Emmy Talk: 25 Who Deserve a Nomination

As we entered Emmy season — nomination voting runs through June 27 — Yahoo TV spotlighted performances, writing, and other contributions that we feel deserve recognition.

Click through the gallery for excerpts of the interviews we’ve published this month. Plus, check out advocacy videos for the Orphan Black F/X team, The Walking Dead guest stars, and the women of Broad City, as well as our critic Ken Tucker’s own picks.

Emmy nominations will be announced July 14. The Emmy Awards will air live Sept. 18 on ABC.

Anthony Anderson, ‘Black-ish’

On the powerful Black Lives Matter “Hope” episode: “The magnitude of this entire episode: When is it the right time to address this with your children and to talk about it? The episode was written by Kenya [Barris], the creator of our show, my partner in this, because he was sitting with his toddler boys watching what was going on in St. Louis, and his oldest son, who was maybe just six or seven at the time, turned to him and said, ‘Daddy, why is everybody so mad?’ Growing up in Compton in the ‘80s, being a victim of police brutality, it’s something that I lived. So yeah, we pull this content from our lives. We’re always going to tell the stories that we live.” Watch the full video interview. (ABC)

Caitriona Balfe, ‘Outlander’

On filming the flashback of Claire holding the baby she’d lost, in Glasgow Cathedral: “I’m not a particularly religious person, but there was something about being in a space where you can imagine that so many women have come and shared their grief, or begging for peace or solace or something, and I felt like I, in some weird way, was tapping into this shared grief that was in the bones of this building.” Watch the full video Interview. (Starz)

Krysten Ritter, ‘Marvel’s Jessica Jones’

On her approach: “I build my characters with their walk first. Finding the physicality is key. Also finding the voice: In real life, I’m more spazzy and zestful. I wanted Jessica to come from a lower register. She’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and wants to disappear; but she also has to hold her ground.” Watch the full video interview. (Netflix)

'The Late Late Show with James Corden'

Corden on Carpool Karaoke: “When you’re shooting those things, you never think that this is going to be the most watched viral clip in the history of late night television. … When we thought about it as a team, it’s like, ‘How do you have a music segment on television that doesn’t alienate generations?’ That’s always the thing. Music brings a great thing to a show like ours, which is relevance, and an interest. We’ve always felt like there would be a great place for organic conversation within that.” Read the full interview. (Craig Sugden/CBS)

Thomas Middleditch, ‘Silicon Valley’

On Season 3’s memorable faceplant: “It can be challenging to play Richard, because he’s the emotional weight of the show, and has to have those moments of gravitas. And that sort of takes away from my ability to sit there and do jokes. I always lament about that; I perform comedy, I want to be the funny one! That’s how I am. But then Worrywart Richard comes along going, 'We’ve got to get the company back on track.' So I’m always looking for funny, weird or silly things that can happen, and that faceplant sums it all up. He gets to do his thing, and then falls right on his face.“ Read the full interview. (HBO)

Songwriting Duo Rachel Bloom and Adam Schlesinger, ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’

Bloom on “Settle For Me”: “This song encapsulates everything I wanted to do with this show as a musical theater geek. The contrast of idealized love with what dating and relationships actually are, which is sometimes being pathetic to get laid.” Watch the full video interview. (The CW)

Sterling K. Brown, ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story’

On the scene of Chris Darden and Marcia Clark dancing: “He and Marcia were the only people who know exactly what that experience [of the trial] was like. So you see the two of them coming together, enjoying each other’s company, and just trying to figure out a way how to make it through this whole thing in one piece, with peace of mind. And that’s what I like about this scene: You see two human beings just living.” Watch the full video interview. (FX)

Joel Kinnaman, ‘House of Cards’

On playing the political rival of Kevin Spacey’s President Frank Underwood: “It was interesting [during] shooting, and it’s going to be even more interesting when we go back [to film Season 5], because we’ll be shooting right in the thick of the general election. It’s fascinating when you’re doing something like this at the same time as it’s going on. Especially when you think you’re doing something that’s pretty outlandish. ‘Is this going to be believable?’ And then all of a sudden, you turn on the TV, and you have presidential candidates bragging about how big their d--k is. Then you’re like, ‘OK, I guess there’s nothing we can do that will be over the top.’” Read the full interview. (Netflix)

David Tennant, ‘Marvel’s Jessica Jones’

On Kilgrave’s demented “I love you” in the police station: “There’s something kind of wonderful and childlike and naive and rather touching almost about the fact that he can make such an ill-judged confession to her, because I think in that moment, you see how at sea he is in the world of human emotion and how far from empathy he really is. It’s shocking for Jessica to see him reveal himself that way, and it comes in the midst of him being rather cruel and rather vindictive, and the fact that this character can switch from that callousness and that rather breathtaking open-heartedness on a dime makes it wonderful to play. Quite difficult to play, I suppose, but it’s a wonderful challenge to try and find that capriciousness in that scene.” Read the full interview. (Netflix)

Alison Wright, ‘The Americans’

On the last time we saw Martha: “What a resilient core, that strength of character that she has. It’s really nice to give a character like her those qualities. To not just write her off as being silly or not important or weak. She’s gotten stronger and stronger as she’s gone on. I think that’s a real testament to the storytelling. To be honest, it was a surprising end for me, when I read the script, that she was getting on the plane and she wasn’t having a tantrum. She was still putting [Clark] first and still concerned with his well-being. I was quite surprised, so even I had possibly underestimated her a little bit, you know? She’s obviously a better person than I am, is the point.” Read the full interview. (Patrick Harbron/FX)

Fred Savage, ‘The Grinder’

On improvising a Who’s on First?-style dance of confusion with co-star Steve Little: “I had such confidence that he knew his character so well, that whatever he gave to me, I knew would be wrong. So I knew I should just correct him. I really like this scene because it was so simple, and I think those are the most challenging to make interesting. And if you can make those interesting, you’ve really succeeded in doing something.” Watch the full video interview. (Fox)

‘Master of None’ writing

Co-creator Aziz Ansari on the “Parents” episode: “We wrote this episode and it was very personal to us, and we didn’t realize what a universal appeal it would have. I was on a flight one time, and the captain came by and was like, “I just watched that episode of your show; I’m white, but my parents are immigrants, and it really hit home with me.” I don’t know anyone that has a drama-free relationship with their parents, so I think it relates to everyone in that sense, and if you have parents that are from a different country, it hits this whole other level.” Read the full interview. (Netflix)

