like nothing I’d ever heard of,” he says.

To play Cassidy, the trio recruited another English actor, Joseph Gilgun (Misfits), while the role of Tulip went to Ruth Negga (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Although Negga and Cooper are a longtime offscreen couple, the choice was still a surprising one. In the comics, Tulip is white while the Ethiopia-born, Ireland-raised Negga is black.

“It felt like there was a lot of story there to tell,” says Catlin of the casting. “But it wasn’t a mandate. If we had found a white actor we liked better we would have cast her. It was just a bonus that the best person for the job happened to be Irish-Ethiopian.”

“Physically, there is a departure from the Tulip of the comic books,” says Negga. “But it’s purely physical. I don’t think the spirit of her has changed at all — I wouldn’t want it to.”

Rogen, Goldberg, and Catlin initially pitched the show as a highly faithful comic book adaptation in the style of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City films.

Goldberg: “We actually pitched, like, ‘It’s going to be frame for frame, almost.’”

Rogen: “And we totally just threw that out the window.”

Goldberg: “Totally f—ing hurled it.”

The original comic book drops the reader into the middle of action, plot-wise. At the start of Preacher #1 Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy have already fled Custer’s small town for reasons we won’t spoil here. “It started in the second act, basically,” says Rogen. The Preacher team determined that aping this approach would be confusing to viewers and set about crafting a pilot which instead found Custer actually ministering to his congregants. “We wanted to ground it in something familiar, so that it didn’t feel like a bad acid trip,” says Catlin.

How did AMC react to this change in plans? Funny story… “We never really told AMC,” says Rogen, who directed the show’s first two episodes with Goldberg. “When we were filming the pilot, one of the heads of AMC came up to me and was like, ‘Just so you know, don’t think it got past us that you pitched us one thing, and now we are here filming something which is 100 percent different.’ They’ve been outrageously supportive, honestly.”

Having aged out of the Arseface role, Rogen does not appear in the pilot and there are no current plans for him to play a character on the show. That’s probably just as well given the frenetic pace of TV production compared to the movie world he and Goldberg have mostly inhabited up to this point. “We’re used to way more time,” says Rogen. “[Our movies have] hundreds of visual effects shots. With TV, you just have no time [for] post-production. So, the more that happens in camera, the better. And KNB have been really helpful for that. We have a gag we’re shooting later today. The assumption was that the only way to do it was visual effects and they were like, ‘Oh no, we can do that totally in camera and it’ll take two minutes to shoot.’”

Rogen is also new to the world of TV spoilers. “How does this work?” the Knocked Up star innocently asks when he is introduced to your writer on set. “I’ve never done anything that’s secret before.” That’s not quite true — much about the plot of This Is the End was kept under wraps prior to the film’s release — and the Preacher’s behind-the-scenes trio manage to be determinedly tight-lipped about the ground covered in season 1. Catlin even refuses to confirm that Cassidy is a vampire in their Preacher, although the pilot — which was screened to rapturous reviews at this year’s SXSW festival — makes clear his bloodsuckery nature. The showrunner does reveal that season 1 will show how Custer deals with his new superpower, the return of Tulip, and the arrival of Cassidy, as well as the demands of his flock, including Arseface.

“He’s never really a preacher in the comic,” says the showrunner. “He’s just a bad ass guy in a preacher collar. We thought there would be an opportunity to see someone try to do their job, to be the spiritual sheriff for the town. Jesse’s got a very dark, quasi-criminal past. He’s come back to town to take over his father’s church, to make up for all the bad that he’s done, and he gets possessed by this entity. In the town, there’s all sorts of colorful characters, but there’s also people who are coming from Jesse’s past, like Tulip, who is his long-ago girlfriend and Bonnie to his Clyde for many years. She’s a badass and she’s trying to drag Jesse back into the life. Then there’s the character of Cassidy. He’s the mysterious, lazy Irish drug addict who literally falls out of the sky.” Goldberg meanwhile, reveals that, more than two decades on from the death of Cobain, Arseface has been gifted a new backstory in their version, which is set today. “Nirvana is not part of it,” he says.

Rogen insists fans should not worry about such changes. “I think fans of the comic will be surprised at how much we’re actually incorporating,” he explains. Certainly, the pair would like to include even the comic’s most outré characters — including a psychotic hillbilly named T.C., whose sex partners include a chicken and a cake. “I hope we do, I’ll say,” say Goldberg, when your writer asks if they will include this particular plot point.

Most of this will sound familiar to fans of Ennis and Dillon’s work — but very strange to non-readers. Regardless, AMC’s Stillerman believes the show has the potential to appeal to viewers who have never picked up the comic. “It’s a real adventure story,” he says. “There are these insane characters that they meet and the situations they get into are incredible. I think there’s a lot for a broader audience to really grab onto.”

There’s also likely to be a lot for religious-minded folk to get offended about. While Custer may not do much actual preaching in the comics, the subject of religion looms large, with God being depicted as a cruel deity. Goldberg suggests that their adaptation will head off controversy by acting as a showcase for various viewpoints rather than a platform for pontification in the manner of, say, Kevin Smith’s Catholic Church-baiting Dogma. “I very much like that film, but it is a vicious attack,” he says. “We’re showing you conversations where two sides argue their points — and we don’t try to favor one. I think the show being a conversation, and not being some blunt statement, may make it not controversial.”

“But, again,” Goldberg continues, “what the f— do we know?”

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/05/18/pr ... -interview?

- Quint habla sobre cómics y blasfemia con Dominic Cooper de PREACHER (aintitcool):

Quint habla sobre cómics y blasfemia con Dominic Cooper de PREACHER
Por Quint 19 Mayo, 2016, 2:01 p.m. CST

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a cool chat I did with Preacher's Dominic Cooper way back during SXSW. Thankfully this particular embargo didn't render this particular interview irrelevant, which sometimes happens. I'm glad, too, because I had a lot of fun with this conversation, which took place hours after the pilot played like gangbusters to a 1300 seater theater.

Now that Preacher is on the verge of release (this weekend!) it's time to share the below interview with you fine folks. We talk quite a bit about the character of Jesse, how he got the gig, his reaction to the character via both the script and the original comics and just how blasphemous the show is willing to go in order to stay faithful to the original Garth Ennis comic.

We don't go spoiler-y about the pilot itself, but we do talk a bit about a big event that happens in the comics, an event which he admits he doesn't know if they'll be able to pull off even on a network like AMC.

Hope you enjoy!

Quint: This isn't your first time in Austin, is it?

Dominic Cooper: Yeah. I can't believe I haven't been here before. I feel really stupid because I have a friend who has worked here for years. He's working for a famous lawyer getting people off of death row. His job is quite tough. It's a dark job, tough job, but he lived here and said it was one of the best cities he's ever lived in. He just loved it.

Quint: It's a great city. The only downside is I'd probably weigh 30lbs less if I lived anywhere else in the world... There's so much good food here.

Dominic Cooper: This is the thing. What's the best? Where's your favorite?

Quint: What do you like? What kind of food are you looking for?

Dominic Cooper: I've eaten about 15 burgers since I got here, so maybe something different. Where would I get the best steak?

Quint: We're close, actually. My favorite steakhouse in Austin is The Roaring Fork, right next door to the Paramount, where Preacher screened. Best filet mignon I've ever had in my life.

Dominic Cooper: Seriously? Oh, I have to go. Everything I've eaten here has been great.

Quint: And probably greasy and covered in...

[Dominic Cooper/Quint at the same time: Cheese. ]

Quint: Yes.

Dominic Cooper: Which is what we want!

Quint: So, I read Preacher way back in the day. I had a friend who was obsessed with it and he loaned me the entire series right after the run ended. I'm not talking about trade paperbacks, but a stack of single issues, starting at Issue 1 and ending at 66.

Dominic Cooper: Is that what it went to?

Quint: I think it was (editor's note: it was, but there are also five one-shot issues and the four-part Saint of Killers mini-series they did as well).

Dominic Cooper: I read them immediately after I read this script and I really regret not being into them. I remember the kids who were into them. I remember my good friend's brother reading them. What's he doing? Why's he in his room all the time,reading that? Now I know. They're so imaginative and clever. I was always under the misguided view that (the comics) were for kids. They're not. They're so intelligent and so funny.

Quint: And so blasphemous!

Dominic Cooper: So blasphemous!

Quint: One of my big takeaways from the book that I'm so over the moon about being captured well in the pilot is that the three leads are super strong. I care about those three leads probably more than any other single comic book characters. In the pilot they did a great job of establishing all three iconically and right off the bat. Jesse's got a little bit more of a longer haul to get a full grasp on him as a character, but they did such a good job at clearly laying out these people. Was that character economy something that jumped off the page when you first read the script?

Dominic Cooper: Yeah, I got a real sense of each person. It was wonderful from there to go back over the comics and truly understand. My struggle has been to maintain belief in the stoicism of (Jesse). I don't know. He's surrounded by such colorful characters. For me, that's been quite the struggle. There's these elaborate, wonderful, rich characters and sometimes I wonder if I'm being really boring, but actually the unveiling of Jesse and the slow stripping away of who he really is... there are things that I'm finding out on each episode that I'm like “Fuuuuuuuuuckkkk. He is a dark man.”

Quint: Jesse's a slower burn, that's for sure, but I think you gave him a great little moment during the bar fight that really shows who he is.

Dominic Cooper: You get a glimpse of him, yeah.

Quint: That smile when the shit really starts hitting the fan. He's in his element and he knows he likes it.

Dominic Cooper: It's the addict finding his crack and he loves it. He's trying to fight that the whole time. He's dark, he's drunk, but he thinks he's doing the right thing. You're exactly right. That's Jesse. That glimpse of joy. He loves it and he's relishing every minute even though he's tried so hard to fight against being that thing again and here comes his ex-girlfriend trying desperately to drag him back into that life.

There are so many good moments in the next episodes coming up where he's tempted again. He thinks he's completely in charge of this thing and he thinks he's doing absolute good for the world and then you're confronted with the fact that he's not. He's doing some quite bad things.

Quint: True, but there's also a reason why Genesis chooses Jesse.

Dominic Cooper: Right, because he's capable of handling it. I love that so much. There's so much for me to find out and play with and find the balance of Jesse's character. My audition was just me meeting with them and chatting for hours. I remember on my first day I thought, “They might hate this.” I didn't really know (Jesse) yet. There's still a lot to discover, but they were so accurate and specific with what they wanted this person to be. They said on stage (at the Q&A) that they had been looking for a long time, which I didn't know until today.

Quint: Sam Catlin said that this season we're staying in the small West Texas town where Jesse presides over his congregation. It's an interesting choice that I imagine gives you a little breathing room to really flesh out the character before the team-on-a-mission aspect from the comics comes into play.

Dominic Cooper: Yes, totally. We get loads of flashbacks as well. We'll see the truth behind Tulip's background. It's heartbreaking.

Quint: You guys are still shooting the first season, right?

Dominic Cooper: Yeah, we're hardly in at all. It was funny watching (the pilot) today having now shot episodes 3 and 4. Knowing what I know about Jesse now, it was quite peculiar. I like it, as an actor, having the space and time to really find a character is really great.

Quint: That's one of the core benefits that television offers. The only way you get this kind of time with a character in film is if it's part of a giant, continuing franchise.

Dominic Cooper: Absolutely. To get to know a character that much, to get to see how they change... I'm really enjoying the process.

Quint: When you met with Sam and Seth and Evan did they kind of lay everything out for you or did you get the chance to discover how the story unfolds when you went to read the comics after that meeting?

Dominic Cooper: It was an absurd meeting. I can't really ever describe it. I went in there and there were these three mad people trying to explain to me something that can't be explained. What the story was, where it was going to go, how it was going to end. “Some episodes are going to be in heaven, some will be in Hell...” I was like, “What is this?!?” But it kinda made sense and I love them. You can see the energy and excitement they had about doing something that had been that long in the making. I majorly wanted to have something to do with it. I never ever read anything like it.

I went to the comics after that ludicrous meeting. I didn't really know how it ended. I didn't know what this meeting was, just that it was crazy and that I got on really well with them. I told them an elaborate story about something absurd that had happened to me the night before. They obviously saw something in me that they thought was like Jesse, which is kinda frightening.

Quint: That's either a compliment or the exact opposite of a compliment.

Dominic Cooper: I wonder. I suppose if I was making it and I was looking for him... like what you said, what could Genesis survive in? He needs to be capable of some pretty awful things but at the same time he wants to be good

Quint: I seem to remember in the books Genesis goes right to Jesse Custer...

Dominic Cooper: He goes right to Custer.

Quint: Right. I like how here, in the pilot, there's a series of unworthy vessels it tries first. That choice is so great because it makes the character of Jesse instantly mysterious. Why does this guy get this power when other, clearly better, people couldn't handle it?

Dominic Cooper: Of course. I didn't think of that, but of course it does.

Quint: When you read through the books for the first time did you ever stop to think “How the fuck are we going to do this on TV?”

Dominic Cooper: Of course!

Quint: “Are they really going to let us kill God?”

Dominic Cooper: Well, that one I think they still don't know or how people would react to that. It raises some tough questions. The conversations Jesse and Cassidy have together are good conversations. How could God exist? We did it in an episode just the other day. “How could God exist if Hitler exists?” “That is a good question. To the best of my knowledge, here's how I can answer this.” At the moment to be able to have discussions about religion is a positive. I mean, (the show) is going to offend, but it'll create a conversation.

Quint: I might be wrong, but I thought the logo on the whiskey bottle in the pilot, which is silhouette of the cowboy, was the exact outline of the Saint of Killers from the comic.

Dominic Cooper: Yeah, it is.

Quint: I'm dying to see how they approach that character.

Dominic Cooper: It's very cool. The backstory is very cool and I don't know the half of it yet. I've just seen glimpses of it. They're actually shooting him this week.

Quint: Have they announced who's playing him?

Dominic Cooper: I don't know, but you'll like it. If I had my camera I'd show you a glimpse.

Quint: Well, I wish you had your camera!

Dominic Cooper: He looks really cool. You're going to love it!

Quint: The pilot didn't shy away from the weirdness of the book, which gives me all the faith in the world that they'll do right by the story.

Dominic Cooper: They are going to go for it for as much they can. Think of how many people were cracking up (at the screening) today. It's so absurd. Him eating the teabag. Little moments like that.

Quint: The guy that actually leant me the comics came to the screening today.

Dominic Cooper: Oh, he was there? Did he enjoy it?

Quint: Yeah. I looked over a few times during the screening and saw him clapping, so I suppose that's good news for you guys.

Dominic Cooper: How very cool. I don't really have anything in my life like that. There must be a book or something. There's a few books I want to adapt into a film. Maybe when they are turned into films I'll be all “Oh, wow. How have they done this?!?” And how must Garth (Ennis) feel seeing those characters? He wrote this, he's seen these characters in his mind for however many years. It must be extraordinary for him to see it. I can't work out what it must be like. What was it like for him sitting in that cinema? I can't imagine what it must be like. I've never had anything like that. I'll go ask him.

Have you spoken to Joe (Gilgun) yet? He's hilarious.

Quint: I didn't get him, sadly. You're it for Preacher interviews, but I can't complain. You're Jesse Custer! I'm happy.

Dominic Cooper: I'm glad you're happy.

Quint: And if you had your camera I would be even happier because then I would have seen the Saint of Killers!

Dominic Cooper: … I could get my camera and show you.

And so he did, the kind-hearted soul. I can confirm the silhouette of the Saint of Killers is pretty right on, long duster, big hat, six-shooters and all.

One more funny little anecdote to leave you with before I let you go: They held these interviews in a hotel meeting room with multiple tables and had ALL the Preacher folks doing interviews in the same room. I was there an hour early, so I saw all involved there. Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Sam Catlin, Garth Ennis, Dominic, Ruth Negga and Joseph Gilgun.

Shortly before I was called to do my interview with the Preacher himself, a funny thing happened. Gilgun was doing an interview about five feet from me and the conversation drew my attention.

Now, I really wish I could have talked to Gilgun because every conversation I eavesdropped on was hysterical and laden with obscenities (ie my kind of talk), but this one in particular made me laugh. They were talking about the famous backwards V sign, which is the UK equivalent of flipping the bird, and its origins.

Gilgun must have seen my amusement because he started to draw me into it, asking if it was true that the rude gesture came from English longbowmen flashing the French the ol two-finger salute during the 100 Years War. It was common for the French to cut those two fingers off of their prisoners so when returned home they couldn't be put back into the fight.

So, the legend was that the English started doing that as a “fuck you” sign to the French and it stuck around.

I said I remembered looking it up once and that the story was an old wive's tale. Sure enough, I fired up Google and saw that most historians believe it's a much more recent gesture, an inversion of Winston Churchill's V For Victory.

At the end of the day, we decided the French/100 Years War story was better, so we should stick with that. Print the legend, right?

Anyway, that was funny to me and maybe some of you might find it funny, too.


http://www.aintitcool.com/node/75229

- Seth Rogen y Evan Goldberg saobre el llevar a Preacher a la TV y qué es lo que pueden incluir (IGN):

Seth Rogen y Evan Goldberg saobre el llevar a Preacher a la TV y qué es lo que pueden incluir
Por Amy Ratcliffe 20 Mayo 2016

After several false starts over the years, in various incarnations, Preacher is coming to television to try to save your souls and/or rake in additional viewers for AMC. The adaptation of the comic by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon is executive produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg; they've been fans of the comic since it debuted in the latter half of the '90s and first considered pursuing Preacher when they were filming Pineapple Express.

During a recent press conference Rogen said, "We were just picking up some momentum as writers, so we were like, 'We're writers now. We're making an action comedy. Maybe they'll let us make Preacher.'" It eventually fell in place when they met Neal Moritz on The Green Hornet. "We actually developed a very good relationship with him and he started controlling the property eventually and he had heard us talk about it nonstop," Rogen said.

As for the appeal of Preacher, Rogen explained, "It reminds me of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which we also both love. It creates a world where anything is possible and anything can happen, but again, it's all very character driven and character based. It's very funny and it's also very f**ked up."

They initially thought it would be a ten-part miniseries a la Band of Brothers, but the state of cable television meant they had other options. They've worked closely with Ennis and Dillon, and in fact, Goldberg mentioned how Ennis set them straight with some thoughts about adaptation. "We were proposing that we do an extremely similar to the comics version and he told us that was stupid," Goldberg said. Rogen added, "He was one of the first people to actually say it. I think everyone was afraid to say it. They were thinking it. I think he was the one who was, 'You can't just do this. It will time out given enough episodes. You have to change it.'"

Ennis wants a new audience to be able discover the show unfettered from the comics, but Goldberg said Ennis suggested they stay true to the core of the comic characters. Some changes were, of course, necessary. For example, the television series shows Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) actually preaching. "The biggest thing we did is you don't ever see him being a preacher in the comics, and we were like, 'It's called Preacher, he's dressed as a preacher the whole time. You need to see him being a preacher.' When the comic starts he's kind of done with it, basically. We thought it would be good to show what that part of his life was like as well," Rogen said.

A key part of capturing the characters from the comic was casting. With Jesse, they brought Cooper (Captain America: The First Avenger, Agent Carter) on after a meeting. Goldberg said, "We met with tons and tons and tons of people for that role and we eventually realized that to get someone who's really about to pop at their height you just have to offer it to someone based on just a sit down, which we're not used to. We're used to auditioning and working and seeing if it works. We sat down with him and we talked about it for a half hour, and he just fully got it and thought it was awesome. We just dove in with him."

The process was a bit different with Joseph Gilgun who plays Cassidy. Rogen said Sam Catlin, another executive producer, who's the showrunner on Preacher, found Gilgun. "The first audition Sam saw was Joe and he kept saying, 'You guys have got to see this guy. It's a weird tape that he filmed in his mother's basement,'" Goldberg said. That wasn't exactly a selling point. Goldberg continued, "It was one of those weird things where we just didn't watch it for weeks. We met with 100 other people."

But, Gilgun was the right match all along. Rogen said, 'We finally watched the tape and were like, 'This is incredible.' He looks like a vampire. Then we Skyped with him and it was like talking to Cassidy. It was one of those things where you're like, 'He's the guy.' There was no one who was really even close as a second choice for that role at all. If we didn't get him I don't know what the f**k we would have done."

With the approach and cast in place, there was the question of what they'd be allowed to show in the series. The comic is known for pushing the envelope as far as going there with violence. It's intense. They haven't had a problem so far though. Rogen said, "If anything I'm surprised by what we get to do. The Walking Dead actually provided a lot of good precedent for us to do a lot of stuff that we wouldn't be able to do."

Goldberg said it's about the story justifying the visuals and actions. "It's actually all about story with standards and practices. They're much more reasonable," he said. If there's an issue, Rogen said they can work out: "They call and we talk and you explain, 'Here's why we're trying to do this, here's what we like about it.' Pretty much every time we've gotten to do exactly what we wanted."


http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/05/20/ ... n-get-away

- ‘Preacher’: Hellfire, Brimstone y el Perverse (nytimes):

‘Preacher’: Hellfire, Brimstone y el Perverse
Por DAVE ITZKOFF 20 Mayo, 2016

From its first issue, the comic-book series Preacher was teeming with outrageous scenarios and incendiary imagery: the aftermath of a daring escape from Heaven; an angel shown decapitated and another with its brains blown out by gunfire; and a small-town Texas congregation annihilated as if by an atomic bomb.

It was the kind of story its creators hoped might make a great movie, but that didn’t happen.

“It was too much for a lot of people to get their heads around,” said Garth Ennis, the writer who created Preacher with the comics artist Steve Dillon.


“Not so much for the extremity of the violence or some of the sexual acts,” he explained. “But just the sheer weirdness of the concept was a lot.”

When “Preacher” makes its debut as an AMC drama on Sunday, May 22, it moves at a somewhat different pace. It tells the story of Jesse Custer (played by Dominic Cooper), the struggling minister of the fictional Annville, Tex., who finds himself imbued with strange new abilities that give him greater command over his parishioners.

At the same time, Custer is reconnected to his ex-girlfriend Tulip (Ruth Negga), a violent criminal, and meets Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun), a debauched Irishman with an unusual aversion to sunlight. Also, for some reason, religious leaders around the world are spontaneously exploding.

For AMC, which has ordered a 10-episode first season of “Preacher,” this series is the former “Mad Men” broadcaster’s latest venture into genre entertainment, where savage acts and supernatural events are regular occurrences.

The network has already achieved a brand-altering hit with one such show, “The Walking Dead,” and found respectable hits with “Fear the Walking Dead” and “Into the Badlands.” It would surely like to see “Preacher” succeed at that same scale. But even when compared with narratives about reanimated corpses that eat human flesh, “Preacher” is a much more bizarre proposition.

As is known to fans of the comics, which were published between 1995 and 2000 by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics, there is plenty of perversity, violence and potential blasphemy to come: stories about the incestuous continuation of the bloodline of Jesus; a Ku Klux Klansman with a sexual attraction to meat; and a confrontation with God himself.
Seth Rogen, left, and Mr. Cooper on the set of “Preacher.” Mr. Rogen is part of the show’s creative team.

But for now, the creative team of the “Preacher” TV series (which includes Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, collaborators better known for their comedic efforts) is satisfied to serve up this provocative material more sparingly, while staying true to the audacious spirit of the comic books.

“It can be Monty Python and Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers,” said Sam Catlin, the “Preacher” showrunner.

But, he said: “You can’t just do whatever you want. Otherwise you’re at an all-you-can-eat sundae bar, and it just saturates.”

Mr. Ennis, a Northern Irish comics author who has also written for franchise characters like Hellblazer and the Punisher, said Preacher was meant to be “a very American story,” inspired by westerns and antiheroes played by Clint Eastwood and John Wayne.

For all of its over-the-top plots and players, Mr. Ennis said he received fairly few negative responses from readers during Preacher’s original run.

“Instead of anyone going all out to get the book banned, it was more like, ‘I hate what you’re doing, and you’ll never hear from me again,’” Mr. Ennis said. “And you think: ‘Right, well, fair enough then.’”

The property has been through the Hollywood wringer many times over the past two decades: Mr. Ennis wrote screenplays for a film, and John August worked on a script for the director Sam Mendes, while a previous attempt at a TV series was developed for and dropped by HBO.

Eventually, Mr. Ennis said that he and Mr. Dillon concluded that Preacher was unfilmable.

“But if people wanted to pay for the rights, for a couple of years, and figure out for themselves that they’d taken on an impossible task, we were perfectly happy for them to do so,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rogen and Mr. Goldberg, who have worked together on films like “Superbad,” “This Is the End” and “Neighbors,” had their own longstanding interest in adapting Preacher, over which they bonded as teenagers at an early stage in their friendship.

(“We only make things that come from archetypal moments in our relationship,” Mr. Goldberg joked.)

About two years ago, they got their chance from the producer Neal H. Moritz (the “Fast and the Furious” franchise), who held the rights to Preacher and who had worked with them on the ill-fated 2011 superhero film “The Green Hornet.”

Mr. Moritz also connected them with Mr. Catlin, a former producer of “Breaking Bad,” who was not familiar at first with Preacher and was unsure how it could be translated to television.

“It’s dark, it’s irreverent, it’s violent — it’s all these different genres,” Mr. Catlin said. “But the comic starts, story-wise, at 250 miles an hour, and I just didn’t know how we were going to be able to hit the road.”

Mr. Rogen and Mr. Goldberg, who are executive producers of “Preacher” and directed its first two episodes, said that their solution was to be patient in setting up their characters and their world, as well as the religious crisis that is their protagonist’s journey.

“In the first five pages of the comic, there were big, interesting ideas that we could draw out and make much more intriguing and mysterious, instead of just laying them out so plainly,” Mr. Rogen said.

“In the comics, you never really see Jesse being a preacher,” he said. “By the time it starts, he’s done with it. We made it a bigger part of his life, to try to create a bigger conflict between the good, spiritual side of him and the badass, thrill-seeking side of him.”

Mr. Cooper, a star of TV’s “Agent Carter” and films like “Mamma Mia!” and “The Devil’s Double,” said he approached “Preacher” with some caution because of the themes and ideas that the series would be addressing so irreverently.

“When there’s violence, when there’s the discussion on religion, of course you have to be guarded, you have to be careful,” he said.

But from his earliest conversations with Mr. Rogen and Mr. Goldberg, Mr. Cooper said their adventurousness and enthusiasm for the source material was infectious.

“It was like these animated children with beards explaining God and the world,” Mr. Cooper said. “What is going on? Who are these people? What am I about to get myself involved in? I could feel myself slipping from the clutches of reality — I was already stuck, and there was nothing I could do.”

Over time, Mr. Rogen and Mr. Goldberg said, the more transgressive content that the Preacher comic book became known for would make its way into the series.

“I think it will all come,” Mr. Rogen said.

If it didn’t, Mr. Goldberg said, “As fanboys, we’d be furious with ourselves.”

Joel Stillerman, AMC’s president for original programming and production, said his only concern with “Preacher” was “making 10 great hours of TV for Season 1, and I think we’re well on our way to doing that.”

Pointing to the network’s success with challenging and often violent shows like “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead,” Mr. Stillerman said that with “Preacher,” there were ways to “stay true to the essence of it” while succeeding “on the mission that we all have, to tell the story and do it in a way that is as entertaining and broadly appealing as possible.”

So far, Mr. Rogen and Mr. Goldberg said, when creative disagreements with AMC have arisen, they have fought for their devotion to the comics and have persuaded the network to keep the faith.

“We’ve seen both head-scratching and vehement opposition,” Mr. Rogen said. “But we just talk to them. It’s not like it’s insurmountable.”

Mr. Goldberg added, “We have a running thing, which is, if it’s part of the story and it’s a good story, we just go for it.”


http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/ar ... -dead.html?

- Cooper, Negga & Catlin difunden el Gospel de "Preacher" (CBR):

Cooper, Negga & Catlin difunden el Gospel de "Preacher"
Jason Strykowski, 20 Mayo 2016

At an early screening of AMC's "Preacher" pilot, series stars Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga and showrunner Sam Catlin spoke with the press about the challenges -- and rewards -- of adapting Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's acclaimed series. They also revealed some specifics from the source material that made it into the show and when fans should be on the look out for them.

At their most basic level, both the comic and the series follow the exploits of Jesse Custer, a small-town Texas preacher who struggles with his own checkered past and the eccentric residents of his hometown. Complicating matters, Custer is reunited with his ex-girlfriend Tulip (Negga) who also happens to be an assassin with a penchant for explosives. When the child of a demon and an angel named Genesis inhabits Custer, it grants the preacher great power -- though it comes at a price.

Along with Catlin, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg adapted the comics for television. "They've been great collaborators. It's been really good that I've been the outsider to it and they've been the geeks to it," said Catlin, though he initially had some trepidations about working the famous pair. "You never know what you're getting into when you deal with celebrities, really powerful celebrities, because they have every opportunity to fuck you up. Seth and Evan are just the nicest, most down-to-earth people."

Catlin was not familiar with the comic prior to his work with Rogen and Goldberg, and when he began to prepare for the adaptation, even he didn't wasn't sure it could make the transition -- until he recognized the potential of the comic's universe. "On 'Breaking Bad,' the story starts, it's in Albuquerque, everyone recognizes it and everyone knows the rules. He [Walter White] has stage three cancer," Catlin said. "That's what's so exciting about 'Preacher.' From one moment to the next, you can go from here all the way over to there."

While the comic wanders across the globe from the start, "Preacher's" first season, according to Cooper, mainly takes place in a small Texas town. Custer will try, in vain, to save the difficult residents from their own shortcomings. If the show continues on to further seasons, it will likely span much of the globe, and possibly travel all the way to Heaven. Fans can also expect that the Saint of Killers, the assassin dispatched by Heaven to kill Custer, will come along at some point, as will the "Fuck Communism" lighter made so iconic by the comic, though it will not appear until next season.

"Maybe he hasn't given up on God from the beginning," Catlin said of the show's lead. "Maybe we see him actually as a preacher trying to be faithful -- he's still a hot mess. As long as you still have the drive of what Jesse wants and what he's looking for, you can go anywhere you want."

When preparing for the role, Cooper fixated on the necessity of Custer's darker side. "He's depressed. He's a drunk. He's regretful. He's trying to change, and by the end, pretty much given up. My worry was always being surrounded by these extraordinary, vibrant, colorful, amazing characters who have these dynamic wonderful scenes and they're fun and funny and there's just this morbid depressing, bloke in the middle." But, Cooper said, the character's "stillness" balances the show.

That balance disappears when Custer gains the powers of Genesis, allowing him to control people by speaking to them with "the voice of God." Custer will struggle with the unique gift throughout the show's first season. "It's him learning how to control it," Cooper explained. "He mistreats it, quite badly, and causes severe damage."

"Preacher's" Joseph Gilgun Explains Why He's The Perfect Pick For Cassidy

Custer will also struggle in his relationship with Tulip and the vampire, Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun), a trio that forms a unique bond. "It's a brilliant, heartfelt love triangle between the three of them," said Cooper, despite the fact that each of them is extremely dangerous -- and perhaps none of them more so than Tulip.

Negga describes Tulip as a "DIY sort of assassin" who teaches herself the lethal arts. Gaining these skills took a little work for Negga as well. "I get very nervous about hitting people," she said. Nonetheless, she approached her fight choreography as dancing, learning the skills she needed to bring her character to life.

As eccentric as the series and its characters may sound, Catlin brought the story to its baseline. "We hope that people take the show at face value. It's just about a guy who's looking for answers and kicking ass along the way, he's got this girlfriend who's a sociopath and a best friend who's a vampire/drug addict. You know, it's a simple story," said Catlin.


http://www.comicbookresources.com/artic ... ers-gospel

- Cómo 'Preacher' planea abordar el material gráfico y violento de su fuente (THR):

Cómo 'Preacher' planea abordar el material gráfico y violento de su fuente
Por Josh Wigler 21 Mayo, 2016 9:00am PT

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for the Preacher comics, and potentially the AMC television adaptation as well.]

There's a moment in the first episode of Preacher where a drunken Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) threatens to make a man sound like a bunny in a bear trap. Confused on the mechanics of that threat? Custer clears it right up in a matter of sickening seconds.

It's not the first moment of gratuitous violence on the new AMC series, either, coming only after viewers have already witnessed an assassin bite another killer's ear off, which in turn follows a hedonistic vampire turning an airplane filled with slayers into a veritable meat factory.

Though these scenes are not ripped straight out of the Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon comics on which the show is based, they are tonally faithful. In fact, they're rather subdued in comparison to the nasty material contained within the Preacher source material. Across sixty-six main series issues and various tie-in installments, characters shoot each other's limbs off, others are decapitated (some more fatally than others), eyeballs are removed by holy entities… and that's not even counting the endless stream of violent action committed against the antagonist, Herr Starr.

Indeed, there's no better example than Starr when it comes to discussing the violence of Preacher. The highly trained and highly offensive killer routinely finds himself on the receiving end of some very bad, permanent action. One moment late in the series sees him doing battle against an attack dog — and it does not work out well for either party.

For those brave enough to see the image of Starr's dog fight, click here ... but fair warning, it's not safe for work.

This is the exact type of nastiness found all throughout the Preacher comics. But will it be found throughout the Preacher TV series? Again, from the premiere episode alone, the creators of the show are not shying away from brutal action. Speaking at a press conference attended by The Hollywood Reporter, executive producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg made it clear that they're able to get away with a lot more explicit content than even they expected.

"If anything, I'm surprised at what we can do," said Rogen. "The Walking Dead has given us a lot of precedent to do a lot of stuff that we might not have otherwise been able to do."

Rogen added that conversations with network standard and practices tend to focus on storytelling — and what's more, the fact that a conversation even exists is a different mode of operating than he's used to, coming from the film side of the business.

"With the MPAA, you don't have a conversation," he said. "You submit your stuff, you get notes back, and if it gets a rating you're not hoping for then you cross your fingers and re-submit it. But with [television], they call and talk and explain what they like and what they're trying to do. Pretty much every time, we've gotten to do everything we've wanted."

Yes, many details between the comics and the show will differ, but the tone and spirit of Preacher remains across the two mediums — and that includes some of the more gruesome aspects of the story. In other words, if Herr Starr ever appears on screen with a dog, viewers would be wise to avert their eyes.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-f ... ent-896055

- Dominic Cooper sobre la absurda nueva serie de la AMC y el convertirse en un fan de los cómics (screenrant):

Dominic Cooper sobre la absurda nueva serie de la AMC y el convertirse en un fan de los cómics
Por Britt Hayes | 27 Abril 27, 2016 @ 4:02 PM


Dominic Cooper is following up his role as the younger Howard Stark in Marvel’s Agent Carter with two more franchise adaptations this summer. In addition to appearing on the big screen in Duncan Jones’ Warcraft, Cooper stars in Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s Preacher, the new AMC series based on Garth Ennis’ beloved graphic novels. Debuting on May 22, the first episode impressively captures the darkly comedic and devious tone of the comics, leaving us eager to see more. We had a chance to speak with Cooper following the premiere of Preacher at SXSW, where he discussed his part in the risky adaptation and teased some of the crazy stuff we'll see in the episodes and (hopefully) seasons ahead.

