‘Silo’ Stars Talk Juliette’s Amnesia, D.C. Flashbacks, and More

We are only two episodes into the third season of Apple TV’s tremendous sci-fi thriller Silo and already we have an amnesiac Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson), a possible new enemy in Camille Sims (Alexandra Riley), the coldly calculating wife of devious Judicial baddie Robert Sims (Common), a community in disarray over the death of I.T. head Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins), and a looming genocide in the form of a Silo “reset.”

Oh and there are also now regular flashbacks to modern-ish day D.C., where reporter Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick) and Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) are definitely not dating, but may be on a collision course with the catastrophe that presumably will drive mankind underground. That’s in two episodes, folks. And you have no idea what’s coming down the pike.

But we do, and we tried our best to dodge any spoilers during a recent round of chats with the cast and creator Graham Yost, who kicked things off with Ferguson, the show’s magnificently complicated heart, soul — and thanks to some shady medication and PTSD from her stint outside of Silo 17 — new blank slate. Watch the full video interview above.

Apple TV

“I mean, it was wonderful.” admits the actress of Juliette’s mental blindspot. “Who doesn’t want to act memory loss? It’s fun. It doesn’t come often. And then I think I wish the way it started might have continued longer, but we have to kind of move through it.”

“It was challenging and it was exciting and it was great for the narrative and the story,” she continues after surprising Yost with her take on the twist surrounding Juliette’s amnesia. “And it gave time as well to be in the Silo we know [then] to go into the other world that was set up outside. It worked really well.”

Speaking of leaving the Silo, Yost is thrilled that the series has gotten to the point of world-building where it was time to start exploring what happened in the “Before Times” through extended flashbacks.

“It was fun jumping back and forth,” he says. “We didn’t know exactly how it was going to work. We didn’t know if it’d be jarring going from one timeframe to another, but it turned out once you’re following the stories, you’re interested in both stories.”

Much of that is thanks to the fact that there seems to be an entirely different show happening above ground. Part political drama, part disaster flick, part rom-com, the developing story here hinges on whether Zuckerman’s Daniel and Henwick’s Helen can work together to expose whatever it was that Daniel’s Navy-pilot sister encountered during a botched attack on Iran.

Apple TV

“We meet them in some capacity in Season 2 in that one scene [in the finale] and obviously they have a connection,” explains Zukerman. “They’re a match for each other and they challenge each other and there’s something going on underneath that I think excites them both.”

“Then in the course of this season, we actually get to explore what’s happening underneath both of them and what they’re carrying into their relationships and how we actually see that for both of them, they see a safe place in the other for all of that.”

They also saw what was happening in the Silo 17 storyline, but Henwick states that she and Zukerman took great strides to not let what could be the far-future consequences of any actions their characters take shade their performances.

“We had read all the scripts, but I think we kind of knew that that was our mandate,” she offers. “It was really important that we didn’t play into that at all, that we really just made sure we committed to the bit of our story. We are just two people who sort of find themselves in a situation that certainly can’t be as bad as it appears to be…and then it keeps getting worse and worse.”

For both sides of the dirt, actually. When asked what she hopes fans will take from this season’s emotional and ethical rollercoaster, Ferguson confesses that “I always find that question so hard. I think for me anyway, I don’t know what Graham would say, but for me, we make it, we love it, we live it. And then [we] just want people to watch it and enjoy it.’

Related

Rebecca Ferguson Explains 'Silo's Big Changes With Dual Timelines in Season 3

And hopefully renew it. Especially since Yost and company are cooking up something so juicy beyond this season that Henwick is already excited to get back to work.

“When I signed on, Graham called me and pitched me Season 2 through to Season 4 to the end of the character and the end of the show,” she spills. “So, I already knew going in what [was coming]… I signed up for the Season 4 storyline. That was the hook for me.”

Silo, Fridays, Apple TV