Rhea Seehorn, ‘Better Call Saul’

On filming a confrontation with Michael McKeon and Bob Odenkirk: “This scene we rehearsed in Michael’s hotel room, and Michael McKeon has that tour de force speech he’s doing, and he didn’t want to lock himself into where he’s walking because obviously, that’s not the set. But it was a little funny the first time we got to set the next day to do it and all of a sudden, we’re like, wait, this is the part where I normally, like, lay across your bed and say, ‘Do we have to do this again?’ But now we’re in a room with a couch.” Watch the full video interview. (AMC)

Denis O’Hare, ‘American Horror Story: Hotel’

On his character's complete arc: “Liz’s life was like a mini opera, and [episode 6, “Room 33″] has a little bit of everything including love, tragedy, happiness, grief, and redemption. This is an example of how things are constantly evolving as we shoot the show. We were shooting episode 3 or 4, and Ryan [Murphy] buzzed by my ear and said, ‘I think you will have a thing with Tristan. Don’t tell anybody, but I want you to try to find moments to catch his eye.’ Because we were not going to be able to create and film a massive backstory to those two falling in love, we had to try to find ways to hint at it. Knowing that Finn and I were going to have this major life-altering love affair made our on-screen interactions different, even before that was revealed to the audience. It made our interaction different off-screen. When I saw him in the trailer, I paid him attention in a different way. He was more gentle with me. We only got one great love scene, but it was a fantastic scene. And then he died, and I didn’t know he was going to come back until the very end. I was hoping. I would tell the writers that it would be so great if Liz could get Tristan back, but they don’t always listen to us. When I finally got him back in episode 12, it was so rewarding for Liz.” Read the full interview. (FX)

Selenis Leyva, ‘Orange is the New Black’

On Gloria’s confrontation with Sophia (Laverne Cox): “I have a transgender sister. Those scenes were really hard to go in and dive into the way I had to. I had to put aside my own feelings and say, ‘I’m going to be as raw as possible, because this is a conversation that needs to be out there.’ I’ve had to watch my sister endure such hate, such hateful glares, words, attacks. I’ve had to sit back and watch that, and at times fight back. I knew what that scene was going to feel like for Laverne, or at least somewhat feel like, because I wasn’t able to feel my sister’s pain, but I was able to live it with her, hold her hand through it. I knew that the words that were being directed at Laverne were not fictional, and were not things that Laverne had never heard before. For me, I just wanted to stop, and go, ‘Cut, let’s just hug it out,’ because I knew that that was real life for Laverne and for so many in the trans community. Read the full interview. (Netflix)

‘Bates Motel’ writing

Co-creator Carlton Cuse on Norma’s funeral: "To me, the way in which [co-creator Kerry Ehrin] executed the scene that we had for Norman in the funeral home, when he’s having the funeral for Norma all by himself, it’s a really funny idea, and I think there’s a lot of humor in that, but it’s played straight. So you have this great collision of these two different narrative forces — the sort of seriousness of the funeral, but with the kind of comedic setup of the weirdest funeral ever, with these bizarre funeral home members. That to me was like, 'Oh, this is when we get it exactly right.’ I was so proud of that scene, because I felt like this is exactly what we’re striving for on this show. This is the mix that I think makes Bates special and unique. When Kerry and I first sat down and started talking about it, we [said], ‘Well, where’s this show going? What’s the game plan?’ It was one of the very first things that we started honing in on, that we were really telling a tragedy. A tragedy is a storytelling form where you hope that, where it’s successful, the audience is hoping against hope that the characters don’t meet their inevitable fate.” Read the full interview. (A&E)

Josh Jackson, ‘The Affair’

On the actors helping to shape their characters: “We don’t generally deviate too much from the text once we get to the floor, but there’s a pretty open dialogue. Not in the writing process, because that’s the writers’ time, but once it gets to us and we do the read-throughs, there’s an open dialogue, both individually, actors to writers, and then collectively, actors and scene mates, to wrap your head around it. Because quite often, [the story] is dense, and you’re alluding to something that you might not know of yet, so trying to make sure that you’re fitting scenes inside of the broader arc of the story, but then also because the show does allow for spaces of silence and it lives in those small, often awkward sometimes wrenching places between people, it’s up to us actors and the director on set to make the most suspense out of that as possible. And we do have quite a bit of leeway once we put out a scene, to play around with it until it finds the shape that you see on camera, because that’s not always the case. I’ll cop to it: quite often your take on reading [a script] alone is one thing, but you put it on tape against somebody who’s pretty great — I have the benefit of working with some pretty fantastic actors on this show — and you go, ‘Oh, I did not see that at all, but we should go there for a little while.’ And we actually have the time and space on set to do that, which is really unusual.” Read the full interview. (Showtime)

Tim Simons, ‘Veep’

On Jonah’s campaign for Congress: “Jonah’s never had to have a public face before. He’s always been a behind-the-scenes person …. that nobody has ever cared to talk to. So he’s never had to censor himself. He’s never had to behave in any particular way. He’s never even really ever had to be nice to anybody or think about making a show of being nice. So to play his public face with voters, to see him trying to be nice to people and having it, of course, fail, that was a challenge to find that. Because the go-to with him is just be horrible. ... [In the end] I think it was sort of like Ted Cruz. Just pretend that you are a human. Think to yourself, ‘Well, what would a human being do?’ I feel like that’s what Ted Cruz does, it’s just that it always comes off that he clearly has no idea how to just act like a regular human. So it all comes off very creepy. I would say that was the thing: he has no ability to do it, but he tries really hard.” Read the full interview.” Watch the full video interview. (HBO)

‘The Girlfriend Experience’ writing

Co-creator Amy Seimetz on episode 9, “Blindsided”: “The tension that we’ve been playing with all season is, ‘Can she juggle these two worlds? Is somebody going to find out [that she’s also an escort]?’ So having [the revelation] play out in this office is great. The wildfire that happens when a scandal unfolds in an enclosed space is a microcosm for what she’s about to face outside of the office in later episodes. She thinks, ‘If I can keep control in this contained environment, maybe I can control the rest of my life.’ She almost doesn’t want to leave that space because to leave that space is to have to face the rest of her life that’s crumbling around her. So she makes the decision to stay and try to control this one space.” Read the full interview. (Starz)

