There’s truly nothing else on TV like Preacher. Over the last four years, the cult AMC series has pushed the boundaries of serialized story-telling and continuously kept audiences guessing. Now in its final season, Jesse and Tulip are on a mission to save Cassidy, while on their quest to find God.
At San Diego Comic-Con the cast of Preacher Season 4 Julie Ann Emery (Lara Featherstone), Ruth Negga (Tulip O’Hare), Dominic Cooper (Jesse Custer), and Mark Harelik (God) sat down with press one last time to discuss the conclusion of the series, the role of God in the final season, and what their characters had a theme songs would be.
What would pick for your characters theme song, each of you? What song epitomizes the character to you, and since he’s not here what would be the theme for Proinsias Cassidy (Joe Gilgun)?
Julie Ann Emery: “Sex and Candy” [by Marcy Playground] for Joe for sure. (panels laughs). But for my character, “Onward Christian Soldiers” for Featherstone, absolutely.
[Editor’s Note: “Onward Christian Soliders” was written by Sabine Baring-Gould in 1865, and was composed by Arthur Sullivan in 1871.]
Mark Harelik: God’s favorite composer is Ornette Coleman. [But his theme music would be] freeform jazz without a name necessarily.
The role of God in Season 4:
Harelik: Without getting terribly specific, I can say that God is manipulating everybody. He’s manipulating everybody for his own purposes. He wants them to either succeed at what they’re doing or think that they’re going to succeed and [but actually] fail which will allow something else to happen. He’s created this spider web and as the episodes go by of the fourth season, you’ll see the effect of this spiderweb. God has very specific intentions with Tulip, but they’re all wrapped up in his knowledge of her nature.
On the series a conclusion:
Dominic Cooper: It could have gone on and on and on. I think the decision was made because they [the producers] felt this story, as the comics did, needed a beginning, middle, and end and [they wanted] to wrap it. The comic book has such a definitive ending, and I think that without the knowledge of that, you don’t know where it could go. It could just carry on.
Ruth Negga: But you don’t want to just go on. You don’t want to bore people to death.
Cooper: Yes. And when they were creating this particular show, and I think they did what those people who loved those comic books in the 1990s would want. But it was very sad getting the news as we’ve come to love doing and it’s become part of our lives.
Emery: [At the time of the panel] I think we’re still all in mourning. We just wrapped like three weeks ago. So we’re still all working through the fact that we’re not going working together again on the show. I love showing up on the show to do the work every day. Everybody on the show really raises each other’s game and challenges and each other to be better.
Harelik: The story of Preacher was established for the most part before we went into production. So it wasn’t creating the story; it was creating the moments that made the story that was really stimulating for us. And that’s the thing that we fed on while we were there. But during the Fourth Season the tension in the stakes just ratcheted up more and more and more and more and more. And being able to bring that to our conclusion is really satisfying as well plangent.
Words & Photo by Alfred Mannarino | Additional Writing by Bill Bodkin
