Posted in: Paramount+, TV | Tagged: Aasif Mandvi, Evil, exclusive, interview, Katja Herbers, Michelle King, Mike Colter, Robert King

Evil Stars Katja Herbers & Aasif Mandvi on Series Finale/Future & More

Evil stars Katja Herbers and Aasif Mandvi spoke with Bleeding Cool about the series finale, their hopes for the show's future, and more.

It's not a stretch to say the four-season journey of Evil felt a bit too short according to all who worked on the paranormal series, including stars Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, and Aasif Mandvi, who play Kristen Bouchard, David Acosta, and Ben Shakir, hired by the Catholic Church to investigate strange phenomena to determine any angelic or demonic influence in their cases. Paramount+ granted the Robert and Michelle King-created series four additional episodes (as opposed to the typical 10-episode season) to tie up as many loose ends as possible with the streamer's release of the series finale, "Fear of the End." Herbers and Mandvi spoke to Bleeding Cool about a variety of topics concerning the finale, including Herber's favorite alternate role outside of Kristen, how Mandvi feels about his ending, and where things stand on a possible continuation as a feature or elsewhere. At this point, consider the "MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!" sign officially on and an image spoiler buffer in play because there are definitely spoilers ahead…

Evil Stars Katja Herbers and Aasif Mandvi on the End and Future

Bleeding Cool: Katja, you played separate characters aside from Kristen with your demonic counterpart and Dutch doppelganger. How did it feel to tap into, temporarily shed Kristen, and take on those other personas?

Herbers: Demon Kristen was my favorite other thing to play. I liked the idea of making her a demon with a heart and it gave me a fun way to be this caricature version of Kristen in David's mind. I enjoyed that last scene we had together in the finale, it was fun. I don't have to think if this is still believable. I can go in any direction with this character. All she wants is to be loved by him.

The doppelganger character was sweet, the way it turned out. I am Dutch and from the Netherlands, and this doppelganger character is also Dutch. That's something the Kings played with before, where they had me not understand Dutch in the silent monastery [in season two episode 'S is for Silence'] when I'm with this nun. She turns out to speak Dutch, and I'm like, "Oh gosh! I don't understand," and I like that Kristen takes her cues from this Dutch woman, which, in a way, is me or vice versa. Or maybe I'm part of Kristen or the three. I guess the Dutch person and I have similarities as Kristen does with me. It was sweet.

Aasif, were you disappointed that Ben didn't end up in Rome like Kristen and David? Did you feel it was the right ending for him?

Mandvi: Was I disappointed? No, [Ben's] making 650K! What's he going to do? He was wearing a fucking helmet! A tinfoil hat! He put away the tinfoil hat and now makes 650K. I can see why Ben made the decision. He went from making 65K to ten times that. I completely understand him not wanting to go to Rome. Kristen's in love with David. She's going to go to Rome. That's what's going to happen there, so I understood. I was happy that Ben got to justify how he could keep that apartment [laughs].

Have you and the Kings discussed what possible future adventures Kristen and David might have in Rome, presuming Ben catches up with your characters? Perhaps Paramount is green-lighting a TV feature or maybe elsewhere, like Netflix?

Herbers: The Kings are trying to get 'Evil' picked up elsewhere or see if Paramount is committing to a merger. I don't know if that's whatever they want to do more. I would love to do more. We haven't talked in specifics about what the cases would be. They write in a way often tied to current events. I don't know if they would know what cases we would do, but thematically, they know what they want to explore, and there's still so much evil in the world to explore. They probably want to investigate AI more and continue to combine horror with humor, which they're so good at.

Mandvi: There's so much evil in the world to discuss; take your pick. In these last few episodes, we do see them veering towards – and finding interesting in terms of writing – the way AI, social media, and our online world influence. That is big in terms of the way we live in silos of information and how the community of human experience is now siloed into these. We're getting the information we want fed to us. That is exactly what they are doing with the brain image of feeding evil.

When you're arguing with people on the other side of an idea, belief system, or political ideology, you realize that the information they're getting is not the information you're getting. The information they're being fed is not information you're being fed, and then you start to realize this is a world so complex, and it's where we're going. It's where we're going as a species. It inevitably becomes the thing 'Evil II,' whatever continues. The exploration of that would become even more "paramount," as it were [laughs]. Pun intended.

All episodes of Evil, which also stars Andrea Martin, Michael Emerson, Kurt Fuller, Christine Lahti, Maddy Crocco, Brooklyn Shuck, Skylar Gray, and Dalya Knapp, are available to stream on Paramount+.

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