Zoe Lister-Jones, ‘Life in Pieces’

On playing a married couple that actually likes each other: “ I think the reality of what it means to love your family, or to love your husband, or to love your child, it comes with a lot of emotions that are not loving. It doesn’t take away from the love, and I think that the way our writers are really able to incorporate all of those emotions and for it to still feel that there is genuine love and affection there is what’s so special about this show — balancing the cutting, sort of cynicism of our modern world with really earnest, heartfelt, genuine emotion, which is a tough line to toe. I think it’s very realistic, and it also makes it so interesting for us as actors, because we get to really play with real emotions and the roller coaster of emotions that come with day-to-day life.” Read the full interview. (Sonja Flemming/CBS)

‘Outlander’ costume designer Terry Dresbach

On that woman with swan piercings on her nipples: “Everyone thinks that if the [19th century] Victorians were so uptight, people must have been even more uptight when you backwards in time. Actually, there is evidence that women [from the 18th century] wore dresses below their nipples, which were pierced and adorned. ... That was an iconic moment from the book that we absolutely had to do. There was a moment where I was making the swans out of clay at home, and my kids came in and asked what I was doing. I said, ‘I’m making swan nipple rings,’ and they went, ‘Okay, that’s it. We’re out of here.’” Watch the full video interview. (Starz)

‘Better Call Saul’ writing

Gordon Smith on how the room works: “People never believe us when we say we haven’t mapped out a season. I know a lot of shows really do. They say, 'This is what’s going to happen, and that’s going to happen around episode five, and then we have to write to it.’ ... We’ll just throw that s--t out. If we say, 'Oh, we kind of want to get here, but the characters don’t want to go there, the truth of the situation doesn’t want to get us there,’ it’s like, okay, well, we’re stuck. We can’t get there. We have to do something else. We have to follow what the next peak has to be. That’s [being] painted into the corner. You’re like, 'Okay, we’re stuck here, what is the next thing that happens?' Being bound by that, it actually gives you a lot of tools. If it sucks to be here, then it’s going to be hard to get out, and that’s dramatic.” Read the full interview. (Ben Leuner/AMC)

‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’

Executive producer Dan Goor on the payoff of seeing Rosa’s apartment: “There were two kind of competing theories as to what her apartment should be like. One of them, the joke was it’s exactly what you’d expect, but even more so. Basically, a metal-lined box with no personality whatsoever. And the other, which seemed funnier, was that, when she’s at home, she has a softer side that still fits into who Rosa is, or who Emily is, depending on what her real name is. It seemed fun that even in that place there’s still an element of Diaz, with the safe room. Originally, we had talked about seeing her at her parents’ house, and then going to see her childhood bedroom and it was going to be pink walls covered with pictures of ponies. That sort of morphed into this.” Read the full interview. (John P. Fleenor/FOX)

‘The Night Manager’ director Susanne Bier

On working closely with miniseries star Tom Hiddleston: “The script wasn’t quite ready when we started shooting, so there were so many questions and there were so many decisions being made as we were in production and as we were working along. Because we weren’t shooting in continuity, and we weren’t shooting one episode at a time, there were lots and lots of things which were up in the air. Sunday was basically our only day off. So every week, Tom and I would have this thing: who was going to call the other one first, starting around 7:30 in the morning, to go over the coming week’s scenes in order to figure out, ‘Are we missing some bit of information in this scene, which we are now doing for Episode 3?’ We’d done the previous scene three weeks earlier. We’d need to address that in terms of changing it slightly or whatever, so there was this continued massaging of all the material throughout the entire 17 weeks.” Read the full interview. (Des Willie/AMC)     

The Rayburn actors (including Norbert Leo Butz, Linda Cardellini, and Owen Teague), ‘Bloodline’

Butz on filming in the Florida Keys: “In New York, a couple years ago, all the rage was this sort of environmental theater, where you would go to site-specific performance spaces and watch something being done in a construction site or a real field or in a real forest. That’s what [this show] feels like. It feels kind of like environmental performance art. There’s just no faking what that [Florida Keys] air does to us. You’re in a scene with each other, but you’re battling the heat, the mosquitoes. You’re in the middle of the scene, and suddenly, you swallow a termite or something. You’re in the middle of a scene and the bar next door starts blaring out some Tom Petty song or some Lynyrd Skynyrd song. It makes you jump. It’s all in the air, man, so it just informs, informs, informs. Personally, I just have fallen in love with it. I’ve now made really good friends in the community. I’m completely smitten with the water and sky. It’s an incredible place to be because there’s just so much light. Having been in New York for so many years, with so little sky, to have that huge, huge sky… and it’s just reflected off the water constantly. I felt very grounded there. It really does chill you out, which is good, because the work itself is really intense.” Read the full interview. (Netflix)

Emmy Talk: ‘Jessica Jones’ Star David Tennant on Emotionally-Stunted Kilgrave and the ‘Dynamic Duo’

David Tennant in ‘Marvel’s Jessica Jones’ (Photos: Netflix)

As we enter Emmy season — nomination voting runs June 13 to 27 — Yahoo TV will be spotlighting performances, writing, and other contributions that we feel deserve recognition.

For many fans of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, the Netflix series’ most compelling hours are episodes 7, 8, and 9 — “AKA Top Shelf Perverts,” “AKA WWJD?” and “AKA Sin Bin” — because they’re when we start to learn more about David Tennant’s villainous Kilgrave. A man with mind-control capabilities, he’s back to, in his view, genuinely woo Krysten Ritter’s titular private eye, who’d spent a year of her life under his spell and in his bed before breaking free and leaving him for dead.

The arc finds Kilgrave proclaiming his love for Jessica (in a police station, where he has officers pointing guns at each other to ensure his safety, should superhero Jessica turn violent); inviting Jessica to live in separate bedrooms with him in her childhood home (which he has painstakingly decorated to look exactly as it had before her brother and parents died in a car crash); and pruning in a tank as Jessica tries to bait him into using his mind control on video (so she can prove a young woman killed her parents on his command).

