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The Nevers: Nick Frost on Joss Whedon, Says Series "Totally Different"

It's been a little more than a month since we last checked in on Joss Whedon's (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Avengers) upcoming "wild, Victorian, X-Men-meets-Sherlock-Holmes-meets 'girls-with-super-powers' mash-up" (direct quote from series star Denis O'Hare) HBO series The Nevers and it was some good news. Previously, cast members Martyn Ford and O'Hare tipped fans off that work on what feels like a never-ending production had resumed. Now, Nick Frost (Truth Seekers, Shaun of the Dead) is offering up some more intel on the highly-anticipated series to the fine folks at Collider– including a timeline on his filming, what it was like working with Whedon, and more.

"I just finished my stuff like a month ago. We started shooting in October 2019, and then I did like a week on it. And then that was kind of my stuff done. And then in January, we started to get a sniff of lockdown, and then they just shut down. So I didn't do anything for a year. And so I picked up my scenes like a month ago and finished the season. It looks fucking crazy, it looks amazing. I think the script is fantastic. My character's like a serial lunatic," the actor revealed. Frost's Declan Orrun aka The Beggar King is charismatic and brutal. Declan runs – or has a piece of – most of the low-level criminal activity in the city. He's perfectly happy to help Amalia and her cause – and equally happy to sell them out. He backs winners, and the Touched are long odds.

Frost also appreciated Whedon's unique approach to running his set. "Joss is amazing — like as a person, not as a director. He's really giving and generous of spirit and of time. But when he's on set, he's so driven and focused and mumbly. And a lot of the time it's like, 'Oh my god, I'm not sure what you want!' Especially when you've got a face mask on as well. It's a kind of amazing way to work. But I love it. I love the character, and I think people are just gonna fucking love it. It's complicated and it's fresh."

Frost also gave the heads-up to Whedon fans that The Nevers will be unlike anything the Buffy creator's done before. "Apart from the fact there's a supernatural element, it just feels totally different. It jumps time zones. I mean, even me with a broad kind of lexicon of knowledge of the supernatural and the genre, I was reading the scripts thinking, 'Fucking hell, this is gonna be incredible,'" Frost explained. As for when the series might finally find its way to our screens? Frost isn't sure how the cable network is planning to handle the ten-episode season: "I don't know how HBO are gonna drop it. I think COVID might have split a big season of 10 into two of five, but that literally changes all the time, so I don't know." For more from Frost and to check out a video of the comments above, head on over here.

A Look at the Cast for HBO's "The Nevers"

HBO and Whedon's The Nevers stars Olivia Williams (Miss Austen Regrets), James Norton (Grantchester), Tom Riley (Dark Heart), Ann Skelly (Death and Nightingales), Ben Chaplin (The Children Act), Pip Torrens (Preacher), Zackary Momoh (Seven Seconds), Amy Manson(Torchwood), Nick Frost (Fighting With My Family), Rochelle Neil (Death in Paradise), Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark), Denis O'Hare (American Horror Story), Laura Donnelly (Outlander), Kiran Sonia Siwar (Brexit), Elizabeth Berrington (Good Omens), Ella Smith (Hoff the Record), Viola Prettejohn (The Witcher), Anna Devlin (12 Monkeys), and Martyn Ford (Kingsman: The Golden Circle).

Williams' Lavinia Bidlow is a wealthy spinster and champion of the "Touched" who funds the Orphanage (where Amalia and many of the Touched live) through her vast family fortune. She is stern and old-fashioned, but as strong-willed and clever as anyone she confronts. Norton's Hugo Swan is a pansexual posh boy whose charm has about five years left on its lease. He runs a secret club and a side trade in blackmail. He's devoted to fulfilling everyone's worst impression of him – and fascinated by the Touched.

Riley's Augustus "Augie" Bidlow is a sweet, disarming nerd and Lavinia's younger brother. A keen ornithologist, Augie is happy to let his older sister take the reins of the family fortune. He finds the Touched unnerving but is drawn to them by his increasing infatuation with Miss Adair, and by the schemes of his nefarious best friend, Hugo. Skelly's Penance Adair is Amalia's (Donnelly) dearest friend, and one of the first women to join her cause. A devout – yet heretically progressive – Irish girl, Penance has a genius for invention. She is delighted by her power, and her default is love and acceptance. But she's firm in her moral sense and will be guided by what's right over what's expedient every time.

Chaplin's Detective Frank Mundi is big, gruff, and deeply moral. He trusts no one, least of all himself: his reputation for sudden violence (and excessive drink) is not unwarranted. Frank finds himself caught between the powerful, who ignore the laws of the land, and the newly empowered, who ignore the laws of physics. Torrens' Lord Massen is staunch, unflappable, and merciless in his defense of the British Empire A former General and now Peer, Massen may be the only man who sees clearly what havoc these few strange people can wreak upon the established order. Which he will protect – one way or another.

Momoh's Doctor Horatio Cousens is one of the few successful West Indian physicians in London. Married with a young son, Horatio's fortunes took a dark turn when he met Amalia and discovered his own ability. Now he works with her, and with the Beggar King, those who don't care who is or isn't "different." Manson's Maladie was committed by her husband (and is genuinely unstable), warped by a power she can't understand, and tortured by doctors intent on finding its source. She now lives underground, runs a gang, and is on an infamous murder spree. She affects a theatrical parody of a bedlam waif, but mad as she is, she's a woman with a purpose.

Frost's Declan Orrun aka The Beggar King is charismatic and brutal. Declan runs – or has a piece of – most of the low-level criminal activity in the city. He's perfectly happy to help Amalia and her cause – and equally happy to sell them out. He backs winners, and the Touched are long odds. Neil's Annie Carbey aka Bonfire is a career criminal who landed the ability to control fire and is happy to hire it out. Came up rough, stayed that way, but she's neither impulsive nor cruel – just looking out for herself. No matter who she works with or for, Annie trusts only Annie, and the fire.

Tomlinson's Mary Brighton is gentle but surprisingly resilient, pursuing her dream of singing on stage. A disappointing career and a broken engagement haven't diminished her spirit. She's going to be great. She's going to be very surprised by how. O'Hare's Dr. Edmund Hague is a  gifted American surgeon who uses his skills in the coldest, most brutal way possible. But it's all in the name of "progress". Siwar's Harriet Kaur is a young Scottish Sikh who lives with the Orphans but is accepted by both her family and her betrothed. She's determined to live her life as she planned, despite its increasing weirdness.

Berrington's Lucy Best is a dirt-poor and streetwise woman who has given up thieving to live with the Orphans. Her wit and high spirits mask a tragic past. Smith's Desiree Blodgett is a prostitute whose power makes men tell her everything on their minds. What she's heard may get her killed, even though she doesn't listen to most of it. She's devoted to her 6-year-old son, who never speaks. Prettejohn's Myrtle Haplisch is a middle-class girl rescued from a family who can't understand her — literally, as she no longer can speak — and is thrilled to be at the Orphanage. Devlin's Primrose Chattaway wants to be an ordinary, proper 16-year-old girl — which is difficult, as she stands 10 feet tall. Ford recurs as Nicolas Perbal, aka Odium, the quintessential henchman who will do anything for anybody's money.

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