The fourth and final season of Preacher begins tonight, and last month, the cast headed to San Diego Comic-Con to say farewell to the fans and share a sneak peek of the last adrenaline-fueled episodes. I was lucky enough to sit in on the press conference with Dominic Cooper (Jesse Custer), Ruth Negga (Tulip O’Hare), Mark Harelik (God), and Julie Ann Emery (Lara Featherstone) as they reflected on the series and teased what’s in store. Find out what we learned before the two-hour premiere at 9/8c on AMC.
At the end of Season 3, God asked Tulip to convince Jesse to give up on his quest to track down the Almighty, and Tulip said no. How will God react to Tulip refusing his demands?
Mark Harelik: Without getting terribly specific, I can say that God is manipulating everybody for his own purposes. He wants them to either succeed at what they’re doing, or think that they’re going to succeed and will fail at what they’re doing, which will allow something else to happen. He’s created this spider web, and as the episodes go by in the fourth season, you’ll see the effect of this spider web. God has very specific intentions with Tulip, but they’re all wrapped up in his knowledge of her nature. This is referred to in Season 3 as well as in Season 4. He keeps calling her on her nature, and so he knows what she’s going to do in response to his request.The wild card in this is free will, and even God can’t control free will.
Looking back, what have been the biggest obstacles for Jesse and Tulip to overcome?
Ruth Negga: [The hardest thing for Tulip] is the idea that you can outrun your past. You don’t have to repeat the process. You can evolve and progress. I think that was difficult for her. [She had] her insecurity. People cast her off as a failure, and that’s what God uses against her. She rejects that notion, and I’m very proud of her for doing that.
Dominic Cooper: Jesse, finally, with the help of God, realizes that he’s been following something that has no end in the guilt about his father and blaming himself [for his father’s death]. He has a huge disappointment in what he discovers, after his quest that’s gone on for so long. But, in fact, it finally makes him happy. You finally see a man content with who he is and where his life ends.
What can you tell us about moving production to Australia for the final season?
Cooper: looking back over the comics again, the landscape was a huge part of it. The graphics and how it was drawn had an influence on the characters, and where those characters were from was a huge part [it]. They decided that the beauty of the Australian outback would be necessary [to] give it the vastness and the cinematic feel that Preacher deserved. We found a landscape which had both an urban aspect to it and, and the rural. There’s nowhere like it.
Julie Ann Emery: The production values are off the chart this season.
Cooper: No expense was spared. They dared to go as far as they possibly could.
Harelik: They built the Alamo for a one day shoot.
Although it’s bittersweet, why do you think now is a good time to wrap this story?
Cooper: This story needed to — as the comics did — have a beginning, a middle and an end to wrap it up. The books have definitive ending. I think that they did what the people who love the comic books originally in the 90s would want.
Any final teases about this last season?
Emery: None of the episodes take a breath this season, nothing settles down.
Photo by Melissa Girimonte. Copyright © 2019 The Televixen.
