Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. A twisty new thriller called Paradise is up for an Emmy award for outstanding drama series. The series starts as a murder mystery, who killed the President? But then it morphs into so much more.

Climate change causes the world to implode and 25,000 people now live underground in a Pleasantville-like fortified bunker. It is all fake sun, fake rain, fake meat, but the humans who live there are real, including the mastermind of this underground city, Samantha Redmond. The wealthiest self made woman ever. She dreamed up the whole thing. She is played by my next guest, Emmy award nominated actor, Julianne Nicholson.

When the President is murdered, his secret Service agent, Xavier, wants to get to the bottom of it. Even if that means crossing Sam, who goes by the nickname the Sinatra. As you can hear from this scene, when Sam is telling leaders how the President's death will be handled, she is not one to be taken lightly.

Julianne Nicholson: Enough. In 10 minutes, the community will get an alert for an emergency town hall. They will gather here and we will share the shocking news that the President has passed of natural causes, quietly in his bed. We will then immediately swear in Henry, which will settle everyone because it will remind our community that we have a functional system in place. As for the rest of you, your security will be increased until we find some answers. So if you gentlemen will just pour yourselves a drink or tug on your [beep] or do whatever it is you need to do to calm yourselves the fuck down, so that we can present a united front, well, that would be super.

Alison Stewart: Paradise has already been given a second season. I got a chance to speak to the star, Julianne Nicholson from England. In this conversation, we discussed how the series was colored by the results of the 2024 election. Now, we took calls, but unfortunately this is an encore presentation, so we can't take yours today.

I started by asking why it was important for her character's backstory to be front and center early on in the series.

Julianne Nicholson: For me, I had never seen a single episode that delved so deeply into one character's life, and so just to be able to play that felt very exciting. Also, it just allows the audience to know Sam a little more deeply and maybe understand the choices she's making that they're led, she's led by her grief, basically. There's just a little bit more humanity there than someone just sort of being evil for evil's sake.

I think Dan's very smart that way with his use of backstory and getting to know these people outside of the present day story we're telling.

Alison Stewart: Early, she's sitting at the bar, she's a young woman. She's just made a deal to sell her startup to make her a rich, rich woman. In that moment, what's really important to her?

Julianne Nicholson: I think in that moment, everything, the future is bright. I feel like she's bright and worked really hard. I don't think she comes from money, it's all been of her own volition that she finds herself in this place. She meets someone who's interesting to her. she's thinking about kids and maybe a white picket fence and sort of doing the thing that she loves in her work, but also having a family life. Then we discover that that goes off the rails.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting. When she's at the bar, she meets this guy. We find out it'll be her husband. At first she tells her, I'm going to be worth, I think, $14 billion, and she lies about it. She finds out, I'll really be worth $34 billion, and I thought that was an interesting detail in the writing.

Julianne Nicholson: I know. I think Dan sprinkles those throughout each of the characters where he just drops these little clues about who they are. I know. I thought that was so interesting too, about it being a woman in that world in particular, which would have been 20 years ago, and making apologies, trying to make yourself, I mean, I can't say small. 14 billion, still pretty large sum, but shrinking yourself to, I don't know, make the man feel good or something. Luckily, she comes clean immediately.

Alison Stewart: We see her go on to become a young mother of two kids. She and her husband, they seem like good partners. Her son falls ill, we learn this in the second episode. What does her son's illness do to her? She describes herself as being broken.

Julianne Nicholson: I think it's a couple things. One is just the size of that loss is something that just shifts something in her DNA. She is not prepared to deal with that grief, and I think it also rocks her to her core and that she thought that she was smart enough, worked hard enough, had enough money that she could control everything. Quite a type A control freak, and this just knocks that idea on its backside.

I think that sort of really rattles her as well, to realize her powerlessness in the face of bigger things, and she just can't handle it.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting. Initially, she just keeps trying to throw money at her son's health or get better doctors, and I thought that was an interesting signal. What has money done to her sense of self?

Julianne Nicholson: I think she thinks she's untouchable. I mean, it's not exactly immortal, but not far off from that. She thinks that with enough money, you can fix anything, you can have anything, you can do anything you you want to do. She discovers that that's not the case. The thing that matters the most, she can't hold onto.

Alison Stewart: We have a question for you. This text came in. "How do you feel that your acting is so, so good that fans found it easy to hate Sinatra? You are phenomenal at playing a sociopathic villain, but you're not one in real life. I'm rooting for you to win all the awards."

Julianne Nicholson: Oh, that's so nice. I have to say, I've never really played like a villain, bad guy before, and I can't tell you how many times people come up to me with huge smiles on their face telling me they hate me. It's been a very interesting and unusual and new feedback that I've been getting, but how fun.