In Preacher, Cooper plays Jesse Custer, a man with a troubled past who returns to his small southern town to take his father’s place at the head of a local church. His Warcraft co-star Ruth Negga plays Jesse’s charming criminal ex-girlfriend Tulip, with Joseph Gilgun as the equally alluring Cassidy (who also happens to be a vampire). We began our interview talking about Cooper’s role as a southerner:

Given how often we see you speaking with an American accent, I find it very hard to believe that you’re actually British.

I do speak with an American accent a lot these days. You’re right. I still think I’m hopeless at it as well.

Yeah…

No, you don’t agree with that. You better say, “No.”

No! No, you’re not hopeless at it. I think you’re great at it, and southern accents are a bit tricky.

[Seth Rogen is participating in interviews nearby]

It’s always difficult doing interviews next to Seth because he’s louder than everyone.

We actually played beer pong with him a couple of years ago during an interview for Neighbors.

Really?! Is that where you just try to get the ball in the cup?

Yes, and it turns out I’m pretty bad at it.

Oh, so you were drunk by the end?

It was 11 in the morning.

Quite the bum! Remorse at about 12:30 after an hour of absolute fun, and then just complete self-hatred.

It was terrible. But Preacher isn’t terrible! Let’s talk about that. This is another comic book role for you, and I’m sure you’re often asked if you had read the books before…

No, I didn’t. I read them before we started working, but I read the script before I read the comics, and then I went back to the comics and read them again just recently. I think it’s good just to refresh.

Are you a fan of the comics now?

I was never into comics! I can understand now. They were for the nerdy kids just obsessed with comics, and I’m like “What are you doing? Go outside, go out on your bike!” That was me. And now I understand. Now I understand why their minds were more advanced. They were reading. I was chucking turds at peoples’ heads from a bicycle…

Oh boy.

And they were reading this amazing dialogue that’s so advanced. If I was reading that sort of stuff as a kid, I don’t know, I’d be different. I look at that stuff now and I think, what a little world that you have. It’s like great film and great TV that you can have just reading that stuff. I think they’re awesome. I’ve really enjoyed going back into them and reading them so quickly as well. I do massive chunks at a time.

I don’t read many comics, but that’s one that I have read.

You did read it!

I did! And at the time I was listening to a lot of Bill Hicks’ comedy albums, so that little bit from the comics was so exciting. And he was more popular in England…

He was, he was. So I just don’t know why I didn’t know about it. When I mention it now to people who were into them, they go crazy about it. And you can get caught up in feeling a responsibility to those people who have read it, and you can get into some states of panic when you consider that if you did read them at a certain time, you experienced so much because those characters were a part of your life and got you through. So you know there’s quite a bit of pressure when you start out a job like this.

There are a few changes between the books and the TV series, but I think they’re good differences. Jesse, for instance, is a little softer.

Yeah, I think so. I’m still finding out so much about him and how to play him, and he’s surrounded by such big, elaborate characters. I think I’m struggling — well, not really struggling, but I’m just having to try to remain, I suppose, strong and still. Still and strong, and not getting caught up in other peoples’ speed. I think it’s something to do with the landscape, where he’s from, the world in which he existed, his background in the middle of nowhere. And when you say softer, it’s almost like we’re seeing him [in the pilot] before the comics, so he’s quite damaged at the beginning. Looking back at this now and seeing what else we’ve done and what else we’ve worked on, I see a damaged man. He’s almost given up. He tries and tries, but only to a point. He doesn’t really try. He has a bit of a go at it and realizes he’s just a bit of a drunk idiot. We are who we are, and he just kind of gives up. And that changes dramatically.

I think you’re right. It is sort of almost a prequel-Jesse. He’s not quite at his breaking point.

Right, and when he gets the power — it’s funny, we’ve just done the one in which he gets comfortable in his…strength. And he loves it. Not for very long! Because it makes him worried and he doesn’t want to fudge with it, but for a brief moment he loves it and thinks it’s all for good. But it’s not. I hope there’s color throughout, as I’m trying to find with him. There’s also a lot of different ways to play him.

There will be people watching the premiere who haven’t read the comics yet — as someone who also wasn’t familiar with the story, what was it about the script that hooked you?

That character. Well, all the characters, really. Well, you read it. It was unlike anything. It was unusual. I felt like I just got it. For me there’s all this, of course, about ludicrous vampires and munching each other’s necks, but at the heart of it they’re really well-written, great, brilliant, developed characters and scenes that you care about. It’s also so funny and at the same time there’s real heart and reality, like the scene of us two [Jesse and Tulip] in the car, just a girlfriend trying to persuade someone into the life they once had before. There’s something completely and utterly genuine at the center of it. And that’s what I enjoy doing. I’ve done loads of comic book stuff where it’s just been about superhero kind of stuff, which is great fun, and the fight sequences look great, but actually filming them, as actors, I don’t think that’s the stuff that feeds our passion. That’s sitting down and working the art of a scene out and where it begins and where it ends, and what happens to us in the middle of it.

Comic books can be pretty tricky to adapt, but Preacher is one of the trickier ones because it gets so absurd and grotesque. But the tone of this is so perfect.

They’ve got it right, haven’t they?

Impressed is the word I keep going back to.

Oh, did you like it? As a fan of the comics?

Oh, yeah.

You’ll really like it because it gets even better. It’s even more…the more you see them discovering…They really have got it.

When you say “more,” can we expect it to get even more graphic? I was a bit surprised by how much they got away with in that pilot, and the books have some pretty wild moments.

It’s shocking what happens. I’ve just read one where I was like, “Oh my god.” I’ve been playing this guy thinking everything he does is good, that it’s all from a good place. But something just happened in one I just read where it’s like, oh no, you are nasty. You are, you are, you are…that is a nasty move. And the lack of remorse after is just like, oh my god, you’re capable of that? So it’s going to go as far as you can imagine it. Those guys aren’t going to not let it go as far as it can possibly go. They’re going to just change everything by the end of the first season. It’ll be as absurd, and it’ll go to places if not further than you can possibly imagine. Which is great! It’s exactly as it should be.

You guys are staying in the fictional town of Annville for the entirety of the first season, correct?

Yes. It’s a really good point actually, and we’d love to go elsewhere but we just can’t. We can’t. We have to stay.

It’s good to have more time to establish these people in one place…

It’s really important.

Build some character…

Get to really know them, and then you can chuck them anywhere. It’s such a good concept, if you think about it. Think about any of your favorite characters from anything, and you’re able to throw them into the most ludicrous environment, it would be so entertaining. Think about those chaps from Breaking Bad. Put them in something different. And that, I imagine, is what’s going to end up happening. We’re going to go in search, and that can be anywhere from Heaven to Hell to…Paris. Because that’s what happens in the book. I think if people like it and they get it, and the more confidence they have in the show, then we’ll be able to be as absurd as you can ever possibly imagine.

It also depends on which characters they choose to study next, ‘cause they’re all from different places, aren’t they? There’s so much to choose from.

Is there something in particular that you’re looking forward to filming?

Their time in New York is absurd. There’s that whole bit in New York, and there’s loss. Stuff I haven’t done yet, with the Saint of Killers.

I was just talking to someone about that cool easter egg in the pilot — the liquor bottle that features the Saint of Killers’ logo…

Right!

We were wondering if we’ll actually get to see him.

We are. We’re gonna get to see him at work. Another interesting character from the comics that I just realized I’m excited for people to see is Quincannon [played by Jackie Earle Haley]. We’re both very powerful and there’s this scene where we’re coming head to head with one another, and how the dynamic within the scene works — ‘cause he’s desperate for my father’s land for his miserable meat business. And there’s a real power shift and a power play, so that’ll be fun. Each and every time you meet one of these characters it’s really exciting. Who else is there from the comic? I’m trying to think of some really big ones…

There’s Herr Starr, that sociopath with one eye…

Oh that’s going to be really great. It’s going to be madness. When do I lose my eye?

I feel like that takes a few books. You still have some time.

I hope so. I’m sure that will happen. How does he lose it again?

I think we’ve already spoiled enough here.

You’re right.

Would you be interested in returning for Agent Carter Season 3?

What are they saying? I don’t know, I haven’t seen anything.

Well, you’ve been pretty busy, but there’s talk of a possible third season.

I love playing that character. I have a lot of fun with it, and Hayley [Atwell] and James [D'Arcy] and myself just don’t stop laughing. It’s another one of those jobs where you go into work and just love it. So yeah, I’d love to!

And now you have a franchise of your very own.

Let’s see, I’ve done this, and Warcraft is coming up. Just loads of comic book stuff.

It has that quality to it, sure.

Funny, isn’t it? For someone who’s never read a comic.

You’re living the dream. Lots of fans would love to become their comic book heroes. But since you didn’t really read comics, do you have a personal hero you’ve always wanted to play?

I always wanted to play — ‘cause I liked their music and I thought the story of his life was quite interesting…There were loads of musicians, I suppose my generation of musicians, not the others. There’s INXS. I always wanted to play Michael Hutchence. I thought that would be a good film to make. I wanted to do that just to sing the songs. I love all their earlier albums.

That would be a pretty dark film, though, considering how his life ended.

Yeah. And Freddie Mercury. I would love to play Freddie Mercury. But again, very dark film and people are too scared to do that. I met about the INXS one and I wanted to do it dark, and they said no, but you have to see where the darkness was. That life corrupts, that world is a nightmare. You’re the most famous whatever for that moment in time. It goes dark, and that’s what we want to do.

That’s the same problem they’re having with the Freddie Mercury biopic.

They’re too scared to do it. The band won’t allow them to do it. They’re like, “No, just make it about how wonderful it was, yada yada.” Well, why?! What happened when you broke up? What was his dark route into the wrong place with that new manager who affected him and was part of the split-up? That’s interesting, and I think that’s why they’ve been struggling with it.

What’s the latest? Are they not doing it anymore?

Sacha Baron Cohen was going to do it, but they pushed him off because he wanted to get into that heavier stuff.

Who’s directing it now?

I have no idea. Stephen Frears was going to do it a few years ago, but I think they’re still looking.

Yeah, that’s definitely not happening. He went off. There were a whole bunch of them [directors], I can’t remember, but I know because I met with them about it early on.

Well maybe something will change. Maybe we’ll see you as Freddie Mercury someday.

Maybe!


http://screencrush.com/dominic-cooper-p ... interview/

- Dominic Cooper de ‘Preacher’ : Jesse Custer está ‘tratando muy duro de ser un buen hombre’ (zap2it):

Dominic Cooper de ‘Preacher’ : Jesse Custer está ‘tratando muy duro de ser un buen hombre’
por George Dickie at 12:05 PM 22 Mayo, 2016

The Garth Ennis comic book series “Preacher” was once considered too dark, too profane and too gory to make into a movie or TV series. Leave it to the irreverent minds of executive producers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Sam Catlin to bring it to AMC.

The hourlong series, which premieres Sunday (May 22), stars Dominic Cooper (“Captain America: The First Avenger”) as the title character, Jesse Custer, who returns to his West Texas hometown of Annville to assume the preaching duties of his father. He’s also on a mission to find God. But what this conflicted cleric finds instead is a mysterious entity that inhabits him and causes him to develop a highly unusual power. And the results aren’t pretty.

He’s joined by Tulip (Irish-Ethiopian actress Ruth Negga, “World War Z”), his semi-hostile ex-wife who when she’s not building homemade bazookas is on the run from someone; and Cassidy (British actor Joe Gilgun, “Misfits”), an Irish vampire who literally drops into this bucolic burg from a plane.

The opening scene gives a good idea what to expect. What appears to be a shooting star enters Earth’s atmosphere and heads toward Africa, where it lands in the body of a Christian priest. After briefly appearing possessed, the cleric’s body explodes in a shower of bloody chunks all over his congregation.

Some variation of that scene is repeated with religious figures around the world, until the entity lands in the body of Custer, who doesn’t explode but rather becomes possessed.

Cooper, a Brit who like his cast mates had to adopt a Texas accent for his role, told a recent gathering of TV critics in Pasadena, Calif., that he was excited and nervous about taking on a character that is iconic among comic book fans.

“He’s a very complex, conflicted individual,” Cooper says of Custer. “I don’t know whether he’s a good man. He’s trying very hard to be a good man. He’s trying very hard to change his life and to help the people of this sort of crumbling society that he finds himself a part of. But there’s a lot more to do and to find, and … I was pleased with where we have got to at this present time. I’m very excited at the prospect of where he’s going to go and end up.”

The series is a passion project for longtime “Preacher” fans Rogen and Goldberg and the three producers tried to keep the production as true as they could to the original comic book.

“I don’t know if you could translate the comic strictly to television,” Rogen says. “I think everyone involved thought we should not do that directly, including Garth … . But … we love the comic. There’s tons of stuff in the comic that we hope to include, and again, we also hope to subvert lovers of the comic’s expectations at times, and then, hopefully make them love everything that we deliver in the end, and to have both of those things would be an ideal scenario.”


http://zap2it.com/2016/05/preachers-dom ... -good-man/

- Preacher Q&A – Ruth Negga (Tulip O’Hare) (amc):

Preacher Q&A – Ruth Negga
Por Adam Bryant 23 Mayo 2016

Ruth Negga, who plays Tulip O’Hare on AMC’s Preacher, discusses making her comic book character explode on screen, how terrifyingly easy it is to make a bazooka and why Tulip really returned to Annville.

Q: How much did you know about the comics before you got the part? What did you like about Tulip?

A: I was familiar with Garth’s comics but I hadn’t read them. Once I got the audition material, I read all of them and made myself as familiar as possible with that crazy world just so I could plug in and prepare. I was impressed by her unapologetic nature. She really owns who she is as a human being and isn’t going to censor or mute herself for anybody else. Her pursuit of owning the space that she takes up and not being – in any way shape or form – diminished by anybody or anything. She’s just straight up bold.

Q: Garth Ennis praised your take on Tulip in comparison to the Tulip in the comics. How did you develop her?

A: Evan [Goldberg], Seth [Rogen] and Sam [Catlin] wanted her to explode onto the screen. I think they wanted to hook people on her straight away and I think it works. The way they’ve constructed it is that you’re introduced to her in the middle of her assassinating a few people and at the end [of that scene] of carnage and chaos, you’re moving forward with her as the little kids are. That’s quite a clever construction. Even though she had this anarchistic, nihilistic nature, for some reason, we want to look after her. I think it’s because she’s an underdog and you can tell that she roots for the underdogs. From that speech she has with the kids, you end up really rooting for her character.

Q: What is Tulip’s driving force at the beginning of the story?

A: Something happened in her relationship [with Jesse]. An event happened that ruptured their relationship and saw them go their separate ways. I think she’s come back because she’s lived four years without Jesse. It’s quite simple. I don’t think she wants to live without him. Their relationship is kind of Bonnie and Clyde-esque. Essentially, they’re soulmates and it’s that truth that has propelled her back to Annville under the guise of getting him back into that criminal lifestyle. But I think it goes deeper than that. I think she needs him not as a defender or minder – she’s able to do that for herself — but I think in many ways, he does mind her and he’s sort of a balm in this crazy world for her. I think that’s the truth in why she returns to Annville, which she obviously hates.

Q: In Episode 1, we see Tulip clearly knows how to fight. Where’d she learn how?

A: I think she was a playground scrapper. If anyone attacked her or spoke badly about her or her family, I think she would just [throw] her fists up. [Laughs]

Watch: Tulip Fights Off a Gangster

Q: Ok, so where’d she learn to make a bazooka?

A: Type in “How to make a bazooka” on YouTube and there’s literally about 15 videos. It’s terrifying! And they work, but I think we took some creative license with the idea that she could take down a helicopter. I think that’s what the creative punch is. It’s so funny that she goes out with the bazooka, this tiny woman, and you as the viewer are like the children who are told to stay in the basement and to not come out until the noise is over. You’re anticipating what could have possibly gone down and I think that’s where the humor comes – when you see that helicopter. It’s partly tongue-in-cheek because that’s not actually possible, but it’s indicative of how we’re meant to feel about Tulip. She is a powerhouse and she is equally as able to take on the big boys as Jesse or Cassidy is. That’s what that scene is saying.

Q: We see Tulip’s softer side with those children. Where does that come from?

A: I’ve always said that Tulip is not amoral. She has a moral code of conduct. Somewhere within that is her identification with the underdog, or people who might not be able to stick up for themselves or who are weaker. I think that’s why she’s so easygoing with the kids and tender with them. That’s part of the reason, but it’s also because she’s an open person. She’s not emotionally stunted or anything, but I just think something happened in her childhood that made her fragile and vulnerable. So, I think she connects with children and that childlike wonder. Children are not a threat to her and I think she enjoys being open with people, but usually she’s wary. I get the feeling that with kids, she doesn’t have to worry about being judged.

Q: Jesse clearly tries to keep his distance from Tulip. How does that make her feel?

A: I think she is rather taken aback at his resistance because I don’t’ think she’s experienced that resistance from him ever before. I think she comes back [to Annville] expecting it to be much easier than it is, and then she has to pull herself up and be clever about it. I think that for both of them, a lot of feelings come right to the surface when they see each other again that were unexpected and are perhaps challenging. Jesse, for one, has suppressed a lot of memories and wounds. With the return of Tulip, she kind of takes the cork off the bottle. I think that’s difficult for him. I think we’re going to find that it’s quite cathartic for both of them.

Q: Jesse is trying his best to change into a “better person.” Will Tulip ever allow him to or does she think he needs their criminal life to be happy?

A: I think she believes in their connection so much that she can’t imagine that he would be happier without her. It’s not arrogance. It’s just what she really, truly believes. But there’s something that he says to her [later in the season] that causes her to rethink a lot of what she’s doing back in this town. That’s all I can say.

