Let’s circle back to “American Gods.” Was there always a plan to diverge from the book?
Yes, I think it’s because it was such a blueprint for them to do on Gaiman, who is very involved in his own projects, which is great. He’s not precious, Neil. He’s very interested in what people have to say about his work and he’s very committed to it. He loves all that Comic-Con, he loves that, intermingling with fans and people like Bryan and Michael, who were fans of his work. I think he encouraged them with their vision because we’re not doing a book. We’re doing a TV show at the end of the day. When people say, much loved book, it ain’t “Catcher in the Rye.” It’s a whole different, everybody of this book will have a different idea of how they see that character, that Mr. Wednesday, how they’ll see Shadow, which I think is the more difficult part. Ricky’s terrific in it. Everything is seen through his eyes. No, Wednesday has got to stick around, we only cover 120 pages in the first series. It ends with a big bug, as I said, this happens after we’ve finished it. The great thing is where you get in the original, I reveal myself to Shadow earlier in the story. This is half the charm of doing this, because I don’t think until they had about three hours of episodes under their belt and they started to look at it they knew how to fatten out the tone and how to fatten out what to reveal, so we went back and we reshot one or two things. Which is a pain in the ass sometimes, but when it cuts a bit you know why. You’ve got to reveal different things and show different things, and then they decided to reveal the big reveal in the end. It ends at a big party at Easter’s [played by Kristin Chenoweth] and revealing that he is getting Shadow to believe. Just as I get Shadow to believe, the wife turns up, who is my enemy.
His wife ends up being your enemy in this series?
Well, thank god she plays a bigger role, she’s going to, than she did in the book. When he says, “My wife came back,” and they’re like, “Oh, the dead, they hang around til they get what they want and then they go away. Don’t worry about it.” She doesn’t fucking go away. The last thing is, I shout it, “Do you believe?” He says, “I believe,” and then a voice says, “I’d like a word with my husband.” Shadow, she turns up with Mad Sweeney [played by Pablo Schreiber]. I think they’ve done a great job because another character that wasn’t explored usually in the book, Sweeney. Pablo’s great. Those two, also there’s a standalone episode, episode seven, which is the backstory of Mad Sweeney and to a certain extent, Laura [portrayed by Emily Browning] because she plays Essie Tregowan in the standalone story of coming to America. I think it’s very smart that they expanded the [roles played by Emily]. If it was just a bloody story, you’d get sick of that soon enough. It’s fine for a while, but then it all becomes more complex. Who is Shadow, what is my relationship with shadow? Those other things come into play.
The interesting thing about Mr. Wednesday is all this crazy stuff is going on around him, but, for the most part, he’s very even tempered because he’s obviously been around forever. But he’s also slightly…I want to say optimistic?
Totally. That’s what’s intriguing about the guy, not that he’s relentlessly the glass is half full. It’s because he’s confident and he’s been around long enough to know he usually gets his way in the end. He’s got charming and he’s funny and he’s more fun to be around and he doesn’t give a fuck in the best sense of the word.
Are there any moments in the first season where he questions that at all?
No, he’s questioning, “Why don’t you believe me?” He doesn’t question because he’s playing a long game. He’s interested why people would be, and also he’s just, the nice thing about him is he’s as willful and capricious as the modern gods, the ones he’s railing against. He’s fucking opinionated in his own right, but he says, “You’ll have more fun with me.”
He seems like a modern god though. A god with a modern attitude.
Yeah, he is a modern god. He’s a modern version of himself or whatever, you know? It’s defined in the way you dress him. I always had that thing about when I read it, then Neil had this sort of vanilla ice cream suite. I knew what he meant by that. Also he was sort of gray beard. We went for a look and the wardrobe girl was great, we found this good look. He’s quite a dapper dresser, but he’s a rather charming elderly gent who’s aging, whatever, it could be anybody aging. I’m 58.
Does it feel at times as though, I don’t want to say it’s theatrical, do you feel like sometimes you’re doing on this series particularly almost a stage
No, no. I think that’s exactly, because “Deadwood” was the same. They both write terrific dialogue, Milch writes great dialogue. If you can, it’s part of the reason why they hire you is because you can say it with facility and speed. If you’re simply searching for it, the audience says, “Hey,” not how. I mean, really, you’re got to have that sort of, you have to know who you’re writing for, and know what you’re doing. Know how you’re putting it across. I don’t think a lot of dialogue, it’s the way it’s handled. It’s when you see it, an actor’s unsure of it, that’s when the audience becomes unsure. If it’s [inaudible 00:16:23] it is kind of bad. The facility to handle dialogue, make it [inaudible 00:16:31]. Also, Wednesday has to have that quality of talking over everybody because he’s a bit of a conman. He has that charm, he can talk himself out of anything, into any situation.
Do you feel his motivations are completely pure, or is he…
Pure? Absolutely not. His motivation is to get Shadow to believe, to get him to believe that this world is not just what we look at it. Who knows what it is? Things happen. Making him believe that he makes snow, he makes snow happen. Can you believe it? You prayed to a god for snow, maybe extraordinary things can happen if you have faith in yourself and other things. If you condemn to the frustration of the faithless, if you don’t believe in anything, then you’re just going to be a boring grumpy old curmudgeon or whatever. That’s the last thing you can say about Wednesday. The one thing there was, he says, “The one thing I can’t stand is being forgotten.” I don’t mind fucking dying, but forget about me … if you forget about me, I couldn’t bear that.
Based on what you’ve seen so far, do you feel more confident going into season two?
I was never unconfident of finding, I mean, that first scene was hugely important to get that so we had the rapport to continue from there. I think it depends on where they go with season two. I think they’ll probably go to their house on the rocks. For a few episodes, and then go from there. They certainly won’t want to give everything away in season two instantly. You and I know that Wednesday at a certain point dies in the book, but I don’t think they’ll want him to die in [the series].
At least for your sake, I hope he doesn’t.
No, that’s what’s nice. Who knows what happens with a show these days. You can expand it and extend it in the way they’ve done it because they’re gifted enough writers and they’re now in tune well enough with Gaiman. It’s complicated. I think the three of them, the trifecta of Gaiman and Fuller and Green are working out now how they’re going with season two, we’ll see what happens. It’ll be a continuation, but it’ll be much more on the nose because things have come out now.
So, there is this rumor going around that there is a “Deadwood” movie script.
They do have it, I think Earl Brown quoted the other day. He put it out in social media, Dan Doherty.
Yeah.
Yeah, because I knew, it was common knowledge that HBO got a script from David about, I think it was about six weeks ago? They’ve got the script, it’s up to them what they do with it.
Have you read it?
No, I don’t know. I don’t think, I mean, I’ve read parts of it over the year, talked to David about whatever. No, David doesn’t give up. It’s like saying, it would be lovely to do it because it’s one of the great — it’s not unresolved because you know it ended perfectly in a sense. I mean, whatever the reason it ended to begin with. It’s interesting that now I’m working with Chris Albrecht at Starz who was at HBO at the time. It was one of the great experiences working with David Milch, who was truly a fucking genius. It was a great show. You know, it’s got a certain thing ended, but who knows. If it happens, it would be great for us all involved. If it doesn’t, we’ll have those three years and the myth, the legend of TV. We’ll go on, the great show that never got finished. The ongoing story, whatever.
“American Gods” is available on Starz on demand.