Reacher Season 2 isn’t only about Alan Ritchson’s brute bruiser, as he’s joined by the likes of Serinda Swan, Maria Sten, and Shaun Sipos who also like smashing skulls. Swan, Sten, and Sipos play Karla Dixon, Frances Neagley, and David O’Donnell respectively. More importantly, they are Reacher’s friends and valuable allies in this story, as they work together to find out who is targeting their former army unit and how to stop them.
In the lead-up to the release of the brand-new season, Fortress of Solitude caught up with Swan, Sten, and Sipos to find out more about what their characters bring to the show. In addition, they revealed how they were thrown into the thick of the action with hardly any time to rehearse as a group. After reading their thoughts about all things Reacher, don’t forget to check out our exclusive interviews with Alan Ritchson and Lee Child as well.
Fortress of Solitude: Serinda, there’s certainly some romantic feelings between Karla and Reacher. However, there’s much more to her than meets the eye, and she’s much more than just being a romantic interest. What do you think Karla brings to this season as a character?
Serinda Swan: What a great question. Thank you for laying it out there so lovely. Yeah, Karla … We have this ongoing joke that she crunches numbers and skulls. She’s the accountant of the group. She’s a little more buttoned up. And she’s learned to use her looks as a benefit. So, she goes in and she’s like, this is what I am going to be known for – fine – but I’m also hyper intelligent and I have a crazy skill set. And I think Reacher and her have had the longest relationship out of any love interest within the book series; they have known each other the longest, and there’s the most history there. So, to be able to play with the nuance of that, like the veracity of their emotions that they can have together, I think it’s just a really interesting, beautiful back-and-forth play between the two of them. And because they know each other so well, she can call him out on anything. I think what ultimately makes a great relationship is being able to be the mirror back to somebody, and she calls him out – not just for in the moment, but for how he’s been in the past as well. So, I love her emotional intelligence. I think that’s something that plays off the page. And I’m grateful for Nick [Santora] and Lee [Child] for putting that in there.
Maria, in the books, Frances is described as Reacher’s best friend. And now they certainly have hints of this closeness, how would you describe the nature of their relationship, specifically in the series? Would you say it’s more or less the same here?
Maria Sten: I think it is so. I think they’re the two people on the planet who can really understand each other, and there’s an unspoken comfort in each other’s company. They don’t have to talk about it. They’re both socially awkward to a certain extent, and I think there is just that comfort of knowing this is the person I would die for who would die for me, and who sees me and accepts me for who I am. And maybe in a different world, could they be together? Who knows. But I think how they like it is this brother-sister dynamic. Our showrunner so eloquently said, “You ever seen a kitten crawling on a chimpanzee? That’s the relationship.” [Laughs]. And I thought, that’s interesting. I took that to heart, and I’m playing around with that. Hopefully it shows.
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Shaun, the main cast for Reacher Season 2 has some real chemistry, and it comes across on screen. So how much preparation and rehearsal time did you as the cast have together versus how much of the interactions were a little bit more natural and adlibbed?
Shaun Sipos: I don’t even know. Did we have much?
Sten: No. [Laughs].
Sipos: Yeah, not much.
Swan: Shaun, meet Serinda. Serinda, meet Shaun. Nice to meet you. Action! [Laughs].
Sipos: Yeah, exactly. [Laughs]. We really were thrown together. We talked about it after that, [about] how fortunate they all got and we all got that we all have chemistry. Because normally, whenever you’re testing for a show where you’re going to do a show as a regular, they do a chemistry test to make sure that you guys gelled together well, and that didn’t happen. They kind of just were like: Throw the jacks in there… Okay, let’s see… Okay, they all match. We all get along really well in life as well, so we’re really fortunate and blessed with that.
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Serinda Swan, Maria Sten, and Shaun Sipos star in Reacher Season 2, which airs on December 15 on Amazon Prime Video.
