Peacemaker is shaping up to be the best show of the year.
TV Fanatic got the chance to chat with Steve Agee, who plays John Economos on the HBO Max original.
Check out the interview below.
TV Fanatic: What attracted you to Peacemaker?
Steve Agee: First and foremost was the ability to work during the pandemic. It had been a kind of a dry year starting in 2020, but having done the character John Economos in Suicide Squad, it was a blast doing that.
It was a really small kind of one-dimensional part. So, when James called me to tell me that he was going to do the spinoff with eight episodes, I was really excited at the chance to just kind of have more of an arc and more depth for this character.
The series is a lot of fun to watch. Can you speak a bit about the vibe on set?
The vibe on the set was amazing. There were quite a few people who I’d worked with before. James, obviously, Jen who plays Harcourt and, even down to the crew, Lars Winter, who was our first aid I worked with on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Suicide Squad.
It was like working with friends, so it was a really friendly, fun, kind of electric vibe because I think a lot of people hadn’t worked in a year because of the pandemic. So people were happy to be around other people.
The same goes for the opening scene. I usually skip those, but there’s something about the one on Peacemaker that keeps me watching. Can you speak a bit about crafting it?
I was really surprised when I first got the script and started reading episode one and got a couple of pages in.
James mentioned a dance sequence for the opening. I was really like, oh, that’s new. I’ve worked with James on like four other things, and I’ve never had to dance. When we finally started shooting, I was like, what’s happening here? Do you know? What is this? And he’s like, I thought it would be great if we just did this thing that’s right out of the left field.
It’s so uncharacteristic of this genre of show and, I think James also knew this was going to streaming and most streaming services, whether it’s Netflix, HBO, or. Apple, they, they all have the option to skip the intros, and James thought it would be great to do an intro that people didn’t want to skip because he also wanted people to see the names of the people behind the scenes who were working on it and give them credit.
We shot that about halfway through the first shooting the season, and we had a few rehearsals. They would break us up into groups of threes, and on days that we didn’t have to work, we would go into the production office and work with this woman named Carissa Barton.
She would show us the dance, and we’d practice it for about an hour, and that would be it. So there was probably about five or six rehearsals before we actually shot it. And then we shot it in one day, like pretty seamlessly. It went really smoothly and it was just a lot of fun.
Can you tease anything about the rest of the season?
I’m watching these episodes for the first time. Like the audience, I saw the first three episodes before it aired, and now I’m literally waiting week to week.
So I am not a hundred percent sure what’s happening, although I know that the final two episodes get completely insane. I know episode eight is so packed with insanity that when production gave out screeners for the press, you know, before the show came out, they only gave them the first seven episodes.
They wouldn’t give them the last episode because there’s so much insanity. They didn’t want anything to leak. I can’t wait to hear what people think. This last episode is so huge. And as far as my character, a lot pays off with him.
When we shot the movie, James had me dye my beard, I think partly because the character in the comic books has a black beard, he wanted me to look somewhat like that, and it looks really weird because I don’t have dark hair. I have light skin.
And then, when we did the show, he’s like, I want it to be even more, obviously dyed. I want to see your roots and John Cena is going to be making fun of you just relentlessly. I was like, oh my God, this is it.
We shot for seven months. I had to have that horrible beard for seven months, but on episode eight, it completely pays off. I can tell you that.
The show has only been on the air for a month, but it’s developed such a huge following really quickly. It’s a great response from everyone. What have you heard about a potential second season?
Well, I know that everybody involved, as far as the cast and James and producers, we all want to do a second season. We’re all ready. I think they’re just kind of working things out. It’s such a huge hit right now that I don’t think there’s any way they can not do a second season, but it hasn’t been announced or made official.
I can tell you that everybody involved wants to do it and would do it if we get it.
Peacemaker airs Thursdays on HBO Max.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.