Michael Emerson Praises ‘Evil’ and Reveals the Scene That Didn’t Make it Into the Finale [Exclusive Interview]

Michael Emerson is an actor who is so deeply memorable that just the sound of his voice can elicit vivid TV flashbacks. I know this for a fact because I experienced said flashbacks during a recent conversation we shared.

Emerson has played the manipulative Benjamin Linus on Lost, the psychopath William Hinky on The Practice, and the thrilling Harold Finch on Person of Interest — each iconic TV characters.

Emerson always gives us gold. The seasoned performer is back on TV giving us the creeps and the screams as the very evil Leland Townsend on Evil. 

I recently had the chance to talk with Emerson about the great thrill of working with Robert and Michelle King on Evil, filming his first-ever sex scene, why awards season is actually pretty annoying, and his thoughts on what in the world (underworld or Earth) is going on with Leland Townsend. 

Emerson’s portrayal of Leland on Evil is incredibly scary, but it is also likely to make audiences burst out laughing. Emerson talked about how he loves the thrill of playing this unpredictable character, specifically mentioning that wild scene with Towsend and his “therapist” on Evil Season 1 Episode 12, “Justice x 2.”

“It’s so fun. I mean just the absurdity of it. [When] you’re shooting a scene like that you think, ‘Oh my god, the audience will wet themselves when that camera arms around and we see who he is talking to,'” Emerson shared gleefully. 

The actor put a lot of thought into how to play the shocking scene. “I thought…the audience is gonna flip when they see it, so the way to play this is as if I’ve seen the Goat-headed God once a week for a decade, and I’m so sick of his shit. It’s such a bore, and he never lets me do what I want to do, and he judges me.”

After a bit of a cackle, he continued, “I thought, play that real thing as if with your dad or your boss or something. Play it so offhand that the audience then will be doubly shocked when they get a look at my scene partner.” 

“Those are the good days at work. Those are the days it is good to be an actor,” Emerson concluded.

Emerson doesn’t ask about anything in the scripts in advance, so when he learned that Leland is merely the underling of a big furry demon creature, he thought, “that’s great and in a way, it’s a relief that I’m only a cog in a larger evil machine.” 

“Leland appears from my reading of the script, to be a kind of peevish and unhappy son or worker-drone to the Goat-headed God,” he continued with a wicked laugh. 

“It’s so great, right. It’s the Kings! Their work is usually in the real world, where it’s real people. And all along, [we’ve] not been able to really believe that there was some real evil.” He explained, “all along I think we’ve sorta thought that the demon that comes to Kristin in the night is in her mind. That [George] is not really a demon.” He cackled as he concluded, “but, now we don’t know!” 

Emerson gave us the scoop on a scene that didn’t make the show that tells us more about Leland’s position in the demon-world.

“There was a scene — I don’t know if I should say this — there was a scene with me and the Goat-headed God that was to be in the final episode, but didn’t air,” he divulged. “It was a short technical conversation between them about how they were going to solve a certain problem. And just [from] the tone of it, it was much more patently clear that Goat-headed God is the boss and Leland a frustrated employee.”

Emerson spilled more behind the scenes details.

“The actor who plays [the Goat-headed God and George] is the same guy who plays both characters with different stuff on him. He plays the scenes really well, but he’s barely audible through all the stuff on him,” he revealed. Emerson further explained, “his dialogue has to be recorded later and mixed in for him to be clear and audible.”

Emerson is impressed and fascinated with the process of creating the creatures on Evil. “That Goat-headed God gear, that’s a three and a half hour make-up and prosthetic job. And then they have three guys with remote controls that run the eyes and the ears and the nose!”

He continued to paint a rather adorable picture for us. “So, there’s all these guys with little electronic devices just off-camera making his eyes look around and blink. His ears, it’s like he’s a little animal, his ears will go up and down. His ears are like Yoda kind of.”

“It’s such a weird mix of cute and terrifying. Just weird,” he concluded. 

