Colin Farrell talks the deep humanity, isolation, and new K-Town settings of Sugar Season 2 in an exclusive press conference.
Apple TV+’s stylized neo-noir series Sugar is back with season two. Seamlessly blending the classic, hardboiled tropes of golden-age Hollywood detective fiction with a stunning science-fiction reality, the series continues to follow private investigator John Sugar as he navigates the complex, fractured labyrinth of Los Angeles.
Mama’s Geeky recently attended an exclusive virtual press conference with the series’ star and executive producer, Colin Farrell. During the conversation, Farrell pulled back the curtain on the creative decisions shaping the second season, shedding light on the psychological shifts confronting John Sugar now that he finds himself entirely isolated on Earth.
Colin Farrell On Sugar Season 2
MODERATOR: Our first question comes from Cooper Lawrence, Sunrise Australia, Golden Globes. What is the best part about playing Sugar? Your career has gone through phases in Hollywood, from tough guy to comedy, and more versatile roles. What is the next incarnation of Colin Farrell going to be?
COLIN: Thanks for the question. Morning, everyone. The best part about playing Sugar. I’ve said it before that one of the lovely things, probably the loveliest thing about playing him is just his fundamental decency, really. As boring as that sounds. I mean, he’s not naive. He’s lived in this world, on this planet for long enough. He recognizes the breadth of violence and cruelty. And he has seen those things at close quarters, but he still maintains this very real and very deeply set, natural belief in the decency of human beings, which is a very hard thing I think for most of us to hold onto all the time when we see what goes on in the world. So that’s just a breath of fresh air. And the fact that that is kinda the most dramatic thing about the character, again, is a quiet testament to the chaos that we witness in this world that we all share. He has a capability with violence. He can take care of himself. But he is this calm, fundamentally peaceful, sentient being that moves through the world just trying to be of service in a very real and very meaningful way without looking for any credit. And, you know, so there’s a deep kind of humility there that doesn’t sound like the most interesting thing to play. But it really is, especially when he’s surrounded by such chaos, as I said, and such violence, and such darkness at times. And what is the next? I have no idea. You joke. I mean, I just try to get to the end of every day. [laugh] What’s the next? I do not know. I’m very grateful to still be working after 25 years, and, you know, to get to read some wonderful things and be a part of wonderful things from time to time with great people that I’ve worked with through the years. Thanks for the question, man. Good morning, everyone.
MODERATOR: Our next question comes from Gonzalo Valdivia, Chile, Critics Choice. Is there anything that you want to explore with John Sugar in season two that you didn’t in the first?
COLIN: Is there anything I want to explore? No, it’s just case. You know, I knew the script to a beat. The trick was just to honor the kinda tone of the piece that was established in the first season, I suppose, and whatever the truth of him as a character is. But also allow for a change in situation and also whatever changes psychologically and emotionally are taking place in him as a result of things being different. The main thing of course being that he’s now, for the first time, a man very much alone. Everyone else, all his friends, all his companions have gone back to their home planet. So he is, for the first time, alone on earth, and he’s struggling with that kinda sense of isolation very much, and how would that inform, certainly at the beginning of the first episode, how would that inform how he is and how he moves through the world? And continue to inform that. And how he is open to people. So yeah, that was the biggest difference. But it’s also a very different world the second season than the first one. First one took place in more affluent parts. You know, Bel Air and Palisades and the studios and all the higher-ups. And this one takes place in K-Town, a lot of, and various other parts of East L.A. So it’s gonna be tonally quite different as well. And he was gonna have new challenges, which he does, and contend with human experiences that he didn’t have to content with in the first season. Particular the experience of human sentient desire, you know. But also the encroaching power of violence and the sway and the draw that violence holds for him as well. As he’s someone who is completely against violence in a way, which is contradictory, because he’s involved in it so much. And even as a result of his own choosing at one stage and this second season, later on in the season.
MODERATOR: Next is from Peter Gray, Australia, Golden Globes. “At the end of season one, the biggest revelation isn’t that Sugar is an alien, it’s that after spending years of serving humanity, he’s become profoundly human himself. Going into season two, is the real conflict no longer whether he belongs on Earth, but whether he becomes too emotionally invested to remain the objective observer he was sent here to be?”
COLIN: Yeah. Yeah, exactly that. I mean, as you say, when he was sent here first, his job was the job of all this fellow countrymen and women. His job was to just observe and report, and that’s what’s reiterated over and over again the first season: observe and report, observe and report. And, well, he has no one to report to anymore, quite literally. He’s lost the kinda most significant structure of his life, and he’s, again, a man alone. But observation is something that was always, for him, greater than a job or greater than a mission task. It was something that, deeply inside him, he needed. He seems to have some deep need to understand people, understand human beings. He also has a love for human beings and views them through a lens of wonder sometimes, which is childlike, you know? So, yeah. That observe and report, the line between he and other begins to blur of course, as it does in relationship for us humans and friendships at times, family member, you know? We sometimes don’t know what’s mine, what’s yours, and everything can get a little bit askew. Well, that starts to happen to him, and the experiences that he’s having, begin to bleed into him in a way that is utterly confounding, I think, at certain stages throughout the season. So, that was, again, all part of his journey in the second season and fun to mess around with. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Our next question is from Christina, Italy, Golden Globes. How do you relate with fear in your life? Which kind of inner atmosphere, inner intention do you have in this moment of your life? And second, do you fear more invest your money on projects?
COLIN: Sorry, I don’t understand the last bit, but that’s on me. Do I fear more to invest in projects? I have fear in my life. Yeah. Terrified of everything. Not really, but a little bit. Yeah. I get fear, and it can come up. It can be environment and event dependent, you know. Something can happen, and I can have a fearful reaction, or it can just be. Some days you just wake up, and where you slept, or whatever you dreamt of, you can feel the fear, you can feel. So I definitely had that. There are all sorts of tricks and exercises and stuff you can do to, of course, deal with it, you know. Fear’s okay. Fear is part of the human experience, of course, stating the obvious, you know, it’s very much, but you don’t want to be living in it all the time, but it can also guide you to aspects of yourself that you need to pay attention to, I suppose. Inevitably. I mean, if you’re experiencing fear, you have to pay attention to that and have some kind of relationship with it. The worst thing you can do is, I think, deny its existence, which is not to say you don’t push through it, but you know, you have to recognize the presence of an it to push through.
About Sugar Season 2
Sugar is a contemporary, unique take on one of the most popular and significant genres in literary, motion picture and television history: the private detective story. Season two ushers in the return of Los Angeles’s iconic private detective and film connoisseur John Sugar, played by Colin Farrell, who stayed on earth in hopes to find his sister as he takes on a new missing persons case – searching for the older brother of an up-and-coming local boxer. As the investigation expands into a sinister, city-wide conspiracy, Sugar must reckon with himself to answer the question –– how far will he go to do what’s right?
Sugar Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV, with new episodes releasing weekly on Fridays.
