At New York Comic Con, I got to sit down and chat with a few cast members and the executive producers of Man in the High Castle for their season three premiere. Season three has been out for a few weeks now, so this is the perfect opportunity to revisit the discussion that was had around the series so far.
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ButWhyTho: A new character is introduced in the third season named Wyatt Price. What was the inspiration behind Wyatt’s creation and what role does he play in this new season of the Man in the High Castle?
Isa Dick Hackett: Well, he’s part of the Resistance. We really dig into the Neutral Zone and what’s going on there. We haven’t done that previously and he is part of an important cell, if you will, who’s been operating in various ways. He will have an important connection to one of our central characters.
ButWhyTho: I really got into Helen Smith’s character development in season two and how it left off. She’s watching her own son turn himself in at the end of it. How will that affect her [Helen] devotion to the Nazi Regime in this next season?
Chelah Horsdal: It affects everything for her in the new season. That moment and that decision he [Thomas] ultimately made because we raised him so well to live under this doctrine. She [Helen] begins to question a lot of choices that they have made up until this point. Would he have turned himself in if they hadn’t been as effective as they were and raising a “good little Nazi”?
So, the heartbreak that exists as a result of that and the responsibility and the guilt that comes from that. And then trying to protect her daughters and figure out if, inevitably, she’s going to have to face this again with her two other children. I’ve never lost a child personally, but I can’t imagine if you’ve gone through something like that once that you would ever allow a situation where it could potentially happen again. So, that influences virtually everything in season three for her.
ButWhyTho: John Smith is confronted with a different reality in this season. How does this affect his views on the Nazi Regime that he works for?
Rufus Sewell: I think it confirms the kind of fears and struggles that he has had right from the start. He knows he’s made a kind of devil’s bargain. He has tussled with the Smith that he might have been. That still exists somewhere in him so, even when he appears to be a zealot, he has doubts and he has just dealt with them in a zealot’s way. The doubting zealots are the dangerous ones. So when things start to come calling for the price, there’s an inevitability, a kind of grim irony to him.
When he becomes aware of the existence – the possibility – of a different reality in which he was unburdened by these choices, where there’s a possibility that some of the things that happened didn’t have to happen has a powerful spell on him. It sends him deeper into secrecy. It separates him further from his wife. Ostensibly to protect her from something she can’t handle. He thinks that’s the right reason but it isolates him further.
Season three of Man in the High Castle is streaming now on Amazon Prime.
Cover Image: Amazon Prime Videos
