Netflix’s Locke & Key Returns With Season 2 on October 22nd.
It’s time for a return to Keyhouse! Locke & Key’s Season 2 streams on Netflix beginning on October 22, 2021. Leading up to the premiere, YEC participated in the virtual press roundtable to chat with Griffin Gluck (Gabe/Dodge) and Hallea Jones (Eden) on just what we can expect from the baddies this season.
Q: I wanted to ask about the challenges in doing a dual role and whether it was difficult and how much fun you guys were having doing it?
GLUCK: I was just thinking about this. We’ve talked a lot about how fun it is to play an evil character. It’s something you don’t get to do often. It’s, you know, it’s out of the realm of the ordinary, which I think is a lot of fun. For an actor. It’s a real challenge, which, you know, I’ve always enjoyed a thing that’s a little bit out of my comfort zone, because there’s no growth in the comfort zone, and there’s no comfort in the growth zone. So it was definitely a challenge. But one that I was so excited to take on. I actually wrote my college paper or one of my college papers. I remember I was asked, like, who do I look up to in my profession. And the first person I thought of was actually Andy Serkis. You might know him as Gollum or Caesar and Planet of the Apes. And I don’t know why but I always, like was so I just thought he was the best actor ever. Because any actor in Hollywood, you know, they can draw from real life scenarios to play whoever they’re playing, you know, whether it be someone going through divorce or a breakup or you know, someone that’s having, you know, a hard time with their job, you know, whatever the normal standard rom com, sort of role is which, you know, I think I’ve got to play many of thankfully. But this is a lot more fun. Because you know, what’s so cool about Andy Serkis is he has to completely figure out what that character is completely on his own. You know, no one really knows what it’s like to be a completely sentient ape. No one knows what it’s like to be a little, you know, monster and I think that’s what’s so fun is these these little challenges that, sure, they might be hard and it might be difficult to figure out how to tow that line, but you really get to involve yourself so much more into the character and make so many more things your own because it’s not real and so whatever you perceive to be the right thing in that scenario is the right thing. So it’s hard but you get a lot of creative liberty, and it’s so rewarding to see a character to come to life after you’ve done all that. And I’ve been meaning to mention Andy Serkis for the last like two days so I’m so glad I finally got the opportunity to.
JONES: So a lot of season two is Eden being like I really don’t want to hide myself. But I know that if I, if I expose that, if Eden exposes that she’s a demon Gabe is gonna have his say on not being very pleased about that. So it’s fun playing. It was incredible playing the demon element, which was just so unhinged and chaotic. But I loved being able to kind of sprinkle in little moments in the day to day of the like, the school Eden. And I actually worked with the costume designer, Megan, to reflect my outfits like Eden’s outfits with her school self versus her demon self and her demon self is much darker and more kind of like, just sexier in ways. And then with school, it’s more like colorful and whatnot to try to fit in. So it reflected in the outfits and I’m hoping that the audience sees how it might reflect in the show and the scenes that I do with everyone who doesn’t know that she’s a demon. So yeah, but it was all fun.
Q: I was excited to see that you're working together a lot this season. I also noticed the season, you know, is obviously chock-full of action. And there's special effects. So can you tell me a little bit about, you know, kind of the things like ramped up. So how did you feel about, you know, you're kind of like a school girl and you know and all you guys are proper, and then now you're just all over the place murdering.
JONES: It was fun to step out of the realm of normality of what, like us, mortal humans are allowd to do in our day to day. There were so many times that I would just be like, Oh, my God, this is my job. I get to be crazy. I get to be chaotic. I get to be just like, absolutely problematic. And guttie and lawless. Like Eden just runs crazy. So I really enjoyed, enjoy, just like pushing the limits on like what I thought Eden could be. And the writers really helped so much with just laying a great foundation for that.