Tennant — who infuses Kilgrave with layers of charm, pain, entitlement, and rage — took a break from filming the third and final season of Broadchurch to revisit those three episodes with Yahoo TV, and discuss Kilgrave’s reaction to hearing Jessica use the term “rape” and why that’s a conversation he hopes Broadchurch will continue, albeit in a different way.

Related: David Tennant Answers Our Burning Questions... Sort Of

You've talked before about how Kilgrave is a different kind of villain because his motivation isn't to rule the world; it's basically just to live his own best life, and that means having Jessica for himself. Let’s start with the police station scene in episode 7, where he makes that demented declaration of love. What was your reaction when you first read that scene? What excited you about it? It's quite shocking when he actually says, "I love you." I don't think you see that moment of honesty coming, or I didn't anyway — that he should be so candid with her in that moment. I think it's exciting because you realize the depth of his passion for her, but there's also a wonderful naiveté to it, which I think takes you aback, and I think ends up being quite revealing about who he is. He's a man who has never quite grown up because he's never really had the journey that most of us would have, where we have to learn about compromise and about negotiating around other human beings. He's never had to do that because of this extraordinary gift or curse that he's been saddled with.

There's something kind of wonderful and childlike and naive and rather touching almost about the fact that he can make such an ill-judged confession to her, because I think in that moment, you see how at sea he is in the world of human emotion and how far from empathy he really is. It's shocking for Jessica to see him reveal himself that way, and it comes in the midst of him being rather cruel and rather vindictive, and the fact that this character can switch from that callousness and that rather breathtaking open-heartedness on a dime makes it wonderful to play. Quite difficult to play, I suppose, but it's a wonderful challenge to try and find that capriciousness in that scene.

He ricochets from one thing to another, and it's an extraordinary bit of writing, I think, because we haven't really gotten to know him yet: He's just existed as this shadowy boogeyman, really, through the whole show to that point. It's the first time he reveals anything about himself and when we really get to see him for any length of time, certainly when we get to see him looking Jessica in the eye. And it's the first time we get to see their bizarre, co-dependent relationship. For Jessica, it's that, too, although in a very different way.

When you stand close to her and say it’s the first time Kilgrave’s felt yearning — it almost feels like a teenage way of expressing it, because the word “yearning” is one-sided. It takes into no account what the other person is feeling, at all. Absolutely, and that's been his Achilles heel. That is why he's so fascinated by Jessica, because she's managed to wriggle out of his control. [She's] become the one thing he can't have, which is, of course, the one thing he desires more than anything else — which is very human. We all want what we can't quite get sometimes, especially as teenagers perhaps. Emotionally, he's a teenager at best still. From an acting point of view, it's delicious. It's such a lovely character to get to play with.

When you're filming that kind of scene, is it long takes, or are you breaking it up and having to calibrate each and every second where he’s at emotionally? There's a bit of breaking it up, but the filming of that particular scene we did tend to do in long, swooping takes. It was interesting. That was actually our production office converted into a police precinct. There were so many people in the scene, it felt like something of a theater performance with a bit of an audience, which of course made you deal with more anxiety. It was quite useful for Kilgrave because he is performing for the room as well as for Jessica. I quite enjoyed the sense of theater performance that that gave it, but that's my background. That's where I started, so I think I responded to that.

It really feels like the precinct is his stage and he wants to direct the scene. Like when he starts yelling about the fluorescent lights, the cockroaches... Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what he does. Having all the cops pointing guns at each other, the fury when somebody's phone goes off because that wasn't in his script. Again, the infantile rage that everyone’s not dancing to his tune, which always undercuts any moment where he tries to make himself vulnerable. And then you see his vulnerability is not to do with his inability to get a girlfriend.

And Kilgrave swinging the severed head in the bag on his way out — nice touch. When you're given a prop as delicious as that, it's hard to not try to make the most of it. There's not many scenes where you get given a severed head in a plastic bag. One of the many uniquenesses of playing a character like that.

Related: 'Jessica Jones': Inside Episode 8 With Creator Melissa Rosenberg and Writer Scott Reynolds

Moving on to episode 8, it was one of Yahoo TV’s Best of 2015 picks. I talked with Scott Reynolds, who wrote it, and he said when he realized he’d gotten the episode that was essentially two people in a house, which would play largely like a play, he was both excited and scared. It’s one of the things that really impressed me with what Melissa [Rosenberg, the showrunner] and Scott and the whole team attempted with this, that halfway through a superhero show, you're suddenly right next to the Odd Couple. It's quite a bold thing to do, and yet it just allows those characters to suddenly blossom. You get to understand all their contradictions. It's an extraordinary challenge to set yourselves as writers, and I think as performers, that you suddenly take it all down, you make it all a chamber piece, really. There's very few stunts. Nothing much explodes until the very end, and it's certainly a different type of a show, and yet, because you've got to know those characters and you’ve got to suspect what they might be, hopefully we've earned the chance to just move into a completely different gear by that stage.

It's all in the writing. That had to be done very deftly, and indeed it was, but for Krysten and myself, it was such a gift to get to play these really complicated, psychological odd scenes between these two characters who should never really sit down and talk to each other. To paint them both into this corner where they're forced to live together as a weirdly dysfunctional couple, it's a masterstroke really of the writers, and that just gives you such lovely stuff to play with as actors.

The episode has one of the show’s most talked about scenes: when Jessica explains to Kilgrave that what he’d done to her was rape. As Kilgrave, you to have to convey that he never saw it like that. That's exactly it. I remember reading that for the first time and being quite shocked. It's a very charged word, quite rightly, and it's a word that isn't used, and must never be used, lightly. We've got to understand the reality of this, and the different perspectives these characters have has to be understood by the audience. Indeed, that's what Jessica suffered. You've got to understand the power of that, and the depth of the horror of that for Jessica, to understand how far away Kilgrave is from reality that he sees it in a completely different light.

What's been very pleasing is that I think the writers handled that sensitively enough that people have responded to that in such a profound way. All sorts of things have been written about sexual violence on the back of that. Again, I'm just so in awe of how Melissa and Scott and the rest of the writing team managed to nuance that within the context of a superhero show. It went to somewhere more profound than you would expect, and we got to talk about some real issues about consent and about sexual violence. I'm very proud of that.

