Editor’s note: The below interview contains minor spoilers for the Paradise finale.
One of the most heartbreaking moments early on inDan Fogelman’s new Hulu seriesParadiseis when Agent Billy Pace (Jon Beavers) realizes that his girlfriend, fellow agent Jane Driscoll (Nicole Brydon Bloom), has turned on him. It’s a move made on the orders of Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson), the architect behind the underground bunker known as Paradise, who’s resorting to any means necessary to keep the truth about the surface world from getting out. Before that happens, however,ParadiseEpisode 4, “Agent Billy Pace,” gives us an even deeper look at the character — and forces us to realize that he’s much more complicated than we initially thought. While Billy’s death is one ofParadise’s earliest tragedies, it also spurs his colleague and friend, Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), to continue his investigation into Sinatra’s activities, ultimately leading to the big showdown in the finale that ends with Sinatra recovering in a hospital bed, Jane playing Wii, and Xavier preparing to fly to the surface to see whether any have survived.
Ahead ofParadise’s twisty finale, Collider had the opportunity to speak with several cast members about working on the series, including Beavers. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Beavers discusses his journey to joiningParadise, the experience of making Episode 4, and how long he knew about the big finale twist thanks to a special connection with Trent the librarian, played byIan Merrigan. He also gives his take on whether Billy and Jane’s romance was ever rooted in real feelings, the process of developing Billy and Xavier’s friendship both on and off-screen with Sterling K. Brown, and more.
COLLIDER: Something that took everybody by surprise was the big twist at the end of the first episode. How much about the show’s premise did you even know about around the time that you were auditioning for the show?
JON BEAVERS: Very little. I got to read the pilot before I auditioned, but much like watching it, on the page, it’s really well-written. You get to the end of the pilot, and you turn those last two pages, or maybe even one page, and see the reveal. The camera pulls back from Xavier, who’s looking up in the sky. We go around the sun, which is actually a giant light fixture, and then back down, and then we cut to black. I’m not smart enough that I trusted myself on the first read, soI had to go back 10 pages and make sure I wasn’t missing some element, because it comes out of nowhere. It really had the effect on the page that it did for audiences watching it, which was awesome.
I did know that much. But then, as I began to read for Billy, what Billy’s backstory was, and just all the things that we’re going to learn, the twists and turns through flashbacks, I was getting peeks at those through my different rounds of auditioning. I had read once for Tiffany [Little Canfield], then I read for Dan [Fogelman], and I came in for a chemistry read where I got to meet Nicole [Brydon Bloom] for the first time. Then there’s a story at Dan’s house about him holding me back after the chemistry read and wanting additional scenes. He liked what I was doing, but there was a major actor circling this role, and he wanted to push me on Hulu. He said, “Would you give me one more scene?” He’s like, “I’m just gonna throw this at you.” And that’s the scene with Sinatra where I tell her where to go for having me do these things that I feel remorse about doing. That was not only a really fun scene to pick up and put on its feet all of a sudden, but I had so much new information in it that I had to go in and just be like,“Can I ask a few questions before I start on this just about what the F is going on?”
Then, I get the role, thank God, and as we’re going, every week, we get a new script that’s got new stuff in it. So we’re looking at each other, like, “Did you know that you did this?” “I swear to God, I didn’t know that I did this!” So, it was fun.The experience that the audience has in eight hours, we had over the course of three months.
Do you find that you’re the type of person who wants to know all the answers ahead of time?
BEAVERS: Absolutely. I will say, on this one, I trusted Dan. I mean, everybody should. I trusted Dan so much that we just sort of trust fell into each other.One of the exciting experiments for this was establishing the tone of this showbecause it lives somewhere between sci-fi and murder mystery and family drama and really heartfelt interpersonal conversations. I get to bring some funny to the show occasionally. So, it was just finding the side of the line that we were going to be on with any of this. We were all figuring it out together.
John [Requa] and Glenn [Ficarra], who directed [Episodes] 1 and 2, are longtime collaborators with Dan, and sowe were in good hands, and Yasu Tanida, who shot the show beautifully. I worked with Yasu before, who brought this Hitchcockian, stark, contrasty feel, so we knew we were playing up the murder mystery here, but then… how am I going to land this really heartfelt speech about how I never had a friend before? How does it all work? It really ended up just being [about] trusting the writing and trusting each other — that each scene, as long as we made it honest, belonged in the soup. Then you trust the post team to chop that stuff up and make it a delicious meal.
