‘The Traitors’ Producers on Season 2, Castle Details and That Funeral

SPOILER ALERT: This story accommodates spoilers from the primary 4 episodes of “The Traitors,” now streaming on Peacock.

Ever since each the BBC and Peacock tailored the Dutch collection “De Verraders” into “The Traitors,” it’s been successful. Both produced by Studio Lambert, the U.Okay. model premiered on the BBC in November 2022, with the U.S. model dropping on the NBCUniversal streamer Peacock lower than two months later.

After the primary season blended non-famous solid members with celebrities, the second season of the U.S. model is now solely acquainted faces. The idea stays the identical: contestants should work collectively on missions to fill their prize pot with as much as $250,000. Several “Traitors” are chosen by host Alan Cumming firstly of the sport, and the remainder of the contestants are referred to as the “Faithful.” The Faithful should attempt to establish who amongst them is a Traitor, banishing one member in every episode after a roundtable dialogue. At the identical time, the Traitors homicide a Faithful every night time, whereas additionally working to maintain their identities secret. In the tip, if the Faithful banish all of the Traitors, they’ll cut up the prize amongst all of them, but when a Traitor makes it to the tip, the cash is all theirs.

The first season took house an Emmy Award for finest casting, whereas the second season’s rankings have already surpassed the primary, changing into the most-watched actuality premiere on Peacock.

Here, govt producers Mike Cotton and Sam Rees-Jones element the logistics of filming contained in the Scottish citadel, clarify how the Traitors are chosen, share extra about Cumming’s function as host and producer — and tease what to anticipate from the remainder of Season 2.

I need to begin with a logistical query concerning the U.Okay. and U.S. seasons, as a result of this week, each variations dropped the funeral episodes. How shut collectively had been they filmed, and was it deliberate to roll out the identical week?

Mike Cotton: So we use the identical location, and so they share the missions that the contestants participate in. It’s a extremely good partnership between BBC and NBC, since you get to mix assets at factors. The cash spent on the present goes additional. We shoot one model first, after which we shoot the opposite model virtually instantly after; this yr we shot the BBC model first, after which we shot the NBC model. Season 1, it was the opposite manner round. They get reduce at related occasions. How they fall and the way they air concurrently is dependent upon when the networks need to drop them.

So do the units from the missions — just like the gravesites, for instance — simply keep up in between the 2 variations?

Cotton: Yeah, it’s like a “Traitors” theme park. I usually assume we will open our personal Disney World. Because when you get into the citadel grounds, there’s a whole bunch and a whole bunch of acres of land — it’s received its personal river, it’s received its personal hills, it’s received its personal church — that we take over and construct all these varied issues.

Sam Rees-Jones: We should be actually cautious as a result of, for instance, we put 150 or 200 scarecrows in a discipline, however that’s on the citadel grounds. So we now have to watch out with the logistics of bringing the solid in in order that they don’t see that, or they don’t see our burial plot, as a result of that offers away what’s coming.

How lengthy does every episode take to movie?

Rees-Jones: We primarily prefer to movie an episode a day, which is sort of an enormous endeavor. But the explanation we like to do this is as a result of it retains an immersive bubble, retains their heads within the recreation. Schedule-wise, it’s an actual strain, however content-wise, it’s positively the appropriate factor to do. We begin the day with breakfast, have a roundtable, have a mission, have a homicide after which begin once more. We have down days with the solid and Episode 1 and the finale might take a little bit bit longer.

Cotton: We all the time say that in the beginning, this can be a recreation moderately than a actuality present. So the solid begin to be taught the rhythm of the day. But we don’t produce it like a traditional present. So we arrange this surroundings. We arrange the foundations of the sport, after which we simply allow them to play it, which is de facto good and in addition terrifying at occasions since you by no means know what’s going to occur.

Are the roundtable and the breakfast rooms each contained in the citadel?

Rees-Jones: Absolutely, yeah. The cause we picked that specific citadel was to deal with the roundtable room. It’s such an unlimited area.

