\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"foundation-episode-7-lee-pace\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/foundation-episode-7-lee-pace.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\nI knew that we couldn\u2019t keep the fall of the Empire beyond Season 3. The audience would probably be too frustrated with that. So then when I started to think about what would be the biggest hallmarks of the fall of the Empire, I thought, there\u2019s an assumption that that Brother Day, Lee Pace, has plot armor. So I thought, \u201cOK, can we tell a story in which that\u2019s not true?\u201d And there\u2019s also an assumption that with Demerzel being a robot, that that character also has plot armor. When we\u2019re breaking a season and we come up with an idea that makes me uncomfortable, then I think maybe we\u2019re onto something. I love the character of Demerzel, but what would make me uncomfortable is the tragic irony of Demerzel almost being free and then getting killed. And the same with Day, the tragedy of Day turning from this really selfish oaf of a character to being someone selfless and then getting killed before he could do this final act of contrition. I just think it would be too easy if Day had come in and saved the day and killed Dusk. I don\u2019t know how else to tell you that the Empire is done now. I wanted to leave the audience saying, \u201cWhat now?\u201d<\/p>\n
So is Demerzel dead and gone?<\/p>\n
[Smiles] Looks that way.<\/p>\n
Is Lee Pace off the show? Is he coming back?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to say.<\/p>\n
Alright well tell me about putting together Demerzel\u2019s arc this season then and revealing more of the robots backstory.<\/p>\n
I like shows that have characters that are shades of grey. I just think messy is more interesting and it\u2019s a better reflection of life, so I was really interested in challenging the audience\u2019s assumption continually as to whether or not this character was a good character or a bad character, and how, arguably, even some of the worst characters in the show have these incredibly tragic backstories that have made them the monsters that they are. In the case of Demerzel, she was this sort of very cold, calculating character in Season 1 and then in Season 2, I really wanted to give people a gut punch with her backstory and portray that she doesn\u2019t have a choice. Then in this season, I was really interested in showing her do some really awful things, like even destroying the planet of her own religion, because she has no choice, and having people be challenged by that. I just find it interesting that you\u2019re gonna have characters behave so monstrously, and then you\u2019re constantly deciding, \u201cI don\u2019t want this character to die\u201d or \u201cI want this character to get what they want.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"foundation-season-3-finale-lee-pace\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/foundation-season-3-finale-lee-pace.jpg\")
Lee Pace in the \u201cFoundation\u201d Season 3 finale. (Apple TV+)<\/p>\n
Then you have Dusk \u2013 or Darkness \u2013 who is behaving entirely out of spite.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think he has any clue or even interest in solving the problem or being a good steward of the galaxy. I think it\u2019s truly a guy who, the center obviously cannot hold and he knows he can\u2019t fix things, but he can burn everything down. And I would argue that there are people like that operating in power on Earth today that have personality disorders, and Dusk clearly has a personality disorder \u2013 it\u2019s all personal for him. A switch has been flipped, and that\u2019s a bad person to have in charge of a weapon like that.<\/p>\n
So heading into Season 4 he\u2019s all alone with what little power Empire has left.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t have a Day or a Dawn or a Demerzel to counsel him. He just has yes men and yes women who are all terrified of him, and no one to give him any sort of counterbalancing advice.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure that\u2019ll end well.<\/p>\n
Even as I say that I\u2019m like, \u201cHuh, is there anyone else like that right now in today\u2019s society that\u2019s operating like that?\u201d<\/p>\n
I want to talk about the Mule twist. I think readers of the book were expecting a twist, but maybe not the exact twist that you gave them. Tell me about crafting that through the season.<\/p>\n
When the books were written and there was that twist in 1951 and 1952, people were very surprised. I think I was in high school in the \u201880s, and I wasn\u2019t that surprised by the twist, only because they talked about this pirate character, but there just weren\u2019t a lot of viable suspects for who the Mule would be and Magnifico is the most unlikely one. I think it was a great, sophisticated twist in terms of these preconceptions of who these big warlords are.<\/p>\n
