Sterling K. Brown and Dan Fogelman on ‘Paradise’ and the Art of Keeping Dead Dads Alive

Please note this interview contains spoilers for Paradise Season 1.

Paradise follows in a long line of water-cooler TV events with a political thriller that is not entirely what it seems.

At the center of Dan Fogelman’s genre-twisting series is Sterling K. Brown’s Xavier Collins, a secret service agent tasked with solving the murder of the President of the United States.

After an impressive first season, the former This Is Us duo spoke with reporters during roundtable interviews at San Diego Comic-Con about Paradise’s ability to raise the dead with familiar time jumps and teased what’s coming in Season 2.

Executive Producer Brown attributes part of Paradise’s success to the marketing team for how they rolled out the show’s first major plot twist.

“The marketing team did a really good job in terms of releasing the pilot first and then releasing episodes two and three a couple of days later,” Brown explained.

“So they got a chance to digest just the pilot in itself, and just sort of hang and eagerly anticipate what was coming, and only having to wait a few days to see episodes two and three. I thought it was a really masterful way of rolling the show out and then just doing it week by week after that, creating this water cooler moment, which is hard to get, they don’t exist anymore.”

As such, series creator Fogelman is aware that there are far more eyes on the show going into Season 2 now and higher expectations for them to recreate the same lightning-in-a-bottle storytelling.

“It was very clear to us that people have responded to the show, to the propulsiveness and the twists and turns, and they love the cast. So the good news is that was always part and parcel of what we were planning on doing more of in the second season.”

“We’re coming out with a second season of the show that I believe is equally artful, and I’m really proud of it already,” Fogelman teased.

“But it’s different. It’s the next chapter of a television show — Sterling is no longer in the world that we lived in for the first season. That alone tells you like the season now is going to expand upon itself. And that can become a little nerve-wracking, because there’s inevitably going to be people going, ‘Where’s the murder mystery of James?’ We can’t do that again. He’s dead. We figured it out.”

Watch the full interview with Sterling K. Brown and Dan Fogelman:

Paradise, taking a page out of This Is Us’ handbook, makes us fall for James Marsden’s President and Jon Beavers’ Billy Pace, two family men who just want love and purpose. Only to kill them off when the emotional gravitas is at its highest.

When asked if these fan-favorites would return in Season 2, despite their unfortunate demise, Fogelman confessed that he was told not to speak on the matter.

“Which kind of is your answer in and of itself,” the creator chuckled.

“That’s the hardest part of killing characters, is that — holy shit — we really love those actors, and what are we gonna do without them? But you have to resist the temptation to put people in for no reason. So if they come back, hopefully there’s a real reason for it.”

“This show does play in time in a similar way as This Is Us did. So it allows for it without being like, ‘Oh, wait, Billy had a twin’ and that’s how we use the actor again.”

“You kept two dead dads alive for six seasons of television. No one would be surprised,” Brown interjected.

Even though no one beyond Brown could return from the original ensemble, given how Season 1 ended, Fogelman assured that Season 2 would still pull on those emotional heartstrings with new and old faces.

“With the loss of those characters, no matter whether they come back or not, that provides more real estate. And in this particular season, we have new characters entering the fold. I think by the end of the second season, we’ll be as invested in them as those characters who came before them.”

—

Paradise Season 1 is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+. Paradise Season 2 is currently in production.

Check out our full coverage of San Diego Comic-Con, including panel recaps, news, and interviews, here! 

Follow us on X and on Instagram!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!