There are a lot of mythology-driven mystery shows on television, but I think it's fair to say that the track for that genre of entertainment is mixed at best. A lot of the shows don't last longer than one season and those that do struggle to walk the line between deep-detailed story-telling and getting lost in the mythology to the point of being nonsense.
One show that has successfully handled that storytelling challenge is the MGM+ series From, which begins its second season on April 23rd. Harold Perrineau plays the sheriff of a town that has some dark secrets and while I don't want to give anything away, season one sent the story off in some directions that I hadn't anticipated. Season two is even crazier, but what makes the show work is the incredibly sharp writing and a solid cast headed up by Perrineau, Eion Bailey, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Hannah Cheramy and Simon Webster.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Perrineau in January, following his panel at the Television Critics Association. What struck me about the actor is how centered he is about his craft and the challenges of starring in a series airing a channel that isn't quite at the subscriber level of Netflix or Prime Video.
The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: You said in the panel earlier today that you don't know where the show is going to end up. So given that, what kind of conversations did you have with Jeff Pinker (the showrunner) or other producers about season two? Did they give you any idea at all about what to expect with your character or with the upcoming arc of the show?
Harold Perrineau: That's interesting. It's an interesting thing to answer. Because...
Q: I know you don't want to say too much...
Harold Perrineau: Right. Going into season one, they certainly had to give me very specific things. So that I understood the stuff about my wife and all that about her being dead. But interestingly enough, going into season two, nobody came to talk to me about anything.
Q: I guess they figured you were committed at this point.
Harold Perrineau: (laughing). Good point. I think with season two everybody's turned on their heads. And I don't know how much you've seen or haven't seen, But the whole town was turned upside down. And I like to work like that. If I am supposed to be like that, I don't want to know until I have to read it and figure it out. Right then. So everything is turned around and I was really insecure. All season. And that's how you're supposed to feel, as if you just don't know what was going on.
Q: Presumably, they're not going to kill you off. I mean, that would be a pretty ballsy move.
Harold Perrineau: (laughing). Well, I would have been surprised. But I wouldn't say anything about a decision like that. I'd be disappointed. But I trust these guys so much that if they felt like this is going to be the best decision for the show this year, then that's what we do.
I don't expect that anytime soon. But it could happen.
Q: One of the things I like about your work is that you have done a wide range of different projects, from series regular to one-off appearances. And from an acting standpoint, does having experience with a diversity of roles like that give you more to draw on as you're figuring out a role like Boyd Stevens?
Harold Perrineau: It does. That was one of the things I've felt really, really good about in the first season. The ability to use my acting instrument in a way where I felt really...effortless isn't the right word. But it felt really open. I could feel the anger come to the surface without the normal struggle that I had been having in the earlier parts of my career. So it made me feel a bit more like "Oh, maybe I do know what I'm doing." Not to say that I think I don't usually, but I was a bit more confident.
The different experiences I've had end up being like any other tool you get to practice with. If you do it enough, you eventually get really proficient with it. And I feel all the different things are really helpful - especially in this show - because you just don't know where anything is coming from. You just don't and having that experience means I don't have to rely on just one or two tricks. Because it may be a monster, it may be my son, it may be someone who represents a son, it may be a lover, it may be something else entirely. But all of those different experiences helped me to tap into different parts of myself to make it work for the show.
Q: And given that you don't know what's coming. Is there a time when you open up the script and say to yourself, "I don't know. I trust the writers, but this just seems really unlikely to me."
Harold Perrineau: Nothing has seemed unlikely to me yet. But some have been like" you want me to do what?" Like, that's really gonna hurt. But okay...
In the end, there's nothing that has come up that hasn't felt real or true to the show. There might have been a line or two here and there that we've had to adjust. But there hasn't been a single circumstance that's come up where I've thought "You know, this just doesn't feel right." We haven't gotten there yet.
Q: As an actor, you really have to trust the people you work with to not know this stuff ahead of time. How long did it take you on From to get to the point where you "You know, whatever's going on in the show, I'm just going to have to trust them and believe it's all going to work out for the best."