I feel like one of the great things about casting you in this role is that you're so innately likable that the audience is waiting for Kilgrave to give us a tiny opening to think he’s not completely horrible. In this episode, after Jessica shows him how he could use his power for good and they peacefully end a nearby domestic disturbance, a part of us — as viewers who’ve enjoyed this Odd Couple hour — wants to see Jessica stay with Kilgrave to “even the scales” some more as a “dynamic duo.” You feel guilty about it, but even Scott said the writers briefly contemplated whether they had another episode in them and that his wife was like, "Hon, I wish she would have done it, kind of.” It’s a great compliment to you, that you could bring this character to that place. And as Scott said, “It was important that [Kilgrave]’s so likable in this moment — because a lot of times, the predator is that way. It’s an important discussion for society today.” How did you navigate that line for Kilgrave? I just play the script, and they wrote it beautifully. It's just recognizing that for Kilgrave, that's something genuine — he's never really considered that way of living his life, and for a moment he's thrilled. He's thrilled because he and Jessica are working together. They are, as you say, the dynamic duo, and for him that's all he wants. At the same time, he manages to do something rather extraordinary and he makes someone's life better. Again, it's that childish naiveté that he has. He has never considered that as a possibility. He's got a psychopathic streak in him, which really doesn't understand empathy, so it could've never been in his capacity to understand that he could make things better.

In a way, that is the same selfish bubble that means that he never really appreciates that he could rule the world or he could take over America or whatever else a super villain might do. For him, it's just about his selfish little bubble of acquiescence that he lives within. For a moment, Jessica wrenches him out of that, and he rather enjoys the fact that people are grateful, that people think he's rather wonderful. That tickles him and excites him, and it's a new experience. He can have every experience the second he expresses a desire for it. So to have something new, to experience the thrill of being a duo, is wonderful for him in that moment. I think he gets intoxicated with the possibility. I just tried to play that sense of his thrill at the possibilities.

Is there any part of you that wishes there would've been time for another episode where we actually saw them as a dynamic duo? Oh, sure. He would've loved it. He would've had such a good time. Jessica would've become a sort of Jedi, teaching him how to be good, teaching him how to use his powers for the sake of humanity. It would've been a very steep and unusual learning curve for him. It would've been fascinating to see how he would've coped with that. I don't know how long he realistically could've kept it going either. [Laughs] He would rather quickly have gotten bored with helping people out. It would've been interesting to play it out perhaps a little further and see how far that particular elastic might stretch.

Kilgrave’s backstory with his parents is revealed in episodes 8 and 9, and our level of sympathy changes as we learn the whole truth. Did you know the full story as you were filming episode 8? I had some notions of the overall arc, but I was learning a lot of that along with everyone else when the scripts were issued. The fact that he was called Kevin was a bit of news to me and to everyone: In the comics, he's called Zebediah Killgrave. I was listed as Zebediah Killgrave on the call sheet. I was Zeb K on the door of my trailer. So I think it took most of production by surprise, the detail of his backstory.

As all those things got revealed to me, it just makes him more and more interesting and more and more fascinating. I think as an actor, you've always got to be a little bit in love with the character you're playing, however monstrous they are. Of course, that kind of backstory certainly allowed me to indulge that fantasy that Kilgrave was misunderstood and not really a bad person after all, which is quite hard objectively to realize. From the day to day reality of inhabiting someone, you've got to find the empathy, however scant it might be.

In episode 9, Jessica holds Kilgrave hostage in a tank, in a foot of water so she can electrocute him to knock him out when needed. He says his feet are pruning, which made me wonder what it was like for you to actually film in there? Oh, they were very much pruning. Unlike the house, which was a real suburban house, we built that sealed tank in the middle of a sound stage and filled it with water. You can't easily get a lot of electrical equipment in and out, so I was often sealed away in there for long periods of time. At worst, there were flashes of seeing what it would be like to be in solitary confinement, because you couldn't get in or out very easily. If you shot from inside the cell, you had to drain it and dry it before they brought in all the various cable-age. I don't want to overstate it, but there was something quite isolating about being shut in there a lot of the time. You couldn't really hear what was going on outside. You couldn't really tell what they were setting up next, or where they were going next. That certainly helped the atmosphere for shooting it.

Again, what a fantastic setup. What an extraordinary set of given circumstances from an acting point of view, to be locked into that scenario. There’s kind of a reboot at the start of each of those episodes that we’re talking about. They're so extreme that you couldn't really have predicted it. That's great, within the arc of one story, to get to have all those different power dynamics between these two characters.

Another credit to your acting is, I was wondering if some of his apology to his mother for making her burn her own face with an iron when he was young might’ve actually been genuine — before she, of course, tried to stab him and he turned on her. In your mind, was any second of that genuine, or was that all just him again playing for the camera? I think he manages to be all things to all people at all times. I think it's both. I think clearly his parents have f--ked him up very deeply. Clearly, he's going to have a myriad of emotional responses to seeing them again. On one level, I'm sure he does want to apologize to his mother, and at the same time, he wants her to cut her own heart out with a knife, or with a pair of scissors, which is exactly what she ends up doing.

I think all those things can coexist in the sanest of us, so for someone who is as troubled and as psychopathic as Kilgrave clearly is, I think those apparently contradictory sensations can work together very comfortably. I think he's deeply conflicted. Perhaps I should've found it more difficult, but I had no problem in setting all those things side by side at the same time. [Laughs] I think that makes perfect sense in Kilgrave's world.

Related: 'Broadchurch' Third & Final Season Adds Cast; New Case To Tie Up Trilogy

I know that the crime your Alec Hardy and Olivia Colman’s Ellie Miller are investigating in Season 3 of Broadchurch is a sexual assault. Did any of the conversations you had around Jessica Jones inform how you're approaching this season of Broadchurch? The two characters are obviously coming from very different standpoints: Alec Hardy is a much more empathetic character than Kevin Kilgrave. They are on different sides of the argument, although we're still in the very early days with Broadchurch. What's really interesting on that is so far, Hardy is trying to come to terms with the psychology of someone who would commit a crime like that. Kilgrave can't really understand what he's done wrong. I think it's interesting that this is an area that we want to tell stories about at the moment. I think it's something that society is having a war with itself about. As a society, we are being a bit more honest about how we've not really dealt with these issues in the past, and how a bit of redressing needs to be done in terms of how we deal with gender politics and sexual politics as well. I think Jessica Jones inspired some very interesting arguments and debates, and I hope that Broadchurch will do the same, but from a very different type of storytelling, I think.

