Last week, we shared our interview with Sleepy Hollow’s Orlando Jones and Len Wiseman. As exciting as that was, it really was only the beginning of this interview trilogy for one of Fox’s biggest shows. Today, we’re proud to present part two with Sakina Jaffrey and Mark Goffman!
Sakina Jaffrey rose to prominence earlier this year with the second season of Netflix’s House of Cards. Her role as Linda Vasquez was brief, only taking up about half of the season, but it was enough to make an impression on many. Mark Goffman was one of those very individuals. Goffman serves as the showrunner for Sleepy Hollow and has previously written for hugely popular programs like White Collar and The West Wing. For both of them, Sleepy Hollow is a chance to increase their notoriety immensely on a major network program.
Pop-Break.com was fortunate enough to sit in round table interview with these two incredible professionals. During that time they discussed what’s in store for this season, how Sheriff Leena Reyes changes the formula, and what a huge creative difference a bigger episode order can make.
How much more trouble are you going to cause for the sisters (Abbie and Jenny)?
Sakina Jaffrey: I think I’m gonna be working it. They got to prove it to me! It’s just this chaos. It’s like going to Comic Con, coming up in Sleepy Hollow. Like wait, am I in Comic Con?!
Mark Goffman: What’s great about having a character and an actor who can command such authority is the girls are going to have to prove themselves to her. She has legitimacy in this world of Sleepy Hollow that’s going to be a real obstacle for them.
Talk a little bit about the history too. Will we see more about Abbie and Jenny’s Mom? Will there be flashbacks? Is she really dead?
SJ: I can’t really say that, but it’s definitely established that I had a connection to their mother and the mother made some serious choices in her life. Isn’t it so interesting in this show that the mothers make all these choices? It’s such a fascinating theme for me because you have all this regret and these choices in a terrible moment. It’s not Sophie’s Choice but it’s a terrible choice they make. I feel like that makes the whole show so rich.
MG: Everything can be traced back in some form or another to Katrina’s choices and Abbie’s mother’s choices. There is an arc this season with Abbie’s mother so we’ll definitely get to see her coming up and it’ll be threaded throughout the season. There is a very big episode coming up, 9, all about the mother taking place in Tarrytown Psychiatric. So, crazy town.
What can we expect this season? We’ve already had a couple episodes aired and it’s completely insane. We’ve even had undead fighting. What else can we expect that will just ramp up everything we’ve seen prior?
MG: I like to think that every episode has its own bat-shit craziness. Monday’s episode, we certainly do that with our spin on the Pied Piper (“Go Where I Send Thee…,” aired on 10/13). What’s really fun, for me, about this show is getting to integrate these moments in history and re-contextualizing what we thought happened during the Revolutionary War. Last week we got to see Benedict Arnold.
Wasn’t there a secret about the mother that just let out?
SJ: I think the fact that I knew her and I am responsible for putting the mother into the psychiatric institute.
Jenny recently found out that news. Will we use her more as a focal point to learn more about their parents?
SJ: Their parents are not the focal point; the focal point is their relationship and how they’re going to learn to be attached to each other again. There is so much anger and that happens this season. They figure out way to be with each other.
MG: The first season was so much of Abbie and Crane figuring out what it means to be a witness. What is this insane world they’ve both found themselves in? Season 2, they’re really trying to get ahead of that curve. They’re digging into their own family histories, they’re really embracing the role as witnesses, and learning to try to kick ass with it.
SJ: As a team!
From a showrunner’s point of view, is there a tightrope to walk in terms of success? The show is really successful so you want to keep those elements that people really like, but at the same time, you want to bring in some interest, and as you said, “bat-shit crazy elements,” to keep it cool.
