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No disrespect to anyone who liked the first season of Legends, but star Sean Bean believes the second season is way, way, way better.“This season changes quite dramatically, for very good reason, I think,” Bean said. “We've kind of turned it around in a positive way.“It's a much bolder, grittier, darker piece than it was last year. I think you'll like this one.”The Canadian debut of the second season of Legends is coming up on Nov. 11, on Bravo. That follows the U.S. debut on Nov. 2 on channel-of-origin TNT.Bean returns as, well, a man. The character doesn't know much else for sure “Last year I felt the characters left something to be desired in terms of being fleshed out and grounded and well drawn,” Bean said. “I think this year we've really cracked it with some very fine actors and actresses in there who are great adversaries. This isn't about one man, you can't do a piece without good characters around you. They make you look good sometimes.“We had some characters (in Season 1), some good actors in there, but sadly I don't think they were used to their full potential. And that's a shame. We've got Morris Chestnut (returning in a recurring role), he's a friend of mine, a wonderful actor, but apart from that, there's not really any other ones, any regulars.“But it certainly wasn't the fault of the actors. I don't think the writing was quite up to scratch, and I don't think they were given characters that they could develop to their true potential. Whereas this year there has been an absolute turnaround, there are some very grounded, dark, rich characters. I'm very proud of it. I think it's a really gripping drama.”Season 2 of Legends also jumps around in time a bit, as Bean's character starts to piece together his past and his present.“So you kind of find out what happened before what happened last year,” Bean explained. “It's fascinating for me, because I get to play someone from 15 years ago. It explains why he's in this state.”The most important state that Bean's character is in, of course, is alive. Bean's characters don't tend to last very long. It has become a running showbiz joke.“I usually get killed, don't I?” Bean said with a laugh. Hey, fans of Game of Thrones still aren't over it.But Bean seems genuinely happy to get a second life with Legends.“This year I believe it really takes off,” Bean said. “I'm a producer on it, which is wonderful, to have that kind of input.“It's not a series of stories (as it was in Season 1). You follow it, there's a great through line (in Season 2).“Last year I felt we were just touching on things and not really exploring them. This year we land on those things.”
Fans of the first season of Legends were drawn in by the idea of seeing Sean Bean playing multiple roles in an action-heavy procedural. This season, the show looks to make a stab at prestige television; the writing is darker, the characters are grittier, even the lighting is more stark. The L.A. production was uprooted and all of Season 2 was shot in Europe. The scripts are now serialized instead of episodic. And instead of seeing Bean’s Martin Odom playing many different identities, this season is focused on just one — and it’s nasty. We talked with Bean about the journey Odom takes to find his true self and the massive overhaul made on the show between seasons.You signed onto this show to play a bunch of roles. How does it feel to only be playing one now?Obviously, I play Martin Odom. This season we’re just focused on one other character a guy called Dmitry Petrovich, a Russian mobster — quite a cocksure, very confident man. I think that was a good thing because I was able to fulfill the potential of the character, really get to grips with it and concentrate on that for the whole [season]. Last year, I played a number of characters that weren’t fully explored. I felt we were skimming over them without getting the full benefit of the character. So this year, with the total overhaul of the show — new writers, new directors, cameramen, everything — I think this year it’s a much more thoughtful, intelligent piece of work. And I became involved as a producer and that was also very revealing and very exciting to be involved in the creative process.What contributions have you added as a producer?This season [creator Howard Gordon and I] got together and I made my concerns clear. So he said, “Where do you think he should go?” And I said, “Well, I think he should go in a more realistic, gritty spy-based direction. Preferably set in back streets of Europe.” [Laughs.] So they tailored it in that way and they thought that was a good idea. We got other people involved, got a very good cast. It’s a much more raw and grittier piece. Much more like the book. A lot of it’s in flashback; you go back to Martin Odom, you see him as a 13-year-old child. So therefore, you discover a lot about his childhood and why he is the way he is. I thought that was fascinating. It’s great — almost like starting at the beginning. It’s good for an audience; it really lets them in on the story and what’s in people’s heads.In the first three episodes, we really see him push the limits as Dmitry. How ugly does he go with him?He goes as far as he feels he should and that’s quite far. That’s the kind of dilemma I found very interesting. In order to prove that he is who he says he is, he has to think about actually killing someone. And in the process, how does that