Emerson credits the Kings for the fact that Evil is able to create such a mix of silly, scary, and philosophical moments.

“The Kings are smart about [the tone]. They can create these terrifying looks, but then they undercut it,” he shared. “Like the demon George, he’s terrifying until he talks, and then he sounds like a kind of British gentleman with a droll sense of humor. So you think, ‘Wait, what’s at work here? That’s not a demon voice, that’s some other character that I don’t yet understand.’ And the same is true for the Goat-headed God.”

Leland gets together with Kristen’s mom, Sheryl, and the pair share some hot and heavy and hellacious moments. In fact, the connection between them is so hot it sets the bed on fire on Evil Season 1 Episode 6, “Let x= 9.”

Emerson shared some of his analysis of the possible symbolism and about what it was like to film his first sex scene.

“That’s one of the patented ambiguous scenes in the season. Yes, they go to bed together, but what’s with the fire? Is that a metaphor or is that something that happened while they were asleep? Or something that happened when she was asleep?” he posed. “Sheryl gets up the next morning, and she goes to her closet full of black clothes, and she pulls out the red dress,” he said coyly.

“And you remember in the third or fourth episode, the Chinese woman clairvoyant told Kristen to beware the color red,” he reminded us. “I love that kind of stuff! I love that mystery stuff where it takes half a season for something to pay off.”

Emerson is still in the dark regarding many of the mysteries.

He posited, “It seems like Leland’s agenda is to recruit her. I don’t know to what extent she was ripe or vulnerable for such recruitment. She makes a lot of really bad choices. I think he has found a vulnerable person. He often does that. In so many episodes he goes to work on somebody and makes up lies and rationales for bad behavior. That is kind of what he does.”

While Emerson doesn’t know exactly what is happening with the characters, he and actress Christine Lahti, who plays Sheryl, established a solid and comfy relationship. 

“We’re two people of a similar age group and similar long work history. So, we knew, we both had a similar set of boundaries about things. We were comfy,” he explained.  

“I mean we’ve had some kind of tricky stuff to negotiate,” he admitted of him and Lehti. “We both had to sign the nudity and simulated sex act waiver. And they bring in the intimacy coach.”

Emerson found his boundaries during the filming of the passionate kiss that directly precedes the fire-sex scene.

“The director came and said let’s make this as hot as we can. Let’s get some tongue in there. And I said, ‘actually, tongue, tongue is the dividing line between acting and real life. So we can pretend to use tongues. But once you stick your tongue in someone else’s mouth, I don’t know where the acting is. And [Lahti] said you’re absolutely right. And so, we were both on exactly the same page about that kind of stuff.”

As far as the actual bed-on-fire scene, Emerson expressed that it is not as sexy as it may seem from the viewers’ perspectives.

He explained, “A lot of [the intimacy coordinator’s input] is already in the guidelines in the sort of sex scene handbook.”

“Networks have different policies. For example, in a scene of love-making for CBS, there can be no thrusting motion. You can only rock back and forth. So, it’s all face acting. It’s a bit odd,” he admitted. 

“It is really technical. That’s the word for it. It’s truly a technical event. I was fortunate that the camera was not looking, I did not have to express ecstasy with my face. Christine did. She did it great!”

The actor had figured that he wouldn’t be in a sex scene during his career. But, Evil has proven his assumptions to be inaccurate. 

“I’ve never had a sex scene in my life, until now! I just thought, ‘Oh I don’t have to worry about that anymore because those days are long past.’ But then, guess what? I get on one of the Kings’ shows,” he exclaimed.

“I’m in their age group and they appear to be a couple with a rich romantic life between them…Maybe they want to put it out there. Guess what, people over fifty still have love lives!”

We are here for the new stories Evil is providing, including the over-fifty bed-on-fire content!

Leland is clearly a villain on the series, and Emerson is pleased that he isn’t at the center of the ensemble. 

“I’m so happy to be a little peripheral from the center. I don’t think you can be the big villain and be a lead. I think you wear out your welcome, and the audience may tire of you. I would rather be the seasoning in this particular dish, rather than the main course.”

