Related: Complete Coverage of TCA Summer Press Tour
Beverly Hills, Calif. — There’s a lot more to the upcoming installment of FX’s Fargo than costumes and hair.
“I felt like by making it not just about flared pants and wide collars that we could really get to something that really spoke to the American experience,” said showrunner, executive producer and writer Noah Hawley.
The second season of the series, which is based on the 1996 Joel and Ethan Coen movie of the same name, is set in the Midwest in the 1970s and looks at a family whose patriarch has just died, evoking a power struggle.
Hawley said he wanted to use the setting to “try to turn it into a crime story that really was evocative of that time.”
The 12-episode second season of Fargo returns to FX on Oct. 12 at 10 p.m.
Other highlights from the panel included:
—The first episode starts with a fake black-and-white Ronald Reagan movie titled "Massacre at Sioux Falls." Reagan is played by Bruce Campbell, who appeared at TCA for his show Ash Vs. Evil Dead.
Of the fake movie, Hawley said: “I kept waiting for FX to say to me, ‘you can’t start the second season with a fake black and white Ronald Reagan movie. People are going to turn the channel and panic.’”
—Kirsten Dunst talked about why she said yes to the project. “I just thought wow, this character is going to go places. This character is legendary.”
—With star Patrick Wilson’s absence, Hawley addressed Wilson’s role in the project. “He’s the only man who can wear a maroon uniform for 10 hours and you think, ‘He’s just so handsome,’” said Hawley.
—Jesse Plemons said what was intimidating about playing Ed Blumquist was the dialect.
