AMC’s Preacher returns to AMC tonight with a Season 3 premiere that sees Jesse and Cassidy race to Jesse’s childhood home to see if his Voodoo-practicing Gran’ma can bring Tulip back from the dead.
The return to Angelville heralds the show’s arrival at one of the most memorable storylines from the acclaimed comic by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. This will no doubt appease fans eager for Seth Rogen’s and Evan Goldberg’s television adaptation to actually, you know, adapt the comic. So far, they’ve delved into prequel territory by exploring Annville, Texas, in Season 1, and meandered into an introduction of the Grail in Season 2. While the drama has been well-received by critics, it’s frustrated some comics fans who’ve waited patiently to see more of the source material they fell in love with make it to the small screen.
RELATED: Preacher Season 3 First Look Introduces Gran’ma
Luckily, they won’t have to wait much longer. The first three episodes of Season 3 bring Preacher closer to the source material than ever before. Ahead of tonight’s premiere, CBR spoke with showrunner Sam Catlin about what to expect from the horror show that is Angelville, and the rest of the angels and demons that populate this corner of cable.
Ruth Negga as Tulip O’Hare in Preacher Season 3
CBR: As Jesse gets settled back in Angelville, we were pleasantly surprised to see how you adapted the Angelville residents, specifically in the case of T.C. (played by Colin Cunningham), and his subsequent friendship with Cassidy, which is not in the comics. Was that intentional or was it something that developed in casting?
Sam Catlin: Yeah, for sure, it’s just one of those things where you’re sitting in the writers room and … really probably since we saw Colin’s audition everyone was like, “Oh, my God, he and Cassidy …” And Cassidy is the sort of mature, more grounded character. It was a good opportunity for us. You know, casting is luck, so much of it is luck and we really lucked out with both those characters. And then you just want to see them together.
Absolutely, specifically with Cass – it’s refreshing to see him play kind of an older sibling.
Yeah, I agree.
Speaking of casting, let’s chat about Betty Buckley. Marie L’Angell is terrifying and disgusting in the comics, and Buckley’s performance is pretty revelatory in that it’s both of those things, but it’s also tender and compelling. Did you have her mind from the beginning?
I didn’t have her in mind at all. But the casting director, Mark Rutman, I think suggested her. I’m not sure how we heard about her, but [he asked] would we be interested in seeing her read. And we were, like oh, my God, yes, absolutely. I mean, she just has such a great presence, such a great face and she’s just such a powerful performer that it felt like we definitely needed somebody with that much authority. We’d have to believe that Jesse could be bullied by her, could be intimidated by her. So, once she auditioned for her it was just sort of a no-brainer. I agree, she’s fantastic.
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