Jon Beavers Has Nothing But Praise for Working With Sterling K. Brown in ‘Paradise’
Talking about trust, Xavier and Billy’s friendship is such a defining relationship for the show early on, and his death is one of the big impetuses for Xavier this season. How easy was it for you and Sterling K. Brown to really find that repartee and that back and forth?
BEAVERS: It’s a fun question to answer, because I had really good advice from a mentor early on talking about acting, and he said, “If you’re going into a scene — rather than worrying about, ‘What is the scene and how do I get there?’ — one safe way to begin is tostart with the relationship you already have. What’s really there? And then we can add, and we can subtract.” From the very beginning, I came in really admiring Sterling K. Brown. We used to watchThis Is Us, and some of my actor friends would sit around and talk about his work and how bold and unapologetic it was, how subtle and also how grand, and so I was a big fan.
So I came in a little nervous to meet a hero, and this is a guy who disarms you immediately. He’s charming as all get out. He’s very funny. He’s super serious about the work, but that’s about all he’s serious about. So, he was not only the number one on the call sheet — for the first time, by the way. This is the first time he’s ever beenthe guy. That doesn’t mean anything probably to anybody outside the industry, but inside the industry, that number one on the call sheet sets the tone energetically for really a whole set, and you could not have a more generous tone-setter. This guy is, I really think, one of the best actors working, honestly. Buthe’s a better human being than he is an actor. He is really there for everybody he’s working with and for, and it brings this warmth out of everybody, this comfort, and he’s doing it tactically because he wants everybody to feel at home so that we can get deep fast and so that the scenes don’t play on the surface.
So, I had all of that coming from this dude who started out a hero and then became a mentor, a little bit of spiritual advisor, and then somehow, throughout all that, remained the hero. He’s interchangeably the guy you may lean on or go to for emotional comfort, but he’ll also show you pretty quickly he can do more pull-ups than you by an exponential number. Little stuff, too. He’s good at everything in a really annoying way. We found a ping pong table on one of the sets one time, and he goes, “Do you remember how to play ping pong? I haven’t played ping pong in 10 years.” Generally, I pride myself on being kind of good at parlor games and dude-ish stuff. So I was like, “Yeah, I’ll play some ping pong with you.” Ten to one, the guy smoked me, and he really tried to maintain this, “Yeah, it’s all coming back to me…” So it was a combination of both of those energies that really just were there in our relationship, partially becausewe just lucked into some good chemistry, but also because he’s the tone leader that you want on every set.
“If It Does Continue, I’d Go Full ‘Dead to Me’ and Be a Twin Again”: James Marsden Would Love To Do Another Season of ‘Paradise’
Marsden also talks about what a dream it was to work with Sterling K. Brown and how easy it was to connect with him in their scenes.
Jon Beavers Savored Every Minute of ‘Paradise’s Billy Pace Episode
Episode 4, even just the flashbacks in general, is huge for your character, not only from a performance standpoint but just the amount that we get to know about Billy, his past, his upbringing, the circumstances that lead him to where he ends up. It forces you to rethink your preconceived notions about who the character is, and it builds out his complexities. As much as the episode ends pretty definitively for Billy, how valuable was it in terms of giving you that backstory and understanding the character and the journey that he’s been on leading up to when we meet him as a member of the Secret Service?
BEAVERS: I’ve said this before, but I was blessed with a role in a miniseries calledThe Long Road Home, where I got to play a real-life soldier, a war hero, and that was a very special project. Kevin Costner recently entrusted me with a role in hisHorizonseries, and that was a milestone moment. But with those two possible exceptions,I’ve never been trusted with such a juicy, complicated, three-dimensional piece of writing, and Dan really did trust me — trust is the word — and vied for me in the casting process in a way that kind of blows my mind because this is a guy who not only is a terrific writer but… talk about tone centers and talk about energy centers. This is a person who creates a family environment, and he invited me into that family and believed that I could bring what was necessary to turn the tide, as you say, of this whole series with this character. I’m forever grateful to that guy for trusting his gut over the other factors that go into a casting process.