GLUCK: There’s nothing that Hallea said that, that I would not also say, you know, there’s, there’s nothing more fun than being able to go to set and just go crazy for you know, 10 hours, 14 hours a day, just unleashed. And you know, I’ve recently compared it to sort of like an anger room where you get to go in and break a bunch of things. And just like having this like release, and I’d say it’s sort of similar from an actor’s standpoint where you know, you get to go into work every day and just have this crazy release where you get to, I mean, I was thinking about it, there were a couple times this season where I just had to scream, you know, at the top of my lungs yell and just get really mad at people and just genuinely scream. And I don’t think I’ve ever once in my life just fully screamed at the top of my lungs. Because there’s no real scenario where that’s, you know, okay, usually you can’t just go out in public and yell your lungs out. So it was very similar. It was a very cathartic experience being able to go to set and just unleash this crazy side that I think a lot of people kind of keep bottled up and you know, I’m not saying I want to go out and yell at people all day but it’s definitely a fun opportunity to sort of have that that release where you can just kind of you know go crazy and that way you don’t have to do it in real life. You can, you can have fun and try it out and not ever have to do it to a real person. But it is fun.
Q: So, what I want to know is other than this than getting this stuff from the script though where else did you guys pull from like is there villains maybe that you didn't think of as you're creating it or I don't know maybe maybe not hopefully not somebody in real life but I don't know you know something else you kind of drew from?
JONES: Mine was Megan Fox and Jennifer’s Body and Regina George Mean Girls that was Mean Girls was my like Regina George was my season one for sure influence and of course I wanted to make Eden not Regina George like as much as possible but there’s only so many ways that you can spend the popular mean girl so with season two tt was nice to combine the Jennifer’s Body perspective as well I mean Megan Fox is just iconic just point blank period. So she was fun to kind of like be like how crazy can I go and you know she’s such a great icon for that kind of blood loving crazy girl thing.
GLUCK: For me I think you know it’s funny I watched a lot of interviews with evil characters and I think one that I sort of you know, I might not necessarily have drawn a lot from but got really inspired was actually Christian Bale and someone help me out here…Yeah, Christian Bale in American Psycho. I think you know, I watched an interview that he did about how you know what inspiration he drew from there. And I thought it was the funniest thing he mentioned how he watched interviews of Tom Cruise actually just being himself in regular interviews that he did. And he was like, It was terrifying for me to watch because although there was this bright and bubbly personality on the outside, he was just dead behind the eyes. And he’s like, I find that I found that terrifying. And so apparently that’s what he drew from for American Psycho. I hope I’m not butchering that, but that’s a story that I remember. And I thought that was really interesting, you know, tiny little subtleties, and people’s mannerisms and behaviors that are just terrifying, you know, that you wouldn’t normally think of, but stuff that kind of sets a psychopath apart from, from a regular person. And I think Gabe is very much a psychopath as much as he is a demon. You know, he’s just,,, he’s dead inside and I think he’s uncomfortable with emotion. And I find that to be terrifying so I you know, I can’t think of any I definitely had references going into, into season two. And it’s unfortunate that I can’t think of them right now. But I remember just watching a lot of TV, a lot of movies and just finding characters that had really just psychopathic behaviors and trying to emanate that in any way, any way I could.
Q: Griffin, your character in season two was just so focused on designing the key. So if you could design the key what intention would you infuse it with?
GLUCK: Mmm. You know, I was thinking about this. I’ve been thinking about this and just like how the, the mending cabinet, you need the cabinet itself and the key, you put something broken in there to fix it, I would definitely love to create a two piece, you know, key and box special. But I think for me, I would want to create a cabinet or something like that, that would just be anything you imagined would show up in the box, you know, kind of like a magic oven or something. If I was really hungry, I could just stick the key in and there’s a freshly baked pot pie in front of me that I could devour.
JONES: Like Mary Poppins bag.
GLUCK: Yah. I tried to get the new Xbox, can’t find that thing anywhere. I just imagine that thing up and bam, there it is, right there. I think an imagination cabinet would be pretty cool.
