‘Paradise’ stars Julian Nicholson and Thomas Doherty had the same questions I did about the season 2 finale

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“Going down with the ship, literally and visually, is absolutely amazing,” Nicholson says. Hollywood Reporter In the conversation below with Thomas Doherty, who plays Link/Dylan.

You can probably now call Doherty her on-screen son – as the revelation was dropped in the season two finale, titled “Get Out”, before Sinatra stayed behind to destroy the bunker she helped create, dying in the process. heaven Answered the big question looming for Season 2 – Who is Alex? – By revealing that Alex is a quantum computer designed to play with time. When Sinatra meets Doherty’s character – who has heretofore gone by the surname Link – she believes he is her son, who died when he was a child, and that his presence is proof that Alex is at work.

“You have to believe in the story, then go do a PhD in quantum physics and it will all make sense,” Nicholson says with a laugh. “But Samantha thinks Link/Dylan is her son, so I had to stick with that.”

Below, the co-stars share what the writers explained to them about the AI-powered quantum computer named Alex that will be driving heaven In Season 3, now that Sterling K. Brown’s Xavier is tasked with finding Alex and saving the world, while Nicholson shares how she’s dealing with saying goodbye to Sinatra after two seasons: “It kind of breaks my heart.”

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Now that you know the relationship between the two of you, did you read about chemistry before choosing Thomas? Julian, were you involved in casting it? You two look alike.

Julian Nicholson No, we didn’t know that. Dan [Fogelman, creator] I did the casting. But this is the feedback we received!

Thomas Doherty People keep saying it’s our eyes.

How much did you know once he was cast in the role of Link/Dylan and how he would relate to Sinatra by the end of the season?

Nicholson I don’t think I knew right away. I probably knew two or three episodes of what was coming down the road. But then she was trying to understand it.How does this work? Which I’m still trying to figure out. ( He laughs.)

Doherty And then [the writers] Try to explain it to you, it just makes it worse. It’s all quantum physics, mechanics, etc.

What’s the story behind your choice, Thomas?

Doherty I wasn’t even going to take the test. I was a huge fan ofheavenAnd then we got the details of the character, and it said, “The strong man.” I don’t generally fall into that category or description. (He laughs.) But, I was strong enough! It was really fast. I’ve auditioned several times in New York. Then I flew to Los Angeles to meet Dan and John [Requa] And Glenn [Ficarra]Who directed the first two episodes and who are also the producers. Then I was told that Shailene [Woodley] She was going to play Annie. I got the job on Thursday. By Monday, I had moved to Los Angeles.

I spent a week in Los Angeles getting ready, but Shailene went to fittings on Wednesday and started filming on Friday. It was really fast.

Did you have the full range of your character?

Doherty No, you have to go to Dan and say, “Please tell me!” That’s what he told me. It gave me a general idea of ​​the direction it was headed, which is an amazing and very rare thing in television. Often, they didn’t even write scripts during filming. So it was really good to know what direction I was going to go.

The beginning of the season was immersed in the world of time and space with those flashes of memory. Did you play that way at first, where it could be the effects of the explosion or radiation, or did you lean towards Alex in everything?

Nicholson I had no idea. The nosebleeds and all that stuff were a complete mystery to me. It wasn’t until episodes later that it started to make sense in terms of alternate timelines, and when people come into your life – you know, the mind of Dan Fogelman.

I looked back at the conversation I had with you, Julian, and Dan Fogelman after the end of Season 1, and he confirmed that you didn’t die after that finale and that you would be in Season 2, but you didn’t know what that would look like. He said he dropped some big things on you right before our interview. Did he bring Alex up before our conversation?

Nicholson Yes. Pretty much. He dropped the idea of ​​Alex but also said, “Don’t say anything”—and I reeled and tried to figure it out myself. ( He laughs.)

When did you fully understand her arc and when did he tell you her fate?

Nicholson Very early in the season. The scripts hadn’t been written yet, but I knew how it was going to end and I loved it. Because I feel like Sinatra was a little misunderstood, and people were a little hard on her. It’s worth it in some ways. But giving her that humanity and that absolute generosity was something I loved. I love her, so for her to get to say goodbye was really big and emotional. Going down the ship, both literally and visually, is absolutely stunning.

Did you know that Sinatra had a role for two seasons from the beginning?

Nicholson No, I didn’t know. Dan likes to keep a little mystery for everyone; Keep everyone on their toes. But I didn’t need to know. I was very happy to take it as it came and trust that any story Dan came up with would be the right thing for the show and the characters.

I would say she was more of a villain in the first season. She finds her humanity more in Season 2, and seems more recognizable to the person we saw in the flashbacks. What was it like for you to reveal more layers to her, and how do you ultimately feel about her when you think about her?

Nicholson I find her entire story genuinely moving. Being able to explore and embody those different colors of a person’s life was so much fun. It kind of breaks my heart, actually. It’s very good for Dan to be in the gray area, which is what being a person is like. We are not all good. We are not all bad. Obviously, these are extreme circumstances. But I thought Dan did a great job, and I loved doing those final scenes with Sterling and finding that closure.

Doherty You are also very good. Something changes in your eye, and it’s as if it went from Sinatra to Samantha.

When you started getting scripts for the last two films, given the age of artificial intelligence we’re currently living in, what did you think of Alex? Did it feel overly realistic and unsettling? What was your reaction?

Doherty For a long time, we discussed just trying to understand it!

Well, a quantum computer could… What?