I got to pick up somebody who had so many layers that you would feel like, and I did, there’s additional work to be done because there’s so much to cover, but when the writing is this good, honestly, you actually wind up feeling like, “Oh, I can’t play a full person all at once. I can only be honest in these different aspects of him.” So, I can play Billy the mercenary, then I can play Billy the boyfriend, then I can play Billy the Secret Service member, then I can play Billy the uncle who’s learning that he can actually be a mentor and a friend. I can play Billy, who’s wracked with guilt, and then I can play Billy, who’s effervescent with hope. If I do all of those things honestly, then the chef will round this out, and that is a gift, becauseyou really have to surrender to each moment and try to go there. I got to take apart this little Russian nesting doll of information and then put it back together.
At the end of the day, I got to play somebody who, I think, asks really big questions. One of the themes for Billy Pace is, are we more than the worst thing we’ve ever done? Is there such a thing as a second chance, and is there redemption, or are we doomed to forever be labeled by mistakes that we’ve made? I don’t know that the show is trying to answer those questions, is trying to open those things up, and Dan will always get you to side with a character for just long enough and then show you something irredeemable about that character until you turn on them, and you judge them. As soon as you’re judging them, he’ll show you their intentions, and then all of a sudden, you’re back to the other side. I think what he’s trying to show us is thatthere aren’t good guys and bad guys. We are all the things at once, and we can be the bad things that we’ve done, but we can also be the wonderful, brave, kind things that we might still do. That’s just Dan Fogelman on the page.
Was Billy and Jane’s Romance Ever Real in ‘Paradise’? Jon Beavers Gives His Take
Talking about complex characters, Billy and Jane’s relationship… did you and Nicole have conversations about that? Did it feel like it might have been sincere to a point and that the mission was always going to take priority? You do have to play it as real on your end.
BEAVERS: Luckily, I had less work to do.All I had to do was fall in love with Nicole Brydon Bloom, which is not hard work. But the more complicated side was for her to decide. Is there anything genuinely happening there? That’s probably for her to answer. She got a great line in the chemistry read. She was reading one of the later scenes for Jane, and apparently they asked her, “Could you play it like a psychopath?” And she said, “Well, am I a good psychopath? Because if I’m good at being a psychopath, I just did play it like a psychopath.” And I think everybody went, “Oh shit.”
So, to speak for Nicole, because I’m here and she’s not, the more complicated answer—and I think her performance is incredibly complicated and brilliant—is thateven a psychopath is not just one thing. So, was she having a wonderful time with a romance that she was allowed to have under these circumstances? Was she playing each moment in the moment? And when she was a girlfriend in an affair, is she just a girlfriend in an affair? Then when she’s activated as a psycho killer, is she suddenly then now a psycho killer? I don’t know. I would think that is part of what she built, because when I watch it back, and it’s a fun series to watch for a second time, you can see her playing all of that. But again, even when you’re dealing with murder mysteries and twists and killers, and secret reveals, if it’s Dan Fogelman, you’re talking about layers of humanity. So, it’s fun to be asking these questions because I don’t even know the answer.
We know now that the show is coming back for a second season, but this season hasn’t been afraid to lean into flashbacks, so it feels like there could be an opportunity for Billy to come back. [James] Marsden has even said he’ll play his own secret twin if the opportunity presents itself. I’m assuming you’re similarly hoping for a phone call if there’s ever a chance to bring Billy back, even past Billy.
BEAVERS: I would absolutely love to play this character as many times as I could possibly get a chance to, and I would love to work for this team and with these collaborators again. It’s just absolutely a dream project. I can’t confirm or deny as to whether or not any of those scenes have been scripted yet, butI think it’s telling that even in Episode 5, you start seeing Billy in flashback sequences. So, there’s as much to learn in the future as there is revisiting the past. With Dan, no one’s ever really dead, so maybe we’ll be seeing you.
It was such a blast to watch the show every week, and I’m excited for people to get to see the finale and all the twists.
BEAVERS: Hilariously, too, the actor Ian Merrigan, who plays Trent the librarian, is my very best friend in the world. We live in the same apartment building as one another, soit’s been amazing knowing for this many months. We’ve never worked together in a series before, so it’s been amazing to know for this many months and to attempt to keep it a secret from our friends and our family so that they could enjoy the series. It’s been like playing a great game of Mafia for months and months and months. It’s going to be really exciting to watch everybody’s faces when they get to see the episode.