Anything else you’d like to add in closing? It's great to talk about Jessica Jones again. It continues to surprise me, the breadth of people who have been caught up in its story. It's wonderful. Even as I talk about it again now, it makes me keep questioning and wondering, and that's what the best drama does. I'm just very proud to be part of that.

Related: Emmy Talk: Krysten Ritter’s Scene to Remember

‘Marvel’s Jessica Jones’ is streaming on Netflix.

Read more Emmy Talks:

Emmy Talk: ‘House of Cards’ Star Joel Kinnaman on Verbal Sparring with Kevin Spacey and His Upcoming Netflix Sci-Fi Drama

Emmy Talk: ‘People v. O.J. Simpson’ Star Sterling K. Brown on Giving Darden His Due

Emmy Talk: ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Songwriting Duo Rachel Bloom and Adam Schlesinger on Their Scene to Remember

Emmy Talk: ‘Silicon Valley’ Star Thomas Middleditch on Richard Being ‘Stationary, at Best’

Emmy Talk: James Corden on 5 Moments That Define His ‘Late Late Show’

Emmy Talk: Caitriona Balfe’s Scene to Remember

'Jessica Jones': Inside Episode 8 With Creator Melissa Rosenberg and Writer Scott Reynolds

,

Warning: This piece contains spoilers for the "AKA WWJD?" episode of Marvel's Jessica Jones.

For many of those who've already binge-watched Marvel's Jessica Jones on Netflix, episode 8 — which made Yahoo TV's list of the Best TV Episodes of 2015 — is a favorite. After finally coming face-to-face again with Kilgrave (David Tennant), the man who controlled her mind and body for months, in the police station near the end of the previous hour, private eye Jessica (Krysten Ritter) agrees to move in with him so she can try to secretly record him confessing that he compelled a young woman to kill her own parents. Kilgrave, who now wants Jessica to choose to be with him of her own free will, has bought her childhood home and painstakingly decorated it to look as it had before her parents and brother were killed in the car accident that gave Jessica her super-strength.

Show creator Melissa Rosenberg always knew where she wanted to begin and end the 13-episode season, and when the writers' room started placing the stepping stones to get there, the moment when Jessica and Kilgrave would heatedly dissect their history stayed in place on the board for most of the story breaking. Writer Scott Rosenberg was assigned episode 108, no matter what.

"Once we had broken it all out and I realized, 'Wow, I'm writing the episode where the two characters are sitting in a house,’ I was both scared and super excited," he says with a laugh. As Rosenberg explains, "It is so exciting as a writer to have your work performed by actors of that caliber. [But] this could be a very dicey prospect — basically, it is a stage play. That was also what really excited us; it was a really different turn for the show. It was really about this two-person character exchange, and it was one of my favorites as well in terms of just the pure drama of it."

Related: The Best TV Dramas Of 2015

Yahoo TV spoke with Rosenberg and Reynolds separately to piece together how they pulled it off, including the surprise answer to the question, What Would Jessica Do?

Kilgrave recreating Jessica's childhood home isn't in Brian Michael Bendis’s Alias comic. Where did the idea come from?

Melissa Rosenberg: One of our young writers, Jenna Reback, had done some research and discovered that one of the ways to deal with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is to remember the street names of your childhood. There are many different methods, but she noted that one, and we glommed on to it. That evolved from there.

Scott Reynolds: We were talking about it in the room, all thinking, what would be the best gift that Kilgrave could ever get her? Especially like a jilted Kilgrave, who doesn't really quite understand the ways of the world and who could also have anything that he wants in the whole wide world. And so this thought of "you can't go home again" sort of popped up, and how Jessica's best moments were her times with her mom and her dad and her little brother. It's sort of like remembering back through rose-colored stained-glass windows. So here's a guy that could give the best gift in the whole wide world thinking, I can give her all the things that she felt the happiest in. It all came out of this really twisted and messed-up romantic notion that Kilgrave had.

Watching this episode, you're thinking, Oh, this is why they wanted David Tennant. In addition to bringing out all the layers Kilgrave shows (the charm, the hurt, the anger), Tennant's just so innately likable that you're waiting for Kilgrave to give you the tiniest reason to not hate him. Was that part of your goal in this episode, to make us empathize with Kilgrave, if only for a moment, so you could then rip the rug out from under us?

Reynolds: Yeah, absolutely. The first three, four episodes, he is this dark, looming specter, this monster we just kept building and building all the way up to episode 7, when he walked into the police station and tells all the cops to hold the gun to their head so he could tell Jessica that he loved her. Even that monster, there's like a slight bit of sweetness to it, but in a total stalker-y way. The goal was, in fact, to make us see the world through Kilgrave's eyes. Every character in the show — I mean every single one of them — has been hit by some form of trauma. We show how they react to it. That moment [in episode 8] when Kilgrave, at first like a child, says, "Do you know how hard it is? I once told a man to go screw himself" —  it's supposed to be sort of funny, but it helped us understand how hard it would be to live inside his body, to a certain extent. Then, of course, being the kicker, how can you not feel for young Kevin when his parents are sticking the needle in the back of his head? 

Really, the hope was that not only would the viewer suddenly look at Kilgrave with a whole different viewpoint, but that we could also bring them along to the thought that Jessica Jones might be the one to save him, too. Because Jessica isn't necessarily about revenge in this whole series — she's about making things right, she's about proving that Hope Shlottmann didn't kill her parents. If she ever could do that, then maybe she could save herself. That’s different than most revenge movies.

Let's talk about specific moments. When Jessica tells Kilgrave that he raped her repeatedly, he seems genuinely surprised to hear her use that word. In his mind, he truly doesn't see it as rape?

Rosenberg: He doesn't see it that way, and never has. The man is a sociopath. Sociopaths create their own reality and decide it's truth. That's one of the scariest things about sociopaths and rapists and such — they, on some level, believe that this is what their victim wanted. As writers, it was one of our favorite moments, really getting into his psychosis and seeing how he sees the world: "I'm just giving people what they want," really not understanding that what they want and what he wants differs.