Read an interview with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, executive producers and directors of the show.

Preacher returns Sunday, June 5 at 9/8c on AMC. Sign up for the Insiders Club to be the first to receive Preacher exclusives and updates.


http://www.amc.com/shows/preacher/talk/ ... ulip-ohare

- Cómo 'Preacher' convirtió una cara en un culo (uk.complex):

Cómo 'Preacher' convirtió una cara en un culo
Por Andrew Gruttadaro 21 Mayo 2016

Since the graphic novel was released in 1995, various people in show business have been toiling to bring Preacher to the screen. Miramax considered turning it into a movie in 2000; a film version with James Marsden attached almost got off the ground in 2002; HBO came close to bringing Preacher to television in 2006; two years later, Sam Mendes was tapped to direct a film adaptation. Each of these vehicles came to a screeching halt though, for a variety of reasons that mostly have to do with Preacher's composition. The comic book series is complex, gory, religiously controversial, scatterbrained, and full of big ideas that don't exactly translate to moving pictures. A perfect encapsulation of Preacher's complexity and challenging source material is one of its most uproarious characters: Arseface, a teenager whose failed suicide-by-shotgun attempt resulted in a deformity in which, yes, his face looks like an asshole.

What Arseface symbolizes—grotesque humor, dark undertones, otherworldly atmosphere—is the heart of Preacher. An inability to capture Arseface is an inability to capture Preacher. So, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who finally brought a Preacher adaptation to fruition (the show premieres tonight on AMC), had a huge challenge to overcome with this character. And, in terms of likeness to the comic, it appears they pulled it off:
Image via Vertigo/DC Comics

So how did they do it? By smartly calling on one of the best special make-up effects creator to ever live, Greg Nicotero (Day of the Dead, The Walking Dead). Rogen and Goldberg previously worked with Nicotero for their movies Neighbors and This Is the End, and since Nicotero already had a long relationship with AMC, it was a perfect fit. "They know their shit, that's what made this so exciting," Nicotero tells me. "They sent me the graphic novel [right away], so we were involved very early on." The 53-year-old expert was tasked with all of Preacher's special make-up effects, but everyone involved with the show knew that Arseface would be the centerpiece. "Even Seth, the first time thing he says to me was, 'Hey, I can't wait to do that! It's gonna be so much fun!" Nicotero says.

Devising the character's appearance, there were a couple things Rogen, Goldberg, and Nicotero wanted to keep in mind. First, there was a conscious effort to rely on practical effects instead of CGI or digital augmentation. The second concern was character-based: they had to find a way to give Arseface a rectum for a mouth while still making him sympathetic. This is a troubled teenage boy who has issues and emotions that are central to Preacher—so Nicotero had to be sure that viewers wouldn't immediately dismiss him out of disgust. It's an asshole, but it's an asshole you have to feel for.

Naturally, Nicotero and his team went through countless prototypes before striking that seemingly impossible balance. "We generated a lot pre-production artwork, since the character is so important," he says. "I think we went through 14 to 16 different variations of this character." In some variations, Arseface would have more scars from the shotgun's buckshot. In some, they played with the size of the mouth-hole and "the striations of the musculature towards the mouth." And in other, more grotesque models, "the orifice was very puckered and sphincter-like."

"We tend to go big first, really put everything out there, and then dial things back," Nicotero says. "And with guys like Seth and Evan, they also have really big personalities, so it was really great that we had [Preacher showrunner] Sam [Catlin]. Sam helped sort of balance things out."

The Arseface make-up, which is actually one big prosthetic Nicotero and his team made, takes about two hours to apply to actor Ian Colletti's face. The most important parts in application for Nicotero was making sure the jaw line looked correct, and then perfectly shading the edges of the prosthetic to hide any signs of practical effects. "That's the hardest part because when you're shooting in New Mexico, a lot times an actor will start to sweat off the prosthetic. So you have to be very cautious about blending," Nicotero says. One other thing: the hole in Arseface's face had to be a black abyss. "We ended up needing to blacken out [Colletti's] teeth. So what we did was we created a black dental tray, so that when he was talking you didn't see his teeth. And we had to paint his lips, so that everything was black inside the hole."

The last step of building Arseface was one, making sure Colletti could talk through the prosthetic, and two, letting him take the make-up to the next level. "The actor brings it to life. We've worked on shoes where we put prosthetics on a performer and it falls flat," Nicotero says. That wasn't the case for Arseface, who Nicotero says did a great job of elevating the look they gave him, and imbuing this grotesque-looking character with a sweetness and a personality that goes deeper than facial deformities.

All of that hard work culminates when Preacher premieres tonight. After twenty years of waiting, fans will finally see this uniquely bizarre story brought to life on TV, and the execution of Arseface is going to be a large part of the reason why the adaptation takes people's breath away. The reality of this character, one that many tried and failed to create over the past two decades, is going to be something to behold.


http://uk.complex.com/pop-culture/2016/ ... d-arseface

- ¿Puede una serie de TV sobre religión atraer a las masas? (buzzfeed):

¿Puede una serie de TV sobre religión atraer a las masas?
Jarett Wieselman 12 Mayo, 2016, at 8:56 p.m.


The camera trails an object — a fantastical light that looks like a comet but is clearly something more supernatural — as it blows past the rings of Saturn and speeds toward Earth. Cut to Africa, where a local preacher stands on his pulpit. The instant the word “God” passes the preacher’s lips, the intergalactic object crashes into him. First, it infuses the mystery man with an immediately perceptible influx of power. “I am the prophet,” he bellows. “I am the chosen one.” And that’s when he explodes, drenching his congregation in a horrifying but comical typhoon of blood and entrails.

That opening scene — a defacto “Welcome to the insanity of Preacher!” — kicks off AMC’s inspired adaptation of Garth Ennis’s revered comic book series; it’s part gritty Western, part religious examination, part vampire thriller, part slapstick comedy, part action-adventure, part family drama, and — by design — entirely risky.

“It’s fucking crazy, and it should not be on television,” Preacher co-executive producer Sam Catlin told BuzzFeed News, with a laugh, backstage at WonderCon in March. “But also could only be on television now.” Catlin, who spent four seasons executive producing and writing on Breaking Bad, said thanks are due to boundary-obliterating genre shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead so that unconventional Preacher is even able to exist as a series today.

Created in 1995 by Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, Preacher is centered on Rev. Jesse Custer, a small town Texan who has lost his way, his faith, and the trust of his congregation, when Genesis — the same supernatural entity that obliterated that African cleric — possesses him. After successfully bonding with the spirit, Custer begins to slowly develop otherworldly powers and discovers he’s not the only supernatural being on this planet.

The comics, which spanned more than 70 issues, were one of the first of many pop culture obsessions Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg — who developed the series with Catlin and co-directed the pilot — bonded over as kids. As adults, the duo spent longer than a decade trying to get the rights to Preacher to no avail. “More successful people than us were always able to get their hands on it,” Rogen told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview. Among those were Kevin Smith and Sam Mendes, who each previously attempted to adapt the source material, but the genre-bending series proved to be too tricky, and their projects never made it off the ground.

“Everyone before us tried to do a darker version, and without the lightness and the comedy that is in the comic, it doesn’t work,” Goldberg told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview.

“I think the sense of fun is something that seemed to be elusive in other incarnations of this,” Rogen added. “It’s not a combination you see very often by any means, and for us, that was the thing we talked the most about as we put the show together and prepared to direct it: How do we combine this dramatic character Western story with all these crazy elements that converge on it?”

In addition to comedy, drama, and Western, the show includes touches of noir, sci-fi, action, horror, and some of the blackest humor to ever grace television screens. Take for example, a scene where the empowered Custer kindly advises Ted (Brian Huskey) — a parishioner with mommy issues — to “open your heart.” Taking the advice way too literally, Ted confronts his mother and cuts his heart from his chest before, in his dying act, handing the bloody gift to his mother.

To pull off the giant stylistic mashup, Catlin drew inspiration from Ennis’s self-assured source material. “Garth just does it,” he said with a simple shrug of his shoulders. “There’s something unapologetic about it. It’s a recognizable world that looks like America, but there’s vampires and crazy cults and angels, and the confidence with which these elements are introduced has been the example we’ve been trying to follow.”

Dominic Cooper, who plays Custer, called the pilot “one of the best things I’ve read in years,” but he initially had reservations over the intimidating number of genres the script required him to play. “I was petrified about the prospect once I actually realized I was going to do it,” he told BuzzFeed News at WonderCon. “Every day is quite complex and quite a challenge because of all that. It can be daunting and you can feel a bit lost at times, but the writing is so strong and so clear and Sam’s overview is so secure, it’s a joy. But you do question a lot.”

Cooper was also slightly worried by the idea of breathing life into a character that millions of comic book readers had visualized in their heads for years. “I felt such a responsibility to the people who have grown up with the comic,” he said.

“The actor needs to encompass everything the show encompasses, which is something that’s very dark at times but also light at times, something that is very funny at times and romantic and sexual at times,” Rogen said. “We needed an actor who could star in all those different shows, basically.”

For the show’s trio of creators, Cooper was always someone at the top of their ever-changing list, thanks to the varied roles he’s played throughout his career. They cited Cooper’s humorous work as Howard Stark in the Captain America films, his malevolent performance as Saddam Hussein’s twisted son in Devil’s Double, and the posh swagger he brought to Bond author Ian Fleming in Fleming.

Producers cast a much wider net when it came to hiring an actor to play Tulip O’Hare, Jesse’s deadly ex, who is first introduced on the show when she’s in the middle of a brutal close-quarters fistfight with two men in a moving car. After what “felt like 72 auditions,” Ruth Negga — best known for playing Raina on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — landed the role she never imagined she would ever get.

“When I read the pilot, I rang my agent and said, ‘You’re sending me something I’m never going to get and that’s mean,’” she told BuzzFeed News. However, once she stepped into tryouts, Rogen and Goldberg quickly became fans of Negga’s take on Tulip. “Seth and Evan were like soccer moms cheering me on.”

“There’s a wild, unpredictable nature to her as a person that works for the character,” Rogen said. “There’s a very easy way for it to just become this femme fatale with a gun, but she really added a lot of humor and sympathy and at the same time, created a character that was immensely watchable and someone you were really interested in learning more about.”

On paper, Negga — who stands 5’ 3” — might not seem like the most obvious choice to play an unabashed brute, but she feels that being physically underestimated works to the character’s advantage. “It’s not because she’s got big muscles, it’s because she commits to the idea that you can’t fuck with her. And her temper is her strength,” she said. “I think a lot of women can identify with that, but I’ve never seen it reflected on camera at all actually. Her volatility is something we’ve only really seen in men characters before.”

Tulip’s belief in herself speaks to the show’s most significant theme: faith. The faith one has in God, the faith one has in society, the faith one can exploit, and how the faithful are tested day to day. Building an entire series around religious identification (or the lack thereof) might seem risky, as the desire for every show to appeal to as broad an audience as possible has resulted lately in increasingly agnostic television fare. But everyone involved insists that Preacher isn’t, ironically, preaching to the audience.

“I think religion as a topic, everyone has an opinion about it — religion is in decline or religion is under threat or religion is the cause of every problem in the world,” said Catlin. “What I like about the world in Preacher is we have hardcore atheists and very religious people and they’re all sort of butting heads together. But it isn’t about religion, it’s about what we’re all doing here on this mess of a planet.”

Like all good preachers do, the show is committed to presenting complex concepts but leaving it up to the congregation to decipher meaning. “It asks loads of questions, and it’s not afraid to ask questions it knows there’s no answer to,” Negga said. “It’s like a ‘fuck you’ to tidy politics. That’s what Garth’s comics do, they really force you to think about what you believe and why you believe it — and if you should believe it, because is it really worth believing in?”

While it remains to be seen if audiences congregate every Sunday for Preacher, should the series follow in the footsteps of The Walking Dead — AMC’s most popular show, also adapted from a comic book — Cooper feels confident the stage is set for a rich, multi-season journey. “Playing Jesse for a long time doesn’t feel daunting because — and this happens so rarely — each scene is like this little nugget of excellence that I can’t wait to crack open,” he said. “One minute you’ll adore him, and the next you’ll think he’s the most vile human being on Earth, given what he’s capable of. And that makes for an amazing character for someone to play, and an audience to watch, for years and years — that’s the hope anyway!”


https://www.buzzfeed.com/jarettwieselma ... yamA0Ay21k

- Q&A – Garth Ennis (Creador del cómic/Co-productor ejecutivo) (amc):

Q&A – Garth Ennis (Creador del cómic/Co-productor ejecutivo)
Por Marissa Shapiro 27 Mayo 2016


Garth Ennis, who co-created the Preacher comic books, explains why AMC’s adaptation works and what he’s most excited for fans to see.

Q: What originally inspired the comic books? Did you ever hope or think it would be adapted in another medium?

A: At that point, around 1994, I was really only thinking in terms of the comic. People started to talk about some kind of adaption right about a year after the comic launched, around 1996, but I was really only thinking about the comic at the time.

Q: Preacher has had a long and winding road to come the screen. What about this vision of the show made it the one?

A: Well, in practical terms, none of the attempts to make a movie worked or were ever going to work because Preacher is simply overloaded with grotesque characters and over-the-top scenes. Any attempt to cram that into a two and a half or a three-hour screenplay simply isn’t going to work… What makes the AMC show different – and what makes the whole project different – is that Seth and Evan epitomize a generation of filmmakers and writers who’ve kept the projects they were always passionate about from the beginning of their careers with them. [They] were very passionate about making Preacher, and now they’ve got 10 or 15 more years of experience and a bit more seniority under their belts and they’ve kept this project with them. That’s what makes the difference. Seth and Evan have talked about how they wanted to do it for years, but just couldn’t. Now they can.

Q: What role do you play in the show? What’s it been like collaborating with this team?

A: I sat in on the pitch meeting as Seth and Evan sat down with the AMC people and basically talked them through what they wanted to do. I came away from that with a great deal of confidence because I watched Seth calmly run through everything he wanted to do, the things he wanted to emphasize, the things he wanted to pull back on and what he felt was important. At the end of that, all I said was, “I think you’re on the right track. As long as you keep the spirit, you’ll be fine.” And they really have. I was very impressed. After that, they were very good at consulting with me at every stage – outlines, scripts, cuts. I’ve given notes and they’ve been addressed, but they’re not particularly detailed and they’re not particularly crucial. As I go on, the more inclined I feel to simply back off and leave these guys to it. I’m enjoying watching this as a viewer myself rather than someone who’s involved.

Q: Seth and Evan have called this more of a “translation” than an adaptation. Is it more important to get the tone right than the specific plot details?

A: I think it is. An obvious example is that the pacing of the comic is really almost alien to TV. You couldn’t do it that way because you go back to that problem of a film where every episode would be overloaded with grotesquery and madness. They found a way to slow that down. For instance, they’ve really managed to ground Jesse’s power. In the comic book, within a couple of issues, he’s got the power, he knows how to use it and he’s decided on his mission. On the TV show, he doesn’t even know he’s got it, he makes a couple of mistakes and it takes him a while to figure out that there’s a mission at all. That, I think, helps to slow things down a little and helps to ground the TV show. It gives it the pacing a TV show needs rather than the breakneck, million-miles-an-hour lunacy of the comic.

Q: What do you think of the cast? How does it feel to see your characters brought to life?

A: I’ll start with Dominic Cooper, who I think actually has the hardest job because Jesse is, at least at first, the quiet one. You’ll see in the pilot he has to put up with a certain amount before he can begin to come into his own. It was when I first saw Dominic in costume, actually, that I thought, “My God. It’s him. It really looks like him.” That was when it first started to become real for me. But I think Jesse is the hardest character to find. Jesse is, after all, an anachronism. He belongs in about 1870 or 1880 being perfectly happy with a six gun on his hip, walking down to the O.K. Corral and blasting a bunch of bad guys. Instead, it’s horrible, complex 2016 and it’s the awful modern world. He has to find a way to live in it and his instincts are taking him in a completely different direction. So, I think for Dominic to have pulled off what he has done is admirable.

I think Ruth [Negga] is doing a great job with Tulip. Her Tulip is different than the one in the comic book. The one in the comic book is an incredibly nice, reasonable and well-mannered person until the fun and games begin. Then, she just accelerates into this banshee. Ruth’s version is probably more realistic where Tulip is actually like that all the time. There’s a line fairly early on, and I don’t know if they kept it, where someone says, “What’s your problem? “ and she says, “I’m out of my mind. What’s yours?” I think that sums her up quite well. As for Joe [Gilgun], it was very clever casting Cassidy as Cassidy. That was smart. They actually went out and found the guy!

Q: Was there anything that surprised you about the show Season 1?

A: Not really. What they tended to do was either write new material or they took something from later in the book and slotted it in earlier. An obvious example is Odin Quincannon. He comes in a lot earlier. I thought the way they did that was smart, particularly the way they start him and Jesse off on a less adversarial stance. He is obviously the local business overlord who really just plays with the town as he sees fit, but he is kind of tied into the future of the little town in a way that its inhabitants respond to. You can see how the Mayor allows himself to fall under Odin’s peculiar spell. That was something I liked.

Q: How do you think die-hard fans will react to the show? What do you want them to know?

A: I would say that if you have patience, you’ll get what you want. On the other hand, I can never really predict which way people are going to jump. If you look at fan responses or on the internet for any project, you’re going to get thousands of different reactions. I don’t really try too hard to predict that. I’m a great believer in simply finishing your story, putting it out there and hoping for the best. My own priorities are always two questions: 1. Do I like it? Answer: Yes. 2. Will it work? Meaning, will it survive long enough to finish the story? You don’t necessarily find the answer to that online, in reviews or through fan responses. You find it through viewing figures. That’s where we stand or fall.

