Despite being veteran actors, and thus completely well aware of such artifices as script, costumes, lighting, directors yelling “Action!” … Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy admitted to letting their roles in The Following Season 2 get to them.
The relentlessly grim FOX thriller — which creator Kevin Williamson believes is a little “less grim” this season — returns with a special preview Jan. 19 after the NFC Championship game, then resumes its regular Monday time slot on Jan. 27.
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“Every day, somebody I care about is in peril, or I’m about to be shot or I’m going to shoot someone else,” Bacon told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena on Monday. “That does take its toll, there’s no doubt about it. … We still would all rather be there than anywhere else.”
“There have been some fitful nights,” said Purefoy, who plays psychopath killer Joe Carroll, who is the ringleader of a network of murderers who share his obsession with Edgar Allan Poe.
The action in The Following Season 2 picks up a year after the events of Season 1, and finds former FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Bacon) trying to adjust to life after his nemesis Joe Carroll is believed dead. But it’s not long before more followers show up to wreak havoc, and it turns out that Carroll might not be dead after all.
“Seemingly I have lost my obsession for Joe,” Bacon said. “I have stepped to a different place in my life. He is no longer burning a place in my heart, but as everything in The Following, not everything is as it seems. … He [Joe] is very important to me. Unfortunately, the most important thing in my life.”
Bacon also said that over his 30-plus year career as an actor, The Following has already earned a place of honor.
“It was such a page-turner. It really surprised me numerous times in the pilot and it really surprised me that it was going to be on FOX. I hoped people would respond to the pilot the way I did reading it … But I can say that from my point of view, I didn’t have any assumption at all that the show was going to do well. … The excitement I feel and the connection I feel to the fans of this show is probably deeper than anything I’ve done in my career.”
Photo: © 2013 Fox Broadcasting Co. Credit: Sarah Shatz
