Bates Motel - Vera Farmiga and EP Kerry Ehrin Reveal Season 2 Details
Bates Motel is A&E's most successful scripted series ever, and with good reason. Based on the world created in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho, and the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch on which the film was based, the A&E drama has been among the most quietly suspenseful new dramas on TV in the past year. The series earned an Emmy nomination for star Vera Farmiga, who plays Norma Bates, mother to the psychologically troubled Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore), and the tension apparent in the original film is manifested here in a different fashion, as a more innocent love between a mother and a son -- before things got twisted. The series, from executive producers Mark Wolper, Roy Lee, John Middleton, Jr., Kerry Ehrin, and Carlton Cuse, is scheduled to return for its second season on March 3rd.
Farmiga and executive producer Ehrin participated in a conference call to discuss the second season, from what we can expect from the storylines this season, and whether there will be a third season. It's an enlightening interview, and a great appetizer for the main course of the season premiere.
Credit: A&E
On how the original Hitchcock film affects their approach to the series:
Kerry Ehrin: Okay, okay. Yes, I mean I think that from the very beginning Carlton [Cuse, executive producer] and I wanted to honor the movie, but not be beholden into it. So I think at this point the world of Bates Motel has definitely become its own organic world. So while we’re still conscious of the film, and obviously there’s certain tent poles, let’s say, that the film suggests, it kind of has become its own beast at this point. Yes.
On how much of the story Vera knows ahead of time, and whether she'd prefer not to know at all:
Vera Farmiga: You know, I’m still figuring what it is that is part of my process. You know, I’ve never had the luxury of a second season. I’ve done three series before. And they all never had the opportunity to go beyond 13 episodes in the first season. So I know first season I did feel a little disabled. Not that I couldn’t act, because I remember Carlton asking me "Do you want some more clues?" And I wanted to sort of take it an episode at a time and not get ahead of myself. But in hindsight, in the experience of season one, I felt it was impossible to dig as deep initially with the root of this new character. ... Television is a much slower process to discovering that background history, the personality, the psychology, the characters goals. And there were so many unknowns.
And also it’s like the cast is so much closer. There’s an intimacy. There’s a level of like sportsmanship now that we can throw harder jabs at each other. It’s the deeper level of trust that has been established between us, and Kerry and Carlton, and between the actors. ... But I think second season I did ask for more clues. And I wanted to have the trajectory of the second season. I wanted to have more answers at the start, which I was provided. So I think you’re in for a better second season.
Credit: A&E
On mothering tips Vera has learned from Norma Bates:
Vera Farmiga: Man, I admire her tenacious love for her child. She goes to extreme lengths to give her child the life that she imagines for him. And that is really valiant to me. I admire her generous heart. You know, she’s really disarming, honestly. These are amazing qualities that she possesses. Yes, the flip side of Norma Bates is that, you know, her hardware is working but her software is a bit faulty. She doesn’t like wrap Norman in bubble wrap all the time. I think what I do learn from her is - I mean, this is a story after all about family dysfunction. I have to work so hard to get an audience to identify with her, and to defend her and to admire her. For me, the name of the game is to present to you a woman who lives every day in the trenches of maternity.
And also in the trenches of her own stubbornness and denial. So maybe those negative qualities influence me to be a better parent.
On the compassion Kerry feels for Norma:
Kerry Ehrin: I think Norma is just, she’s the mother of all mothers. I mean, to me it’s like she’s in an extreme situation. But every mother I’ve ever known, they just have this passion for making everything okay for their kid. For like stuffing the s*** that doesn’t work out under the rug and stomping on it. And just constantly moving forward and making life as pretty and beautiful and fun for their kids as they can.
And it’s like, we can’t help it. It’s like what mothers do. And it’s something so beautiful. And that’s what Norma means to me. I mean, that’s why I think she’s beautiful. It’s like she’s, you know, screwed up and dysfunctional. And her own limitations that have been sort of laid on her by her life, her early life, that was none of her own doing. And within that, she’s absolutely just valiantly doing the best that she f***ing can. And you have to love that. And that, to me, is being a mother.
