Sherman Augustus – Into the Badlands

By: Lisa Steinberg

Q) Watching the episodes, it seems like you’re watching a movie more than a TV show!

A) The second and third season they had mapped out it. It’s shot like a film because we had two gigantic crews that consisted from anywhere between fifteen to nine people. We shoot a drama unit and a fight unit at the same time. And we shoot in blocks, which means we shoot two episodes at the same time. So, it is fast paced but it isn’t. It’s only fast paced when you get into the groove of it and the train is on the tracks. But we do get the chance to take our time and find those really good moments as actors and martial artists. The leading actors we don’t get a lot of time with leisurely during fight sequences. Depending on how big it is and what is going on in that particular scene, it usually takes eight to ten days to shoot a fight sequence. It’s crazy! It’s intense. I’ll say that much! [laughs] During the season we still end up doing a fight camp kind of thing. So, when you’re off and don’t feel like going to the gym we’ll hook up with Matt Lucas, who was our yogi/martial arts guru. He’s knowledgeable about everything and he’s just the nicest guy and his skills are just unmatched. He keeps us going, keeps us in shape and keeps us limber. Those workouts last, on a good day, three hours. Sometimes it’s just an hour and a half of stretching. It was awesome. I miss that!

Q) The show has so many layers that balance things so well. There is empowerment, turmoil, death, despair and poignancy, yet still there is this underlying theme of love, hope and light even in the darkest of hours.

A) Exactly. Well, it’s a female driven show. I dig that. I love that.

Q) Besides it being a female driven show and the themes that provoke and engage the audience, what do you think it is that resonates with the audience?

A) I think a lot of it has to deal with…Since it does take place years into the future. We didn’t get a chance to…I know a fourth season would have explored why these things happened. The impending doom of resources. You’ll notice on the show that we don’t have any digital stuff going on. It’s all analogue. It’s kind of like going back to the early history of man in a way. So, conflicts are settled by hand to hand combat or with sword, which takes you back to the feudal Japan era. It’s kind of like that era. I think that is a lesson well served as far as if we don’t watch ourselves and communicate, these things can happen. We’re going to get into more or less how the dark gift came along and all these things. You can sit there and it resonates with you. It really does. How would we today deal with that if we were in a Badlands situation? It’s really cool for me. I really dig it. I love sci-fi and those things you have to piece together. We really explore the does and the don’ts that are embedded into the zeitgeist of your mind. I summed our show up as a Kurosawa/Sergio Leone film because of the martial arts and the Western film of it. It’s awesome for me. I love exploring that. I love that the technology is basic. It is what it is, basically.

Q) There are also so many complex characters, who aren’t necessarily inherently good or bad. There are areas shaded in grey because of the constantly evolving circumstances. Can you talk a little bit about how we explore that a little bit more this season?

A) Basically, this season is everyone out for themselves and for control. I know The Widow (Emily Beecham) wants to eliminate the power or the selection process. There are Cogs, Bowlers and Butterflies. You have all these other people who are basically workers and slaves. I really get to what she is doing to take that away from the Badlands and to have everybody equal. That really resonated for me. So, now within the next eight you’ll see unlikely alliances, which they have to bond together and put aside their own petty grievances with each other in order to combat Pilgrim (Babou Ceesay) and his acolytes.

Q) Sunny and Nathaniel have had a very complicated relationship with each other, but they still have a great deal of respect for one another.

A) It’s definitely respect. The plan was to introduce the character in the first season, but they only shot six episodes. I’m glad they did it the way they did it because coming back for the third season I didn’t want to go back with this whole idea in my head that he was hunting for Sunny (Daniel Wu). He was hunting for Bajie (Nick Frost) to take revenge for the simple fact that he lost his hand. The way I summed it up, prepared for it and stuck to the character, was to want him to die. In Season Two he wanted to die because he was lonely and felt guilty for the death of his wife and son and that’s what drove him to the Wasteland. Sunny didn’t give him that honorable death so now he has to reevaluate his whole way of thinking and living. So, he sequestered himself in the tower and yet people will come along and think, “Okay, he’s only got one hand now so I can take him.” But they’re wrong! [laughs] He just kept going and kept training with the tools he had for if that day came along. If he ever runs across Sunny or Bajie then he’ll take care of business. But it wasn’t like he was out there looking for them. I’m glad Alan Michaels and the writers and producers thought about it that way because that’s the way I approached it. I just wanted to do a total 180 of what we have seen before with their guidance. So, I’m always searching for these complex layers for him and we saw that in the first eight when he does run across Sunny and Bajie with the blind cannibals. So, the blind cannibals situation basically brought them together. There was a lot more within that episode between us three, but they edited it in a way for when we see the next eight it makes more sense why they buried the hatchet – in certain terms. [laughs]

Q) The Badlands certainly have a way of testing your will and pushing your limits. Nathaniel has really been on all sides of the Badlands battle. Which side do you think has kind of challenged or changed him the most?

