FX has enjoyed Emmy success in the past with dramas like “The Shield,” “Damages” and “The Americans,” comedies like “Louie,” and limited series like “Fargo,” “American Horror Story” and “American Crime Story,” but even among those wide-ranging shows “Legion” stands out as unique. It’s adapted from Marvel Comics, but it’s not you’re average superhero show. It shuttles back and forth between past and present, taking place as much in the mind as in the real world, and it even explores the struggle of mental illness through the lens of psychic power.
Dan Stevens stars as David Haller, a patient in a mental hospital who finds himself captured by a mysterious organization and then rescued by another mysterious organization led by Jean Smart. David’s best friend is Lenny Busker (Aubrey Plaza), who may be a figment of his imagination or something far more sinister. The series is the brainchild of Noah Hawley, who also developed “Fargo” as a series and won an Emmy for Best Miniseries in 2014 in addition to nominations for writing and directing the anthology. He could potentially bring that magic touch to sci-fi superheroes as well.
We interviewed five cast and crew members of the series to discuss the mind-bending drama. Click the “Watch Now” links below to be taken to their complete interviews.
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Dan Stevens (Best Drama Actor): “David regards something that the rest of us think is completely crazy as quite normal, and something else that seems quite normal and pretty standard as completely insane, so everything gets flipped on its head.” (Watch Now)
Aubrey Plaza (Best Drama Supporting Actress): “The scariest thing for me to imagine is to not know what’s real or not. That’s terrifying for me, so tapping into that idea definitely reminded me just how serious mental illness is, and I think the show tackles it in a really smart way.” (Watch Now)
Craig Wrobleski (Best Cinematography, Single-Camera Series): “It was an incredible playground to work in. Noah had given us a lot of rope to work in this world and to create unique visuals, always serving story and character of course, because that’s always the priority with Noah’s work.” (Watch Now)
Marguerite Phillips (Best Music Supervision): “It’s a much more surreal, tricky piece of storytelling. Music was used in a different way. I think we used music less of a character development way and more of a moment for the audience to sit back, reflect, process what’s going on.” (Watch Now)
Jeff Russo (Best Music Composition): “The idea was, if the character didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t real, why wouldn’t it also be okay for the audience to not know. So how was I going to express that in music?” (Watch Now)
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