PHOTOS: Deadline Emmy Party – Ray Liotta, Rachel Bloom, Caitriona Balfe, Sam Heughan, Will Forte, Michael McKean & More

On the imminent start of production on Season 2:

“We leave Friday. I just got the first script right before I left (tonight), so I have no idea—I’ll probably go home and read it tonight; or maybe in the morning, because sometimes if I read something, then I won’t be able to fall asleep. So I don’t know exactly what they’re going to do. I think Season 1 came out really, really well, and as you go into it, you just hope that we’re all on the same page, and everybody’s dedicated in the same way.”

“My favorite scene (in Season 2), I can’t reveal yet. But last season, I really liked the Thanksgiving episode—all of those scenes I thought were really great, and I think the scene, in particular, in that episode, was—I’m washing the dishes, and I just crashed the entire event. I left it like, scorched earth. 

It was terrible, and it was all because of me. And I’m saying to Tommy (Dewey), who plays Alex, ‘I’m sorry I ruined Thanksgiving.’ And he’s basically like, ‘Why don’t you give your mom a break?’ It’s so simple, but  I felt like I really dropped into that moment, and felt a lot of feelings. I took that home with me, that day.”

“One of my favorite songs to do was in this episode—it’s, “You Ruined Everything, You Stupid Bitch.” I wrote the lyrics for that, and they really came from writing on when I was most depressed, and self-hating. That was interesting and cathartic to do, as an actor, because it was scary to write it, and actually getting to do it on stage as part of my show was really an amazing experience, and went full circle with any struggles I’ve had with anxiety, or whatever. The more, on the show, that I’ve gotten to put it all out there and just be honest about everything, the less it affects me.”

Rodriguez’s thoughts on the Season 1 finale and the upcoming second season:

What happens now is that  Season 1 ends up becoming this prequel; now, the question is different. In Season 2, as I’ve been hearing from Aline and Rachel tonight, there’s a lot of emotions flowing through Josh, and I think the audience is going to be thrown, and just sitting there with their jaw open, wondering, what is happening right now?”

Isham on his takeaway episode from Season 2:

“In episode 5, John commissioned an original ballet; a choreographer choreographed something, I wrote an original composition, and the entire ballet exists in the episode, and is filmed from beginning to end. It’s a very unique moment for broadcast television, to have an original ballet performed and filmed, and exist within an episode.” 

Corinealdi’s response to Snoop Dogg’s controversial comments on the series:

“My first response was, I challenge him to watch it, because he didn’t want to see it. You have to see it before we can have a conversation about it. What I think a lot of people are really holding on to is that you want to see yourself represented in more than just comedies, and more than just historical films. You want to see that—but that does not take away from the importance of historical projects.  This is important: there’s a whole generation that has never seen the original Roots; there’s a whole generation that don’t understand their history.”

Hardin’s defining Season 2 moment:

“I think episode 2 of Season 2 of Transparent, you really get to see Tammy crack and unravel, and just go to her lowest low. And everything about the fantasy of her love life is just blown up in one fell swoop. Tammy had such a profound arc from Season 1 to Season 2, as far as just that whole, delicious love affair that turned her life upside down—she realized, ‘Oh look, I can have everything, it’s right here in front of me. I can have the picture perfect life I always dreamed of,’ and then it all just goes up in flames. So I think that’s a really poignant scene and a really poignant episode for her.”

Traynor’s takeaway moment from Season 3:

“It’s my penultimate episode, but 603—it was an episode where the writers really used an opportunity to explore how overwhelming that post-apocalyptic scenario was, and somebody who just, through luck, survived too long. I think the horrible thing about being dishonest with yourself—and he was finally coming to terms with the fact that he was not a hero. I think there’s far fewer Rick Grimes in all of us than you’d expect.”

Cardellini on Meg’s dramatic Season 2 evolution:

“Meg has a lot more to do this season, which is really fun for me, and I think she changes the most from the first season to the second. She drinks a lot more and gets a little more out of control—those scenes were really fun to play. And then with John…when the screw starts to turn and she realizes that she can’t trust him either, I think that’s such a huge fracture from everything she knows and trusts. And even though she wants to trust Kevin, I think he’s a little bit harder to put your faith in.” [Laughs]

Shapiro on the series’ low-fi origins of the History Channel series:

“To give you a sense of how low-budget, lo-fi the first episode was, we literally bartered with the location, to get the location for free, in return for filming a wedding and a quinceañera for them, which I’m pretty sure Game of Thrones isn’t doing for their locations. [Laughs] 

On continuing as a writer in Season 5:

“I’m on the writing team again this coming season, so I’ve been in the room and I kind of know what’s happening.”

Highmore’s takeaway episode for Season 4:

“I guess numbers nine and ten— they always feel like one (episode), somehow. But number nine is a key episode, and then ten sets up this new version of the show—which will still center, of course, on the relationship between Norman and Norma. But Norma’s no longer around in quite the same way.”

Hale shares a favorite Season 5 moment:

“This past episode, when Selina is at the Congressional Ball and she’s desperately trying to get the attention and support of all the representatives, its such a beautiful portrait of desperation, of her doing anything to cling to her presidency. We’re just a bunch of idiots and morons just at her call as lapdogs, just trying to get everybody to like her. But mainly, for her to like us.”

Seehorn on the unique Jimmy-Kim dynamic:

“It’s strange, right? [Laughs] What’s actually unique about it is its simplicity. There’s something deeply intimate about these two, it’s very lived in. We take this sacred text of ours—and a lot of people also don’t realize, we have no rewrites, which is a real gift from AMC and Sony. You have a white script, not blue, pink, salmon. And you can build on that foundation from the get-go. With the relationship, Bob (Odenkirk) and I are then allowed to play between the lines, and that’s where I think you get this lived in thing.”

Forte discusses a mystery for Season 3’s unraveling:

“We just got into the writers’ room last week, so we’re very excited—at the end of season 2, the last image you see is a couple people in hazmat suits coming towards our house in Malibu. We know that one of those people is Mark Boone Junior, but we don’t know who are in the other two suits. So we’re working on that right now, and we have a lot of really fun possibilities.”

Barr, on challenges in Season 2:

“What was challenging, that I welcomed in Season 2, was—I think there’s a significant change in Laura this season, but in the way she presents that change, it’s a lot less demonstrative, it’s a lot more internalized, and it’s something that you can see bubbling up under the surface, but she never really lets out, like she does on the lawn with her teacher.”

 With great care not to spoil, Melamed divulges a bit about his favorite episode of Casual, Season 2:

“One (favorite) is the thirteen episode of Casual (in Season 2). I’m sworn to secrecy, but it’s very interesting and very different, both for me and for that show. And the fact that I was good friends with the three principal actors on that show before I was ever on it actually helped a great deal with what had to go on in that particular episode.”