Mark Pellegrino Talks ‘American Rust’ Season 2 and the Evolution of Virgil Poe [Interview]

Fans of American Rust Season 1 got to know Virgil Poe on a level fans of the book never got to experience. 

When it comes to casting such a complicated and complex character, the bar was set pretty high. To say that Mark Pellegrino met that bar and surpassed it is putting things mildly. 

With Season 2, fans of the show will get to see Virgil in a different light as he navigates his emotions around what happened to his son during Season 1. I recently spoke with Mark Pellegrino about what fans could expect, especially with the show moving from Showtime to Prime Video for its second outing.

“I think [with] the first season, we saw a guy that was pretty detached from his family, self-absorbed, pretty much like a kid, an adolescent. A self-involved kind of grown-up who couldn’t take on the responsibilities of family. And I think you’re going to see Virgil stepping out into new territory and grow up,” Pellegrino said.

“He has this opportunity to really take on the responsibility of being a dad to Billy after everything he experienced in jail.”

It’s a shift in his character that Pellegrino feels very strongly about and was excited to explore, especially from an acting perspective.

“I didn’t grow up with a father, so in a way, I relate to the perspective of Billy Poe. I tried to lean into that,” Pellegrino said. “It was emotionally difficult for me, but hopefully, I was successful at nailing a dimension you weren’t expecting from Virgil.”

“He may be, and this could be big for the fans, on a redemptory course this season.”

Because of outside forces such as a shift in networks and the SAG-AFTRA/WGA strike last summer, American Rust had a longer hiatus than expected between seasons. Pellegrino discussed how shooting now ended up being so much different than it was before for Season 1. 

“We started [Season 1] right when COVID hit, and we had to stop. When we got back together, it was under strict COVID guidelines. So we couldn’t really talk to each other and were really in separate camps, so to speak,” Pellegrino stated.

“The adults were with the adults. The kids hung out with the kids. There wasn’t really any integration, and that’s unusual.” 

Typically on a set, actors get together off-screen and get to know one another. As Pellegrino put it, “There’s a camaraderie built.”

But, with COVID restrictions in place during the filming of Season 1, this didn’t happen and yet the on-screen chemistry between actors prevailed, somehow.

“This time around, we were able to build that because I could hang out with Alex Neustaedter off-screen and watch the fights,” Pellegrino said.

Being able to connect on a level that included personal interests — both Pellegrino and Neustaeder are dog lovers — was something he really looked forward to with coming back on set.

“I was just super excited for a second chance and to be able to really get to know people,” he explained.

After a successful first season, this show now has room to grow and really push its audiences to feel for these characters. To look deeper than the surface and find what really makes these complicated characters so relatable. That is something Mark Pellegrino hopes people take from Season 2.

“I feel like American Rust sort of makes you feel like you’re watching a show about entropy, right? About calcification and people just stuck in this town that has really intense gravitational force. But, if you scrape away the rust underneath, there’s something really solid and durable,” Pellegrino explained.

He added that this season, fans will see characters who are “going to the limit for love with durability and strength.”

“We’re all going to end up in a similar boat for a while, but we’re all sort of struggling with stuff. And I think we all need to see our grit, and I think this season does that.”

To expand on that, Pellegrino added, “One of my favorite scenes — I don’t have that many words in this scene, but it’s a scene where my son has a meltdown, a PTSD flashback. What I loved about this scene is every time, it hit me hard to see my son suffer, so I’d have a variety of reactions.”

“They shot it from a couple of different angles to catch it. And it ended up being something so spiritual. I hope it captures how I felt.”

In the end, Mark Pellegrino loves who he gets to be when he is Virgil Poe because the character has more than one layer to him. It’s those complicated characters that he loves exploring the most, which is exactly how we’d look at Virgil.

Pellegrino also noted that Virgil’s wardrobe is different in Season 2.

“As the wardrobe director put it, ‘You’re a peacock on a budget.’ And that’s a perfect description of Virgil,” Pellegrino laughed. “He was a little more depressed and somber last season. This time Virgil’s inner rock star gets to come out.”

“I love that he’s a comic, like the comic relief, as they say, because the show is really intense. There’s a lot of relentless, relentless action so you need that relief that Virgil poses.” 

“But most of all, he’s a guy who loves life. He’s a deadbeat, but he’s also unapologetically alive and himself.”

Playing a character who has the ability to be both intense and off-the-wall is something so liberating to Pellegrino, who discussed how Virgil compares to the work he got to do as Lucifer on Supernatural.

“That’s the cool thing about Lucifer. You can sort of just go off, and everything works,” he said. “Virgil has a lot of malaprops, you know, and he says totally inappropriate things all the time. It’s great because you can’t do that in life without some kind of consequence, and so I get it from him.”

Throughout his career, Mark Pellegrino has been known to take on the type of characters who are a bit more complicated and a little less forgiving. For him, the attraction comes from their ability to push the action forward.

“I’m not necessarily sure that speaks well of our culture, but it’s [always that] villains have to push the action, and the heroes have to get things back to a status quo. I’ve always thought of heroes as the ones who push the action. They’re the ones striving for values. But usually, they’re trying to prevent the villain from deconstructing everything.”

“So I love pushing the action. I love being a passionate valuer. I’m more passionate than I would be in life.”

At the end of the day, if there is one thing Mark Pellegrino wants to leave to others, it is something he says to his students. 

“Don’t look for the magic pill. People want to get famous. They want to get celebrity. What you really should be wanting is to be good at what you do. You should be honing your craft. And hopefully, the success comes by the merging of opportunity and perfection.”

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*Featured Image Credit: Diana Ragland

American Rust Season 2 premieres Thursday, March 28th on Prime Video.

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