MG: Yeah! Always. I think the core elements of the show are so fun. We had no problem making 18 episodes this season when our order got increased. I saw that as a really good thing because the amount of story that we wanted to tell for the second season really can be done in that without trying to diminish. Sometimes you’re facing this issue when you’re crafting shows of how to make every episode feel like a finale, feel important, and keep that story going. It’s hard to keep that level of intensity and I feel like with 18 we’ve really managed a nice mix of story. Monday night’s episode is a little bit more standalone. We focus on the town of Sleepy Hollow and the Pied Piper. But then the next week, it gets into a little bit more serialized element in a creature that’s come from Crane’s past, which is actually a woman that he used to date back in England (“The Weeping Lady,” aired 10/20).
Are you getting flooded with requests from actors to do guest spots?
MG: That is a nice thing this season. Season 2, with some success we have had, and I’m hoping actually we get to announce a couple, we have Heather Lind from Turn who plays this woman from Crane’s past in next week’s episode (“The Weeping Lady”). Caroline Ford is coming up in an episode, she gets to play a succubus. And again, our version of a succubus so it’s going to be cool.
SJ: I remember when this audition came up I wanted this part so badly. I knew this casting person for 15 years, and at the end of the audition I said, “I’ve never said this to you but I really think I would be great for this part.” I’ve never said that in my life!
MG: Little did she know we were seeking her out!
The Judas coin was such an awesome touch this season. Are there any other kind of religious artifacts or relics that are gonna come into play?
MG: Yes. One of the things we’re trying to do in this season is not just make it about any one religion. It’s a multicultural approach. We take from the Bible, we have a story coming up that focuses on an artifact from India, and we have something else that is rooted in an offshoot of an Apocryphal so it’s a recently discovered book from the New Testament. We’re really trying to expand that, and that also plays into a new character we have this year.
SJ: Who, the tasty Matt Barr? (Laughs)
MG: Yeah, you’ll see more of him in tomorrow night’s episode (“Go Where I Send Thee…”). But he’s an artifacts dealer, and one of the things we really wanted to do this season was to build on that and have artifacts built from different cultures.
SJ: I have to say, watching this show you’re like, “Wait. I feel like I’m memorizing history.” That’s sort of incorrect! You watch shows and you’re like, “Oh I learned a lot!” It’s not real!
MG: We always start with something that’s real!
SJ: And then you fuck it up for us!
MG: There is a kernel of truth before we go into “crazy town.”
Did you feel like that’s what draws people in?
MG: I hope so! It’s fun for me to learn it, and then it’s fun for me to take it in a way that is still entertaining. If it just remained the hard facts, “Oh here is an artifact that was mentioned in the Bible,” it’s not entertaining.
One of my favorite recurring themes is Ichabod’s inability to understand basic, modern life. What are your favorite individual one-liners or moments?
MG: The first one I got to do was the donut tax. That’s when I realized just how fun they were. But we have some great ones coming up this year. In a couple weeks we’ll get to see him learn modern yoga. Coming a little bit down the pipe we have one where he goes and learns about karaoke. There are so many of these “Crane-isms” or man out of time moments, but I think him getting to experience the expansion of music and how that art form has grown in America is really fun.
SJ: The one where he is doing a selfie or whatever (laughs).
Mark, you said earlier that having a couple extra episodes will allow you to do a bit more this season. What actually is that allowing you to do? Are you talking about more mythology or more interesting things you just couldn’t pack in?
MG: Both! There were some episodes last season that we were initially brainstorming and went, “Oh that’s great! But it really feels kinda standalone. It doesn’t quite link into the mythology.” So we’ve been able to do a couple of those episodes. In between the apocalypse, here’s just another strange creature that has popped out! And then we’ve been able to tie that in.
The other thing, just thinking about Season 2 and 18 episodes, we’re doing 11 straight. There are 11 weeks uninterrupted. We have two halves of the season, so we really ramped very hard into the midseason finale. Then we pick that up, character time, six weeks later, and do seven more in a row. Thinking of the season in that way is pretty fun.
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Luke Kalamar is Pop-Break.com’s television and every Saturday afternoon you can read his retro video game column, Remembering the Classics. He covers Game of Thrones, Saturday Night Live and The Walking Dead (amongst others) every week. As for as his career and literary standing goes — take the best parts of Spider-man, Captain America and Luke Skywalker and you will fully understand his origin story.
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