Posted in: Apple, TV | Tagged: sugar

Sugar: Laura Donnelly on Showrunner, Farrell, Werewolf by Night & More

Laura Donnelly (The Nevers) spoke with us about the Apple TV neo-noir series Sugar, working with Colin Farrell, Werewolf by Night, and more.

There's no secret that Laura Donnelly always shines in period pieces, given her love for vintage Hollywood with her work on HBO's The Nevers, Hulu's Say Nothing, Starz's Outlander, and Disney+'s Werewolf by Night. Her latest series, while set in the present, is the neo-noir mystery Sugar, which follows the adventures of John Sugar (Colin Farrell) after his case involving the wealthy movie producer (James Cromwell), who got him to investigate his missing granddaughter (Sydney Chandler). Season two finds Sugar searching for his sister as he takes on a new missing persons case: the older brother of an up-and-coming local boxer. As the investigation expands into a sinister, city-wide conspiracy, he must reckon with himself to answer the question –how far will he go to do what's right? Donnelly, who plays Charlotte Fischer, spoke to Bleeding Cool about working with showrunner Sam Catlin, diving into "old Hollywood," how Farrell leads by example on set, how immersive the season was, how Werewolf by Night became a surprise from Marvel with its more traditional approach, the films she grew up on, and the next genre she wants to tackle.

Sugar Star Laura Donnelly on Embracing Apple TV Series Noir Setting, Immersive Experience, 'Werewolf by Night' & More

BC: What intrigued you about 'Sugar,' and how did you get involved?

Donnelly: What intrigued me about it was having watched the first season. I thought it was a really cool show. I loved the genre, the film noir aspect of it. I loved the L.A. aspect of it, how it showed the city and was very much inhabiting the city. I got involved because I got a phone call saying that the team wanted me to play this character, and I went and met Sam Catlin, our showrunner. We had a coffee; he told me all about Charlotte, her story arc, and what he was trying to achieve with the season. It all sounded too good to be true. I mean, 30s, 40s costumes, playing a femme fatale character, and getting to do a bunch of scenes opposite Colin Farrell, what's not to like? [Laughs]

What was it about playing Charlotte that allowed you to do things as an actor that you don't typically do in your other roles?

I think being allowed to dip into that old Hollywood genre was certainly new for me, and what's lovely is that growing up, whenever I had ideas of being an actress, it was because it was based on those films. That's the kind of world that I thought I'd be inhabiting, and of course, that's not really generally what acting looks like these days. To get a chance to play about in that little dreamscape for a bit was really fun.

What did you like about working with Colin and the way he carries himself on screen?

He's an incredible actor. He never delivers anything but the complete truth, so it makes it very easy to do my job, responding to somebody who is entirely natural, entirely truthful, and really inhabits this role that he's now already played for a full season. He knows it so deeply, and he's just the loveliest guy to work with. He leads the whole production. He's number one on the call sheet, also an executive producer, and he does it with such grace and empathy and generosity towards everybody. You can see how much respect everybody has for him, because I think they feel respect for him.

What did you like about working with the showrunners as creatives on this project?

I mean, Sam is one; I love his writing. I love his characters. He has such a beautiful way of telling the story through lots of different aspects, whether that's like the voiceover and the edit of the little film clips, or whether it's the different, going from very gritty, dark, violent LA to this beautiful golden age of Hollywood stuff that happens with Charlotte and Sugar. He marries all that together so beautifully, and then, in terms of the other creatives, for example, develops Charlotte's wardrobe with Christie [Wittenborn], our amazing costume designer. That was such a fun process, and getting to again, harken back to those 30s, 40s films and really pay tribute to those, but also make them modern and workable for a realistic character today. Everybody's so skilled on that set, and it was just a real pleasure.

Comparing [Sugar] to an earlier project you worked on, I always thought it was fascinating as well, since you also worked in the noir setting with 'Werewolf by Night,' and I was wondering how you felt about working in that vintage [horror] setting as well, and getting a taste before doing 'Sugar' in that black and white noir space?

Yeah, gosh. I loved doing 'Werewolf by Night.' What I really loved about that was, even though it was a Marvel project, we filmed it as if it was like a little B-movie and like everything was real. All the sets were real. All the…even the Man-Thing was like, a guy in a costume and not just a CGI ball in front of me. It was so cool being able to like… everything was so tangible, and that was a really hugely fun element of that and gave me such a sense of what it must have been like to make those original B-movies. So in both situations, they were genres that I had grown up watching. I grew up watching 'The Big Sleep', (1946), 'Sunset Boulevard', (1950), Gaslight' (1944), and I'd also grown up watching all those old Universal horror movies. So, in both scenarios, it's me just acting out childhood dreams. It's great fun [laughs].

Do you have another ambitious type of similar in that vein type dream project in your mind?

That's a really good question, because I often don't anticipate the kind of thing that I would want to do. I like to wait and see what comes along and what catches my interest. I think I could definitely go back over those types of things that I, that I loved watching so much as I was growing up and dig into what else I might fancy? I don't know. Maybe I need to do a Western?

New episodes of Sugar, which also stars Jin Ha, Raymond Lee, Tony Dalton, and Sasha Calle, stream Fridays on Apple TV through August 7th.

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