INTERVIEW: Mireille Enos, Anthony Welsh, Dermot Mulroney on the ‘final twist’ of ‘Hanna’
Image: Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video / Provided with permission by press rep.
Hanna, the acclaimed Amazon series, has returned for season two with eight brand-new episodes. The show stars Esmé Creed-Miles as the title character, a young woman who is perpetually on the run from a secret government agency wanting to do her harm. It’s part spy thriller and part survivalist drama, and this new season features Mireille Enos, returning as CIA agent Marissa Wiegler; and Anthony Welsh and Dermot Mulroney as the higher-ups in the mysterious Utrax program.
Hanna’s second season is now available to watch on Amazon Prime Video, and after binging the new episodes, audience members may want to know some of the ins and outs of what it takes to film this international thriller.
Welsh is an accomplished actor known for Brassic, The Trial of Christine Keeler, Pure and Black Mirror. Enos has had many memorable parts, including roles in The Killing, Good Omens, The Catch and World War Z. Mulroney is know to audiences for My Best Friend’s Wedding, August: Osage County, The Purge and Arrested Development.
Recently Enos, Welsh and Mulroney jumped on a phone call with journalists to talk about the secrets of Hanna. Here’s what they had to say to Hollywood Soapbox …
On whether the series was physically and emotionally taxing …
ENOS: “Not from an emotional perspective. Marissa is an exciting storyline to play, but she keeps her emotions quite contained actually. I’m not being asked to do a wide emotional range. That’s one of the things that Marissa is good at is controlling all of that, so in terms of that, it’s not too taxing. The physical part of it — you know, we’re all over Europe, and there’s training and there’s fighting. So, yes, that part is taxing, but I love that. That’s the kind of ‘hard’ that gives back, so it’s really enjoyable for me.”
WELSH: “Did I find it emotionally or physically taxing? … I’m playing a main supporting role, so the emotional journey of Leo isn’t always shown. … It wasn’t emotionally taxing for me either. Physically taxing? Oh, I can’t give too much away, can I? I don’t know how much you’ve seen. Oh, that was close — you almost got me, you almost got me. I wasn’t involved in a lot of stunts, so physically not as taxing as Marissa’s incredible scene that I can’t say because I don’t know if you’ve seen it, so I’m just going to leave it there as a go and watch it and see the physicality that Mireille had to partake in.”
MULRONEY: “I had such a great time working on this show. It was neither emotionally nor physically taxing for me. What I found is it was incredibly compelling, and even the most simple scene took a great deal of concentration. For me, that involves being relaxed. It involves collaborating with the directors. Great directors we worked with, but when it got down to it, I did so much mind-crunching on this part. … I was staying in London, but working well outside of the city, so the hours were long with that little travel. But then we’d enter this location, this set of locations where we worked at an ancient estate. It was a really compelling job, so mentally taxing? I’ll give you that, yeah.”
On whether they fully understood the character on the page, or did they need to act out the part with fellow cast members …
MULRONEY: “Some of what the audience discovers about John Carmichael, or what is actually behind some of the darker sides of the Utrax program, I was learning pretty much at the same rate that the viewer would be learning. … Our scripts were coming in as we began shooting the first two or three, so even under my own feet, this character’s thought process was coming to life for me. It all goes to David Farr, how he deliberately threads out this thriller bit by bit. Even the intense final twist and reveal is done so sparingly and with such great cinematic nuance that it’s very satisfying, and done in those little tantalizing bits like a great spy yarn.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Hanna season two is now available from Amazon Prime Video. Click here for more information.
