Wynonna Earp officially kicks off its second season tonight, and it looks like things are getting even more complicated for our favorite gunslinging heir and her team. Wynonna (Melanie Scrofano) may have led the charge deep into the heart of Black Badge territory to rescue an imprisoned Agent Dolls (Shamier Anderson), but when it came time to cut and run, Team Earp literally found itself making a deal with the devil, begrudgingly signing a contract in blood to work directly with the shady agency. Meanwhile, Waverly’s (Dominique Provost-Chalkley) dark side is beginning to emerge, potentially at the cost of her new relationship with Nicole (Kat Barrell). And as for Doc (Tim Rozon)? Well, he’s up to something suspicious, but when is he ever not cooking up shenanigans?
Long story short: a ton of stuff happened in the premiere, but luckily we’ve got some experts on hand–the people behind Wynonna Earp–who will go in-depth with us to break down season two episodes and give us some behind-the-scenes info. This week, Nerdist had the opportunity to talk to Waverly Earp herself, Dominique Provost-Chalkley about a myriad of topics including playing a darker version of her character, dropping in fun Easter eggs for the Earper fandom and what’s changing about the show this season.
Nerdist: Did your approach to the character change at all for season two?
Dominique Provost-Chalkley: I spoke to Emily [Andras, Wynonna Earp Executive Producer] a little bit about this before we started because I didn’t know what she had in mind, in terms of how touching this black goo affected Waverly when her eyes aren’t black. In general, I think it’s quite nice because it came at a really perfect time for Waverly and her development as a young woman, because she’s getting braver and getting less apologetic for herself anyway towards the end of the season. She comes into her own. It’s kind of perfect timing because I feel like she’s going in that direction but just touching the goo accelerates that, and so I wanted to make sure that right from the get-go there was almost a power that ran through her, an adrenaline underneath that maybe she didn’t have before.
N: How much collaboration do you have with Emily and the writers in terms of hashing out Waverly?
PC: Emily’s really great. She’s always ready to answer the phone whenever you need her, even if it’s a silly question or if you’ve missed something just to make sure that we’re on the same page. I find it incredibly helpful to hear her view because she’s the writer, she’s the creator. She has it in her mind and it’s our job to make it come to life. Really, we don’t know much until the scripts come out and then I tend to work through it, come up with my ideas, really flesh them out and then have a true understanding of that particular part of Waverly’s journey. To be honest, we have worked out by this point where these characters are. Last year we were starting from scratch in making them come to life and embodying them. Now I feel like there’s a mutual trust between actor and writer. If I’m going down the wrong road, Emily will steer me back. I think having that understanding between the two of you makes it a really safe place for you to play, and I hope we’ve created something really fun.
N: What do you think the biggest change is for the sister dynamic between Wynonna and Waverly now heading into season two?
PC: I was really happy to see that we get great sister moments in the second season. I think a lot of people related to that. At the end of last season, obviously, Wynonna just shot Willa. It’s an extremely tricky time for [Waverly]. The stakes are so high and there’s a lot of grieving that needs to be done yet we don’t have time for that. Waverley’s got something else going on that, at the beginning, Wynonna doesn’t even know about. Wynonna needs Waverly now more than ever and maybe Waverly can’t give her what she needs. And they’re way more connected than they ever have been previously, so that’s a little confusing [for Wynonna]. In the second season, it gets stronger and more powerful the more they go through, and it’s a beautiful relationship to see blossom because it is so complex.
N: The relationships between women is one of my favorite things about this show.
PC: It’s amazing, and it’s so rare. There were a few moments this season–I won’t give any spoilers away–where I’d look around and we were doing a fight scene or something really awesome, and it was three women or four women. That was it. No men there. It’s normality for our show, and it’s such a rarity. You don’t see that on TV. It’s so important to be able to represent that and to have all of these incredibly strong female characters. I think that’s extremely powerful.
N: Were you surprised at all by the fan reception to your character, to the relationship between Waverly and Nicole, and how the fans rallied around the pairing?
PC: I was really, really surprised and also extremely happy because when you’re part of something as an actress, you only see your parts. You get a feeling and a sense of what you’re making but there’s something really special when you watch it back and see it all come together. It’s hard to predict how audiences are going to respond, but all I know is I felt like we were creating something really awesome–not only because I was nurturing the relationship between Waverly and Nicole, something I felt extremely important and certainly isn’t done as much as it should be. I was pleasantly surprised and overwhelmed by the amount of positivity that came from it, and I think it solidified my opinion of the fact that we’re doing something really awesome, and long may it continue.
N: There’s a bit in the premiere in which Waverly goes undercover using a British accent, and that made me chuckle, because I don’t think a lot of people know what your real accent sounds like.
PC: It’s genius, isn’t it? I remember Emily saw the reaction the fans were giving when they found out I was actually British. She was toying with the idea for a while of making Dark Waverly British when she was possessed by the tentacle. I loved that as a concept, but I think it would have been too comical in that situation. She picked the perfect way of doing it. It’s a little nod to the fans. She writes not only for us, but she also writes for the fans, so there’s little things that come out through the season, little treats that maybe wouldn’t have been in there if it wasn’t for the fan reaction, and how much that means to us.
N: Speaking of what we can expect moving forward, is there anything you can tease? Any hints?
D: It’s tricky to be non-specific! But I will say that this season is so epic and the mythology expands. There’s a lot more that we need to deal with, not just Revenants, and we form way more of a team. There are new characters that are introduced that bring different dynamics to the show. It’s extremely exciting and I think the show itself really comes into its own. It’s a unique genre and at the beginning of the first season we were finding our feet with it. We were all coming together–writers, actors, everybody– to set the tone of the show. We’ve already established all of that now, so we can really get going straight from the first episode and it continues to build momentum. There’s a lot that happens, and it’s really bloody good.
Images via Syfy.