Doherty exactly.

Nicholson “So, how is my son? Can someone explain this to me?”

Did you get an explanation for that? Can you explain that to us?

Nicholson Yes, this has been explained to me many times, but if you start taking it literally, the whole thing goes down the drain. So you have to believe in the story, then go do a PhD in quantum physics and it will all make sense. If you stick to the details, the whole thing will fall apart. You have to give some grace, and just believe in it. Samantha thinks Link/Dylan is her son, and that’s what I had to stick with.

What I was holding on to was Dylan’s reaction when Sinatra called him her son. He didn’t look at her like she was crazy. He looked at her almost confessingly. Can you talk about how you acted in this scene?

Doherty This was panic. He’s been bombarded with so much information in this hallway – when he heard that you were my mother, that’s Annie [Shailene Woodley] She was pregnant and had a baby, I had a baby, and Annie died. It all happened in one minute. I played it very exhaustingly, but that was no denying it. He built Alex. Link created Alex with the professor and someone stole her. So I think it’s b Because Link knows Alex, it’s completely possible and he understands that. I like to think there were moments when he considered the possibilities of this being true.

Did you sit down before those final scenes where you could have had lessons in quantum physics or discussions about what was happening?

Nicholson There’s always at least one writer on set, so every day, we’d check in and say, “Okay, explain this to me?” And they were explaining it so clearly, it was so logical that you would say, “Okay. I get it.” Then if you tried to describe it to someone else, or explain how this could be, it would be like sand passing through your fingers. It’s kind of a downfall.

Doherty You’re right, you just have to believe. You have to trust and believe. It’s something extraordinary. I’ve never had to do that before [in acting].

It gives Baby Annie a different layer of importance in this world. Do you have any idea about season 3?

Doherty I have no idea about season three

Nicholson I literally heard nothing. So I’m not completely sure.

[[Note: Paradise has been officially renewed for a third season and is scheduled to be the final season after this interview.]

In your final step as Sinatra, you task Xavier with saving the world. And it looks like Dylan will have a role in that. What excites you about collaborating virtually with Sterling K. Brown to go and saveheaven world?

Nicholson I imagine you guys flying around the world, coming to places and solving crimes.

Doherty Yes, we will have a spin-off. ( He laughs.) But that would be amazing. I didn’t really get a lot of screen time with Sterling, and I like working more intimately with him. So that would be great [if that happens]. And then, virtually, with baby Annie, to play as well.

Julian, what was the last scene you shot?

Nicholson My last day was that stuff with Sterling in the hallway as we said our goodbyes. We filmed me walking through the ruins a while ago. So the turn around for Sinatra was when she handed him the key, closed the door and locked herself out.

How did you feel when they wrapped? How was her farewell?

Nicholson I found it really moving. Really moving. You grow to care about your characters. I remember feeling a little afraid – this was a big ending, and I wanted justice. I remember feeling like I didn’t know exactly what this was going to look or feel like. Dan was there and I went up to him and said, “Dan, I just need a little help. Tell me something. Why am I saying this to Sterling?” “Don’t forget: You’re going away, but your husband and your daughter will still be in this world. So you,” he said, “if you’re asking for help, you need it to help them and keep the world going for them.” It helped me a lot to say goodbye after that. I also like Sterling. He’s so easy to be with, and I really like these two characters together: Sinatra and Xavier. It felt emotional and deep knowing where they came from and now where they end up.

Doherty You said it was almost a relief to see him alive.

Nicholson Yes, because I didn’t see him all season until the end. I think Sinatra was really happy to see it. They are adversaries, yes, but there is also respect, admiration, and care on her part anyway. Even though he has a gun to her head – again – she is happy to see him and relieved that he is back.

When you said goodbye, Sinatra was very confident that she would see Dylan again. Is there anything in your book talks that you can share to help make sense of this?

Nicholson It’s a return to the idea of ​​different timelines happening at the same time, and the possibilities that open up. I feel like we also need some hope. We needed to hold on to love and hope, and whether that meant we were on the same physical level together again or would move on to the spirit, who knows. I think it’s more open than anything physical that you can put your finger on.

The first season dealt with climate issues, and this speaks to the current era of artificial intelligence. What do you hope viewers think in terms of the bigger picture, about how we engage with and see the world?

Nicholson Much like the first season and the way we deal with our environment and the climate crisis, it’s a wake-up call. These are the alarm bells: pay attention. And it’s all about AI really caring. ChatGPT may help you do your homework, but there are bigger questions we need to ask and hold people accountable for.

Doherty It’s very terrifying. The climate crisis, and what the government has refined in terms of policy, is even more frightening. As for the AI ​​thing, I’m not smart enough to understand it, so this is very terrifying. There’s something about this hyper-normalization of everything that’s going on in the world right now, where you become so apathetic because you don’t know what to trust. You don’t know what to believe. It forces you to say, “Okay, what can I control?” It is how you act in the world, how you move in the world, and how you deal with others. When you can’t trust the outside, with all these voices and opinions, it forces you to turn inward and come back to yourself, to trust yourself and your gut. I don’t think anything bad can come from being more connected to yourself and knowing yourself more. This is the silver line I can draw.

Julian, you’ve been doing some comedy. What’s next for you?

Nicholson I’m going to do a drama movie next. The events take place in 1989; I play an American who grew up in Berlin. I would love to do more comedy. It’s been so much fun making my way into this world.

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heavenSeasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Hulu.