Q: For the newcomers, how would you describe the show to them?

A: I always used to say, when asked for the Hollywood pitch, “It’s Wild at Heart meets Near Dark and then Unforgiven shows up at the end to shoot everybody.” Those points of reference are 25 to 30 years old, so I’m afraid you’re just going to have to watch those movies and then you’ll know what Preacher is.


http://www.amc.com/shows/preacher/talk/ ... e-producer?

- Preacher: Ruth Negga sobre el por qué querremos animar a Tulip (thetvhunkies):

Preacher: Ruth Negga sobre el por qué querremos animar a Tulip
Por Kelly Townsend | 03 Junio, 2016

After Preacher returns with its second episode “See,” on Sunday Night, where Jesse (Dominic Cooper) unveils his new lease on life and embraces his role as the Preacher. Not that everyone in the town of Annville will make it easy for him, including his ex-girlfriend Tulip (Ruth Negga) and those mysterious out-of-towners.

While Jesse doesn’t come close to having a full grip on his powers immediately going into the episode, expect to see some self-discovery throughout the episode. We quickly learn that everyone in Annville has a motive, and many of those motives revolve around Jesse. For Tulip, it’s all about getting Jesse out of the clergy and back on the road to revenge.

We spoke with actress Ruth Negga on Tulip’s unforgettable introduction, what makes her so likeable for the audience, and her complicated history with Jesse.

The TV Junkies: Before taking on the role of Tulip, were you familiar with the comic book series?

Ruth Negga: I knew of it, but I hadn’t read them. I quickly read all of them straight through, I couldn’t wait, and completely fell in love with them and Garth Ennis’s work. I was blown away by their unapologetic twist on humanity, which was my kind of thing, so to get to work on it was unbelievable.

TTVJ: What drew you to the character of Tulip in particular?

RN: I love the way she doesn’t censor herself. She feels what she feels and she’s unapologetic about it. I’m drawn to people like that because I think that’s incredibly brave and also unique. I love the way that she’s written and how Sam Catlin, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have created a character with many facets to her. So often you read scripts with women and they’re flat, 2D and with little substance. I thought this would be an incredible opportunity.

TTVJ: Her first scene was definitely one of the greatest character introductions I’ve seen on TV in a long time.

RN: It’s funny, isn’t it? People are really nervous when I eat corn now.

TTVJ: I think that little girl spoke for us all when she screamed “Awesome!”

RN: I loved that. I had that feeling when I saw it, I thought that’s so brilliant because they’re basically putting on screen what everyone is feeling, which is in awe of this incredible moment. What’s incredible is they’ve managed to have Tulip essentially kill loads of people and you fall in love with her. That’s master storytelling to me.

TTVJ: There is a lot of depth to the show. For me, Tulip has become the most compelling character to watch.

RN: I think people reach to her so positively because there’s something really lovely about people who are completely themselves. They might not be comfortable or happy, but they’re unapologetic about who they are. It’s quite freeing to watch her own who she is, as flawed and damaged as she is. She’s not going to let anyone make her smaller or diminish her because of those things.

TTVJ: In the Pilot you get the sense that there’s a deep history between her and Jesse. How is their relationship explored as the series progresses?

RN: You get more insight into how they grew up together and their history together as children. That gives you a glimpse into who they’ve become and how they’ve evolved into who they evolve into. You understand a little more why she is the way she is and it’s super tender and touching. When I read that script I bawled my eyes out because you saw a vulnerability to her that she tries to hide as an adult. You root for her even more. My natural instinct is to nourish her, even though she would hate that, because she’s obvious a bit damaged.

I think people will learn why she is the way she is and also how deep rooted their connection is and what they mean to each other. You’ll realize that Jesse is maybe the only one who’s ever stood up for Tulip in her life. She’s a very independent person, but I think that has stayed with her, that fidelity that he has towards her, that friendship has resonated with her. They’re soulmates, essentially. In a nut shell.

TTVJ: How did you go about creating that chemistry with Dominic Cooper?

RN: Chemistry’s a funny thing. I think it happens when two people are invested in their character development and in doing a good job. I think that naturally informs your relationship on camera. You both want to do a really good job and so you naturally look after one another, you want the other to do well, and that leads to a special sort of connection. I think it’s organic, I don’t think you can learn it. It’s not a learned behaviour. There’s a strange alchemy that happens when people act on set and, if you’re lucky, it’s good.

TTVJ: What can fans expect for Tulip and Jesse this season on Preacher?

RN: Expect the unexpected. This show sucker punches you and nothing I’ve read is like this. It’s as faithful to the comics as can be and what it’s most faithful to is the extraordinariness of those comics. It’s a rollercoaster ride, it’s fun, it’s inquisitive and it’s touching as well. It ticks all the boxes of a fantastic show.



http://www.thetvjunkies.com/preacher-ru ... rview-see/?

- Anatol Yusef y Tom Brooke sobre el interpretar al extraño dúo de DeBlanc & Fiore en "Preacher" (comicbook):

Anatol Yusef y Tom Brooke sobre el interpretar al extraño dúo de DeBlanc & Fiore en "Preacher"
Por Jamie Lovett 06/06/2016

The second episode Preacher, “See,” aired last night on AMC and introduced audiences to two of the series oddest characters yet, DeBlanc and Fiore. The two made brief appearances in the Preacher pilot, but “See” gave us the first sense of why these mysterious characters have come to Annville.

Though they claim to be government agents, there’s clearly something a little off about the duo. ComicBook.com caught up with actors Anatol Yusef (DeBlanc) and Tom Brooke (Fiore) to gain some insight into the unorthodox team.

DeBlanc and Fiore have a definite interest in this entity that has possessed Jesse Custer. What can you tell me about their relationship to the entity?

Anatol Yusef: They are on a mission to retrieve it, and they believe that it's their job to do so, and if they don't, there's going to be some big problems for them and across the board.

Tom Brooke: Yes. I'm going to say “what he said” while I can do that. I just think that's very succinctly put and it doesn't give anything away, and I don't want to mess it up.

What kind of role would you say that DeBlanc and Fiore play in Preacher? Are they strictly antagonist, or villains, or could they possibly be allies to Jesse Custer? Does that role shift throughout the season?

AY: I think their role primarily is to represent, story-wise, the otherworldly and the unseen, which plays such a huge role in Preacher. That's the primary role, and they will shift between antagonist and allies and all those kind of things, but at the moment, they're antagonists to Jesse because they want what he has. Beyond that, their primary role story-wise is they're the first characters, I think, we meet who might be from another place and a place that is, as the story goes on, very important to Preacher.

TB: Yeah, they introduce an element of innocence and naiveté that doesn't crop up a huge amount in the other characters in the series, so that's quite fun to play with.

Was it particularly challenging to play such otherworldly characters, particularly when they’re defining what “otherworldly” means for a brand new series?

AY: Yeah. It was. Initially, because we were reactive characters, really. What was appealing, for both of us, was that they were kind of set down on the Earth bewildered, much like babies, and learning things for the first time, but also much like humans feel a lot of the time like they don't really know what's going on. Just trying to bumble through, so that was recognizable. The specifics of it were awkward, but as the season goes on and they establish themselves as characters, there's more to be found about who they are and where they're from. Also at this point, they're not interested in revealing anything as characters. Their mission is they just want to get in and get out, at this point in the story. As the season goes on, things change.

TB: Also, we found at the beginning I didn't really know what they were. Because you only did a script at a time, every time we got a new script, I'd be like, "Oh, okay. They say that or they do that, so they're that kind of person." By episode 4 maybe, I began to go, "Oh, okay. This is how they want these to seem, to look, to be." Early on for me, it was just a case of showing them stuff, acting a certain thing in a certain way, until ultimately like, "No, not so much that, more a bit like this." So you'd know more about what they want than what they were until the scripts came through and you'd settle into it. In the beginning, no one really knew, did they?

AY: No, I don't think they did. I think both of us played different characters throughout the thing, really, which is also fitting of their character in a way, as they're trying to figure out this planet that they've been thrust upon. We played different characters all the way through, which is a combination of actors and creatives trying to find what it was. Also the general tone of the piece, but also was reflective of DeBlanc and Fiore’s experience, of the world that they've been thrust into. Like always with these things, they kind of work themselves out, and you just learn to get out of its way as much as you can.

I find it interesting just how much of your characters you discovered during the filming process. How were the characters pitched to you originally?

AY: The attractive thing to me was that they were babies thrust on the Earth. They were from this other world, and until they arrived on the planet, they ... certainly DeBlanc felt a superiority to humans and human life because they'd watched so much. I imagined DeBlanc as a bit of a George Carlin character, finding their futility and the silliness and can't understand why they keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Like Carlin, the problem is that they've still got to be human, and that's when all his great stuff he did about war and the environment, that's when it slightly changes. That was my idea on who they were, that they came from a higher place and had these high ideals or whatever it is. Then they were put on planet Earth and they couldn't make a cup of tea. That was what was interesting about them.

TB: I was just worried that I was going to get stuck in an American series doing nothing. Originally they were going to make 13 and they offered 10 episodes out of 13. I don't even know if they're in 10 scenes in the comics. I asked them, "How are you going to offer that much when there's so little of them in the books?" They said, "Don't worry about that, we're not doing the books." So I thought, "All right, then," and that was all right, really. "All right, then, whatever." I love it. "All right, then. Just do it."

Is it safe then to say that your versions of DeBlanc and Fiore are going to be significantly different than the DeBlanc and Fiore of the comics, and perhaps a bit unfamiliar to fans of the comics?

AY: Yes and no, in a way because ... we made this point before, but this is a prequel to the beginning of the comics, so a lot happens to them in this season, but there's a lot of scope for them to become whatever as time goes on. There'll be elements of the comic in their character as time goes on.

TB: Yeah, also these two characters in the series are [executive producers Sam Catlin, and Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg’s] take on those 2 characters from the books ... but this whole series is Sam and Seth and Evan’s take on the books. They're not the books, they're the version of the books that three die-hard fans of the books have come up with. One of the amazing things about the series is that it's very much like the books, but it's also so different. Glaringly different to the books. They've really walked that line really carefully, and they've done so much new stuff, but at the same time, it's immediately recognizable as the same story. Not just because of the characters, but because of the feel of the thing. They've done that really beautifully.

Is filming a Quentin Tarantino-esque fight scene involving a vampire and a chainsaw as much fun as it looks and sounds, or did that have its own unique set of challenges?

AY: Did it look fun on screen?

It looked pretty fun to me.

AY: Well, that’s all that matters.

TB: Yeah. We worked really hard, and we felt really good at the end of the day. It was our first day, it took a whole day. The stunt guys were amazing, so yeah, job done, really.

Now that Sheriff Root is aware of their presence in Annville, what’s the next step for DeBlanc and Fiore?

AY: The next step is just simply how do they get to Jesse? How do they get this thing that's in Jesse, and get it out and take it back where they think it belongs? That's all their mission is currently. That's their primary objective, and their only objective at this point.

TB: Yeah, they're finding different ways to achieve their objective. If one fails, they'll try and find another one, and then they go, and on and on and on.

You’ve compared DeBlanc and Fiore to children in how they’re experiencing the human world for the first time. Similarly, the object of their mission, this mysterious entity, has also been represented in a childlike fashion, using a baby’s laughter and cries. Is this a reflection at all of the relationship shared between DeBlanc and Fiore and the entity, or how they interact or is this just something that’s developing now because it is taking place on the mortal plane of existence?

AY: It's both, and that's one element of their relationship, but it's not the element. It's one element, and their relationship evolves the more time they spend on Earth, and the more we find out about where they're from, both and individually as time goes on. That's as vague as I can be.

TB: I'd go with that.


http://comicbook.com/2016/06/06/anatol- ... gest-duo-/

- Preacher Q&A – Joseph Gilgun (Cassidy) (amc):

Preacher Q&A – Joseph Gilgun (Cassidy)
Por Adam Bryant 06 Junio 2016

Joseph Gilgun, who plays Cassidy on AMC’s Preacher, talks about playing a unique vampire on TV, his character’s relationship with Jesse and leaving blood trails everywhere he goes.

Q: What was your exposure to the comics before you were cast?

A: I didn’t know anything about it. I’m not a comic book guy. I can’t read very well. I did struggle when I started reading the comics. I understand Cassidy more than anything, but I’m still making sense of some of the comic. That’s how mental it is.

Q: Cassidy is unlike any vampire we’ve seen on TV. Did you consciously try to differentiate him, or were you mostly relying on the source material?

A: Well, who doesn’t know what it’s like to get pissed and stoned and drugged up? Our generation does that and I think it’s a bit like the ‘60s. We’re a bit unapologetic. I don’t think there’s a single person who couldn’t play Cassidy who’s male. I was just the lucky one to get him. It’s funny because a cross doesn’t bother him, holy water is just wet, silver bullets just hurt terribly and stakes just cause a splinter or infection. He’s like a normal human being. Even the sun – if he sorts himself out – it just itches and it’s just uncomfortable. He’s like an old angry man when in the sun. We made him that way because if vampires really did exist, it would be that kind. There wouldn’t be as much mystery and etiquette. There’s no etiquette behind Cassidy’s vampiric nature. He’s just a turd of a dude that won’t die.

Q: How do you think Cassidy ended up on that plane in the premiere episode?

A: We meet Cassidy when he’s just been fired from a casino. It’s unexplained for you as an audience to imagine what terrible thing he did. I’d imagine it’d be something aggressive and sexual… I don’t know. [Laughs] I don’t know why he’s on the plane, but I know he’s lost his job and he’s with all these sociopath businessmen.

Q: Two episodes in and you’ve already been in two huge fights. How fun and challenging are those to choreograph and shoot?

[Laughs] You read it and you’re just like, “For f—k’s sake! That’s so incredibly awesome that I get to do that!” I remember Evan [Goldberg] literally taking me by the collar of my neck and telling me about the chainsaw fight. That’s the kind of excitement you’re dealing with. You pick up a brand new script and you can’t read it fast enough. We’re a real family and it’s organic and very honest on set. When we film the scenes where there’s a lot of work involved, everybody knows what to do and is patient with each other. It’s always good fun. It’s a rock and roll set. There’s a lot to do and we’re all friends. I truly believe that the attitude we have towards filming rubs off and you see that.

Q: The chainsaw fight in Episode 2 is set off because Cassidy thinks Fiore and DeBlanc are there for him. Do you think he would have killed them if he’d known the truth?

A: I think he just loves killing people and he’s gotten quite good at it. He’s been doing it for years and I don’t know if the novelty of killing idiots like that ever wears off. I’m sure there’s a whole chunk of the world who’d love to be able to do that to extremists.

Q: Then again, Cassidy was also protecting Jesse. How would you describe their relationship?

A: I think he sees a lot of himself in Jesse. Jesse is seeking redemption for this life of hurting people and I think Cassidy is quite curious to see how this journey is going to work out. I think that’s how it starts and he ends up accidentally caring about Jesse. He senses a bit of adventure and once upon a time, maybe Cassidy was on a path of redemption, but as time rolled by and life carried on being cruel, he learned to accept the fact that debauchery and rock and roll is fun.

Q: In Episode 2, Jesse says some hurtful things to Cassidy. How does he take that? Does he think Jesse’s right?

A: We all have those friends who you don’t have to agree with to be your best mate. You almost test them and see what you can get away with. Whether you like it or not, you’re going to stick around. They both know the raw end of one another. That’s when you really love someone – when you know them, warts and all.

Q: You’re covered in blood for a lot of scenes. Does that get old or does it add to the character?

A: I’m found from the trails of blood on set. There are handprints in my trailer and it looks like I’ve killed several kids in there. In my home, there’s blood all over the bathroom and my sheets are red. There are smears of blood everywhere – my coffee cup, my e-cigarette, my chair cover, everything. It’s in my ears! When I shot the pilot, I was living in a hotel and the clientele got used to this man walking through the lobby with tons of blood. You have the option of getting cleaned up, but I’ve learned that what I need to do is steal an entire bottle of hand sanitizer. The alcohol breaks down the blood. I’ve learned a method for getting it off – that’s how much blood there is.

Q: In Episode 2, Cassidy shows he’s no fan of The Big Lebowski. What do you think?

A: I’m glad you asked! The first time Sam [Catlin] wrote that, I was furious because I adore The Big Lebowski. I love the Dude and I’d do anything to be him. The story is a fantastic one and we both love the Coen Brothers. He knows that I love The Big Lebowski and he tried to wind me up when he wrote that line.



http://www.amc.com/shows/preacher/talk/ ... un-cassidy?

- W. Earl Brown – Preacher (starrymag):

W. Earl Brown – Preacher
Por Kelly Kearney | 12 Junio, 2016

Q) When I was live tweeting the pilot, I made some comparisons between Hugo Root and Boss Hogg from “The Dukes of Hazard.” Is there anything or anyone who who’s been a creative inspiration for you in developing this role?

A) That’s great! No, I don’t think Boss was an inspiration. I’m not sure I have any, but I’ve done things where some of “The Dukes of Hazzard” was filmed so maybe I’m getting Duke’s osmosis. It’s seeped in a little.

Q) We’re you surprised by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg spearheading this project? Seth is mostly known for his outrageous comedies, but this show has a totally different vibe. Did you think it would be more of a comedy and not this dark and stylized version?

