{"id":378713,"date":"2026-04-07T00:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T00:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/378713\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T00:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T00:30:10","slug":"katey-sagal-on-season-2-and-her-future-in-show-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/378713\/","title":{"rendered":"Katey Sagal on Season 2 and Her Future in Show Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers from One Piece<\/a> season two.]<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen a show breaks out the way Netflix<\/a>\u2018s live-action adaptation of One Piece exploded in 2023, it\u2019s not wrong to assume a trail of Hollywood cameos will soon follow. Never mind that the original manga, created by Eiichiro Oda and initially published in 1997, was already such a global phenomenon in its almost three-decade run that it is now nearly synonymous with the Japanese publishing medium. In many senses, Luffy and the Straw Hat Crew are not only household names (or at least very recognizable faces) within American geek culture thanks to both the manga and existing anime adaptation, but sometimes even among those whose interests don\u2019t favor the juggernauts that are both Japanese industries.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo when Netflix announced<\/a> its season two cast additions in 2025, it was unsurprising to see a number of familiar faces. Among them was Katey Sagal<\/a>, a queen of the small screen known for playing bold, colorful, fierce and at times rough-around-the-edges women. And while not a staple of big genre projects \u2014 instead garnering most of her career acclaim and award recognition for her roles in Married\u2026 with Children, 8 Simple Rules, Sons of Anarchy and Rebel, as well as long-running adult animation Futurama \u2014 her casting has been wholly embraced by One Piece fans.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSagal\u2019s portrayal of Dr. Kureha was equally exciting for both the team and the actress, who told The Hollywood Reporter she was first approached around spring or summer of 2024. \u201cThere was no audition. It was an offer. I was just so excited. You get jobs where you\u2019re just like, \u2018Oh my God,\u2019\u201d she recalls. \u201cIt came pretty much after I\u2019d watched [the first season]. It was a wonderful call to get. I was out of my mind. Then they started sending me the images and who the character is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne Piece season two co-showrunner Joe Tracz recalls, \u201cWe reached out to her, and she had watched that first season with her family, and had no idea that it was an adaptation of anything. She just thought it was a really good show on Netflix. The fact that the show existed and had proved that it could pull this live-action adaptation off meant that we were able to reach people that were on our vision board.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSagal of her early relationship to the series was thanks to her husband, prolific TV creator Kurt Sutter<\/a>. \u201cI was not super familiar with manga at all. Anime \u2014 which is like Pok\u00e9mon? \u2014 I\u2019ve raised kids all about Pok\u00e9mon. They were Pok\u00e9mon freaks. But the manga I didn\u2019t know,\u201d she tells THR. \u201cMy husband came home one day and said he\u2019d been talking to somebody at Netflix who told him to watch this show called One Piece. So we sat down with my 17-year-old. We didn\u2019t know what it was going to be, and could not stop watching it. That first season was so heartwarming and edgy. It hit all the right notes for me, my husband and our 17-year-old. It was beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tKatey Sagal as Dr. Kureha in season two of One Piece.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCasey Crafford\/Netflix \u00a9 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tSagal plays Dr. Kureha, a 140-year-old doctor who has become the lone practitioner on Drum Island after the other doctors were rounded up by King Wapol (Rob Colletti), a tyrannical leader whose self-important nature and volatile tendencies have crushed his once-flourishing kingdom. Dubbed a \u201cwitch\u201d by the townspeople, Kureha operates out of the abandoned Drum Castle, which is situated at the top of a mountain overlooking the town. There, she begrudgingly trains a young talking reindeer named Tony Tony Chopper <\/a>(Mikaela Hoover, N\u2019Kone Mametja, and Gavin Gomes), who becomes her ward of sorts after her eccentric and impassioned friend and colleague, Dr. Hiriluk (Mark Harelik) dies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Sagal walked in knowing very little about Kureha, she was immediately drawn to the character. \u201cShe was such a badass, and also heartwarming and a little bit squishy on the inside. I found her young in spirit, even though she\u2019s supposed to be 140. And what does time mean, really?