So we\u2019ve got book readers who watch our show, and we\u2019ve got non-book readers, and one thing that I started to think about was, well, if we do the twist exactly as the book, how much of a twist is that going to be, even for non book readers. Then I also started to think about, hypothetically, if it weren\u2019t Magnifico, I think I have an idea to make it Bayta because of all the other potential characters out there, I thought that she would be the least likely for the audience to suspect. Even though we\u2019ve come a long way from the 1950s in terms of equality for women, I think people still tend to underestimate women. It was interesting to read some of the online reactions to Bayta and Toran in Episode 2, and they\u2019re like, \u201cI don\u2019t like them. They\u2019re too vapid.\u201d It was very gratifying to see the audience\u2019s assessment of them change, and to see them fall in love with them. I knew that was the story that we were always telling. And Apple, for that matter, was kind of uncomfortable with them at the beginning as well. But I knew where we were going and and I knew that the more vapid or shallow I made Bayta \u2014 which she was doing intentionally \u2014 the more of a rug pull it would be.<\/p>\n
Bayta was smart enough to know that she needed a big, hulking villain to be her red herring, to be her straw man. We even treated the pirate a little bit like a cliche villain, and that was all by design because he\u2019s just a big, sadistic pirate. The characters in the show are thinking that, and the audience is thinking that, and hopefully people are like, \u201cHoly crap, I didn\u2019t see that coming.\u201d It\u2019s hard to surprise audiences these days.<\/p>\n
So how does this work? Is he under her mental control?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the beauty of it, he thinks he\u2019s The Mule. He\u2019s been conditioned, and she\u2019s sort of given him a little of her power, and he thinks that backstory is his. He\u2019s gotten fleeting glimpses, he mentions it two or three times in the season, where it\u2019s like, \u201cDo you ever get the sense that you\u2019re having someone else\u2019s dream?\u201d He almost sees behind that veil but he has no idea Bayta is really the power. In Episode 8, when she says, \u201cMaybe you should leave,\u201d he leaves but he doesn\u2019t leave because he\u2019s scared of her. I would argue he\u2019s not even sure exactly why he leaves.<\/p>\n
Can her mental abilities reach across planets or is she always in close proximity to him?<\/p>\n
She can\u2019t reach across planets. She\u2019s within a couple of miles or so. She also doesn\u2019t need to convert everyone. She only needs to convert a few people.<\/p>\n
![\"foundation-season-3-finale-bayta\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/foundation-season-3-finale-bayta.jpg\")
Bayta in \u201cFoundation\u201d (Apple TV+)<\/p>\n
Another interesting aspect of this season is we see that Hari\u2019s hologram is kind of restless and selfish. He\u2019s not this benevolent god.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a limit to the math and the plans and the whole point of the first Foundation and the vault is that they do not know about the second foundation, and that they be in the dark about the sort of broader plans. And so because of Salvor\u2019s actions in Season 2, that started pulling this thread for Vault Hari. He doesn\u2019t know even Gail is still alive. So that starts to unravel for him as well, because I think that Hari Seldon had good intentions when he started all of this, but he\u2019s a human like anyone else, and he\u2019s got a subconscious, and I think that he programmed Vault Hari to have similar intentions. If you\u2019ve got an AI that if it gains new input \u2014 in this case the fact that he\u2019s the second hand and there\u2019s another foundation \u2014 that might make Vault Hari real pissed off. <\/p>\n
I think the whole act of Vault Hari giving the Prime Radiant to Empire at the end of Season 2 wasn\u2019t as calculated a plan as he\u2019s saying. A bit of it was he was like a kid acting out, and he just wanted to do something that would fuck with the math because he was starting to feel irrelevant. I think he justified it. Some of that\u2019s true \u2014 like oh, it\u2019s a logic bomb for Demerzel, and it is a logic bomb for Demerzel \u2014 but I think the root cause of it is he\u2019s just pissed off that he is a tool, and he wants to do something big so that he\u2019ll be the authorship of events now, as opposed to the other Hari.<\/p>\n
Alright let\u2019s talk about the final shot, we see Kalle and another robot on the Moon and we see Earth. It seems like we\u2019re heading towards an endgame.<\/p>\n
It depends on how many seasons there are. It could definitely be an endgame at the end of Season 4, or they could be part of the larger plan. But look, we\u2019ve mentioned Earth before, we\u2019ve shown Earth on the mural and on Demerzel\u2019s tool box. We know that Earth is something that exists, but for whatever reason, people don\u2019t know where it is anymore, which is not by happenstance, that information has been redacted. I think a lot of people were wondering, what is the deal with Earth? How did this all start? I always intended to bring things back there and in the books, the robots are hiding in the Moon, there\u2019s a group of them that haven\u2019t been destroyed, and they\u2019ve been on the moon ever since the Robot Wars. They\u2019ve just been silently watching and waiting and deciding when to make their presence known again. <\/p>\n
