EXCLUSIVE: Jenna Clause, Sophia Ali & Shannon Berry Talk Season 2 of The Wilds
Season 2 of The Wilds is set to be released on Prime Video tomorrow, May 6, and we got the chance to chat with Jenna Clause, Sophia Ali and Shannon Berry about the new season.
During the chat, we talked what’s to come for their characters this season, the new characters joining the series, what they’re hoping fans get from the season, and so much more. Check out what they had to say below.
What’s to come for your characters this season of The Wilds?
Clause: “Everyone’s getting their chance, their continuation of what they were going through, because all of our stories were definitely not finished. There’s a lot of things we need to uncover with each character. And I’m excited for it.”
Ali: “I feel like you see Fatin go to a place that you just wouldn’t expect, which is the caretaker role. She is perceivable pretty selfish in the first season. She cares, but it’s definitely a completely different side of her.”
Berry: “Dot takes a big fat backseat, and she lets other people take care of her, which is amazing. You’re able to see her be supported by all these wonderful women and like her family, a new family.”
Ali: “But that’s not a backseat for Dot, that’s a problem for her.”
Berry: “That’s a problem, taking the back seat. That’s what she’s going through, is learning that she can be supported.”
Is there something that you learned in the first season that helped you develop your roles in the second season?
Ali: “Something that Fatin and I defer from is just process, how we process through things. I’m a lot more analytical and I tend to be unsure sometimes, as people are. But I don’t really feel like Fatin has those attributes as strongly as I do. A lot of things that she does or shifts that she makes they’re faster than I can conceptualize. I adapted that to the second season, as far as inner turmoil, and stuff like, how she might defer from even just like the average person.”
Clause: “For me acting wise, it helped me become more emotionally available to Martha because in the first season she very much put on like a front to shield her trauma from everyone else for it being obvious, I would say. But the more that she dives into that and finally confronts what’s been hurting her ever since her assault. I feel like I thrived in that because I felt like I was holding back a lot in season one. This is a season where you finally see Martha open up more to a lot more people.”
Berry: “Season one came with a lot of nerves and a lot of some imposter syndrome, some feelings of, ‘oh my God, this is the biggest thing that I’ve ever stepped on. This is the biggest role I’ve ever done. Am I going to be able to turn it out?’ And I think season two, it came with a little bit of pressure that everyone had seen it and knew the story. But it also came with a lot of like trust in myself. I can do this, thank God. I mean, otherwise I’d be in the wrong profession.”
A lot of negative things have happened to your characters while on the island, do you think they are any positive things that your characters would bring away from the island?
Berry: “Dot, she’s found her family. When she’s leaving a life in civilization, family is something that she’s missing and she’s unsure where that’s going to come from or how that’s going to form. But this island, how terrible it is, is so beautiful, because it’s given her a family, and it’s given her people that support her and care for her.”
Clause: “For Martha she finally took her strength back. Within this terrible situation, she was able to find strength within it, in herself. It’s one of the most beautiful things and one of the best arches you could portray in a character, is starting with a character who is weak. Then they finally find either inner peace or whatever it was they’re looking for, it’s like a journey for her. I thought it was really special.”
Ali: “That’s an interesting point of this show, there’s so many of them. But all of the women in the second season, you realize what they’ve gone through, all the strength that they were able to find within themselves it was always there, and it was always going to come out. It’s just now it’s so highlighted. For example, I feel like Fatin probably never would have it acknowledged her ability to adapt. Because of our society, I think a woman like her is expected to a lot and it goes unsaid. So having it removed and experiencing it, I think she’s actually able to acknowledge that it’s a skill.”
This season we are introduced to a slew of new characters, do you think that changed the dynamic of the show?
Ali: “As far as the characters with themselves, not at all. As far as the show, as a whole, it offers a really cool juxtaposition.”
Berry: “It opens up a conversation that I think is really necessary and really important. it opens up the sphere and it shows more of the world.”
Now that you have two seasons under your belt, what would you say is your favorite part about playing your characters?
Berry: “What’s funny, I love it. She is totally completely herself and it is very freeing to live in her space and live in her head. I feel like I can take a little bit of my weirdness and chuck it into her in some moments, especially to excel with surf. So, I just love it. She’s funny as hell.”
Ali: “Similar for Fatin, but the opposite way. I feel like I’ve adapted a lot of feminine aspects to myself that I was embarrassed about before or felt shame towards.”
Clause: “I like that Martha has a new flare to her, more of like a backbone if you will. It’s really important for her to have that, with what she’s going through and everything.”
The show has a huge fan base, did that add any pressure to filming Season 2?
Ali: “I haven’t really thought about that. But I would say, yeah, it definitely adds pressure. You don’t want to disappoint them. A little pressure is good though.”
Berry: “I definitely think that was an expectation that I put on myself to make sure that people had seen it now, and now moving forward to shooting future seasons, knowing that people now know about our characters, and they have an attachment to that. It is scary to walk in and create a whole new story. And you’re like, ‘Oh, I hope that everyone kind of accepts this second part of the tale.’”
Clause: “I definitely feel the pressure too. But honestly with that, it’s just like a whole, another group of support that wasn’t there originally, because they didn’t know each and every one of us yet. Then the fact that there’s more people coming on, the show is still going to progress with that. It’s pressure, but it’s just so much more support in my eyes really.”
Ali: “And the boys’ beauty being added alleviates so much of the pressure.”
If you were placed in your characters shoes, do you think you’d be able to survive on the island?
Berry: “No.”
Clause: “Hopefully my adrenaline would kick and if I had like a machete, I might survive, for at least a month.”
Ali: “I’d totally survive. I would thrive. I think I would thrive. Figure out a way to survive.”
Berry: “No, you talked about this. You would absolutely thrive. You’d live there, you’d have a house, you’d serve tea when we got there for the rescue, you’d be like, ‘I’m fine.’”
What do you think you would need to survive?
Berry: “Patience.”
Clause: “I’m thinking, I wish only patience.”
Berry: “Fresh water, a whole lot of patience. It might take a while…”
Ali: “I’d take either an ax or a machete, or something. A general knowledge of plants and animals than I have.”
Clause: “Determination to live.”
Ali: “And patience.”
Berry: “Things don’t go my way all the time. And I need to have some patience, I think, especially on an island.”
Say you did survive, what is one thing that you would take with you from your experience?
Berry: “If I survived? Oh, well my dignity. I would take that with me because I’d prove the impossible to myself, I think. I’d walk away very proud.”
Ali: “I’d probably want to take if we’re going by my emotions, my fear of things that are bigger and stronger than me. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to leave that behind.”
For all three of you, what are you hoping the fans get from this season?
Ali: “I hope they find a newfound appreciation for men, honestly, because they’re important. Sure, there’s shitty aspects to every gender, but we’ve been so focused on women for so long and I love it, it’s fantastic. We deserve it. But at the same time, we still need men.”
Clause: “They’re letting everyone know you’re not alone, there’s all these problems in diversity and not typically what you see on team all the time. Same thing, just you’re not alone. These problems exist everywhere.”
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity