- [Master Lin] What if I told you
there's a home for people like you?
A school where you'll be surrounded by your peers,
to master the deadly arts?
(fast-paced music)
- What happened was I was filming this massive scene
on Avengers and then Joe Russo pulled me to the side
and we went into the woods and he...
(all laughing)
- That's where Joe has all his meetings.
- He gave me an offer I couldn't refuse
and I met this reprobate.
(all laughing)
And they're amazing.
They're, like, omnipresent.
And it's good to have them in the fold.
- Yeah. Yeah, they've been huge.
I mean, it's not something they just put their names on it
and walked away, they're creatively very involved.
You know, like Joe and I spent a number of nights
in the editing bay till 3, 4 in the morning.
He's very passionate. And, frankly, how he finds the time
without substance abuse I'm not quite sure.
(laughing)
But the man is a TNT keg and so I think a lot
of the quality in what we ended up with is a direct result
of the love that the Russo Brothers have put into it
and the faith they've put into us.
It was always about trying to capture the authentic
teen experience in a way that didn't have the veneer
or the polish that, as a parent, I want to give it.
I didn't wanna remember it the way it existed.
But I think in doing so that's when art
achieves something that matters.
I think that's when it matters the most, is that people
can identify with the truth of it.
And that when you don't try and give them a product
that has that polished veneer,
that they feel some identification.
And for me that was punk rock in the '80s.
That was the Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins
and that stuff made me feel not alone.
And so the goal of this has always been
to really focus on that emotion and that heart.
- [Benjamin Wadsworth] I would describe his journey
as being this lone wolf in the beginning,
who all he wants, really, is a family.
And he's sent to a school full of...
monsters.
- We're not monsters. We treat you well.
- Some people are good.
- Some people aren't quite that monstrous to Marcus
and some people are.
- Definitely.
- Getting to know this dude has been great,
but our characters don't really quite like each other--
- The feeling's mutual.
- at, you know, from the start.
- Yeah.
- But it's been fun being able to play with that dynamic.
- It's been so much fun, yeah.
- They've done their best to inhabit the characters
in a way it's very fulfilling
to see it all kinda come together
and watch what started off as this unpack in this
as we sorta grow it out and see what they've done.
They've really put in the work, yeah.
- He sent us all a bunch of playlists for our characters.
And we also did a little bit of research. And that was fun.
- You gotta do some research for that.
- Even the comics are a great research for like the APs
in general, you know?
- And even for me, my character is Mexican
so I had to go back to the '80s in Mexico
and that was something.
- And for me I had to go get in the mind of somebody
who grew up in a very urban area.
Willie grew up in Compton so I'm listening to NWA
and Public Enemy, stuff like that.
Really helps you get in the mindset of a young man
who's living in that environment and that neighborhood.
- I got a song that's called like "Shut the Eff Up,
the World is On Fire" or something really intense
and I was was sitting here listening to it
like, "Oh God, what did I get myself into?"
- [Benjamin] It goes pretty dark sometimes.
- We actually celebrated Lana's birthday at an '80s bar.
- Oh, yes!
- Yeah!
- My 21st birthday, we celebrated at an '80s bar
because we were like, "We can party and we can do karaoke."
- [Maria Gabriela de Faría] We've been working out so much
and training for the show that we're so fit right now,
I don't know what to tell you.
No, it's really good and it's an honor to bring this
amazing graphic novel to life, really.
- It's an honor to have you bring it to life.
- Yeah, it's been so exciting because it's school
and it's familiar but it's also classes we never took.
- No.
- We never learned how to handle weapons
and how to take care of violent situations.
But this right here,
this is something that's really exciting.
- They didn't teach poison where you went to high school?
- No, we didn't have Poison 101, nah.
- That's weird.
- [Lana Condor] When I worked with the katana,
I wasn't aware how heavy it is.
They didn't give me, the set didn't give me like a fake one.
It was real when I picked it up. So it was very, very heavy.
But I hope to work with it a lot more
as the season progresses. I think that would be amazing.
And she's also my favorite character too, so thank you.
- And Lana's agreed to lose a few fingers.
We've realized that trying to get the fingers off
and the VFX, it was very expensive.
- Right.
- And so we're just gonna cut,
we're taking a few fingers off.
- We're gonna cut it off.
(soothing techno music)