A) Those two guys dreamed of doing it since they were thirteen years old. So, for 20-plus years they wanted to do this. I don’t think you could find any bigger fans of that comic then those guys as it was one of those seeds that inspired them. I have those touchstones in my youth that drove me to do this. For example, Animal House is the movie that made me want to be in movies. I was a Freshman in high school when it came out and I can remember going to see it time and again. I remember the first time having the cognizant thought all I wanted to do was that. I got to work with Ivan Reitman a few years ago and my kid is going to the University of Oregon where they filmed it. I spent my entire time in Eugene, Oregon going to Animal House places where they film the movie. That was the fire that made me want to do films. Going back to Seth and Evan, those guys were in high school when There’s Something About Mary came out and that movie is a touchstone in their lives. That makes me feel old, but it makes me feel proud to be in a touchstone comedy for a generation below me. So, I guess the answer to that story is “Preacher” is one of the things that made them want to tell stories and the fact that they’re getting to do this is a pinch me moment for them. Seth Rogen said this is my favorite comic ever and I really don’t want to f*** this up!

Q) In the pilot, your character had some great one-liners. He’s kind of a racist. He’s definitely a bad father and he’s most certainly a terrible cop. But there’s this funny Southern swagger that makes him seem a little less imposing. As Root goes head-to-head with Jesse will we see more of that?

A) [Hugo Root] is an engaging performance and I rely on the directors for that in my roles. For example, if I’m doing a comedy, I ask myself what’s the emotional truth to this and then like with “Deadwood,” (which was uber macho and violent) we were always trying to find where the softer elements of those characters or a funny aspect. That’s the way I approach everything that I do. I’ve told directors before, “You can just dial me back. Take that comedy dial and knock it down a notch or two.” So, that approach is what I think makes it more interesting and that’s the thing that I think elevates “Preacher.” I find myself describing this new show to people and I always say, “Look, it’s bloody, violent, gory, thrilling and it’s funny.” I just think tonally I understood [Seth and Evan] and that combination of sensibilities where we each got one another, it made it easy to do what I do. Actually, going back to what you said about Root being a terrible cop – he actually turns out to be a very good cop. He’s not a bumbling cop. You don’t see it yet, but you will see what happens down the way. He’s quite good at it, but he’s just not very good at personal interaction. I did want to make him a little quirky, like with Eugene’s meat shake. There were small little comic moments in that scene when I’m making him that dinner, that meat shake. I didn’t purposely look for those moments just because I think it makes it a more interesting portrayal. The thing about Root is, he has something to lose. In the comic, he hates everyone and he’s more one sided. He hates his son. He has nothing to lose. So, as our story progresses, he loses things so that gives him an arc. It gives the character a place to go. He also has this strange outlook on the world. He’s a conspiracy theorist who you know, thinks the worst of everything. There’s an upcoming episode, I think it’s called Monster Swamp, I have this big speech where I say, “…the world is a monster swamp, I tell ya.” Then, we come to find out he’s right. He thinks the world is full of monsters and beasts and creatures that are all out to get you and it turns out his paranoid assumptions are correct, which I think is an interesting twist to Root.

Q) Do you have any memorable moments from filming “Preacher” so far? Anything that stands out and was a lot of fun or exceptional?

A) Well there was a lot of things that stood out that were pretty exceptional and a lot of fun. I have to be careful, I don’t want to give any story away. A scene with me and Dominic [Cooper] that’s coming up in an episode. That whole cast is a top-flight actors and it’s thrilling when you get to play with people that are that good at their craft. I’ll use the analogy, it’s like a ball going back and forth. As we’re throwing the scenes back and forth between players, the performance just elevates. We find new little subtle nuances that are reflected off the person you’re playing with, which takes them to a new place or level. So yeah, there’s this scene I have with Joe Gilgun (Cassidy). I love Joe. He’s phenomenal and he’s like a savant. Derek Wilson, who plays Donnie Schenck, those two have the most fascinating stories of how they became actors that and vie worked with and I know a lot of actors. When I found out Joe’s story and then I met Derek and we shared a house, he told me that’s kind of how he became an actor. He has a Master’s in acting, from NYU Tisch and I went to the Goodman Theater school in Chicago so I asked him how he became an actor. Working with those two guys, because they’re both immensely talented, It’s just like me, when I was thirteen years old. I always knew that I wanted to do this, but it seemed like a dream, an impossibility that you could actually do this and make a living at it. I count myself as lucky so you can tell that’s the thrilling part of it for me.

Q) In the comics, there was quite a lot of backstory to Hugo Root and his wife as well as his son Eugene a.k.a. “Arseface.” Will we see more of that on the show as the season progresses or are we sort of gong to step away from that back story and focus on Jesse, Cassidy and the people of Annville?

A) There will be elements of it. Certain things will be changed. Some due to time period. The comic book story [with Arseface] that’s got to be based off of the Judas Priest suicide because Arseface (Ian Colletti) looks exactly like the kid who survived after blowing his face off. In the comic [Eugene] is on that merry go round, same as those kids those boys in the Judas Priest suicide. So then, of course, in the comic they changed it to fit the time frame because of Kurt’s [Cobain] suicide. Now the time frame of our show is later so you’re going to see how that girl, Tracy the girl in the vegetative state. You’ll see how she’s connected to Eugene. So, elements of it are changed from the book for a myriad of reasons and as far as [Sheriff] Root’s ultimate demise…I told the guys [Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg] I’ve spent months in yoga and Pilates. Man, I’m ready! I told them when I first met them that I’ve been doing this quite a long time and I have died on screen 26 times. I really thought I had shoveled off this mortal coil every imaginable f****** way until I read the Preacher. So, again, there are elements that are different and we’ll see what those differences are as they unfold.

Q) The graphic novel is extremely dark and gritty, the fans were worried it wouldn’t adapt well on screen but from everything I’m hearing during my live tweets, the fans love this stylized version. It really captures the vibe of the book. Was that something you were concerned about? How this would adapt on screen and how the book fans would respond to it?

A) The vast majority of fans are really jumping on Seth and Evan’s vision of the book. Things that are just brilliant to me…Well, hell, it’s in the damn show! The Big Lebowski is one of my favorite comedies ever, if not my favorite. I’ve probably watched it more than any other comedy besides Animal House and There’s Something About Mary.

Q) It’s funny you mentioned The Big Lebowski, I was going to ask you about that debate between Jesse and Cassidy in the last episode. Do you abide with The Dude or do you side with Cassidy on this one and think the film is over rated?

A) No, I really love that movie. Again, that is addressed within the show as that’s a running issue that’s throughout the entire first season, Cassidy’s dislike of that movie. I’m wondering if that was actually an argument in the writer’s room at some point and it somehow became part of the script? I don’t know where that came from. Maybe it was truly an argument that was had and maybe they thought, “You know what? This would make a great story element,” or if that was just created for Cassidy. If there’s an anti-Coen brothers somewhere in that writer’s room, we have to burn them out! We’ve got to find them because I love the Coens. The show also reminds me of Quentin’s [Tarantino] work. It’s not a copy of Quentin, but it has those ultra-gory, ultra-violent yet funny elements and that’s a hard tone to strike. It’s hard to run that gamut. I think we successfully do so.

Q) You’re now on Twitter and you’re a part of this social media world, have you been enjoying the instant fan feedback?

A) Yeah, sure, and for the most part everyone’s responses have been 99% positive. I was thinking about the rabid fanbase of this comic book and I think when you adapt a book to television or film… and I can only think of one example of a film that surpasses the book, or no, The Godfather is a much richer story. But I think when people read a book the visual imagery they have is of their own making entirely. I think with a graphic novel, it gives you hints and your mind fills in the story and the action between those panels because it gives you a visual hint of what it’s supposed to be. You know if you’re like a literalist and you open that book and well Tulip is a blonde haired blue eyed character. Never mind you could never find a better actress to play this role than Ruth [Negga]. I’ve seen the fanboy backlash, but that was mostly before the show was aired. So, that’s way the rabidity of certain readers is more ingrained. It’s because they have a visual cue that’s been given to them, but then their mind takes over the rest. I think there may be more resistance. I think that goes across the board to any adaptation of a comic. That’s why I love to read. A great novel or literature allows your mid to make your own movie. That’s why I said earlier, you’re not going to find a bigger fan than Seth Rogan or Evan Goldberg of that comic [Preacher].

Q) You played Dan Dority on “Deadwood,” and during season two you started writing for the show. Is this something you would do again if the right project fell into your lap?

A) Oh yeah, actually when you write with David Milch he’s basically a sounding board / dart board. David is a genius and I don’t use that word lightly, DAVID IS A GENIUS. So, getting to work one on one with him, I learned so much and not just about writing but about many, many things. I’ve recently been a sounding board for the [possible] “Deadwood,” movie with Dave. Um, I’m actually supposed to go in when I get back from Bonnaroo and delve further into that. I wrote a movie for a Chinese company last year called Kung Foo Cowboy, which looks like it may head toward production. They wanted a genre mashup. I still actively write, but my meal ticket is through acting. I don’t want to leave acting. I want to continue to do it. I asked Sam [Catlin writer of “Preacher” the series] on how to transition from one to the other because I love doing it [writing]. Sam was trained as an actor and then he got is MFA. He said, “I came out to LA in the 90’s and I couldn’t get anything so I started with a theater company. I started writing monologues for myself for plays and one thing led to another and suddenly I have a job as a writer.” The show “Breaking Bad” was like his second or third gig ever as a writer. I mean, it was Vince Gilligan’s show, but he worked his way up to I think story editor. I think he was an Executive Producer also. So, yeah, I mean he just found his calling. My joke is my megalomania knows no bounds. I’ll do it all! [laughs] I love to draw and paint and I play music.

Q) Finally, Earl, is there anything else you’d like to tease or share with the fans about Preacher?

A) I don’t want to give away any parts of it, but even before the show aired I was getting questions about if there were killers in the show or what it was about. They [Seth and Evan] kept it quiet. They were quiet about Graham [McTavish] being part of the show. They were kind of keeping the Saints involvement on the down low. I’ve told people if they think the Saints are vengeful, try crossing the network (AMC and spoilers do not mix). So, because of that, I hesitate to mention any up in coming elements lest I let the cat out of the bag. I’d like to keep working for them. AMC makes quality shows. There right up there with what HBO has done for years.


http://starrymag.com/?p=11096

- Ruth Negga habla sobre Tulip en ‘Preacher’ de AMC (thegate.ca):

Ruth Negga habla sobre Tulip en ‘Preacher’ de AMC
Por W. Andrew Powell 14 Junio, 2016

Preacher is like nothing you have seen on television. It’s dark and funny, twisted, and it’s a weirdly fun drama that’s brimming with action and heartache.

Dominic Cooper stars as the brooding but heroic preacher, Jesse Custer, who is possessed by an otherworldly force that hits him one day when he seems to have hit rock bottom. The supernatural series sets the Preacher up against all kinds of evil, but he’s not alone in the fight. Inextricably drawn together, Jesse teams up with two indomitable forces: Cassidy, played by Joseph Gilgun, and Tulip, played by Ruth Negga.

Tulip appears in the most Tulip way possible: fighting with a despicable man in the back of a car as it hurtles across a corn field. It doesn’t take long to get a feel for Tulip and her style, but she’s a complex character. Surviving one fight, Tulip enlists the help of two children and prepares for the next assault by building a bazooka out of tin cans and spare parts. She’s a fighter and a survivor, and it’s easy to fall for her character right away. She’s intense, but calm and cool underneath it all, and there’s a hint of sadness and hurt laying under the surface.

I recently had a chance to speak with Ruth Negga about the role, and adapting the iconic comic book for television. Here’s what she had to say about the series, which was adapted from the hugely popular nineties comic book by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon.

Preacher airs Sundays at 9:00 PM (ET/PT) on AMC and also stars Lucy Griffiths, W. Earl Brown, Anatol Yusef, and Tom Brooke.

Andrew Powell: I was so excited to hear about this show when it was announced. Did you read up on Preacher before you started filming?

Ruth Negga: “I was familiar with the concept. I was familiar with the sort of ethos. I know that this is a lot of people’s number one comic book, so that’s a bit scary. I hope we haven’t messed it up, but everyone has been so supportive and genuinely so kind that I’m pretty confident that fans and people who weren’t aware of it before will fall in love with it too, because I love it, and I love watching it.”

Andrew: I like hearing that passion.

Negga: “Oh yeah, that’s the thing. Everybody on Earth–everybody has got to keep going to work everyday. This is a passion project. It’s not just run-of-the-mill. I think everyone was aware that we were making something special and everyone was aware that projects like this and scripts like this do not come one’s way too often. We were just so pleased to be there and it’s just such a privilege really to be involved.”

Andrew: Tell me a little bit about where things start out in Preacher.

Negga: “Well I think the best way to look at these first scenes is sort of a prequel to Garth’s comics. It kind of establishes this trio of misfits, and explores how they find each other and how they revolve around one another. It slowly introduces you to this world–this hyper-unreal world of Anvil in a way that is really quite extraordinarily original.”

“I think basically it’s a calling-card for Cassidy, Jessie and Tulip, and I think that the show creators have made this in such a way that by the time you watch the last episode you have developed such an affinity for these three criminals, and I think that people would have an unexpectedly tender spot for them.”

Andrew: How do we first get introduced to Tulip?

Negga: “In the pilot, Tulip is engaged in some conflict–that’s an understatement. She’s basically blowing things up and creating havoc and murdering people with corn on the cobs. That’s your first introduction.”

“I just think people get really nervous now when they see me eat corn.”

Andrew: You’ve certainly played some rough characters. Tough characters may be a better way of saying it. Do you enjoy that?

Negga: “I’ll tell you what. I enjoy working with good people; intelligent, clever people; creator people, who write intelligent, clever scripts. That’s really the bottom line. I don’t think I’m drawn to any particular characterization of a person. I just like reading and being things that are kind of quirky and unusual or with a very strong story, and interesting characters with depth.”

“I don’t search out to play tough people. I just try and speak out as much as possible for scripts with color and depth and directors who are passionate and kind. That is also essential. And who like actors. And likes actor’s contribution, because essentially, it’s all a collaboration. What you see on screen is what you see on screen, but that’s a collaboration of hundreds of people.”

“Most essentially, the director and the actors, the costumes, the hair, the makeup, the set designer. There’s a lot of people’s work that goes into creating this world that we see. That’s the part that I enjoy. I enjoy the collaboration. I learn something new everyday and it’s very fulfilling.”

“Gosh, I’m rambling now, aren’t I?”

Andrew: No, that’s a great answer. What can you say about Tulip’s relationship with Jessie and Cassidy? What’s it like in this first season because it’s a prequel?

Negga: “I think what’s quite interesting is you do get insight–I can’t remember which episode it is–into Jessie’s history, and how their lives came to be intertwined. Where that kind of relationship began.”

“When I read that episode, actually I got so emotional because you get an insight into Tulip–you see a fragility there, a vulnerability that is unexpected. You also realize that these people essentially are soulmates, and then they can’t really live without the other because I don’t think they could navigate the world properly without each other to be honest. It’s kind of a Bonnie and Clyde sort of relationship, really. That’s how I feel it.”

Andrew: What was it like working with Dominic Cooper in the show?

Negga: “Terrible. He’s an awful actor, and he’s got a terrible attitude. [Laughs] Imagine.”

“No, he’s amazing. The thing about Dom is that he’s so kind. Everyone loves him. He’s kind and he’s got such an easy going character that it’s really easy. It’s like working with your best friend.”

Andrew: That’s awesome.

Negga: “Also Joseph Gilgun, the three of us become very close.”

Andrew: I’m sure you have a lot of time together on a show like this.

Negga: “We’re lucky we get along. If we didn’t, it’d be a disaster.”

Andrew: Can you tease anything that will be coming up in the first two episodes that people are going to get excited for?

Negga: “Oh, gosh. I don’t know. I think where your introduced to Tulip is quite extraordinary. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen an introduction for a character as bizare and extraordinary. Also, Cassidy on the airplane. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fight scene like that either.”

Andrew: That’s a great introduction to her.

Negga: “Yeah, it’s priceless. You couldn’t make it up, but we did.”

Andrew: Well thank you very much for the time, I really appreciate it. Definitely a pleasure, I’m a big fan.

Negga: “Thank you, it was a pleasure speaking with you.”


http://www.thegate.ca/television/025551 ... -preacher/

- Preacher Q&A – Tom Brooke (Fiore) (amc):

Preacher Q&A – Tom Brooke (Fiore)
Por Adam Bryant 13 Junio 2016


Tom Brooke, who plays Fiore on AMC’s Preacher, talks about why the entity chose Jesse, where Fiore and DeBlanc come from and how a chainsaw fight in a church is just another day on the job.

Q: What was your knowledge of the comic before joining this project? How did you get involved?

A: I hadn’t heard of the comic before getting the audition. But I did the audition, sent it off to Sam [Catlin], and then I bought the comics and read them all. It was very difficult because this was something I wanted to be part of in such a major way and I had to wait and see if they were interested in having me be part of it. They were offering a huge amount of screen time and the character doesn’t really appear that much in the comics. They explained to me that they were going to do something very different from the comics, which surprised me because the material is so good. There was a great moment where I walked into my living room and told my wife, “I was just talking to Seth Rogen on the phone,” and we both screamed and ran around the room a bit.

Q: There’s a lot of mystery surrounding your character. How would you describe him when we first meet him?

A: He’s after something that was once his and that he needs to get back. Nobody knows that he doesn’t have it, but if they do, he’s going to be in trouble. He thinks if he can just do this very quickly, on the quiet and before anyone notices there’s an issue, everything will be fine and he can carry on as normal. He’s come down from Heaven, he’s been matched with somebody and they are trying, in a fairly pathetic way, to get this thing sorted out before anyone notices something’s gone wrong.

Q: How would you describe Fiore’s relationship with DeBlanc?