Originally, that was a card that I was planning on turning over at the end of Season 4. But one of the things that happens as you\u2019re doing a show like this is in between seasons you think about how the story is landing with people, and how some of the larger meta mysteries are landing with people, and you think about whether they\u2019ll have the patience for four or five seasons for this to happen or should we pull events forward? I decided that with the robots, it was time to pull events forward, and the fall of Empire felt like a good reason to pull them forward. So in a way, I liken myself in the writers room to being sort of like the second Foundation, which is like there\u2019s a plan and we\u2019re largely adhering to it, but then in between seasons, we kind of put our thumb on the scale a little bit and sort of adjust.<\/p>\n
You told me last season that you have plotted out potentially eight seasons. Is that still the intention?<\/p>\n
Yeah, but who knows. When we started this show six years ago, I think \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d was still on and it runs eight seasons, and everyone was like, \u201cWow, we want a show that\u2019s really going to run a long time.\u201d Now the appetite has changed, and it seems more like four seasons is a good stopping point. Or shows get so expensive that they can\u2019t justify going that far. So once we got to Season 2, I started to think, \u201cOK, there\u2019s an off ramp I can think of at the end of Season 4, there\u2019s an off ramp I can think of at the end of Season 6, and there\u2019s one at the end of Season 8.\u201d It just depends. But I think that there\u2019s definitely a satisfying end of the story that can be had at the end of Season 4 and then one again at 6 and one at 8. If we end at Season 4, we definitely won\u2019t get to the planned sort of end to end reveal, which we had hinted at in Season 1 with that Invictus ship and that word EXO that was scrawled in blood, we won\u2019t get to that. But it doesn\u2019t mean it won\u2019t be satisfying.<\/p>\n
You mentioned expensive. Obviously, the whole industry is dealing with contraction. There were reports about this show and issues with budgets this season, and your role on the show changing. What\u2019s your role right now?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to run Season 4. I hadn\u2019t contemplated stepping back before Season 4, but between the strikes and COVID we extended. I started working on the show six years ago, and without those two events, I would be four and a half years in. Then the other issue is that the show films in Europe. I\u2019ve got three kids and a wife, and during COVID, they were with me. But when COVID kind of ended and everyone went back to school, they weren\u2019t with me. I just underestimated the toll it would take on me and my family. Our production home base is in Prague, and there aren\u2019t not even any direct flights to Prague, so doorway to doorway, it\u2019s like 18 to 20 hours. So if this show were in Toronto or in Vancouver, and I had a three day weekend, I could come home. But from Prague, I could only come home if I had a good nine days off.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a hard decision to make because I love the show, and I\u2019m super proud of it. I\u2019ve had some things that I\u2019m somewhat proud of and not completely proud of. This one, I think, really reflects my intention and my vision. But also, it was killing me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So do you hope to come back to the show at some point? What is your involvement right now?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m an EP. They have my plan for Season 4, but I\u2019m the kind of person that I can either be all the way in or I can be more out. It doesn\u2019t work \u2014 and I don\u2019t think it works for them \u2014 to be halfway in. So I\u2019m not saying I wouldn\u2019t potentially come back, but the other issue is this show is very expensive, and they lost a lot of money during the strike and justifiably wanted to recover some of that money. So they wanted to lower the budget, which is totally their prerogative. I just was worried that, having done three seasons of it, I was having a hard time figuring out how to keep doing my vision of the show on a smaller budget.<\/p>\n
Look, it could be fine. It\u2019s just once you\u2019ve already done something one way for six years, it\u2019s really hard to then say let\u2019s just completely rethink about how to do it. I think if either one of those two things \u2014 the location or the budget \u2014 had been different I would have remained showrunning. But there were three seasons I\u2019m incredibly proud of. They\u2019ve got the plan. It\u2019s OK. You can\u2019t have everything.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s next for you?<\/p>\n
This is going to be really annoying. I have like three projects that we\u2019re in the midst of negotiating deals for \u2014 two features and one new TV show. I took some time off, but I\u2019m back at it. I\u2019m doing a TV show. It\u2019s also sci-fi, but it\u2019s extremely different from \u201cFoundation\u201d and I\u2019m really excited about it. It\u2019s based on a book and boy it\u2019s a brain melter.<\/p>\n
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
\u201cFoundation\u201d Seasons 1-3 are now streaming on Apple TV+.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\u201cTask\u201d](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Task-Mark-Ruffalo.jpg\")
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<\/a><\/p>\n