\u201d she says. \u201cI loved that she was an older woman who just kept her shit together and wasn\u2019t afraid to wear tight t-shirts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHer transformation into the character was shaped in large part by the costuming, hair and props, with her ultimate presentation dictated heavily by Oda\u2019s vision. \u201cPutting the whole drag on informed me about her, and it was not difficult to find her within all that,\u201d she tells THR. \u201cI\u2019m always somebody who likes to work from the physical. I love the wardrobe. Shoes are super important to me. The minute I saw that leather suit, I was like, \u2018I so get this.\u2019 And my wardrobe is exactly what\u2019s in the manga, down to the glasses on my head and the bottle. It was really fun to see it come to life. It\u2019s rare that you see an animated version actually translate so well into live action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut stepping into the shoes of her character wasn\u2019t the only thing Sagal might have had to get used to as part of her One Piece run. Sagal notes that with One Piece, \u201cthe world is so big,\u201d compared to other projects she\u2019s worked on. But her younger castmates \u201care all so great, all so welcoming,\u201d and, alongside the scripts, lent themselves to moments that were not only very intimate but really character- and relationship-driven.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s what makes it work. I was very emotionally moved by that first season, and then when I got the script for the second, it wasn\u2019t a stretch in that there was a lot of humanity. That is always something I relate to,\u201d she explains. \u201cSo it wasn\u2019t like overacting in a way you might think. It was very grounded. The writing was so good, and that\u2019s really what you look for. Especially when it\u2019s a bigger-than-life character, like they all tend to be. What I responded to, even when I first saw it. It\u2019s so real. I just bought Luffy\u2019s whole journey. I bought Nami\u2019s thing and Sanji\u2019s thing. You always look for the touchstones, and it was on the page.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn season two, one of the biggest touchstones is Dr. Kureha\u2019s journey with Hiriluk, Chopper and Wapol. When it came to Chopper\u2019s storyline, \u201cI will say that I related to it,\u201d Sagal says. \u201cEverybody has a different love language, and Kureha is used to being on her own. She\u2019s accustomed to that. So when Chopper comes into her life, as much as she doesn\u2019t want him to come into her life, he just tugs at her heartstrings. He\u2019s so sincere. To me, the heartbreak that she feels when he leaves is warranted. You kind of watch her, against even her own desire, care for Chopper. She loved Hiriluk. She loved him, and he was gone, and she just toughed it out through that. Now Chopper\u2019s also leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tMark Harelik as Dr. Hiriluk and Tony Tony Chopper in season two.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Netflix \u00a9 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Wapol, a tyrant who, among several decrees ordered all the island\u2019s doctors to be captured, exiled or killed, portraying Kureha\u2019s stand against him alongside the Straw Hats \u2014 protecting the role of careworkers and science, even as both had seemingly become villainized on Drum Island \u2014 \u201cwas satisfying.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a really gnarly situation that Wapol presented when he banned all the doctors from Drum Island, with her and Hiriluk the only ones that somewhat survived,\u201d Sagal says. \u201cIs it current? Does it hit those notes? Absolutely. Banning, segregation, immigrants \u2014 all of it. I don\u2019t know what came first because I don\u2019t know when the Drum Island story was written, but the story of tyranny and of big bad guys wanting to take over is very old. So it feels coincidental, even though I don\u2019t really believe in coincidence, that all this would happen at the same time. This story of fighting against this tyrannical person is very timely, and so yes, the spirit of that was definitely in there. And the spirit, also, of saving. She\u2019s a doctor who helps people. She\u2019s got noble intent. She\u2019s got a hard way of explaining it, but is full of noble intent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason two\u2019s finale is a touching hat tip to what will likely be Sagal\u2019s most significant screen time as the live-action Kuhera, but the actress shared she is currently doing some \u201cvoice over\u201d work, signaling her time in the One Piece universe is not quite done. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, when asked whether she\u2019ll venture more into the manga space after this role, she tells THR: \u201cIt has opened my eyes. It\u2019s not like I\u2019ve rushed to watch or read, but I might. The live action is so appealing to me and is what I come from, even though I\u2019m so involved with animation on Futurama, and I love Futurama. So I\u2019ll never say never.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne Piece season two is now streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers from One Piece season two.] When a show breaks out the way Netflix\u2018s live-action…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46,181364,181365,400,59454],"class_list":{"0":"post-378713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-katey-sagal","12":"tag-kurt-sutter","13":"tag-netflix","14":"tag-one-piece"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}