A: The thing that slightly unites them is that they’re both as bad as each other at doing what they’re required to do. From Fiore’s perspective, I think spending a bit too much time in Heaven has slightly gone to his head and he sees these mortals as beneath him and yet, he’s not this supreme being that he thinks he is. On Earth, they do things differently and he is utterly ill-equipped to handle that. Thank God he has DeBlanc alongside him, because he would be completely lost if he didn’t. They’re just trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Q: How fun or challenging was it to shoot the chainsaw fight scene in Episode 2?

A: I’ve never done a chainsaw fight in a church, and I’ve certainly never done a chainsaw fight in a church on Day 1 of a job. But if you’re going to start with something, it might as well be a chainsaw fight in a church. It was just great. There was loads of blood, screaming and shouting. We worked on it for about a week with all the stunt guys and I feel we did a good job. At the end of the day, we were just completely red. [Laughs]

Q: And yet Fiore and DeBlanc are still alive after being cut to bits — much to Cassidy’s bewilderment. He even thinks they’re clones!

A: The thing about them both is that they can regenerate. I don’t know if you’d want to be able to regenerate, to be honest. I don’t think Fiore is very happy down on Earth having to do this thing, but it’s the eternal curse of who he is and where he’s from. He’s unstoppable, but he just wants to stop and go home.

Q: What do Fiore and DeBlanc make of Cassidy? Do they recognize a superhuman element in him?

A: Yes. The situation with Cassidy is that he gets in the way the first time they try to get the thing out of Jesse and then he’s appeared again. Both times, he’s caused them extreme pain. I think a decision is made to get him on their side and use him in a less dramatic way to appeal to Jesse. However easy it is for them to come back, when they are beaten up, it still hurts. Losing an arm is still losing an arm. I think they change tactic and Cassidy is the next step to getting the thing back from Jesse.

Q: Do you think they actually trust Cassidy?

A: Fiore doesn’t trust him. I think DeBlanc thinks he’s a means to an end, and Fiore will go along with that because he’s been beaten up a lot and he wants that to stop. They have different opinions about him, but ultimately if he can help, they want him on their side.

Q: What do they make of Jesse and the fact that the entity has chosen him? Are they prepared to go against him?

A: I don’t think they can understand why Jesse hasn’t, like the two before him, exploded. It can’t exist in someone that’s totally good or totally bad, but it can exist in somebody who has a bit of both. I think DeBlanc is intrigued and Fiore couldn’t care less. [Laughs] Fiore just wants to get this thing out of him and get back before anyone notices that it’s gone.

Q: What are you most excited for fans to take away from the show?

A: The most exciting thing for me is where the story goes. If you imagine where you think it’s going to go, I guarantee you that it will go somewhere completely different. I’ve seen a lot of elements in this show that other shows have, but they’re not used in the way that we use them. Nobody’s got a vampire like our vampire.



http://www.amc.com/shows/preacher/talk/ ... ooke-fiore?

- Ruth Negga sobre el por qué ella adora que Tulip esté jodida — y odia que la hayan dejado fuera de los Funko Pops (revelist):

Ruth Negga sobre el por qué ella adora que Tulip esté jodida — y odia que la hayan dejado fuera de los Funko Pops
Por Shaunna Murphy 18 Junio, 2016 12:00 PM



In the comics version of "Preacher," brought to gloriously violent life in the '90s by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, leading lady Tulip knows how to fight. But not quite as well as her on-again-off-again boyfriend Jesse Custer, or his hard-drinking vampire best friend Cassidy — and always in some variation of a tight dress and heels, tits out and bobbed blonde hair blowing in the wind.

She was and still is a great character, but when Revelist checked in with her current onscreen portrayer Ruth Negga, "Preacher" star Dominic Cooper (Negga's real-life boyfriend, who plays Jesse), and executive producer Sam Catlin at the ATX Television Festival in Austin, all of them agreed that the largely reactionary-to-Jesse in the comics character needed a major upgrade — and she got one, in the form of the angry-as-hell, leather-jacked clad Black woman who is currently stealing every "Preacher" scene that can handle her.

"Definitely we wanted Tulip to have her own agenda — more than just being a kick-ass girlfriend who knew how to handle a gun," said Catlin. "We wanted to give her more nuance."

Setting the events of the AMC series before Jesse, Cassidy, and Tulip eventually hit the road — and possible spoiler alert, in the books this happens because the supernatural entity inside of Jesse kills his entire congregation — has allowed "Preacher" to add this nuance to Tulip; giving her a backstory and things to do while Jesse builds his flock.

But according to Catlin, finding believable things for a character like Tulip to do on her own was "difficult, because there’s not a lot of female characters like that," he explained to reporters at an ATX roundtable.

"Writing, creatively, you’re always stealing everything," he continued. "Jesse’s like Clint Eastwood in ‘Unforgiven’ in this moment ... and there’s just not a lot of great female characters in the canon of TV. You have to think extra hard; you have to use your imagination even more."

"I don’t really look at it in terms of gender," Negga added. "I can draw on aspects of male characters, too. I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on any characteristic. I don’t think they should ... I just find it really sort of restrictive to think that I can’t have aspects of a male superhero, or a male protagonist."

One of these aspects typically given to a male protagonist is anger; something that Catlin said "is usually not allowed with female characters," but helps give Tulip and Jesse a "Sid and Nancy" vibe that costar Anatol Yusef claims makes her a "dangerous threat to Jesse."

"Not only is she a threat to people who are out to get her, she’s a threat to the love of her life," Yusef explained. "That’s really good, because it helps me, helps the audience, understand Jesse … I love the fact that she’s genuinely dangerous."

"Genuinely dangerous" is understating things, given that Tulip's first scene in the show finds her killing a car full of "bad men," and in her second she's building a bazooka in front of dazzled children, telling them that “a woman needs to know how to be strong."

Counteract this with her first scene in the comic, in which she royally fucks up a hit job, and you see how admirably willing "Preacher" has been to alter her character.

"[Female characters] have to have a sort of sassy attitude ... anger with an appropriate, cute, acceptable area," Catlin continued. "But Tulip has a real fuckin' problem with anger ... that’s a fun part of her, she’s very passionate, and very impetuous. She’s a good person, but she’s also incredibly vain and selfish sometimes, and wants what she wants. She’s just as complicated and fucked up and contradictory as all the other characters, the male characters."

"I think that that’s why Tulip is so important," Negga agreed. "She defies expectations of badass women and stereotypes ... It’s a relief to see a woman with all those colors and all those nuances and fucked up-ness, because I think for too long we’ve limited that to the male protagonist — being allowed to have ugly parts of themselves, or flaws."

She's also, of course, Black instead of blonde — Negga is Ethiopian-Irish, and naturally speaks in a soft Irish brogue — and either wears her natural hair loose and curly, or tied up in a bandana. This is pretty major in an industry that, yes, just cast Tessa Thompson as a Valkyrie in "Thor," but also still has Scarlett Johansson and Tilda Swinton playing Asians.

A lot of ballyhoo surrounded her casting, though Negga admitted that the fight for representation (See: #OscarsSoWhite) — as well as the pressure to represent a community of people by taking on an iconic character – is something fairly new for her.

"Eventually I won’t feel [representation] pressure, hopefully, or my kids won’t. But I feel very privileged, actually, because you know it never occurred to me until recently ... how complacent you get."

"And then you think, 'God no, we should be much angrier much earlier on,'" she continued. "Because you can get complacent about 'Oh, that’s just the way it is, that’s just the world.' And no, we should agitate. I’m in my mid-30s now, but when I see young women and men agitating and protesting, and all these movements — people weren’t as potent as when I was that age, and I’m just really impressed. I think that finally people are saying, actually, 'That box you put me in? No, not for me, don’t want that.'"

On that note — the box note — Revelist had to ask Negga about the "Preacher" Funko Pop vinyl figures that were recently unveiled. The company released figures for Jesse, Cassidy, and a disfigured B-character called "Arseface" but left out Tulip, a lead, entirely.

The whole thing was shitty no matter which way you look at it — girls like to play with toys, and boys are perfectly capable of playing with figures of female characters — but it's also entirely baffling that they would do this after "Where is Black Widow" and "Where is Rey" dominated geek culture so thoroughly in 2015. (And "Where is Gamora" before that, which "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn is still apologizing for to this very day.)

For this, Negga was more than willing to agitate.

"It’s so narrow-minded ... but also, are they mental?" she said. "Women have money. They’re missing the point; they’re missing the beat. If just being a compassionate human being doesn’t appeal to them, surely a dollar must appeal to them. Use your brains. I can’t believe it.

"Who makes these decisions, in what world do they live in?" she continued. "I surround myself with loads of different people, varied, but ... they’re mostly liberal. So you forget that there are people who do think like that. It’s a good thing to remember. All these battles you think you’ve won, they’re not won. That complacency. It’s very easy to become complacent when you think 'Oh no, I’ve got this part. Black president. Female president, maybe.' But behind that, you have to remember to stay vigilant against that kind of narrow-mindedness."


http://www.revelist.com/tv/ruth-negga-t ... -you-get/3

- Lucy Griffiths – Preacher (starrymag):

Lucy Griffiths – Preacher
Por Lisa Steinberg | 19 Junio, 2016 0 Comments

Q) What are the recent projects that you are working on?

A) I finished an independent movie at the beginning of the year. It’s got the working title of Dara Ju, which means Becca in Yoruba, which is a Nigerian language. It’s a working title. I’ve also been working on producing a film called Rock N Roll Hearts.

Q) How was Emily on “Preacher” originally described to you?

A) I think she was described as a single, no nonsense mother of three. If that wasn’t it, it was pretty much it.

Q) Did she change at all from then to what we see on screen?

A) Not really. She still has three children and still pretty no nonsense even up towards the end. It is ten episodes. I think that what they’ve done, quite cleverly, with this season is set the scene for what is to come by way of interesting and informative storylines about the characters and the situations they get themselves into. It’s quite a slow burn. They want it to be able to include viewers who read the comic and also viewers who didn’t necessarily. You can come to it with no idea who the characters are and be informed, but because there are new characters and they haven’t stuck religiously to the comic book so you can also come to it as a comic book fan and not be bored by the time it takes to get to a lot of the action in the comic book. I guess they are taking a bit of a risk doing that because you never know if something is going to get picked up for a second season, but I have no doubt that it will. They’ve done a good thing, really. They have faith in the show, in the longevity of it, that they aren’t rushing to get the dramatic and engaging storylines out in the first season. They aren’t racing ahead.

Q) Was there something that what made you want to be a part of the series?

A) I think there is maybe a misconception that actors only take things. The fact that it is a job is always first and foremost (I think) the attractive thing about all acting jobs. So, it’s always exciting to get an audition for anything. There are things that I have not done in the past, but often it is because of scheduling conflicts. Most things I’m interested in. We don’t all get offers all the time. That’s good because otherwise you wouldn’t’ know if you were right for the role. Just the fact that it was a job made me interested and when I heard Joseph Gilgun was in it as Cassidy I was more interested. I had heard about him professionally and I just liked the sound of his work. I liked the idea of working with Joseph. I had been impressed about what I heard about him professionally. I really liked the character and I wanted to play somebody who wasn’t quite ordinary.

Q) Was there anything you added to Emily that wasn’t originally scripted for you?

A) I don’t know if I added this because maybe it would have been done anyway, but I was very good about not having her makeup or hair done in more of a pretty way than would be realistic and convincing. I know quite a few single working moms and perhaps it is their personality, but they don’t always have their hair or makeup done. I think it is because they don’t have the time or if they do have time they are spending it on something else like making dinner. Being a single mom is a busy life. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t unbelievably polished. If that had been her, it would have been absolutely fine, but it didn’t seem to me that it was so. There isn’t often a no makeup look in things and it is does look very natural, but I wanted to have a bit more dark under my eyes showing (for example) because I thought she might have that.

Q) Did you spend much time with the children to create a familiar bond?

A) Not really. When they were on set, I would sometimes hang out with them. There was one scene in the pilot that was a huge group scene that we shot over one or two days where we were outside having a barbeque. Because the cameras were so far away and there wasn’t always scripted dialogue, we just had to act naturally. There was lots of opportunity to interact with the kids and chat with them. Although there wasn’t scripted dialogue, I had to look like their mom. That was really a good opportunity to get to know them a little more and get used to one another. I’m really pleased with that because they weren’t even in half of the episode and then when they were on set they would have to be in school sometimes. Then, maybe I’d have to be in makeup. So, we didn’t always cross paths and even if we tried to we might not have even been able to hang out much.

Q) How hands on with the series were Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg?

A) They were very hands on. They did the first two episodes. They were available if we wanted to speak with them. They did say if we had any questions to let them know. We were working with a producer called Matt Taubert and also Sam Catlin who wrote the pilot and was the showrunner. We would typically go to those people if we had any questions because they were the ones who had written the script or were direct lines to those who wrote it. So, Evan and Seth didn’t write any of them. We would talk to the people that wrote them because they would know exactly what to say.

Q) What were some of your most memorable moments from filming “Preacher?”

A) Well, it’s funny because it is very fresh in my mind that I can remember loads of it. There was one moment where I walked from where the church is down to where we were filming. We had been working for a while so people were acquainted with each other and they were also a bit tired and it was late at night. There was a big beautiful full moon and there was a lighting rig that had lit up the church in quite an unexpected spectacular way. I didn’t know it could look like that. It was quite magical. When we went down to where we were filming there were trucks and people here and there. It felt quite like a music festival. After about twenty minutes, I realized I had gotten that wrong and it actually felt like a battle. It was all of the different elements of the set and people were passed out on the floor in contrasting ways. It was a nice little village there almost.

Q) What do you think it is about the series that has made it a fast fan favorite?

A) I don’t mean to sound cold, but I think commercially it reaches many groups of people. It reaches people who like comics and specifically that comic. It is a comic that I think appeals to older people and younger people and to this 21-22-23-24 year old market that maybe read it when they were young and are now the right age to have their own places. I think it’s been able to reach a lot of different demographics. Plus, it’s got Seth and Evan on board and attached. They have a fanbase already and people that enjoy their work and trust in the result probably are willing to try out something they created or helped to create even if they are not comic book fans. Then, the cast is made up of people who I think probably in the US have been involved with comic fests before, but in England and other places have been involved in quite a lot of variety of genres like big budget movies like Dominic [Cooper] who was in Mama Mia. So, I think that people who are maybe fans of actors on the show are watching it even though they aren’t necessarily comic book fans.

Q) As a part of social media, do you enjoy the fan feedback you receive from episodes?

A) I am on Twitter and have written about the show, but haven’t read what people have posted. I have just posted myself.

Q) Is there anything you to be sure to let fans know about Emily?

A) I think Emily is ordinary and I think she represents what we have tried to understand about that kind of life.


http://starrymag.com/?p=11238

- Preacher Q&A – Anatol Yusef (DeBlanc) (amc):

Preacher Q&A – Anatol Yusef
Por Adam Bryant 19 Junio, 2016

Anatol Yusef, who plays DeBlanc on AMC’s Preacher, talks about how DeBlanc and Fiore are like babies, how the other world views humans and what that ringing phone could mean.

Q: Coming off of your time on Boardwalk Empire, what drew you to the role of DeBlanc?

A: There was a lot about this character and this role that was awkward, but ultimately, there seemed to be a danger to the writing, and that was very appealing. There’s a shock to it. The show exists in all of these different worlds at any one time and these characters — both DeBlanc and Fiore – are kind of like babies. They’re thrown into the world. It was appealing to play these people who were discovering what it means to be human. In a way, they’re probably the most human characters on the show. They’re set down on the Earth bewildered, which is how a lot of people feel a lot of the time. They don’t really know what they’re doing. And it’s nice to be doing some crazy comedy.

Q: Had you read the comics?

A: I had a sense of what it was without really getting into them. I didn’t want to get into them because this isn’t a comic, and Sam [Catlin], Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] were clear about that. Also, DeBlanc and Fiore aren’t hugely featured in the comic. They pop in and out. So, it probably wasn’t the best guide for me. The world of the comic is slightly different to the one that’s being created on the show. It’s a bit like Meyer Lansky on Boardwalk Empire where the Meyer Lansky that Terence [Winter] and the writers created was their Meyer Lansky rather than the Meyer Lansky. That kind of stuff can be counter-productive because at the end of the day, we were creating DeBlanc.

Q: How would you describe DeBlanc? What’s driving him at this point in the story?

A: He’s an angel on a mission to retrieve this thing from Jesse. That’s really all he is at the beginning. He wants to get in, get out and get back because under his watch, this thing has gotten loose. Both he and Fiore are on a mission they have no idea how to complete. The way I think about them is: Their dad has sent them on a fishing trip with all the best equipment, the best rods, all the gear and everything you could ever want and need, but no one has told them what a fish is.

Q: You mentioned Fiore and DeBlanc not knowing what it is to be human. Do you think that’s what complicates their journey? Do they start to learn as they go along?

A: We had filtered ideas about it, and one idea that floated around was maybe they learned stuff from movies, but what they did or didn’t know was never crystallized. That was awkward at times because all you could play was their motivation, which is this mission. The writing, the situations and their meeting of other characters on the show illustrate how ill-equipped they really are. What we do know is that DeBlanc was willing to take the risk. They’re winging it, and I think DeBlanc is more aware that they’re winging it than Fiore is for most of the season. Deep down, DeBlanc probably thinks that [Jesse’s power] ultimately belongs to them.

Q: Although they’re partners, DeBlanc and Fiore are different. How would you describe their relationship? Do they approach the mission differently?

A: I guess they’re kind of like surrogate parents thrust together with an orphan child. They begin to become attached to each other and begin to have a recognizably human relationship. I think DeBlanc realizes that he needs Fiore and at times, they’re not on the same page, but they’re united by this one thing. Ultimately, I think it’s more interesting that there’s a coming together rather than a conflict.

