‘Evil’: Michael Emerson on When Leland Was His ‘Most Terrible’ in Season 3 & Singing With Tim Matheson
Q&A
One of the most delightfully villainous characters on TV right now also had one of the most delightfully musical numbers in a recent season finale — on Evil!
The Paramount+ thriller capped off its third season with an episode that included a baby reveal (Michael Emerson’s Leland used the egg Katja Herbers’ Kristen was missing), a homecoming (Kristen’s husband Andy returned home but something’s off with him), and a whole lot of demons. Plus, to make it even better, Leland and Edward (Tim Matheson) took a page out of Bye Bye Birdie after getting thwarted by Kristen’s daughters.
Here, Emerson discusses Leland’s recent actions and what he’d like to see in Season 4.
The Kings said the scene with Leland and the monsignor’s blood is part of showing the evil side of Leland again. With that and what he did with Kristen’s egg, does it feel like Leland is being more actively, outrightly evil again?
Michael Emerson: He’s a little darker in those last couple of episodes than he has been earlier in the season, but he always has irons in the fire, he always has plans in motion. Sometimes he’s having to react to new circumstances like the monsignor and Ms. Ling, so he has to improvise a little bit and he improvised rather darkly this season.
How would you describe Leland and Sheryl’s (Christine Lahti) relationship at this point? Reluctant allies when it benefits them?
Yeah, collegial, I would say. Some tension, of course. But they fairly well understand one another and she likes her status on the dark side, so she’s willing to ignore some of what is maybe personally distasteful in Leland because he’s a means to her ends.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
How does he feel about her?
I think he always had her number, always knew the kind of person she was and the things she would do for power and advantage, so those things are still true. Honestly, in some ways, he’s his go-to friend when he gets in deep trouble or he gets distressed, she’s the one he calls, so some little bit of a relationship is still in play with them. It’s not romantic anymore, it’s just something else.
He doesn’t have his Demon Therapist to talk to anymore.
[Laughs] No, no, he certainly doesn’t.
Christine has said that Sheryl wants to take Leland down. I’m curious: Does he trust her enough that she could get close enough to do that?
I don’t think he trusts her any further than he can throw her. But he doesn’t trust anyone really. He’s a great gamesman and he tries to stay a step ahead, so whatever she has in the works for him, he’s going to have his eye on her always. He has his eyes on a lot of people, and he has fairly good record at predicting what they’re going to do.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Leland and Kristen are technically having a baby. How’s Leland feeling about her knowing?
He’s probably delighted that he has finally found a lever, a wedge to insert himself meaningfully into their lives, something that they can’t back away from. It’ll be interesting to see how he means for it to work. It’s going to get real sticky. [Laughs]
What can you say about Leland’s plans for this baby?
He seems to have an overarching mission of recruitment but also he’s responsible for filling the ranks of the demon seats, so he seems to have to do a whole lot to keep that whole enterprise going since he can be a go-between with humanity.
Could Leland have ever guessed that the ones most detrimental to his plans would be Kristen’s daughters? They kept derailing him.
Yeah, I think that caught him by surprise but it also kind of charmed him a bit to think that the only people that can really stop him in his tracks are innocent little girls. But it doesn’t mean he’s really that fond of them. He thought it was bold and cheeky and surprising and he likes all of those qualities, but they had best beware that he is out there and he does not mean them well.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
How has what Leland thinks of Kristen changed from Season 1?
I think it’s fairly consistent. He’s always been fascinated by her, attracted to her in his own weird way. He finds her thrilling — her boldness, her honesty, her directness, her violence, he’s into all of that. I’m not sure why it matters to him so much other than that she may have always been on a list of people that could further the cause, his cause. But her eggs are crucial.
Because of that, what does he think of Andy? Him holding Andy captive was wild.
Yeah, that was scary and terrible. In a way, that’s the most terrible that Leland has been in Season 3, was holding a person in some kind of suspended animation where they’re neither dead nor fully alive but they’re aware of the passing of time.
