Alison Stewart: It is time for an All Of It Watch Party. When we get together, we watch a series and then we discuss it with someone associated with the show. It was a twisty, bumpy, exhilarating ride watching eight episodes of the series Paradise. It was one of those, have you seen it, shows that you recommend to your friends. It became a hit for Hulu. The series starts as a murder mystery. "Who killed the president? 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's all fake. Fake sun, fake rain, fake meat, but the humans who live there are real, including the mastermind of the 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-winning actor Julianne Nicholson.

When the president is murdered, his secret servant agent, Xavier, wants to get to the bottom of it, even if that means crossing Sam, who goes by the nickname Sinatra. As you can hear from the scene when Sam is telling leaders how the president's death will be handled, she is not one to be taken lightly. It's going to be all over the place.

[crosstalk]

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. If you gentlemen will just pour yourselves a drink or tug on your [bleep censor ] or do whatever it is you need to do to calm yourselves the [bleep censor ] down so that we can present a united front. Well, that would be super.

Alison Stewart: Paradise has already been given a second season, and after last week's finale, let's hope it happens fast. Joining me now from England is Julianne Nicholson. Hi, Julianne.

Julianne Nicholson: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: I'm doing well. You're so good in this series. Just got to say it up front.

Julianne Nicholson: Thank you. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: That's so nice.

Julianne Nicholson: Thank you. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: When were you approached about playing Sam in Paradise?

Julianne Nicholson: I was approached in January of last year. I was actually doing another show for the BBC. I was in--

Alison Stewart: Think we're having issues.

Julianne Nicholson: Oh, God.

Alison Stewart: Oh, I know. Oh, God. We're all having it. We're actually going to have, you know what?

Julianne Nicholson: I'm back.

Alison Stewart: You're back?

Julianne Nicholson: I'm back.

Alison Stewart: Oh.

Julianne Nicholson: Yes. Yes.

Alison Stewart: All right. I'm going to start that all over again. Hey, Julianne Nicholson, it's really nice to meet you.

Julianne Nicholson: Okay. Hi.

Alison Stewart: Hi.

[laughter]

Julianne Nicholson: I'm so happy to be here.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Let's start again. What did you think when Dan Fogelman approached you to be a part of Paradise?

Julianne Nicholson: Oh, this is sad. She's so good in this series.

Alison Stewart: Can you hear me yet?

Julianne Nicholson: Yes.

Alison Stewart: All right. I'm just going to move on to another whole question. Maybe he doesn't like that question. [laughs] We're just going to start with a whole different one. What do you like?

Julianne Nicholson: Well, you were--

Alison Stewart: Tell me.

Julianne Nicholson: No, go, go. I was just going to say you were asking. Did you hear my answer about getting the scripts from Dan last January?

Alison Stewart: We didn't hear it great, so let's do the whole thing. Tell me about getting the [crosstalk].

Julianne Nicholson: I was filming another show in Cardiff, Wales, last year, and I heard that Dan Fogelman was interested in me for the role, and he sent the first four episodes. I loved the first episode, and then the second episode focused on my character's backstory, and I was in. Sealed the deal for me.

Alison Stewart: That's so interesting because that second episode, we learned so much about Sam. Why was that important to you?

Julianne Nicholson: I think Dan is so smart in just showing a little bit more of her humanity and her vulnerability before showing her. Makes some really dark [crosstalk]--

Alison Stewart: Actually, Julianne, you know what? You can probably hear me, but I can't hear you well in New York. What we're going to do is we're going to have our control room call you back. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to tell our folks if they want to talk to Julianne Nicholson, she plays the billionaire boss on the thriller Paradise. If you have a question for Julianne, you can call or text us at 212-433-9692. 212-433-WNYC. Or you can reach out via social media @ALLOFITWNYC. We'll get all our ducks in a row, and we'll be back after a quick break.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. This is an All Of It Watch Party with Julianne Nicholson. She plays a billionaire boss on the thriller Paradise. It is a role of a lifetime. It's pretty great, I have to say. Julianne, can you hear me okay?

Julianne Nicholson: Yes. Hopefully, this is going to work. My apologies. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Who needs Zoom? We got phones.

[laughter]

Julianne Nicholson: Old school.

Alison Stewart: I was asking you why it was so important to you to have Sam's backstory appear so early in the series. It's in Episode 2, we really get to know her. Why was that important?

Julianne Nicholson: Well, for me, I have never seen a single episode that delved so deeply into one character's life, 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, so there's just a little bit more humanity there than someone just 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, and she meets someone who's interesting to her. She's thinking about kids and maybe a white picket fence and 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. 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 because she could be worth-- she finds out, "Well, I [unintelligible 00:08:01] only be worth $34 billion." 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 sort of-- Well, it's being a woman in that world in particular, which would've been 20 years ago, and making apologies, trying to make yourself-- 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: [chuckles] We see her go on to become a young mother of two kids, and she and her husband, they seem like good partners. Her son falls ill. We learned 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. I think it also rocks her to her core in 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. This just knocks that idea on its backside, so I think that 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. "We'll get better doctors. Better doctors." I thought that was an interesting signal. What has money done to her sense of self?

Julianne Nicholson: Well, 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 want to do. She discovers that that's not the case. The thing that matters the most, she can't hold on to.

