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Remember Jonathan Banks fame Very bad The closing monologue with his character Mike Ehrmantraut flipping the line “No more half measures, Walter”? This was the creation of writer and producer Sam Catlin.
The two-time Emmy Award winner wrote 10 episodes of Vince Gilligan’s iconic crime series before staying with Sony/AMC to shepherd four seasons of the genre-bending series. preacher. A few years later, Catlin was hired by former Sony executives with whom he had worked during his tenure Very bad Period to help keep the Apple TV hardware down sugar First season. That same year, Apple TV’s co-heads of programming, Jamie Erlicht and Zach Van Amburg, brought together more talent from the company. bad universe they helped launch including: Gilligan (Multiple), Rhea Seehorn (Multiple), Director/EP Michelle McLaren (constellation) and banks )constellation).
In the first season of the Colin Farrell-led neo-noir series, Los Angeles PI/secret alien John Sugar helps a legendary film producer (Jonathan Segel, played by James Cromwell) find his missing granddaughter. with Very bad and You’d better call Saul Casting directors Sharon Bialy and Sherry Thomas are in charge of casting sugarIn the casting, Emmy Award-winner Anna Gunn featured another familiar face, as did Catelynn’s wife, Julie Dritzen, who previously played the divorce attorney in Gunn’s embattled case. bad Skyler White’s character.
In Season 2, Sugar steps up to track down a Korean boxer’s missing older brother, all while uncovering a larger city-wide conspiracy in the process. With Catlin officially taking over as showrunner for this tour, he redoubles his efforts on… bad Universe, add SaulFeatured villain, Tony Dalton, as well as directors Adam Bernstein and Michael Morris, DB Marshall Adams and many other behind-the-scenes players. (preacherwhich had already employed Morris before Saulmuch of his series was filmed in Walter White’s backyard in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So, on top of the locational Easter eggs badCatlin recruited several other Gilligan-verse alumni for the show as well.)
“Everything I know or hope to know about running a TV show is from those five seasons that I work on break bad. “So whenever someone from Vince’s world is available, I just try to emulate them,” Catlin says. Hollywood Reporter In support of sugar Season two. “I steal and plunder from their cast and crew as much as I can.”
Dalton will explain in detail THR In the coming weeks, however, when he received an offer to play sugar Season 2’s corrupt sheriff character, Ray Vega, was given a name Saul A friend and colleague, Banks, for advice. As soon as the latter heard Catiline’s name, he extolled the virtues of his writings and the aforementioned letter from Very bad Season 3 “Half Measures”. Dalton accepted the part immediately after their call.
Below, during a conversation with THRCatlin discusses how great it is to write a real-life hero more than a decade after Heroes, as well as sugarAn honest portrayal of Los Angeles.
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an act [heads of worldwide video programming] Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht bring you into Apple like they have almost everyone else associated with them Very bad?
(He laughs.) Pretty much, yes. and [former Apple TV creative exec] Chris Parnell. Countless people who were working at Sony at the time have come to Apple. [[Author’s note: During their tenure at Sony, Erlicht and Van Amburgh were the first executives to say yes to production Very bad.]
I find it interesting that you’re running a show about an alien who learns to be human by watching classic movies because you were known in Very bad There is no room for not being fond of old movies, beforeThe godfather.
(He laughs.) It’s my punishment!
Has this job changed your previous perspective at all?
I have. It already happened. I can’t say I’m a cinephile now, but it certainly made me appreciate the context in which these films came out. I have now seen at least 50 films before the godfather As a search for this offer.
Vince Gilligan He’s talked a lot about how important it is to write good guys right now, especially after devoting 15 years to heroes. I also followed Very bad with preacherwhich had a lot of dastardly characters of its own. So, was Kind John Sugar a welcome left turn for you as well?
definitely. This is one of the things that works in the show and it’s kind of surprising. He has skeletons in his closet and could slide into violence, but he does acceptable. He is a hero. He is a good man, and his integrity is what sets him apart. So I think that’s what people love about the show. It makes the show seem old-fashioned and nostalgic somehow.
Sugar is an alien who is more human than most humans, and is often confused about how we treat each other. It is insensitive to the many daily horrors that most of us barely think of. Was it interesting to put yourself in the shoes of an alien and remind yourself of everything we’ve turned a blind eye to over the years?
It’s interesting what you say. I never thought about it this way before. He fell in love with the 1940s human from the movies he watched. It was a much simpler time, but it wasn’t necessarily a less realistic depiction of what humanity could be. Here he is, in the 2020s, dealing with complexities, contradictions, distractions, and isolation. In science fiction films such as Starman or atAlien somehow teaches you to appreciate what you have in a way you weren’t able to before. So I think this show does that in a very different way, but hopefully just as effective.
As showrunner for Season 2, was more humor a key element you added?