How large is it?

Cotton: It’s enormous. We use a bit of it. We give them free rein; we’ve taken a wing of the citadel, and that’s their space that they will play the sport inside. They’ve received all the skin as properly. They’re free to roam round. It’s a extremely outdated constructing, and there’s components of it which might be fully unrenovated, that haven’t been touched for a lot of, a few years. At one level, it was occupied in the course of the conflict by the Navy. It’s fascinating, as a result of it’s received a lot historical past to it. I can’t estimate the sq. ft, but it surely’s received the potential for 30 bedrooms in actuality. A whole lot of it’s unconverted.

Right, you clearly weren’t going to intestine a complete citadel.

Cotton: Exactly. Plus, we don’t need to have to supply and direct our solid in sure instructions. If we lined that vast area, it’d be unattainable to cowl all of them. They can cut up up and have their very own conversations, but it surely’s sufficiently small that somebody might be listening on the door outdoors, and somebody can see when somebody disappears and has their very own secret chat.

Does the solid sleep within the citadel?

Cotton: Oh wow, that’s a tough one to reply. I can’t reply. The greatest factor is that the present depends fully on the secrecy of the Traitors, and by that, I imply we now have to be actually cautious that the Faithful don’t know who the Traitors are. It’s an enormous army operation every night time to get the Faithful to mattress in particular person rooms and get the Traitors again out to have their assembly. And as quickly as we begin speaking concerning the particulars of how they sleep and the place they sleep, it will unravel any potential future seasons.

I used to be very inquisitive about how folks had been getting off the bed and others weren’t listening to them!

Cotton: It’s a army operation, that’s what we will say!

Did Larsa Pippen and Marcus Jordan get to share a room this season since they’re a pair?

Rees-Jones: No. I believe they’d have needed to, however they weren’t allowed to as a result of it will have given them a foot up within the recreation.

How lengthy is the breakfast portion, as individuals are introduced in?

Cotton: They’re introduced in at staggered intervals, however they don’t sit there for a very long time and speak, since all the things occurs in a day. The breakfast lasts, from begin to end, an hour max.

Let’s discuss Alan Cumming. I do know he’s additionally a producer and host. Is he watching screens and writing copy? How a lot is he concerned within the day-to-day on the manufacturing facet?

Rees-Jones: I’m overseeing Alan, and labored intently with him. He’s fully in it. He has screens in his room. He will get giddy watching what’s taking place. He’s consistently messaging me going, “Oh, my God, can you believe they’re talking about this?” or “This is happening!” What I really like about him is that he’s an actor and an incredible author. So he works with me and the scriptwriters to make all of it sound inside his voice. He takes it on as a efficiency, so when he walks into the roundtable, it’s a efficiency for him. He gained’t go to mattress till he is aware of who’s been murdered. He’s fully in it, and he will get giddy going into any area and speaking to the solid.

How do you resolve who turns into a Traitor?

Cotton: It’s an attention-grabbing course of. It’s an enormous group factor. All of the contestants that participate in our present, we’ve performed persona assessments on them. We see attributes that may make somebody a very good liar or notably misleading. We really don’t know who the Traitors are till that decide, the place Alan walks round and faucets them on the shoulder. We watch how they work together after they arrive on the citadel. Alan does these chats with them, sitting down and asking them in the event that they’d prefer to be a Traitor and why. That has a extremely large bearing on it, as does Alan’s opinion. It’s virtually like a job interview to be a Traitor, and we take all of that into consideration and resolve simply earlier than the decide who that needs to be. We need to be sure that we’ve received an attention-grabbing mixture of characters that can deliver their very own distinctive talent set to it.

How did you resolve to create the Season 2 solid — from Bravo expertise and athletes to a politician?

Cotton: Well, we cherished having Marcus and Larsa within the combine. It’s a disgrace that they received murdered after they did, as a result of I’d have cherished one in all them to have been recruited as a Traitor! Would Larsa have killed Marcus? What would have occurred? So I believe we’re all the time fascinated about that blend.