Reynolds: When Jessica actually says, "You raped me" it's something that hasn't been said up until this point, and all of this comes flooding out of her in such a meaningful way. Tennant equally understood Kilgrave's point of view: He hates that word. He doesn't even understand it as a thing, because it's like everything that he tells people to do they just do it and they seem happy. Towards the end of the series, when he tells Trish, "Kiss me, mean it," she's passionate.

It was just as important for Tennant to redeem Kilgrave in front of everybody's eyes. In some ways, you have to, in order to think that he could grant you hostages and do all this sort of stuff he does later. And [David] is so charming in person. He's a good guy. There was a day on set where some crew had left their trays at lunch, and as soon as he passed them, he picked up their stuff and put it away. I was like, "I have never seen that before from No. 2 on the call sheet." That's just him.

It was very important for Mel, and for all of us, that there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it: Kilgrave raped Jessica, not just physically, but every part of her being. That's why it was also important that he's so likable in this moment — because a lot of times, the predator is that way. It's an important discussion for society today.

Rosenberg: These conversations are happening about women in power, and feminism, and sexual assault, and PTSD. Really just amazing, smart, insightful think pieces are being written, and it's like, if I could have wished for anything, it would be to contribute in a positive way to those conversations. That has been a career goal, and to see it coming to pass is humbling and just incredibly wonderful.

It's not until episode 9 that we learn that Kilgrave's parents had been trying to save him from an illness when his mind-control ability manifested as a side effect to their experimental cure, and how he abused his newfound power until they abandoned him. Did David know the full story when he filmed this?

Reynolds: We created that whole backstory [for the series]. I don't think he'd seen the next script at that point. It was important that Kilgrave believed it 100 percent, that he was a victim back then. He's not lying, he's not trying to manipulate Jessica. It's that we all have these things that we believe are true from our childhood that blow our mind when our parents tell us the whole story, and we go, "Oh, really? That's what was going on?" Even Mrs. De Luca has that same sort of thing with her perception of young Phillip and Jessica.

That outdoor breakfast scene with Mrs. De Luca is another fun one that takes a dark, revealing turn when she claims she knew something bad was going to happen to the Jones family.

Rosenberg: I think the episode so wonderfully dabbles with wish fulfillment. When Kilgrave says to the neighbor, "Tell the truth. Why are you really doing this?" — we all know those people who just feed off other people's drama, and you just want to slap them. You just want to be like, "Be honest. What really was going on?" I think Scott did just such a great job of that.

Reynolds: We all have people in our lives that are like, "I was almost on that airplane when it crashed." Then it was that kind of neighbor that just interferes with your life. It was important for me that we see Kilgrave's powers as a good thing in that moment, that we want Kilgrave to make Mrs. De Luca pay for what she's been saying all along, just to make Jessica be a part of his powers. There's a moment when Kilgrave asks Mrs. De Luca, "What would you like to do to a person who did that to you?" She says, "Slap her." He takes that slight look at Jessica, and then Ritter has this look in her eye like, damn, she really wants to [let Kilgrave tell Mrs. De Luca to do it], but she's not going to. In some ways, you sort of want her to. Almost. It's that seductiveness of these powers. That was super important. And that actress that played Mrs. De Luca [Kathleen Doyle] was great.

Another key moment is Jessica taking Kilgrave to a hostage situation to show him how to use his powers for good. Afterward, when Kilgrave suggests she stay with him so he can learn to be a superhero and continue "evening the scales," there's a part of you, as a TV viewer who's enjoying these scenes, that wants her to — even though you feel horrible about it. What do you say to those viewers?

Rosenberg: We loved the dilemma of it, and had her take it seriously. It's like, if she's really serious about helping people, this is a way she could do it. It would be at the cost of her soul, and at the cost of her freedom, but is it worth it? There were speeches in there, too, that we ended up cutting out, but when she's talking to Trish about, "You could walk into the Middle East and solve the problem. Just tell them, 'Get along.' You could walk into a courtroom and demand that any accused person tell the absolute truth." There's so much that you could do to save the world if you harnessed that kind of power, and she's well aware of it, but she's also well aware that she's not the person to do that, that ultimately his power is corrupt. It's corrupted him.

Reynolds: There was talk about, "Is there another episode where it is, as Kilgrave calls them, a dynamic duo? Is there an episode where they are saving the world?" I don't think we really went that far down the road. We thought, what could you do beyond that [hostage] situation? Stopping bank robberies? It's all that stuff that we've seen before. It goes to the strength of Ritter and Tennant that we wanted that. My wife was like, "Hon, I wish she would have done it, kind of." It's with her rapist. It's amazing.

That [hostage] incident was another very important moment for Jessica to understand that Kilgrave really just doesn't even understand what's good and what's bad and what's right and what's wrong. That actor who played Chuck [Ryan Jonze] had that barrel up in his mouth. He's crying and gagging on set, and he was doing it so well that at one point, Ritter just sort of stopped everything and was like, "Are you okay?" She thought he hurt himself. He was fully committed, which he needed to be. He's like, "No, no, I'm good.” It was a funny moment in the dailies.

The hope was that we, as the viewers, are watching the scene and go, "Oh, this is going to be sort of fun." It's twisted and messed up, but we all have relationships with our oppressors, to a certain extent, people that did terrible things to us. It was ultimately more about Jessica's character and where she's at in her journey at that point. It all comes down to Jessica's worldview of herself, that she's not good enough. By the end of the series, we move her a little bit further towards thinking that she's good enough, but at that moment, she compared herself to Trish. That's why she does what she does. That's why there's that twist at the end.

When did you know you had gotten the script to the point where people would think Jessica was going to stay with Kilgrave and be totally surprised when she drugs him at dinner?

Reynolds: That's the thing, you never know; you hope. We hoped when Netflix read it and they liked it. They called it a twist. We were like, "Oh, I think we might have it." We want it to be a big switch. Just even the fact that Jessica comes in with Chinese food, and the way she just drops "Don't be a prick" when she says that's the first part of being a hero. She's not acting like she's trying to be kind. She's acting like Jessica, which is what helps makes it so believable. Krysten handled it beautifully.

