{"id":545643,"date":"2026-03-19T00:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T00:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545643\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T00:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T00:32:09","slug":"vince-gilligan-and-rhea-seehorn-on-pluribus-season-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545643\/","title":{"rendered":"Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn on ‘Pluribus’ Season Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Pluribus<\/a> creator Vince Gilligan<\/a> and his writers room decided to give Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn<\/a>) her very own nuclear bomb at the end of Season One, they were pretty sure they had a plan for it. \u201cWe thought we knew what we were gonna do,\u201d said Gilligan, sitting down with Seehorn for an interview last week at the Rolling Stone Studio<\/a>, live at SXSW<\/a>. \u201cAnd then you get into it and you\u2019re like: Do we? Do we really know?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHe joked that the show might just never mention the weapon again, and Seehorn played along: \u201cLeave the box sitting in the driveway,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople forget,\u201d Gilligan added, with a laugh. (See the whole interview on Rolling Stone\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a> or press play above.)<\/p>\n

\n\tGilligan is also uncertain about when the world might see Season Two. The writers room has been at it for months, he told us, with less progress than he\u2019d like. He suggested that a previously floated late-2027 schedule probably isn\u2019t realistic, while admitting to some jealousy over The Pitt\u2019s production pace. \u201cThey\u2019re kicking our butts in every award show,\u201d he said. \u201cThey managed to make a great show and bring it in one year later, on the day, for the new season.\u2026 How frigging long is this gonna take? I don\u2019t know. We\u2019re doing our best. It takes forever, making this thing. I wish it was faster. We appreciate everybody\u2019s patience very much, more and more as the months drag on. But thank you, anyone who likes the show. We are honest to God doing our best.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPluribus became Apple TV\u2019s biggest drama launch in November 2025, and Seehorn won both the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award for her performance, which often finds her alone onscreen for multiple scenes per episode. For Seehorn, being in nearly every frame took its toll. \u201cIt was a marathon,\u201d she said. \u201cI was keenly aware that if I got sick, there\u2019s nothing to shoot. I\u2019m only not in, like, five seconds of this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut she emphasized that even in scenes where she\u2019s the only person on screen, she\u2019s not really alone. \u201cI\u2019m doing a dance with about 250 crew members that believe in the story,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a dance with the camera. It\u2019s a dance with the lights. It\u2019s a dance with sound.\u2026 It\u2019s only gonna be better if I am doing it with everybody and everybody\u2019s contributing their best work. You\u2019re only messing up if you ever are thinking, \u2018It\u2019s all about me.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe recalled a moment near the end of five weeks of night shoots, when she was steeling herself for another take and a camera assistant named Jules tapped her on the ankle: \u201cThe sun\u2019s coming up and we\u2019re chasing darkness, not chasing light. And he just said, \u2018You know we all got you, right?\u2019 And it meant the world to me. And they do. And I got them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tGilligan is doing his best to relish his ongoing writers room struggles. \u201cI want it to get easy, but it never does,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd in my heart of hearts, I know that if it ever did get easy, that\u2019s when it\u2019s time to call it a day. That\u2019s the time to retire. Because if it ever got easy, it wouldn\u2019t mean that I had mastered it. It would mean that I was at that point a hack and I was phoning it in. Because if you\u2019re doing it right, it\u2019s never gonna get easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSeehorn nodded. \u201cI feel the same. If I\u2019m ever not terrified, I\u2019m like, \u2018What? What?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGilligan is emphatic that Pluribus is not a mystery-box show, and that fans expecting a grand reveal should temper their expectations. \u201cIf you\u2019re waiting for everyone to pull their faces off and magically it\u2019ll be reptilian evil, don\u2019t hold your breath,\u201d he said. \u201cYou might already know everything you need to know.\u201d Then, taking it one step further: \u201cIf you\u2019re really into those [mystery-box shows], watch something else other than Pluribus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGilligan traces his aversion to the form back to his seven years on The X-Files, which he calls the second-greatest job he\u2019ll ever have. \u201cIf The X-Files taught me anything, it was to assiduously avoid mystery-box shows,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can do a mystery-box movie. It\u2019s damn hard to do a mystery-box TV show.\u201d The problem, as he explains it, is that open-ended series inevitably pile mystery on top of mystery. \u201cWith The X-Files, you got the bees and then you got the oil and you got the super soldiers. Every open-ended series falls prey to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tSeehorn offered her own take on what Pluribus is really about. \u201cIt\u2019s not a mystery as in, \u2018I can\u2019t wait to find out the evil power behind it,’\u201d she said. \u201cThe questions it\u2019s raising are more about what it means to be human.\u201d Her character, she noted, is obsessed with stopping the alien threat, but the real drama is internal. \u201cShe\u2019s wrestling with questions that are much larger about human nature while she thinks she\u2019s going after the plot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGilligan points to a key difference between Pluribus and other shows about humanity under siege. \u201cI love The Walking Dead. I love The Last of Us,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are shows in which it\u2019s a very binary proposition. You\u2019re either a human or you\u2019re a zombie or a mushroom person. And you don\u2019t wanna be either of those things. There\u2019s nobody who ever wants to be a zombie. But on this show, it\u2019s a legitimate question. Maybe you\u2019d be better off being happy. Maybe you\u2019d be better off being one of \u2018them.\u2019 That, to me, is always an important element of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSeehorn and Gilligan at the Rolling Stone Studio at SXSW.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPooneh Ghana for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n

\n\tThe pair also address Quentin Tarantino<\/a>\u2018s recent claim on The Joe Rogan Experience that TV shows don\u2019t stick with you the way movies do. \u201cFirmly disagree,\u201d Seehorn said. \u201cThere\u2019s forgettable films, just like there\u2019s forgettable television, and then there\u2019s ones that stick with you. I\u2019m still thinking about The Leftovers. I\u2019m still thinking about Six Feet Under.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tGilligan agrees. \u201cI\u2019m still thinking about Twilight Zone,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m still thinking about The Andy Griffith Show. I\u2019m still thinking about M*A*S*H. I\u2019m still thinking about WKRP in Cincinnati. I could go on and on. I don\u2019t know Quentin Tarantino. I met him once for 10 seconds. But I bet he\u2019s telling the truth for him. He\u2019s such a film aficionado. But it\u2019s probably a little overly generalized.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGilligan also shared his concerns<\/a> about the state of the industry. \u201cI worry about AI,\u201d he says. \u201cI worry about one company owning everything.\u201d But he\u2019s hopeful that human creativity will win out. \u201cPeople care about people. Every story you\u2019ve ever been enamored of, whether it\u2019s science fiction or a horror movie, all the best stories are about people. At the end of the day, people want authenticity. They want truth. They want real human emotion. That\u2019s why I continue to have hope. People are never gonna get tired of storytelling, and humans tell stories, not machines.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan and his writers room decided to give Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) her very…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75,19436,27369,19437,212720,50926,19438],"class_list":{"0":"post-545643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-pluribus","12":"tag-quentin-tarantino","13":"tag-rhea-seehorn","14":"tag-rolling-stone-studio","15":"tag-sxsw","16":"tag-vince-gilligan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}