What we’re actually pleased with is that the solid has a broad age vary. On so many competitors actuality reveals nowadays, all contestants are younger, within the 18-25 bracket. This recreation doesn’t rely simply in your bodily prowess, so the age vary is de facto large. We form of handled like placing collectively a jury. It’s an actual cross-section of individuals. Yes, they’re celebrities, however all of them come from barely completely different backgrounds.

Season 4 was the most effective episodes of actuality TV I’ve seen in a very long time, and I’ve a selected query. Was Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu really within the casket if you lowered it into the bottom?

Cotton: She didn’t really get lined in grime.

Rees-Jones: As far because the solid is worried, she was!

Cotton: We cherished that episode. Even for us, how the entire chalice story performed out and Parvati Shallow, who’s an incredible participant, making an attempt to eliminate that chalice after which the individual getting murdered after which turning up at breakfast. We arrange the duty, and we knew the premise of it, however we didn’t have any concept the way it may play out, and the way the solid would do in it. It was wonderful how they handled it like an actual funeral and the mourning on the gravesite on the finish. That’s how immersed they had been in it.

Were all of them instructed to deliver funeral attire?

Rees-Jones: We by no means talked about a funeral as a result of we didn’t need to give that away. But I believe we stated one thing like, deliver garments that could be applicable for a black tie occasion, after which we now have a stylist on location who can form of decorate and add issues. We cherished how they seemed. It was fairly a dramatic look.

This solid has a actuality background, however do you assume that those that have performed strategic video games like “Survivor” or “Big Brother” have an higher leg over those that, for instance, competed on “Dancing With the Stars”?

Rees-Jones: People will assume they’ll know the best way to play the sport, and so they don’t. It doesn’t actually matter the place they the place they arrive from.

Cotton: I bear in mind speaking to Parvati as soon as, and she or he stated to me, “This game is so interesting, because in games like ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Survivor,’ you can formulate your strategy. You set your strategy at the start and play it out until the end.” In this recreation, that’s completely unattainable since you might need a technique, however then that individual that you simply fashioned that technique with is all of the sudden banished the following day, or they get murdered the following morning. It’s a recreation of instincts and belief.

Rees-Jones: You’re going to like the episodes to come back. There are moments when you’ll be able to see the sport twists, and you may see the cogs turning, somebody considering, “I’ve got to 180 my game and strategy.” It’s not simply the the twists and turns the present has, it’s form of the twists and turns that occur as a result of somebody does a sure factor.

Why did you resolve to make this solid filled with actuality stars/celebrities, versus bringing in unknown folks such as you did in Season 1?

Rees-Jones: Season 1, we had been fairly considering how would folks method the sport if, for some folks, you knew one thing about and also you might need a preconceived concept about, and a few folks you didn’t know something about in any respect. I believe that was the idea initially behind the combination. I believe it was actually attention-grabbing, and paid off very well. For Season 2, we needed to flip it and see how this may play out. The authentic Dutch format was all the time all celebrities, and it felt pure to return to that. I believe a part of the explanation is also that the sport is a recreation of two sides — the Traitors vs. the Faithfuls. We additionally didn’t need it to be two sides when it comes to movie star and non-celebrity. So it simply felt cleaner.

Lastly, why did you resolve to deliver Kate Chastain again?

Cotton: I believe that was one thing that we mentioned rather a lot with NBC. I believe everybody felt like Kate had some unfinished enterprise within the present. She was a standout character on Season 1.

Rees-Jones: It wouldn’t be like bringing Cirie [Fields] again, the place she performed an incredible recreation. Kate performed a messy recreation, she’d let you know herself — an excellent, fascinating recreation. She’s so watchable, she brings a special dynamic. It is thrilling to see her.

Cotton: And she’s a mother now, so she’s extra motivated to try to win that cash.

This interview has been edited and condensed.