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're a phenomenal at playing a sociopathic villain, but you're not one in real life. I'm rooting for you to win all the awards." [chuckles]

Julianne Nicholson: Aw, that's so nice. I have to say, I've never really played 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. [laughter] It's been a very interesting, 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.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: My guest is Julianne Nicholson. She plays the billionaire boss, Sinatra or Sam, on Paradise. If you have a question for Julianne about the show, give us a call. 212-433-9692. 2212-433-WNYC. Or you can reach out to us via social media @ALLOFITWNYC. 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 learns 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. She, 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. Gabriela Torabi, played by the wonderful Sarah Shahi. I think it's because, as you mentioned, Dr. Torabi helps Sinatra when she's at her absolute lowest point. As she says in their scene together, 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. I think Dr. Torabi slowly brings her back enough to continue being a person in the world, to continue, if not being okay, being close enough to okay. Then there's a relationship there.

Alison Stewart: I'm wondering if you thought to yourself, does 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. 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." [laughter] Tell me, what do you think, [crosstalk] what is Dan Fogelman's-- what's his skill set as a showrunner and as a writer?

Julianne Nicholson: What a good question. 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. He's incredibly enthusiastic about his work and the show, and so everybody feels excited to be there, and 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 and 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, so he just knows those moments of where to bring the levity and the lightness. I think he's wonderful at finding the right actors for the roles.

He's not afraid to go out of the box, if you will, looks in directions like Jon Beavers, who played Billy, doesn't have a huge resume to speak of of shows that we have seen him in before, but he's been working for decades. Dan will take that swing, and I can't imagine anybody else in that role. I love. I think we fell in love with Billy in that fourth episode. I think he's really sort of-- he's not precious, and he's just got this innate sense of what people want to watch, how we attach to these characters.

Alison Stewart: We're talking to Julianne Nicholson. She plays Sam on Paradise. If you have a question or a call for Julianne, our number's 212-433-9692. 212-433-WNYC. I got a call on hold, but I'm going to ask this person to hold on because we'll get to there. We'll get to that part of the story. Sinatra starts to unravel, and she really makes questionable decisions. What do you think causes her to unravel?

Julianne Nicholson: Well, I think she realizes that all these things that she has been doing in the dark, that only one or two people knew, are all about to come to light. I don't know how much can we give. Can we talk spoilers, or should we stay away from spoilers?

Alison Stewart: The way I wrote spoilers is, your character winds up incapacitated, say that, on a ventilator.

Julianne Nicholson: Okay. I won't say anything, but that is right. She makes big decisions, big life and death decisions, about other people who are heroes in Paradise. When that starts being revealed and she realizes that it's going to become public knowledge for the whole community, then she knows that people will turn on her. I shudder to think of where that would lead when people find out. I don't know where we're going to return to when we pick up. [laughter] There's a lot to unpick there.

Alison Stewart: I'm curious. When you were making Paradise, I assume it was before the election. Yes?

Julianne Nicholson: Yes. We finished last July, finished filming.

Alison Stewart: This was before Donald Trump was reelected and Elon Musk was installed somewhere in the White House. Does your role take on a different feeling?

Julianne Nicholson: Yes. [chuckles] Dan originally had the idea for this show, this underground bunker, before he even did This Is Us, so the kernel of the idea came years ago. Then when we were filming, even though it's fairly recently, no one was talking about politics because in July of 2024, it didn't look anything like it looks now, so we weren't thinking about it. I never.

I was reading about female CEOs and Fortune 500 companies. The people who we are seeing, reading about every day, never did they cross my mind. Now, it does feel just a little bit more unnerving. I think it's one of the reasons people are responding to it. It's a great show, but it doesn't seem that far-fetched [chuckles] anymore.

Alison Stewart: Here's a text we got. "Is there anything or anyone specific that you channel when getting into character for Sam Sinatra, any routines like music, mantras, anything that you perform in preparation?"

Julianne Nicholson: Oh, what a great question. I do not. I have to say those power suits of hers go a long way [laughter] towards holding a certain posture, feeling-

Alison Stewart: Sure.

Julianne Nicholson: -a sort of command of a room. I loved our costume designer, Sarah. I thought she had just such a fine eye towards-- it's like when you drive a nice car or you wear a nice suit, that alone can inform how you feel. Then so much of Sinatra was just on the page, like the answer was more just really thinking each scene where she's come from and what she needs in the scene that we're about to film.

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.

Julianne Nicholson: Thank you.

Jill: Julianne, this is Jill Mann, Cameron's mom.

Julianne Nicholson: Hi, Jill. [laughter] Hi.

Jill: My son, Cameron Mann-

Julianne Nicholson: How are you?

Jill: -played Ryan Ross, Julianne's son, Lori Ross's son, in Mare of Easttown. 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. 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.

[laughter]

Julianne Nicholson: Thank you. Oh, my God, that is so, so nice. Jill, you're so sweet. Were you just driving down the road and called. How is [crosstalk]? That's so sweet.

Jill: I was literally driving down the road. I heard you're on, and of course, I'm watching everything that you're in always, and so is Cameron.

Julianne Nicholson: Aw.

Jill: 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. Well, maybe that will give people pause before they come up and tell me how much they hate me now.

[laughter]

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: Well, it was hard actually when I first-- I mean, it's always hard because whenever I get a job, it means leaving home. I guess that means that for everybody. Normally, it's 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. My family is number one in 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 a work in progress, but I feel pretty, pretty lucky.

Alison Stewart: Julianne, we made it. We made it through all the technical difficulties.

Julianne Nicholson: Oh, my gosh. [laughter] I really do apologize for that beginning kerfuffle. That was all me. I don't know what happened. I'm so sorry.

Alison Stewart: Don't. You'll just have to be in person next time you're on the show. That's all.

Julianne Nicholson: Please, please.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: My guest has been--

Julianne Nicholson: No glitching in person.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Julianne Nicholson. You should watch Paradise. Watch it once, and watch it again. Thanks so much for being with us.

Julianne Nicholson: My pleasure. Thank you.