A) I think when he had that whole thing with The Widow in the first episode I think he still had a little small inkling of the revenge factor. Then again, I approached as can Nathaniel coexist in what is a normal society? Can he go back to that? He ran from all of that. We learned from his backstory that he was all these others things. He was embedded with the whole class system. He was a Regent before and all these things and he left that behind. He found his wife and when his family was killed he sequestered himself away again. This whole thing keeps going and going and there seems to be no end to his insanity. So, connecting with The Widow gave him a sense of normalcy. When he comes across Lydia (Orla Brady) it brought out these old feelings that, “Maybe, just maybe, I might be able to be a normal person. If we can get through this war and all these things just maybe, maybe, I can be normal again.” He was trying this whole thing out again. We’ll see in the next eight what happens.

Q) Nathaniel does have this past with Lydia, but she’s sort of gone away as well. Where do things lie with her and does that make him kind of vulnerable or does it become a weakness for him now that he’s reconnected with her?

A) Good question because we’re going to answer that. I can’t say anything, but there is a scene where things start getting intense. In episode thirteen or fourteen they’ll have this conversation about that. It’s a very poignant conversation and it just sums it up perfectly. It’s coming. You’ll see!

Q) One of the other things I love about the show is the intricate costumes that everybody has that captures each character so well.

A) That’s totally Giovanni Lapari. The man is a genius. He hit me with an email before we went back to the second season that said, “I’ve got something really special for you.” I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know what Nathaniel was going to be running around in. So, when I went into a costume fitting and saw my Regent costume, I was like, “Oh! Dope! I’m cool. This is great. This is great! It was awesome!” I love that costume. There is another really wonderful costume change during the next thing. I really like this costume.

Q) Does it speak to the evolution of your character?

A) It does. Giovanni did some stuff. He did some really incredible designs on the next outfit for Nathaniel. I’m pushed up against the wall so I can’t mention anything. You’ll just have to watch! I love all the costumes. He dressed everybody awesomely. Even in season one…he wasn’t involved with the show in season one, but he did pick up the mantle and really put his own spin on it. I dug that. I really dig it. Giovanni also worked on another one of my favorite shows, “Penny Dreadful.” So, he just carried that Steampunk-ish vibe into “Into the Badlands.” It’s awesome. I wish I could walk around LA like that. I really would. [laughs] I’ve been tempted. I think another thing that is so important with those costumes is they have silk and these very fine materials. All the shoes are handcrafted by a company in Italy. You want to take care of that stuff. It’s really important as an actor to be involved with something that you’re going to be comfortable wearing for eight or nine weeks to nine months to a year. We have to move in that stuff. It looks great and we can move in it. It breathes well. It keeps you warm. I dig it. I love it. It’s an awesome costume and he’s an awesome, awesome costume designer. I’ve worked with some of the best. I’ve worked with Ricardo before and Colleen Atwood and Giovanni is right there too. Boom! He’s the man.

Q) As we move into the series finale, what do you hope viewers take away from watching?

A) We all really worked hard to bring them something that means a lot to everybody. Not only to the fans, but to the amazing cast and crew. We had some of the best crew members, which is really rare. It will all show in the next eight. They do ramp it up. They ramp it up so much in the next eight. The battle sequences are huge. It’s quite funny because while we were shooting our big battle sequence, they were shooting a couple hundred miles away (in Belfast) doing the same thing for “Game of Thrones.” So, a lot of our stunt folks were going back and forth doing that. They’d be like, “We were here and this is what we did,” so we’d ramp up our stuff. It was kind of cool. Because we thought we were coming back for a fourth season we ramped it up so much. There is a big, big gigantic question at the end of sixteen that would have led into season four. Season four they were just going to take the brakes off and go full steam ahead. Then, there was also going to be a spinoff. I can’t say what the spinoff was going to be until mid-season or end of the season. We all heard rumors of what the spinoff was going to be.

Q) Everybody adds a different element. Every single person is a driving force.

A) They are! Then, you add Lorraine Toussaint and Babou Ceesay and Lewis Tan. Even when Dean-Charles Chapman was on the show…It’s such an amazing cast. We all care for each other so much. We all gave each other everything all the time. In mid-August we had three weeks of fight scenes so we sweated together and got injured together. It’s was a really cool bonding experience and it’s a really great, awesome, dysfunctional family and we all love each other. We didn’t want to leave each other. You live for something like that. You live for a hard shoot and everything clicks – from craft services to the custodial department. Everybody was doing something special every day and there as not one person who was out of sync with the whole machine. Everybody just clicked and that was the first time in years that I’ve ever been on a project where it clicked so well. It just makes you feel proud to be associated with something like that because it makes you do your best work every day.

Q) Is there anything else you want to be sure to share with our readers about this final season?

A) There is going to be a bunch of great surprises. I wish I could be in the room with everybody when they watch the next eight episodes and see their minds blown. Lydia and Nathaniel wrap it up and it’s going to be awesome. There are going to be a lot of left turns.