lie with him, with him as being Martin Odom? He takes the character so seriously and he gets so enmeshed in the character that he actually becomes someone else and he’s capable of murder. Which I feel isn’t unrealistic at all considering the present climate. And I don’t think he ever has been unrealistic. In the FBI, a lot of nasty stuff, dirty stuff goes on and I think that’s just logically following that through.It seems to get worse the deeper he digs. Is there a point where Martin won’t want to find out who he actually is?I guess, at some point, he doesn’t really want to know because the more he finds out, the more he discovers that he’s someone capable of killing and someone capable of torture. Maybe that’s not a nice thing to know about yourself. So he wants to find out, but you want to find out the things that were virtuous and good and positive. He finds out, at the same time, that he’s got all the bad stuff that he must face if he really wants to find out who he is. It’s like anybody: If you want to find out who you are — you think it’s going to be a fairy tale and plain sailing, you’re going to find out you’ve got skeletons in the cupboard and things you don’t like. Do you know how he’ll he react when he finally does get to the bottom of it/himself?I’ve got no idea! [Laughs.]Are there any particular aspects of the show you’re looking forward to exploring?Yeah, it can go anywhere really. We can take it where we want. Somewhere believable and relevant to what’s happening. I’d rather take it in a more topical kind of direction. Something relevant to what’s happening around the world today. I think it does deal with that, to some extent. And I’d rather that it be current and more… not controversial, but more reflective of the political society that we inhabit.You shot Season 1 in Los Angeles. How has the production changed since this entire season was shot in Europe?It’s certainly easier for me because it’s only about an hour and a half on the plane. [Laughs.] That was one of the benefits. I think once you’ve done L.A., you’ve seen the streets of L.A., we shot a whole [season] there, I think you need to move on, you need to see something different. We’ve seen it all before and I think that’s as far as we could have gone with that. So we decided to go somewhere and Prague was the place.What are you most excited for the audience to experience with the new feel of the show?I just think there’s a lot of very interesting characters this year. It’s a very clever piece of work; it’s a very intelligent piece of work that you have to kind of stay with. You have to kind of persevere. It’s not that complex, it’s not that difficult to follow. But I think we’re treating the audience with much more respect. Audiences are very intelligent and they look at things very different these days. This is something that you follow and if you stick with it, you’ll be rewarded by some very interesting twists and turns. It’s much less like a cop drama and less formulaic, predictable, cliched stuff. It’s a very unique production this season and I’m very happy about it.
Q: Your character of deep-cover operative Martin Odum poses as other people while being unsure of who he is. What are the challenges for an actor in playing that?A: I guess it’s tricky to kind of balance two characters at the same time but fortunately we shot a lot of Dmitry on separate days and it was occasionally overlapped when I played two characters in one day. But by that time, I had become very familiar with the character that I was playing so I could switch from one to another quite easily.But it’s just a matter of focusing on two very different people, one of them the Russian man who I play very confident and very sure of himself … and arrogant but kind of likable at the same time. I certainly liked him. … And then I was playing Martin, who’s a little more anxious because of his mental state, I guess, and trying to retrace his life through meeting various characters. So once I figured that out, it wasn’t difficult for me to jump straight into each different character on the same day if required.Q: The exteriors in the second season are quite striking. Where did you film?A: We shot about two or three weeks in London and then we moved to Prague, and that kind of doubles up for Paris and Germany and stuff like that. But the majority of the filming was shot in and around Prague, which is used for filming quite a lot but it does lend a kind of atmospheric quality to it and it suited our purposes very wellYou know, once you got on the outskirts, it was rather dilapidated factories, which were perfect for us and the Russian gangster and where he runs his office from. And then you’ve got the panoramic view but we didn’t kind of dwell on that too much. It was more the streets and the darkness with a lot of night shots, and it was kind of seedy, kind of steely, gritty, seedy kind of backdrop that was very good for us. It suited us.
But it’s just a matter of focusing on two very different people, one of them the Russian man who I play very confident and very sure of himself … and arrogant but kind of likable at the same time. I certainly liked him. … And then I was playing Martin, who’s a little more anxious because of his mental state, I guess, and trying to retrace his life through meeting various characters. So once I figured that out, it wasn’t difficult for me to jump straight into each different character on the same day if required.
