Katherine Barrell – Wynonna Earp – Comic Con 2018

By: Brittany Dailey

Q) What is new for Nicole this season on “Wynonna Earp?”

Kat: It is really cool. It’s just really nice to see Nicole is actually more connected to Purgatory than she originally thought or anyone originally thought. It might not be such a coincidence that she’s there afterall. So, I really found that interesting. It’s also very scary for her because she’s just getting these memories in fragments. It’s not a full memory for her so she’s obviously had something so traumatic and so repressed in her that she’s just getting little bits of things that sound familiar. So, when she hears the name Bulshar it tweaks something in her and there are all these little clues, but she can’t quite put it all together yet. It’s a really scary place for her to be because she’s not someone who is very comfortable being off balance like that. So, it’s a nice side of her to see. I’m excited to see how you guys react to it.

Q) We found out she was married and may have been a Cult of Bulshar survivor. Will we be learning anything else?

Kat: We get a ton of her backstory – how she came to Purgatory and why. I think just her family situation and the type of environment she was raised in, which was really surprising for me. I wasn’t expecting it for the character. It’s not what I originally thought so it was just really nice to completely imagine this woman who has been such a big part of my life. So, I really enjoyed finding out more about her.

Q) Will we get to see any Nicole and Mama Earp interaction?

Kat: She does get to interact with Mama Earp (Megan Fellows) and I think it’s really fun. If you’re dating someone, you are always worried how their parents are going to react to you and I think she had such a hard time winning Wynonna over and she sees a lot of Wynonna in Mama Earp. So, I think she definitely is nervous about this like, “Oh my God, another strong Earp! I don’t’ know if I can handle this!” But I think she definitely rises to the challenge.

Q) What can you tease about WayHaught this season?

Kat: They’ve gone through so much. They’ve gone through finding out about a wife and Nicole withholding her DNA results about her parentage. And I think we find in Season 3 they’ve really moved past that and that they’ve chosen to be together and to forgive and to have honest conversations with each other. They are like, “We’re moving on and we’re moving on together and we’re stronger for it.” They are in a really solid place.

Q) How is the connection to Bulshar going to be explored?

Kat: I think it is going to be told piece by piece with a revelation about the Bulshar connection. So, that’s a big one. Then, Nicole has had an interaction with someone she didn’t realize. I can say that.

Q) How would you say she has changed the most since Season 1?

Kat: Oh wow. I think she has a lot more trust in herself. I think she was new to her position and was playing good cop while really doubting if she was a good cop and what they meant and how she fit into the group. I think by Season 3 we see someone who is really confident in their abilities and confident in relation to the team and what place they hold on the team. Also, it’s been a great journey for me as an actor because I felt that way at the beginning of Season 1. I felt that they weren’t 100% sure what they wanted to do with the character of Nicole and I felt that I didn’t know where I was to fit in the story. I think now in Season 3, as the actor and the character, that I knew my place and knew what my job was and it felt so nice.

Q) What is the dynamic like this season between Wynonna and Nicole?

Kat: Yeah, we will. There are some really fun WayHaught dynamic coming up. I just love these two women when you put them together. They are just so incredibly different. They probably wouldn’t be friends if they weren’t thrown together, but there is obviously huge trust for Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) to trust Nicole with the safety of getting her baby out of Purgatory. That was huge to see who she called on when she needed help the most and I think that speaks volumes for the unspoken love between these two women. There is so much trust and so much love. Yeah, they might not be best friends and, yes, they are cut from very different cloth, but they do really love each other and very much trust each other.

Q) Talk about the trust between Nicole and Dolls this season.

Kat: I think what I realized between Seasons 2 and 3 is that I think Nicole and Dolls (Shamier Anderson) have built a really strong relationship. I think she confided a lot of these things she was feeling to him. Like, “I don’t know what this Bulshar thing is, but it’s sounding really familiar and it’s making me feel weird. It’s bringing up these strange memories and I don’t know where it’s coming from. I think she sees him as the other person who has some sort of police training. We don’t’ have Black Badge anymore and Purgatory is kind of going to shit so he’s the authority figure from his kind of side of the office and Nedley (Greg Lawson) trusts Nicole more so she’s kind of becoming the authority figure on my side of the office. I think she’s just trying to reach out to someone else to ask, “How are we going to hold this together? What are we going to do? You’re kind of the leader over there so what’s the plan? I think it’s really nice ot see they got really close this season and I got to build this beautiful relationship with him off camera. So, it’s fun to pick up where we are and be much closer.