Rosenberg: We were very careful not to flag that it was coming, which is why that scene with Trish is so important. Jessica is genuinely debating it, and you go out of that going, "She's really torn." And then you go back, and she's serving Chinese food. You're saying, "She's going for it." And then you have this great moment where she is Jessica Jones, she is who she is. That's one of the things I so love about her character — she is unapologetically who she is. This episode so completely defines her in that way. In an episode in which Kilgrave is trying to make her into something that she's not, the final beat of the episode is, "Uh-huh, motherf--ker. Sorry, didn't work." That's one of the things I love about Scott's title, “What Would Jessica Do?” I love that thematic throughline of the episode.           

Lastly, I wanted to discuss the dream sequence with Jessica seeing her family bloodied. Was that scripted to be as terrifying as it turned out?

Reynolds: Yeah. In some ways, we talked about this being a two-hander, being like a play, but there’s two moments in it that were real important that director Simon Jones and the whole team nailed really well of just horror. Like that moment when Jessica is walking down the hall after she sets her trap to find out what things Kilgrave has in place to protect himself. The door creeps open just a little bit, which is supposed to be like a ghost story, which is what she's living with basically inside this house, these ghosts that are within her. That was supposed to be a true horror movie moment.

Then this dream, the effects crew just really nailed it. It was supposed to be just terrifying, and then also open up a door for us to understand not only Jessica's motivations, but where she comes from and how she holds herself responsible, and how all through this series, Jessica is walking up to people who have had these horrible Kilgrave experiences and saying to them, "It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Repeat it back to me." She does this to almost everybody, even Simpson. Yet it's the very thing that she can't say for herself. She feels like it's all her fault, which then sets up why she thinks maybe it would be a good thing if she were to go off with Kilgrave to be a hero. It's all very interconnected.

But I tell you, even just having a little kid swear — “make it godd--n right" — is scary. We were worried that we might not be able to get it through. But Marvel, Netflix, everybody was all good about it.

Marvel’s Jessica Jones is streaming on Netflix.

'Marvel's Jessica Jones': Top 6 Answers from Krysten Ritter and David Tennant's Tumblr Q&A

The stars of Marvel's Jessica Jones participated in a Tumblr Q&A today, and while they didn’t go deep into the making of the show, the responses from Krysten Ritter and David Tennant were as amusing as expected. Here, six of our favorites:

1. Best behind-the-scenes bit

2. Timely

3. Calming

4. Random

5. Even more random

6. Accurate

Bonus:

See how David Tennant answered our burning questions when he visited Yahoo TV.

David Tennant Answers Our Burning Questions... Sort Of

As any David Tennant fan knows after years of watching him promote Doctor Who and Broadchurch, no one evades questions more delightfully. Hoping some of the mind control capabilities of his latest character, the villainous Kilgrave in Marvel's Jessica Jones (now streaming on Netflix), had rubbed off on us, we invited him in to Yahoo Studios, handed him a card filled with questions, and asked him to answer them. See the charming results in the video above (and the outtake below).

Of course, Tennant wouldn’t want to reveal too much about Jessica Jones, which the critics are loving, including Yahoo TV’s own Ken Tucker, who calls Krysten Ritter’s titular private eye — who once again finds herself the object of Kilgrave’s twisted affection — “the best Marvel superhero on TV.” 

“It's character-driven in the way that Marvel’s stuff always so successfully is, but it does inhabit a darker corner of that universe,” Tennant says. “It’s a more grownup story, a more adult world. You probably wouldn’t show Jessica Jones to your 10-year-old, unless you want to give them nightmares.”

People keep asking him what research he did to play Kilgrave. “It’s a quite alarming question, as he’s a sort of psychopathic, murdering lunatic. I wouldn’t know where to look for researching people who have superpowers who have dark histories with ex-superheroes. So it wasn’t months of research, no, but I did feel my lifetime obsession with comic books prepared me quite well,” Tennant says, laughing. “The comic books [Alias] are obviously a great source material, that’s a good place to start. And the way the character is drawn out over the 13 hours is continuing surprising and tantalizing. For anything, the script has got to be your first port of call.”

When Tennant was approached for the role, producers had the first two episodes written. “Kilgrave doesn’t really show up in them, so it was a slightly unusual conversation where Melissa Rosenberg, our showrunner, and Jeph Loeb, our executive producer, were pitching this character to me but there was nothing to actually read. It was all, ‘It’s going to be this.’ You kinda thought, ‘I sort of know what this character is, because he exists in the comic book world. Of course he’s going to be slightly different in this world. I can read two scripts that are clearly brilliant pieces of writing...’ But you could just tell it was going to work — the world that they were beginning to draw in those initial scripts and the ideas that were already formed for where the story would go. It was something of a step into the known, but one I’m very glad I took.”

There does come a time (around episode 7, when Tennant starts to see much more screen time), when Kilgrave insists he knows about romantic love because he watches TV. What shows is Kilgrave watching off-screen? “I don’t know what shows they are... Perhaps not very well-written ones, I think, if that’s how he’s constructed his emotional life,” Tennant says, laughing again. “I suppose the problem for Kilgrave is, if you exist in a bubble of acquiescence, if everyone around you does everything you want at every given moment, it’s very difficult to build a sense of who you are. We all understand how the world perceives us, with varying degrees of success, based on what’s reflected back to us. If you’re robbed of the nuance of that, because everyone simply reflects what you want them to reflect at all times, it’s going to damage your psychological profile, just a little. So it’s hard to really know what emotional precedence Kilgrave is drawing on. But he clearly seems to believe that he understands love. He understands his version of love.”

Since the character is, at his core, a lonely outcast, it helped that Tennant felt some distance from the cast. “Because the character is teased, really, for the first four episodes before he really gets going, it was an unusual experience in that by the time I was on set every day, everyone else had already bonded. There was all the in jokes and the nicknames, and I’d kinda missed all of that because I spent the first couple of months visiting, being a shadow and being a voice on the phone. That was quite good from a character point of view. I always felt slightly other, slightly alienated from the collegial world, which I think is very much Kilgrave’s lot in life.”

Did he finally get a nickname on set? There’s that laugh again. “I’m going to draw a veil over that one,” he says.

Marvel’s Jessica Jones is now streaming on Netflix.