JONES: I was thinking the other day that like a spin on the music box key would be to have like, a radio or something that will just play any music that you actually want to hear. Even if you don’t know what you want to hear in the moment, it will just know because so many times I like sift through playlists, and I just like I’m not feeling that’s my feeling is what do I do? What do I want to hear? I don’t know. That’d be nice to have like a radio. It’s really lame. But like, it’s you know, music is such a big part of my life that I’m like, I just wanted to, I just want something to know what my soul wants to hear right now. That would be mine.
Q: Eden has to eat a lot this season. Like a lot, a lot. Did you have to do I mean, like, how was that for you? Did it make you sick on set? What was the experience like?
JONES: Oh my gosh, I just, I love food. I love snacking. First season I would like just always be at the craft table just like snacking and stuff. So I had a really bad habit that I quickly learned to work against just like, you know, in between takes just like having some more popcorn or like having like a little bite of pizza or whatever it is. And it got to the point where like, we would have to do like, upwards of seven takes, probably like way more than that because we would have to turn around we’d have you know, maybe I’d be in the background or whatever. So I was constantly eating and Eden doesn’t take small bites. So the problem would be we would start the scene and I would be like, wow, you know, like just completely just shoving food in my mouth. And then I’d have to, I’d have to swallow it in order to get my line. And so it was interesting to kind of like, learn the best way to do that kind of thing. I ate a lot, a lot, a lot of food. To the point where I was like, no more.
GLUCK: It was impressive. No, it was genuinely impressive.
JONES: Thank you. But there was, there were many times where it was just not very tasty by the end of it. And I just haven’t looked at that kind of food in a while. I’m just like, no more popcorn, please. I don’t want any more popcorn.
Q: I know we don't want to probably want to bring up all of what's been happening through COVID but because you guys were kind of in the isolated situation and it was you guys relied on your group there of, of fellow actors and crew. Do you think that helped contribute to like, because you have such intense characters.. Did you have that thing that helps you like focus and maybe because you know that you're being able to have the screen at the top of your lungs that you were able to kind of take some of those frustrations out there? But because of COVID maybe you were able to focus more so having these types of characters kind of was maybe easier to play or can tell me a little bit about your process?
GLUCK: Yeah, sure, yeah, sure. Um, you know, I really have to say I think having this production during COVID was a blessing you know, I don’t mean that in the sense that COVID helped the production but definitely in the sense that being through this production, even with all of the you know, the complicated situations that we got in you know, luckily we made it through the whole show without a shutdown, which was just absolutely fantastic, you know, hats off to the crew and the cast for, for staying safe and I just, like was so thankful but you know, I think having some sort of some sense of normalcy during COVID was was really just fantastic for my mental health, you know, I had something to strive for where I would otherwise just be inside all day, which I do not thrive in that environment, I really do thrive on it on a set like this. And you know, even with the the frustrations from COVID I don’t even think it was the characters that, that got the benefit of that, I think me personally got the benefit of being able to go into work and scream and just have have a good time, you know, during a time where so many people were suffering and you know, I just feel so thankful that we got to do that, because I don’t know where I would be without without season two, you know, so I don’t know if it necessarily helped me with my character. But it definitely helped. I think the character definitely helped me with myself.
JONES: Yeah, same same here. I don’t thrive in an isolated situation for a long period of time, I love my solitude. But just like for the long period of time, it was really difficult and I’ve just feel so grateful that I was able to spend time with such an incredible production who became kind of like a family over the eight months because we weren’t able to see anyone else and I’m actually really grateful for it. As much as it was just like hard just everything that was happening was devastating. What I’m grateful for was that it taught me the way that I like to work as a young actor getting into this industry it’s, it’s easy when when the world’s open to just be like yeah, I’m working on this show like you know, I have a couple bucks in my bank let’s go and like, you know, hang out and see friends and stuff like that. But with this, it was eight months of just like go to work come home, take care, self care, go to work, go home, take care, self care, and that was so important for me personally, which I think rubbed off on Eden in certain ways. But same with, with Griffin that like I feel like I was in my own mental health was the beneficiary of the experience of filming during, during lockdown.
Hallea and Griffin have got their villainous fill through season two.
Are you locked into explore the jam packed, action filled season?
Christiane Elin
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