Credit: A&E
On the possibility of a love interest for Norma in season 2:
Vera Farmiga: Yes, I mean obviously she’s proved from first season that she’s totally overanxious. She’s too involved. You know, this is a woman who’s been abused by her father, abused by her brother, discarded, unneeded by her older son. You know, she clings to the one man that has been her protector, her confidante, her consolation, the light in her life. And it is Norman. And she’s totally too involved. And she’s unable to cut the cord. But the thing is that the issues of women survivors of childhood sexual abuse is really complex. And, you know, it impedes ability to trust.
These poisonous feelings that she has are embedded so deep in her psyche. And she’s never uprooted them. She just like, you know, she has this vault, this sort of burial chamber where she squashes all that sadness and stress and torment.
She’s totally preoccupied with Norman because, I mean, imagine it for yourself ... the faintheartedness, the doom ... when you discover or when you suspect that there’s something not quite right neurologically with your child.
It’s not a job for the fainthearted. So every ounce of energy really is her struggle with raising Norman, this atypical child. And doing it as a single parent. She’s got her own painful history also to contend with. She’s got this rampart that she’s built. You know, it’s like the walls of Constantinople. It’s like - it’s a lifetime of defensive walls that she has.
Credit: A&E
On whether Norma's love interest is a new character:
Kerry Ehrin: Yes it is. And this season is a lot of fun because while last season was sort of about all of these things that got in the way of Norma and Norman, and achieving what they came to White Pine Bay for, achieving this dream, this season is very much about putting them in a position where they might actually get it.
They might actually get what they want. And the things that start to screw it up are more inside them. So it really is sort of - I can’t tell you too much. ... But it very much is a journey of following them deconstruct things that are good in a really entertaining way.
Credit: A&E
On whether or not the eventual ending of season two will leave the door open for a third season:
Kerry Ehrin: Yes. Enthusiastically yes. It’s like there’s so much great story to go. It’s like it’s truly, this is such an exciting show to work on because there’s something about the relationship with Norma and Norman that just keeps on giving. And from a writer’s point of view, it’s just delightful. So yes, for sure.
On how the arrival of Norma’s brother changes the family dynamics this season:
Kerry Ehrin: Well I mean obviously he’s, you know, a very volatile emotional memory for Norma, and she really has no idea what to do with all of that. You know, it’s not like it’s ever been talked through or worked on. It’s been basically just, you know, shoved into the vault. And then this guy shows up and he’s outside of the vault. And it’s like, how do you handle that? Obviously it’s ... super complicated because of Norman’s great protectiveness of his mother and his tendencies that even he doesn’t know. So it’s like it’s super, super complicated and intense and interesting.
Credit: A&E
On whether or not Norma will grow closer to Dillon, and if there will be any change in their relationship:
Vera Farmiga: Oh God. I have such a hard time talking hot points because I always spilled the beans on stuff because I get to excited. And I’m biting my tongue right now. I love that relationship. And I’m glad in the second season we really get to explore it even more intimately. It’s evolving.
Kerry Ehrin: Yes, I mean it’s - it is the story of a lost son. And that longing for normalcy and everything. That he has this longing for a family that he’s never had and he never has been inside of. And he very much is dealing with that this year. And him and Norma have a fascinating relationship this year. So many different orientations to it. It’s really amazing.
Credit: A&E
On how knowing the end of Norma Bates as a result of the Psycho movie, in addition to how her relationship with Norman changes, affects how the character is acted and written:
Kerry Ehrin: Well Carlton Cuse and I have always seen this as a strange love story between this mother and a son. And I don’t mean, you know, incest love. But it’s intense. And it has to go in a certain direction. The relationship you see in the film, she’s very much portrayed as one type of person. And you don’t ever get to know that in her workings of how it got there. ... Which is really fun in the film. I mean it’s great. And it’s a big surprise when you find out in the film. But you get the luxury of taking that mess and ... putting it under a microscope and examining it and wondering how it got there and what the permutations were. ... Because in the film, you know, she’s portrayed as a very abusive, harsh kind of ugly parent. And it’s like "okay, well everyone gets mad at their parents sometimes." I mean everyone - every teenager in the world said "I hate you."
And they don’t hate them. It’s like the parent is such a complex thing to a kid. So it really was just the love story of those two people and how they get to that place. And what it means and what that looks like. And it’s going to be amazing.
Season 2 of Bates Motel premieres March 3 at 9:00 PM ET on A&E.