I've been doing this now for close to 30 years, so if I can still find characters unlike any that I've played before, that's the joy. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: When she's in Paradise in the place, at first, it seems like she doesn't want everybody to realize that she's in control. She's kind of going undercover. Why isn't she upfront with being in control? She's letting the "President" be in control.

Julianne Nicholson: I think she learned early on that-- She doesn't feel like she needs to be the face of it. I feel like with less attention, she can do more. I think flying under the radar as much as possible is a way to continue pulling the strings as she wants them to go.

Alison Stewart: She has a psychiatrist to help keep her even. It's the same psychiatrist who helped her through her child dying. Why does she trust this woman so much?

Julianne Nicholson: Dr. Gabriella Turabi, played by the wonderful Sarah Shahi, I think it's because, as you mentioned, she, Dr. Tarabi, helps Sinatra when she's at her absolute lowest point. As she says and they're seen together, she's basically all she can think about is throwing herself off a building. She can't fathom living, and yet she has another daughter that she needs to be okay for, or at least be, as she says, be functioning for.

Alison Stewart: I'm wondering if you thought to yourself, Sam Sinatra, does she really think that creating this underground bunker, does she really think she's doing the right thing, at first?

Julianne Nicholson: I think for sure, at first she thinks she's doing the right thing, but I think it's much more complicated than that. I'm actually so excited that we've been picked up for a second season because I've started speaking with Dan Fogelman, the creator, a little bit. I think we've only just scratched the surface on what the construction of Paradise entailed, and so it'll be interesting to see what it actually took to bring it to life.

I think she starts off with good intentions, and then things go south.

Alison Stewart: This is a funny text. It says, "I was on an email thread several years ago that turned out to have Dan included. I sent him an email telling him we have the same last name, he replies, "Always good to meet another Fogelman." What a nice guy?" Tell me, what do you think Dan Fogelman's-- what's his skill set as a showrunner and as a writer?

Julianne Nicholson: First of all, he's such a nice, decent person, really personable. Even with all the successes he's had, he's very easy to talk to, and he's incredibly enthusiastic about his work and the show, and so everybody feels excited to be there. Then I think he just has this knack for understanding what a large audience, what gets them in, whether it's going into those backstories. I think his use of humor throughout the exploration of all this grief and loss, with all this extreme, it keeps people-- If you're just being hit over the head again and again and again with the darkness, I think people have a tendency to tune out. He just knows those moments of where to bring the levity and the lightness.

Alison Stewart: People know you from a lot of things. Most recently, Mare of Easttown, you won an Emmy Award for that performance. We have a caller who has a question about that.

This is Jill from Westport, Connecticut. Hi, Jill.

Jill: Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me on. I love your show.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Jill: Julianne, this is Jill Mann.

Julianne Nicholson: Hi, Jill. Hi.

Jill: My son Cameron Mann played Ryan Ross, Julianne's son, Lori Ross' son and Mare of Easttown, and there's nothing better than driving down the road and hear Julianne's voice come on the radio. We're such huge fans, and I just want all the listeners to know out there what a huge heart she has, what an amazing mentor. You're such an amazing mentor to Cameron. I mean, it was a beautiful experience and I'm sure, very foundational to him as an actor and meant so much. I just want everyone to know you're everything that Sinatra is not, so that really speaks to what an amazing actress you are.

Julianne Nicholson: Oh, my God, that is so nice. Jill, you're so sweet. Were you just driving down the road and called? How is it?

Jill: I was literally driving down the road I heard you on, and of course, I'm watching everything that you're in always, and so is Cameron. I thought, oh, my gosh, I have to call and let everyone know that Julianne's just exactly as nice as she sounds.

Julianne Nicholson: That is so nice. Maybe that will give people pause before they come up and tell me how much they hate me now.

Alison Stewart: Julianne, it's so interesting because I was watching a video of you and you're at home in London and you were saying, "I haven't really worked by choice necessarily for a while," and that you and your family, you don't have what you call the Hollywood life, that you have dinner together and talk about stuff. What does that give you personally when you do pick roles and when you do choose to work?

Julianne Nicholson: It's always hard because whenever I get a job, it means leaving home. I guess that means that for everybody, but normally it's like a 9:00 to 5:00 thing and not a couple of months, but it allows me to just, I don't know, come back to earth and just feel like my blood pressure evens out, my shoulders go down. It's just much more relaxed and it's just joyful in a different way.

I also feel so lucky that I can do both, but my family is number one and that I get to also continue acting and doing the job I love. Now, I try to appreciate whichever one I'm in, whether it be home, don't worry about the next job, and when I'm working, know that I'll be home at the end of it. It's sort of a work in progress, but I feel pretty lucky.

Alison Stewart: The show is called Paradise, and that was my conversation with actor Julianne Nicholson.

Up next, the dramedy Shrinking. Actor Michael Urie stars as the best friend to a therapist navigating grief, work and fatherhood after the sudden death of his wife. Yuri joins us to discuss his role in the show's most recent season.