Harold Perrineau: I trusted it pretty early on because of Jack (Bender) and Jeff (Pinkner). Because I know that they know how to handle material like this. And then really, really early on I realized John was really open and available to any any ideas and I was open and available to any of his ideas. Which is always great. So pretty early on I trusted the process. And like I said earlier, the only thing I don't trust sometimes is the business of it. So even after I saw it and liked it, I had to keep telling myself that it's very logical, it's very watchable. And then when it came out and people responded I was finally able to relax a bit.
Q: You don't want to focus on the business part of it too much. But still, you're on a streamer that not a lot of people are watching. And I'm guessing that it makes it more difficult to judge the audience reaction and whether the show is a success. When you were on Lost, I'm sure people were coming up to you all the time mentioning the show. Have you had that happen much with the first season of From?
Harold Perrineau: You know, people are starting to do it on From a lot. Oddly enough, not anybody where we shoot. We shoot in a very small town in Nova Scotia and no one there has seen it. It wasn't on the same network that it was in the States. And it was really tricky. But especially here in Los Angeles people have seen it. And I've had people calling or stopping me and saying "I'm obsessed. I'm fully obsessed with the show." And that felt good. Those things are really precious.
And you do worry about it. Is this little network going to get out there and promote this show? Have we wasted our time and no one is ever going to see it? You know what I mean? It's just like your work going out into this black hole. And nobody wants that to happen.
But I feel we've been really lucky. Epix has been behind us and making sure lots of people see it. And the show is just growing and growing. And now that we're going to be on MGM+, that feels really optimistic and hopeful and exciting.
Q: That lack of discovery is a frustrating part of the business. Your old ABC TV cop show The Unusuals is on Crackle and I've been recommending it to people. And I've have had more people tell me "Oh God, that's a great show!"
Harold Perrineau: And where were you ten or twelve years ago when we needed you?
Q: Exactly. I guess that's part of the weird thing about the streaming business. You'll pop up unexpectedly in some TV show or movie people will suddenly realize, "Oh, you were in that show!"
Harold Perrineau: (laughing). Right. Somebody just did that to me. I was in this movie called Dumplin' (a 2022 film starring Jennifer Anniston). And somebody recently came up to me and was like "You know...I didn't even know you were in that movie until halfway through it." It's funny how these things work out.
Q: As an actor, you obviously want to take on roles that are well-written and challenging. But when you're deciding whether or not to say yes to a project, are you factoring in how many people might see the project or is it important enough to help your career?
Yeah, I mean, obviously, you have to think about that as an actor. But does it matter enough to you to say yes or no to a project to the oldest, a lot of people are gonna see me or you know, not that many people are gonna see me, but it's great roll.
Harold Perrineau: You know, early on in my career, it didn't matter what it was. I was just trying to get the experience. I was just trying to build up my resume. And then you start having to think more about whether or not this is going to serve your career. There have been times when I wanted to take some risks, but I realized it wasn't going to be worth it. I wouldn't get anything out of it. A director no one has heard of with no money. And I'm going to do some wild thing and then no one will see it. But then I'll kind of be associated with it. It's a whacky game and sometimes you have to say no for reasons beyond the role.
Q: That's understandable. Because there are actors who say yes to everything and they are doing all of these straight-to-DVD things. You don't want to get that reputation.
Harold Perrineau: Right, you don't want that reputation. So you have to find things that you think are going to be on the level you think my work is at.
Q: You have done a wide range of roles. But is there a specific type of role or project where you think "Man, if I could get a shot at this, I could knock it out of the park?"
Harold Perrineau: I've been really enjoying what I've been doing now. And the only thing I've ever seen that I was like I would do that is that movie Liam Neeson did where he had to find his kid...
Q: Taken?
Harold Perrineau: That's the one. I think that would be fun and I think I could really roll with it and be a bit of a wild man. But otherwise, I've been real lucky. I couldn't even ask for a better career.
Q: Let me wrap it up with one last question about From. Obviously you don't want to say much about the upcoming season. But I suspect when you started the season, you had some idea in your mind about what would happen with your character and how the season would go. And I'm wondering how accurate that feeling turned out to be once season two wrapped and you found out where everything was headed.
Harold Perrineau: I was absolutely wrong about everything I thought was gonna happen. And season two goes at such a relentless pace. That's how the scripts read and it was "and now this happens and now this happens" and it was relentless. It doesn't stop and nobody gets a break until the very end and even then you don't get a break.
Season two of From premieres Sunday, April 23rd, 2023 on MGM+