This particular dish has some seriously complex flavors.

Emerson expressed his delight to be able to develop Leland’s many sides. “I’m kinda getting my comic fun in the cracks, just around the periphery of my performance in Evil. Because you know sometimes Leland gets off a good line. He plays that kind of arch concern or some kind of you know BS ‘I’m worried about you Kristen,’ that kind of stuff. Or making out like he’s not a terrible person,” he noted.

He continued, “And the more I have more of those kinds of scenes written for him I see there is a wide streak of childishness in him. And maybe it’s a humiliating childhood that has left him seething with anger as a vengeful spirit.”

Emerson sees the potential in his character’s past pain. “I can play with all of that. And, yet, continue to soften him in the audience’s eyes by showing them that he’s not in control of himself. He’s vulnerable and he’s going to make mistakes that way. That’s why he needs therapy,” he explained. 

Emerson has played the bad guy in several shows, so he makes sure each character is distinct. He shared his insight into his characters with us.

“That’s always a thing that’s at the back of my mind. How is this not just some other iteration of Benjamin Linus or William Hinks.”

Just the name William Hinks makes me shudder, and Emerson revealed his thoughts on his first villain TV character. “He’s maybe the worst I ever played because, talk about a demon, he was a full-on unapologetic, murderous bad actor. And terrifying to a lot of people.”

“I used to get people screaming at me during the Christmas season of 2000/2001. I had people run from me!” he exclaimed. “I just went full dark on that one. Not even a sense of humor, just malevolence and danger, a twisted psychology.”

Emerson then explained the evolution of his portrayals from William Hinks to now.

“Ever since then, I think I have kind of worked to find ambiguities or lighter notes to make them more mysterious. I think that’s the thing. I didn’t feel there was any mystery about William Hinks. We knew what he was right from the get-go. But, ever since then I’ve tried to leave the audience guessing more. Not certain of their sense of ease of their antagonism and with room to develop.”

He further unpacked his process, “I try to find more color now. I try to find more character sympathies. I try to think, ‘What do they like? What are they good at? What do they take pride in?’ That way you find some qualities that the audience doesn’t quite know how to take.”

The insight he provides is not just an academic exercise. He uses it directly for our benefit. 

“Keep em off balance, that’s my mission,” he shared connivingly.

Evil is a phenomenal show that will likely find itself on the awards stage, and Emerson shared his particular ideas about such accolades.

“It is so tricky and I have mixed feelings. Both my wife [actress Carrie Preston] and I have been celebrated and it is sweet. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s festive and you get to rub elbows with some of your idols.”

“At the same time, I do find awards season annoying. How many times can you put on a fancy dress and go out and give those red carpet interviews and stuff?” he continued.

He also shared some of his ethical issues with the awards business. “I do think that if I ever won another award I would make myself unavailable for it after that. I really do think it’s kind of a bore. And it’s unfair to the other equally talented people in your category to keep putting yourself out there.”

“I don’t like that kind of dynastic award-winning thing that happens often. I think you can receive an award once for a role you played in a given show and then they should give it to somebody else until you do a different show,” he added.

The actor’s affection for fairness and kindness extends to the rest of the Evil cast. 

“This is a really sweet cast. It’s a super professional cast and everybody is good-natured! Everybody is sweet and comes on time and learns their lines. It’s like a dream group. Because, believe me, you do not always get that on a TV series. It’s been wonderful.”

As far as what comes next for Leland on the scary CBS hit, Emerson knows that the Kings will take him on a journey. 

“I think that Leland sees his own demon Sigal in that little map, in that demon map. So, there is a lot of room to expand the narrative of this show because we’ve only touched on two or three of the 60 possible demons,” Emerson opined.

“The Kings have a lot of tales to tell, opinions, ideas. It could go anywhere. I love them so much.”

You can catch up on Evil Season 1 on CBS All Access and be on the look-out for Evil Season 2 in Fall 2020! 

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