Q: In Episode 4, DeBlanc and Fiore want Cassidy to bring Jesse to them. Do they really trust him?

A: They’re kind of using each other, I think. They believe he’s a direct link to Jesse, so they have no choice but to trust him. DeBlanc still trusts that if they can get to their “child,” then that’s all they need. Remember, DeBlanc and Fiore can be killed and hurt and come back, so things like money and pain don’t mean anything to them.

Q: Episode 4 introduces a mysterious phone, which seems to cause some fear in them when it starts ringing. What are they afraid of?

A: They tried to bring this thing back… without anyone noticing that it ever left. When that phone rings, it’s the last thing they ever wanted.

Q: How does DeBlanc feel that this entity seems to have chosen Jesse?

A: DeBlanc doesn’t believe it’s a true connection because he’s seen this thing be inside people – whether it chooses them or they choose it – and it’s temporary. Whoever has it isn’t necessarily special… DeBlanc thinks that, ultimately, it doesn’t belong to humans and it belongs to these angel janitors of the other world. I always felt that DeBlanc and the angels looked at humans as silly and wasteful. I always thought of him like George Carlin in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure with his stance on humanity and an other-worldly presence. DeBlanc’s viewpoint is complicated and while we’re experiencing DeBlanc, he is human.

Q: DeBlanc and Fiore are a bit like Kenny from South Park — they keep dying and coming back. Does that make you more confident about job security?

A: [Laughs] Clearly anything is possible!


http://www.amc.com/shows/preacher/talk/ ... ef-deblanc?

- Preacher Q&A — Jackie Earle Haley (Odin Quincannon) (amc):

Preacher Q&A — Jackie Earle Haley (Odin Quincannon)
Por Adam Bryant 27 Junio, 2016

Jackie Earle Haley, who plays Odin Quincannon on AMC’s Preacher, talks about about Odin’s strange way of “serving God,” how Jesse’s power does (or doesn’t) affect his character and which role fans originally envisioned him playing.

Q: What was your knowledge of the Preacher comics before this role came along?

A: I’d never read the graphic novels, but prior to being offered the role of Odin, I’d been aware of Preacher for many years as fanboys have been suggesting me for different roles. It was pretty cool when they actually decided to make Preacher and the fact that it would be a series format was very exciting.

Q: What other roles had people pictured you playing?

A: I think when I was younger, people were thinking of me as Cassidy, and as I got older, people started thinking of me as Odin. Good thing they waited all this time for [Joseph Gilgun] to be perfect for the role!

Q: Quincannon is a pretty nasty customer in the books. How much of that did you want to bring into your performance on the screen?

A: Odin is a complex character and he’s definitely vile in certain ways. There are some parallels, but there’s also some little changes with him that I think are really effective for the adaptation. I think it’s faithful to the universe, but seems to be a cool translation. I pulled what I could from the book and embraced the TV show. He’s a little bit more complex in the series. It’s not quite on the nose as it was in the book. It’s more subtle.

Q: You’ve been a part of several comic book adaptations. How is this one different? Do you find yourself drawn to larger-than-life comic book characters?

A: I’ve read a lot of comic books – graphic novels especially. It’s neat to play in this arena when it’s done so well. It’s like a 10-hour movie in 1-hour installments. Every single script was TV at its best and totally broke all those old formulas we’ve been stuck with forever on TV. The writers write from a place of mystery instead of feeling like they have to explain everything. That scene in Episode 2 when Odin just leaves you going, “What the f—k was that?! Who is that?!” Fanboys will know that it’s Odin, but everybody else thinks, “Who is it?” The only takeaway is that Donnie works for Odin, but what’s he doing? Did he force those people out? Buy them out? You’re left with mostly mystery and sometimes an answer will raise two more questions.

Q: This show is about Jesse‘s “special power,” but Odin seems driven by good old-fashioned power and control. How would you describe his motivation?

A: I think Odin, for years or maybe decades, has really been disconnected and has just been going about his work without really caring. He’s listless. He doesn’t care much about the town, his company, himself or anyone around him. He’s got this company he’s inherited and he’s keeping it going, [but] I think he’s just doing what he needs to do to survive.

Q: We do get some reaction out of Odin when he pees on Miles’s briefcase in Episode 4…

A: I think that’s Odin just literally giving a nice display of how he feels about the Green Acre group. That scene is real indicative of him pissing all over the idea.

Q: Episode 4 reveals that Odin and Jesse have some history together. What is your take on their relationship? How does Odin’s past with Jesse’s father inform the way Odin deals with Jesse?

A: Jesse and Odin have a strange relationship. They’re not necessarily close friends, but they’re not strangers or merely acquaintances. There is a connection there and Odin is completely aware of what Jesse is capable of in terms of his brute force and ability to fly off the handle. Odin used to have a relationship with his dad because Odin used to care about what was going on in the town before his life changed. Jesse pops in every now and then and helps him build the model — and they have these long conversations about the Alamo — but I don’t think Odin wanted much to do with Jesse and the church.

Q: Donnie recognized he was being manipulated by Jesse’s power when he used it on him. How aware is Odin of what’s happening to him after Jesse commands him to serve God?

A: Something happens when he receives the Word of God. It literally reinvigorates his life and he suddenly cares a great deal about everything. In that way, he feels he’s serving God. … He’s not aware of the manipulation. He’s just aware of this newfound compulsion to change, to do better and to make a difference.

Q: In Episode 5, despite Odin’s cheerier outlook, he still massacres the folks from Green Acre. Has Odin somehow snapped Jesse’s hold on him or do you think it’s a sign that Jesse’s power isn’t completely good?

A: Quincannon Meat & Power really is the main industry in this town. It’s the driving force that keeps it alive. He realizes that he’s been letting it go. The Green Acre people really represent to Odin what that company out of Los Cruces represented to his grandfather. Odin is trying to do the right thing and to him, these people are trying to move in on his territory. He’s not going to have that, so he’s going to eliminate the competition. That’s what his dad would have done and what his grandfather did. I think when Jesse applies the Word of God, sometimes it works the way that he intends it to and sometimes it doesn’t. Whatever Jesse intended, Odin got the message and he’s serving God in his own twisted way. When he shoots those people, he’s protecting his people, his town and his company.

Q: You’re now working on the Dark Tower movie, which perhaps shares some Preacher DNA. What’s it been like going from one project to the other?

A: I’m really looking forward to that. I’m playing a cool character called Sayre. It’s interesting because there is a little similarity [to Preacher]. These are really different characters, but in terms of the adaptation, Odin shows up much later in the comic books than he does in the series. It’s the same for Sayre, so it’s an interesting parallel there.

Q: What were you most fond of while shooting this season of Preacher? You were one of the few Americans on the set…

A: [Laughs] I know! It was like we were being invaded all over again. I fell in love with New Mexico and I was delighted that the writing was so good. Without those great scripts, you’ve got nothing. It was a wonderful blueprint combined with an incredibly talented crew and an absolutely awesome cast.


http://www.amc.com/shows/preacher/talk/ ... quincannon?

- Preacher Q&A — Ian Colletti (Eugene “Arseface” Root) (amc):

Preacher Q&A — Ian Colletti (Eugene “Arseface” Root)
Por Adam Bryant 03 Junio 2016

Ian Colletti, who plays Eugene “Arseface” Root on AMC’s Preacher, talks about bringing the beloved comic character to life, why Jesse sent Eugene to Hell and what’s really in those meat shakes.

Q: What’s it like putting that face on? How much work goes into it?

A: It’s a bit of a crazy process. It’s a full prosthetic and it takes about two hours [to be put on] by the really amazingly talented artists that have come together to bring this live-action Eugene to life. I think it helps to bring the character to life, for sure, but it’s quite difficult to wear and it offers some interesting challenges. As an actor, your face is your biggest weapon, so the mask diffuses what I’m able to do with the bottom half of my face. It’s forced me to communicate with my eyes, which is a fun challenge. When I’m wearing the mask, I take every opportunity I can to look in the mirror and work on how to distort my face to get more subtle emotions to read through the mask. It’s taken a bit of practice.

Q: How does it affect your speech?

A: Some of the stuff in the script, as it is in the comic, is written out a bit phonetically. It’s not as extreme as in the comic because I have to sort of understand what I need to be saying. [Laughs] A lot of it has been the voice I’ve created and learning to say certain things in certain ways.

Q: Arseface is a character that is well known by comic fans. How much responsibility did you feel when playing him?

A: It’s terrifying, but it’s very thrilling at the same time to play such an iconic comic book character. For me, it’s been cool to capture that essence, but the interesting challenge has been to not only see Arseface as this larger than life character, but to see Eugene as this very human and empathetic person and really ground Arseface as a person people can relate to. I know this story means a lot to people and it’s quite an honor. There’s nothing like this on television. This is one of the strangest and greatest things I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of.

Q: How would you describe Eugene’s relationship with his father? Is he trying to make him proud?

A: I think that’s really it. We meet Eugene on the other side of a tragic incident that has left him severely disfigured and I think he’s doing his best to find peace and understanding through God or a higher power. I think he’s doing his best to move forward every day and keep going with life. [Sheriff Hugo] Root, on the other hand, has all this pressure coming from the town and this is a complicated situation that I think he’s internalizing a lot. When you have a person who tends to internalize their issues and a person that just tries to move forward, there are bound to be issues, and it’s bound to come to a head.

Q: How did Sheriff Root telling Eugene to “finish the job” in Episode 5 land on him?

A: That’s a very brutal scene and a very brutal line. I think it hurts Eugene deeply, but he’s so empathetic that he sees how much pain his father is in. He recognizes that he’s played a role in that, and it hurts to see his father in pain, knowing he may be the source.

Q: In Episode 6 , we see Eugene struggling with the “forgiveness” that Jesse commanded from Mrs. Loach. Does Eugene actually want to be forgiven, or does he think he’s earned this punishment in some way?

A: I think it’s a combination of both. He does genuinely want to be forgiven, but I think he may feel this is a consequence in some ways. As we begin to understand a little bit more about his backstory, his history and how he ended up here, his approach to the overall situation will make more sense.

Q: Eugene is obviously struggling with a lot of emotions about what he did. Does he think Jesse is the only one who can help him? Is that what their relationship is based on?

A: I think that’s very much the starting point. Eugene is searching for forgiveness and he’s not getting it from Annville or his family, so he’s turning to a higher power and that manifests itself in the way that he views Jesse. He views Jesse as his connection to God when God isn’t speaking directly to him. I think that plays a huge role in their complicated relationship.

Q: Their relationship hits a peak in Episode 6 when Jesse, in a moment of anger, tells him to go to Hell and Eugene disappears. What were your thoughts when you first read that in the script?

A: Poor Eugene! He can’t catch a break. I was very excited when I read that. I think it will shock a lot of people.

Q: Why do you think Jesse got worked up enough to send Eugene to Hell?

A: I’ve always very much viewed Eugene as a mirror in the context of Jesse. He says things about himself, his struggles and God not wanting anything to do with him. In the pilot, we see Eugene talking about himself, but it’s registering on Jesse’s face that he could just as well be talking about him. That back-and-forth relationship has continued to progress, but as Jesse’s ego inflates throughout the season, he becomes less tolerant of seeing his own flaws reflected in Eugene. At this point, when Eugene takes a real moral stance and says, “This isn’t right,” Jesse recognizes that but doesn’t want to see it. It’s easier for Jesse to not deal with it, and, out of frustration, he tells him to go to Hell.

Q: Hasn’t Eugene suffered enough?! How much worse can things get from here?

A: I think there’s a very long journey ahead of him and this is just the beginning. Ironically, in many ways, Eugene is one of the most moral characters of the show, and I think he recognizes that there’s something strange not coming from God. He wants to be forgiven and accepted more than anything, but the one thing he doesn’t want more than that is to be sinful. He wants to be a good person, and he has to say something. Unfortunately, in the world of Preacher, the people who take a stance for what’s good often suffer the unfortunate consequences of doing so. [Laughs]

Q: Of course we have to ask: What are you really drinking in those meat shakes?

A: [Laughs] Thank god it’s not raw eggs and meat! They make all different kinds of stuff, but chunky strawberry shakes are a lot better than drinking meat.



http://www.amc.com/shows/preacher/talk/ ... eface-root?

[Shelby]

- Nuevos teasers promocionales de 'Jesse', 'Tulip' y 'Cassidy':

https://amp.twimg.com/v/2b1d0a90-5c16-4 ... 83c9424081

https://amp.twimg.com/v/3df77fe9-1d6e-4 ... dd526358a8

https://amp.twimg.com/v/a76f2e1b-8c5a-4 ... 6fe19c4213

https://amp.twimg.com/v/03515fb6-d394-4 ... cde7e45cda



- PREACHER | PROMO CLIP "In 4 Days":

https://twitter.com/PreacherAMC/status/ ... 8395110400



- PREACHER | "How can a show this bad be this good?" Promo:

https://amp.twimg.com/v/051bd2e0-5b61-4 ... d9ba2a19de

[Shelby]

- Preacher: ‘Seth Rogen is the New Preacher’ Trailer Parody:

https://amp.twimg.com/v/58dd9e7e-f8b8-4 ... ae9a3f9503

[Shelby]

- ‘Preacher’ Cast Talks Dirty Name-Calling:

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/preacher-cast- ... 66678.html



- How Preacher Will Push the Envelope (IGN):

http://www.ign.com/videos/2016/05/20/ho ... e-envelope



- How Much Will Preacher Stick to the Comics? (IGN):

http://www.ign.com/videos/2016/05/21/ho ... the-comics

[Shelby]

- "Preacher" 1.01 "Pilot" Comic Posters:

[Shelby]

- PREACHER | 1.02 "See" Promo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFVtA2A1gVU
https://amp.twimg.com/v/213e995b-dbb2-4 ... 05ac9537cb



- PREACHER | 1.02 "See" Clip #1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6r1TDhm4Ew
https://amp.twimg.com/v/596de7f9-9f83-4 ... 87c4835b70


- PREACHER | 1.02 "See" Clip #2:

http://www.ign.com/videos/2016/06/02/pr ... ous-ritual
https://twitter.com/PreacherAMC/status/ ... 8030596097


- PREACHER | 1.02 "See" Clip #3:

http://bcove.me/yhcesff7



- PREACHER | 1.02 "See" Director´s Commentary Teasers:

https://amp.twimg.com/v/13a26720-6b90-4 ... 6078bd453e







- Stills del 1.02 "See":

[Shelby]

- PREACHER | "Welcome to Annville" Promo with Seth Rogen:

https://amp.twimg.com/v/16e81df2-ffb2-4 ... eff59e68d4


- PREACHER | "TONIGHT - Jesse Custer" Promo:

https://amp.twimg.com/v/2405468e-b062-4 ... fa8cd8e53c



- PREACHER | 1.01 "Pilot" Director´s Commentary Teasers:

https://amp.twimg.com/v/84b6bb79-6935-4 ... 92e50f0afc
https://twitter.com/PreacherAMC/status/ ... 6577736704
https://twitter.com/PreacherAMC/status/ ... 8024641536
https://amp.twimg.com/v/6366d0d0-db3b-4 ... 5a82163402



- PREACHER | Why Preacher is Showing More of Jesse's Life Before the Comics (IGN):

http://www.ign.com/videos/2016/06/02/wh ... the-comics




- PREACHER | "Main Titles":

http://bcove.me/ee2y36hf

[Shelby]

- PREACHER | 1.03 "The Possibilities" Promo & Clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-V7bOxheXM
https://amp.twimg.com/v/de8149d6-7149-4 ... b44e612681
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdUXOzfKDMI





- PREACHER 1.03 "The Possibilities" Sinopsis:

1.03 "The Possibilities" (12/06/16): Jesse explora su recién descubierto poder con la ayuda de Cassidy. Mientras tanto, armada con nueva imformación, Tulip intenta convencer a Jesse para que salga a por venganza.

http://tvafterdark.com/preacher-1x03-th ... s-preview/

- Stills del 1.03 "The possibilities":

[Shelby]

- "Preacher" 1.02 "See" Comic Posters:





- "Preacher" 1.03 "The possibilities" Comic Posters:

[Shelby]

- PREACHER | 1.04 "Monster Swamp" Promo:

- PREACHER | 1.04 "Monster Swamp" Clip #1:

http://www.spoilertv.com/2016/06/preach ... swamp.html?




- Descripción oficial del 1.04 "Monster Swamp":

1.04 "Monster Swamp" (19/06/16): Jesse le hace a Quincannon una oferta que no puede rechazar; y Cassidy trabaja para esquivar a los ángeles. Mientras tanto, Tulip intenta llevar la justicia a Annville.


http://tvafterdark.com/preacher-1x04-mo ... s-preview/

- Stills del 1.04 "Monster Swamp":

[Shelby]

- Sinopsis oficial del 1.05 "South Will Rise Again":

1.05 "South Will Rise Again" (26/06/16): Tras su treta con Quincannon, Jesse es la nueva estrella del rock de Annville; y Tulip y Cassidy conectan. Mientras tanto, el Cowboy toma una trágica decisión.


http://tvafterdark.com/preacher-1x05-so ... s-preview/

- Stills del 1.05 "South Will Rise Again":









- PREACHER | 1.05 "South Will Rise Again" Promo:

https://amp.twimg.com/v/dce72df6-ce38-4 ... 30121059ac



- PREACHER | 1.05 "South Will Rise Again" Clip #1:

https://amp.twimg.com/v/b02ea9cf-d977-4 ... 45be94e8ae



- PREACHER | 1.05 "South Will Rise Again" Clip #2:

http://tvline.com/2016/06/25/preacher-s ... e-deblanc/

[Shelby]

- Preacher Feature - Art Department Behind the Scenes 1:

https://vimeo.com/171362889