That seemed to be more about what Sheryl wanted than Leland perhaps…
Could be. She’s certainly a full partner in that particular enterprise.
I think one of my favorite scenes of the finale, probably the season, was you and Tim Matheson singing while dragging his body. Talk about filming that scene.
[Laughs] It was hard to know how it would play. The first couple of lines of that song were in the script, and I thought, how does a person in this situation actually burst into song? He has to do it gradually, it has to come out of some impulse, some reaction to the girls having won the battle of their dad and then he knows he’s going to have to give him back. He’s a pretty good loser, sometimes. I think he thought, OK, in a way it saves him some dirty work to let the girls’ dad come home. But he doesn’t come home altogether straight, does he? I don’t know if it’s just the aftereffects of whatever treatments or drugs he’s been given, but he’s not fully present and he has flashbacks, so I don’t know if that’s going to get better or worse.
What are the chances of a Leland musical episode?
Oh God, I hope not. That was about as much singing as I’m capable of in that little scene there.
It would be funny to see a musical, set in Leland’s apartment, with Tim, Christine… I love that dynamic with those three characters.
It is odd. It’s one of the more unusual triangles in television. I have to thank Tim Matheson, too, because it turns out he knew all the lyrics to that song from Bye Bye Birdie. So that’s why we were able to sing longer and sing to the end of the song, which was really funny. I’d have never dreamt it.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
One of the most interesting dynamics on the show right now is that of Leland and Boggs (Kurt Fuller). What did Leland see in him that made him somewhat easy to manipulate?
He saw the desperate need — anyone who has a desperate need for something, that makes Leland very happy because he’s going to be able to help them. They won’t know what the cost will be, but he will help them, he will give them the thing they want. And Dr. Boggs is like a sitting duck for someone like Leland. Now he’s, what is he? Is he a full member? Has he slipped over into the dark side? It was a little eerie to see him present at that ceremony with the demons present for the baby demon.
Hearing him say “It’s beautiful,” you see how much Leland has succeeded with him.
Yeah.
That hints we could see more of Leland and Boggs together, which I hope we do, because you and Kurt work so well together.
He has a great sense of humor, and it was fun to play those scenes.
Is it completely about getting to someone close to Kristen, or could there be something about Boggs, too?
Anyone who reveals to Leland that there’s something they want so bad they’ll set their own morality aside or their own soul, then that automatically enrolls them in the lists of people who can help Leland accomplish his ends. The fact that he already has a strong connection to Kristen, that makes it just juicier. Now, he’s hemming her in. There aren’t many places she can turn now. She can’t turn to her mother or her husband, possibly not all of her daughters, not her shrink. Just Ben [Aasif Mandvi] and David [Mike Colter].
Something I missed after the early part of Season 3 was Leland vs. Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin). At this point, what does he think — better to stay clear until he comes up with another plan given how his last one went?
Yeah, it doesn’t do to take her on directly. I think she kind of whipped him on the exorcism stuff and the stuff with him trying to get her thrown out of the church. So now he’s back to the drawing board, but it won’t take him long. He’ll think of something that will put her in jeopardy.
And make sure she’s clear of knives when she’s around him?
[Laughs] That’s right. Everybody seems to have knives when they get around Leland.
Sheryl in the Season 2 finale… what are your hopes for Leland in Season 4?
I don’t really have character or narrative hopes. I hope that the writing continues to be as compelling as it has been. I hope that it’s interesting and that there are more surprises for me as a player. They’ve done a good job of that, like singing from Bye Bye Birdie, I would’ve never dreamt that’s something my character would do in a show called Evil, but there you have it.
I want to see blueprints of his apartment. There’s the back room, secret compartment…
His apartment is kind of magic. It seems to grow and shrink depending on the needs of a given episode and rooms expand or they change usage. There was a vast kitchen and now the kitchen is gone. What’s going on there? Is that a real place? Is it a hall of mirrors of some sort? That would be fun to explore, his home.
Evil, Season 4, TBA, Paramount+
