The cast and showrunner of Syfy’s 12 Monkeys took New York Comic Con by stormThursday afternoon as the series previewed its upcoming second season on the Main Stage. Premiering in April 2016, the cast revealed that the time traveling sci-fi drama will venture into new eras, face bigger threats, and promises to answer some of season one’s biggest questions.
The Workprint caught up with series stars Aaron Stanford and Kirk Acevedo to discuss the broken rift between best friends and their journey in season two of 12 Monkeys during a press roundtable.
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What’s the relationship between Cole and Ramse look like at the beginning of season two?
Aaron Stanford: They are in a somewhat nebulous place. As you know at the end of season one, they were at odds and everything sort of climaxed in this shootout sequence, Cole makes the decision to go against his fate and his destiny to save his friend. And so they basically decided that their relationship is more important than any differences they might have. They decide that they are brothers and so at the beginning of season two, you see that they’re together but their still of two separate minds trying to figure out how to find their way through that.
I had a question for Kirk, there was a shot in last season on your hands. They were peeling and I wanted to find out if that was a part of the time serum effects.
Kirk Acevedo: One of the side effects of going back in time is that if you are back in time for long periods, like for years, you tend to age and that was one of the effects because I was there for like 30, 40 years, you know better my hands than having to go get prosthetics for your face for three hours.
So there’s going to be a big dramatic shift between Cole and Cassandra where now the powers have kind of shifted since now she can time travel and he can’t. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Aaron Stanford: Yea it’s sort of true. Cole is stuck in one place, at the beginning of season two she is sort of stuck in another place. She’s in the future and he is in her time and they’ve both switched places in other ways as well. She goes to the future and she gets a glimpse of Cole’s world, of the apocalypse. She sees, you know, how bad it can be and how low humanity can sink and it changes her, it hardens her. And Cole having known her and having been in her time gets a different view of people than he ever had before. He values human life more than he ever has and that changes him. She becomes a bit more ruthless and he becomes a bit more careful with his morality.
Time is a difficult concept and it seemed the way season one turned out that everything was circular. It was all happening at the same time but we didn’t know it because your episodes are rolling out week by week so we couldn’t watch it all at once but it clicked along the way. It seemed like your relationship had a pattern, your relationship was bound to go somewhere, is it bound to follow a sort of similar puzzle piece, rubix cube path or is time going to make things different for you? Is each sort of timeline going to be different but eventually get to the same ending?
Kirk Acevedo: I think we’re always going to come to the same loggerhead, I think its always going to come to the same, you know we each have our, a different agenda. I just don’t see how…it’s always going to come to a head somehow. Do you know what I mean? Because their two different directions are just going to pull from the other. I don’t see how. Like I said we agree to disagree and right now we’re just working, it’s like we’re both a little like a burned toast, we’re both a little burnt. But the friendship, the bond is so strong that you know, you let things slide.
Aaron Stanford: It’s like family you know, you don’t really have a choice who your family is and I think Cole and he, their family. And even though they have their differences and things are going to heat up as in real life situations can blow up into very ugly situations – murder and what have you. So that’s where they’re at, they’re family but there’s a lot of turmoil there to and a lot of tension and who knows where it’s gonna go.
I have a question, I have a couple of fan theories I’d like you to weigh in if you don’t mind. Cole is the infected corpse.
Aaron Stanford: I mean I can neither confirm nor deny that. Do I know? I might have an idea about that I can’t tell you people about these things.
Ramse’s son Sam is actually the Pallid Man.
Kirk Acevedo: I think that’s something I tweeted and it just, you know what I mean, no because I said he’s my father. I was tweeting that last year and I think, see other people brought that up too and are we related somehow and I don’t know. I think it rolled into something else, but you never know with Terry’s mind.
12 Monkeys will return for a second season on Syfy in April 2016.