I hope so. My job was to continue everything that worked in the first season and expand the show by giving it momentum and scope as you would in any second season. We were definitely looking for more opportunities to add humor, not sarcastic humor or my typical sense of humor, which is knowing humor. Sugar is not knowledge In the same way. He’s not a crook, but there’s nothing to make fun of Sugar. So it was about trying to find the humor in a way that didn’t make it cynical.
I talked to Anna Gunn For the first season, we talked a lot about the themes they shared sugar and Very bad UNIVERSE: Casting team of Bialy/Thomas, actor Dennis Butskaris and divorce lawyer Skyler White, played by Julie Dritzen.
This is my wife!
actually. Season 2 features more people in front of and behind the camera: Tony Dalton, directors Michael Morris and Adam Bernstein, DB Marshall Adams, camera operator Matt Criddle, writer Johnny Gomez, and editor Trevor Baker. How much of this extended family reunion was designed?
I’ve been lucky enough to have a long career, but I’ve had limited experience in the sense that I haven’t worked with a lot of different people. I’ve pretty much started break badAnd I loved all these people. They are all excellent artists. Everything I know or wish I knew about running a TV show is from those five seasons I worked on. break bad. So whenever someone from Vince’s world is available, I just try to emulate them as much as I can and go from there.
Tony’s performance as Lalo You’d better call Saul He obviously gave him the role of the villain sugar Season two. I was in Very bad Season 3 writers room When the name Lalo was assigned to an off-screen character Saul Goodman is very afraid. Were you very surprised by what Tony and his colleagues did? Created from a few lines from a previous decade?
That whole process amazed me. I knew break bad The story is very good, but[[You’d better call Saul]It didn’t make sense to me on the page. I just didn’t understand the concept of it. But I also knew that Vince and Peter were precise. They did not cheat or cheat. They were made last Great show, so I steal and loot from their cast and crew as much as I can.
So you know Saul It would be good, but you were surprised that it turned out to be so Which good?
I knew it was going to be good because Vince and Peter were doing it, but I was surprised by it. I was surprised by the idea. I’m wrong about most things. So I was huge [fan]. That’s why I asked Tony Dalton and all these other people if they were available.[[Saul and bad team]are the best TV producers in Hollywood as far as I’m concerned.
sugar The first season was retconned by the huge twist that John is actually an alien. There are some great twists in season 2 as well, but I respect that you didn’t try to improve on season 1 in another big way. Did you realize early on that there is no getting past this level of bomb?
Yes, suspense is usually better than surprise. Give the information to the audience, then let it percolate. After a short while, these kinds of surprises and twists kind of suck. You can often feel that the narrative is created to make them settle, often at the expense of organic character development, which should always be the priority.
With the change, Season 2 could have easily leaned more into sci-fi, but you kept the story grounded in reality by actually dealing with real issues in Los Angeles like homelessness and fentanyl. Did it make sense to include these real-life issues since you’re already dealing with real-life popular culture?
After the first season, I never looked at this show as traveling around the world and trying to figure out what happened to his sister. For me, what resonated most about the first season — other than the tone of the music and Colin’s performance — was the nostalgic detective show set in Los Angeles. I was introduced to this type of detective film through noir screenings in the 1970s that were held in Los Angeles. Maybe the way I first saw Los Angeles on television was through those detective shows.
So, as far as Season 2 goes, we still want him to be a private investigator trying to help people who need his help. The mystery of his sister is still something smoldering, but it’s tied to the idea of himself as a PI. It is very important that he sticks to this and helps others find missing people.
I guess what I’m asking is whether you wrote the proposal with a newspaper in front of you.
No, but there were certain things that came around the broader plot. There were some things not in Los Angeles, but in remote communities where these terrible human calculations are definitely taken into account. There’s a schizophrenia about Los Angeles. It is very progressive and very permissive. It’s a land of dreams and palm trees, but there’s also this part that people are afraid of. There’s poverty and homelessness, and so it seems like these things can be in conflict in some way, leading to political decisions that can be very cynical and terrifying. There’s an inherent hypocrisy about enjoying being a Los Angeleno. And that contradiction is the darkest part of human nature, which Drunkenness attests to at the end of the season. It’s like, Oh my God, this is what society will do to the less visible just for aesthetic convenience.
sugar Apparently it’s one of the few shows that shoots in Los Angeles. Can you feel how much the local crews appreciate one of these very rare opportunities to film in Los Angeles?
Yes, we started production just a few months later [2025] Fires, and there was definitely a “strong L.A.” feel. There was a lot of camaraderie around that. And it wasn’t just the fires. After the strikes and the downturn in the industry, people, including me, were really happy to have a place to work. We have to work in Hollywood and tell this Hollywood story. I felt like we were dancing between raindrops.
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sugar New episodes are currently streaming every Friday on Apple TV until August 7.
