“Legion” has become known for actively seeking to confuse its audience. On the set, the series’ twists were kept secret even from the actors themselves.
Beware of major “Legion” spoilers below.
According to series star Aubrey Plaza, who spoke with TheWrap this week, the cast wouldn’t receive a script for an episode until the week before they were supposed to shoot it.
“We didn’t know anything until we read the next script,” she said. “We were living in a constant state of confusion and excitement.”
Each actor was given basic information about their character, including personality traits and other tips, but those who play roles that may even be figments of Haller’s imagination were hit with some surprises.
One of the most surprising revelations concerns Plaza’s character, Lenny Busker, who started off as David Haller’s (Dan Stevens) friend and slowly became (possibly) the main antagonist. You’d think, considering Plaza’s constantly changing character, that the actress might’ve had an idea of what to expect, but you’d be wrong.
“I knew her overall journey,” Plaza said. “I knew kind of the basic log line. I didn’t know the specifics. I didn’t know how I would get from A to C. I knew who Lenny was at her core I had no idea how it would manifest in the episodes.”
The cast would attempt to piece together story lines for themselves based on the tidbits of information from what Plaza called “different sources.”
“I think I definitely was always wondering what everyone else knew and we were always constantly asking each other what we knew,” she said.
However, that didn’t stop Plaza from pretending like she knew more than she did. Just like her character Lenny, Plaza said she would actively seek to confuse her lead costar Stevens.
“I would always get a kick out of messing with him, but I didn’t really know [anything],” she said.
Plaza said when presented with the role of Lenny that she wasn’t told about her ultimate fate. In fact, as she revealed on “Conan” this week, the part was originally written for a middle-aged man, but was offered to her by writer and showrunner Noah Hawley.
“I am many things, and an old man is one of them,” she said on the show.
“Legion” airs tonight on FX at 10/9c.