SLEEPY HOLLOW: Q&A with Nicole Beharie

On the eve of the mind-blowing finale, Sleepy Hollow star Nicole Beharie spoke to reporters about the show’s journey to the finale and its consequences as the show moves forward as well as her mindset about playing Abbie and Abbie’s relationship with her sister, Jenny.

Q: What have been your biggest challenges as an actress (on the show)?

Nicole Beharie:  Man, it just happened so fast.  I think we finished a week and a half ago, like two weeks ago and now it’s out there.  As we were shooting, we started in like late July/August and we’ve just been going ever since because we didn’t have much time in between shooting and the air dates.  So, it was just kind of like keeping up with it and staying energetic and really committing to some of the bigger, crazier moments has been a lot of fun.  I think a lot of people are like acting’s so hard.  It’s actually a blast, like that’s a lot of fun.  It’s just the sort of quick pace.  I’ve done a lot of film work and it’s just a little bit slower, you know?

Q: I wanted to find out maybe if you could tell us a little bit about the audition process for your role and what that was like for you?

NB:  Okay, my audition.  I liked the script and I thought it was outlandish, but fun.  I thought it was intriguing.  So, it was like, “Okay, I don’t know about this.  We’ll see how this goes.”  I had other auditions that I put … of a first priority zone, because I didn’t feel they would cast me in this.  For some reason, I was just like this doesn’t seem like something I would be cast in.  I’m short.  I’m black.  It’s like that’s kind of like not going to happen.  It’s just not something that we’ve seen before.  So, I was like, “Yeah, sure.  Maybe I’ll go and do this.  But, first let me do these other ones that seem like more practical.”

Then, it came back around and I just ended up going in for a meeting with the creative team and fell in love with Alex Kurtzman and Len Wiseman, Heather Kadin.  These people are really special, you know, so ….  And, they were telling me everything about their vision of the show and basically, it was a pilot at the time, what they foresaw and how they saw Abbie.  I was like, “Look, it has to be like this, da, da.”  They were like, “We’re with you.  We’re with you.”  Keep it dry, have fun.  They gave me that path to interpret her as I felt.  Then, I went in for a cast, a test read.  I think it was the very next day I found out I got the job and then had to do a chemistry read with Tom, and that was ….

Yes, because you have no idea who the person would be because I had only read the Washington Irving piece.  So, I was sort of expecting, even though I read our pilot, our pilot didn’t necessarily mean it was going to be like some attractive, tall Englishman.  I thought he was going to be gangly and nerdy and all this stuff.  I was like, “Okay, I’m going to meet this guy.”  And, I had a vision of him and then Tom walks in.  I was like, “What the hell is going on?  What’s this?”  But, it was great.  He kept me on my toes and we kind of played a little bit.  I think neither one of us really knew what was going to happen for them, but it’s history now.  So, it was great.

Q: So, I’m curious.  When you started early on in the show, how much of the plotline did you know in advance?  Did you know how it was going to go throughout the season or were you really surprised as you went along?

NB: They gave an outline of the option to know where it’s going.  I just basically asked at the beginning for any information that I needed to know that Abbie would have known like when they’re uncovering gradually things about her past and things like that.  I wanted to know that.  But, as far as what was going to happen with each demonic entity or each monster or each level of fighting the Apocalypse, I didn’t really know that.  I wanted to discover it as we moved along.  I think each writer brought something new.

So, even when we had an idea of what the next episode was going to be, we had no idea how it would actually come to fruition.  Yes, I didn’t really know.  We had sort of an outline.  But, I couldn’t have imagined for the most part by any means what we ended up doing, what we were starting with.  And, I have to say from looking at the pilot to now, to the finale, it’s drastically different.  I know after Abbie has grown so much and changed so much.  It’s a drastically different world that we’re living in now.  I love that that everything keeps changing and evolving.

Q:  You were saying that they gave you, when you auditioned, some leeway to play Abbie your own way.  I was just wondering how did your version differed from their vision of her.

NB:  I think the cool thing is that they were open.  I think that they just wanted to find something that felt real perhaps, but that could also live in the supernatural storytelling version of the show.  So, I guess that’s what I mean.  I think that there are certain ways that things could have been played, you know.  Girls on TV, they want to sex it up.  They want them to look good and all that kind of stuff.

But, I was just kind of like, “Look, she’s gruff.  She wants to get out of town.  She’s not really too concerned about what anybody thinks because she had like a hard life and she has secrets.”  I think she should have secrets and does have quite a few secrets.  We’ve only, I think in Season 1 sort of chipped some of that off, a little bit of it.  But, I think that there’s potential for more there.  I said with that there’s a certain ground that we can sort of have.

So, there is comedy, but it comes out in a really sort of dry, dry way.  Even her cynicism in the beginning, I think people at first were a bit like, “Does she like him?  Is she being a b-i-t-c-h?”  It’s like no, it’s just what anyone would do.  It was like “You’re crazy.  I’m committing you.”  So, to play that straight, I think, could have been a risk.  But, I think it also helps ground things and it made it better for it actually.

Q:  Abbie’s relationship with Jenny is very popular with the fans.  What kind of chemistry do you think you have with Lyndie Greenwood, who plays Jenny?

NB:  I think we have great chemistry.  I think we have great, great chemistry and I think it’s only getting stronger.  We had a ball working on the finale.  We actually did a few things together where by the end of it we were a bit like, “Damn!  We’ve got to wait a few more months to do this again.  It’s starting to get good.”  So, I’m looking forward to us doing it again.  Yes, we’re just having a great time.  She’s really lovely to be with, to be around.

I’m really fortunate that the writers are creating such a complex backstory for us, for us all.  They’re not just creating complicated emotional themes; it’s going somewhere.  So, there’s a payoff eventually and I think that that’s so worth it.

Q:  What do you think of all the revisionist kind of history that you feature on the show?  That seems to be kind of an entertaining factor for the audience.

NB:  Is it revisionist?  (laughs)  Of course.  I just think it’s nifty.  The writers are so imaginative.  It just makes for a lot of fun.  A lot of people know these stories, some people don’t.  It just gives a little twist to things that we already know, just like we’ve basically done with the Washington Irving story, turning it into something new, or the history of George Washington, or Jefferson, for example.  Just getting a different perspective on it and having a little bit of fun I think is pretty juicy.  And, there’s a lot of mileage in it like you’re going to see in the finale the things that we discover about Washington are definitely worth it.  They may not be true, but then again, it’s fiction.  Who knows if it isn’t true?

Sleepy Hollow will return next fall on FOX.