Colin Farrell Eyes 5 Seasons of His Apple TV Detective Series, But There’s a Catch

After delivering an Emmy Award-nominated performance for HBO’s The Penguin, Colin Farrell continues to dominate television with his Apple TV series Sugar. Now, the genre-blending crime thriller returns to the streamer for Season 2, and while talking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Farrell explains that this time around, their team wasn’t “building a plane mid-flight” like their first go-round, but that their new showrunner and writer, Sam Catlin, “explored new avenues” and made it a joyful collaboration for the star and executive producer.

In Sugar Season 2, the charming investigator, John Sugar (Farrell), refuses to give up the search for his missing sister, but in the meantime, has also taken on a new case to search for the older brother of an up-and-coming boxer. Now, as his investigation expands to a city-wide conspiracy, Sugar has to decide what he’s truly willing to do for what’s right.

In this interview, Farrell talks about his contributions to Season 2, working alongside Catlin and the crew, and keeping production in Los Angeles. He tells Collider that fans can expect even more of the mythology to be explored in Season 2, plus shares his hopes for doing “four or five seasons.” Don’t miss all of this, and Farrell’s favorite Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan films, and an exciting tease for Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II.

Colin Farrell Reveals His Favorite Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan Films

“Everything just came together so perfectly.”​

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Image via Carla Van Wagoner/Future Image/Cover Images

COLLIDER: Disclosure [Day] is great, and Emily Blunt is amazing.

COLIN FARRELL: I heard she’s extraordinary in it, man. That’s so great. I can’t wait to see it. I watched Close Encounters last week again. It gets better every time.

What is your favorite Spielberg? I’ve been asking everyone this. We ran a supercut this morning with Jack Black, Matt Damon, everybody talking about their favorite Spielberg.

FARRELL: My son’s is Jurassic Park, which I love. I’ll never forget going to the UCI Cinema in the square in Tallaght in Dublin and walking up to the cinema, and they had stickers of T-Rex talons all the way leading from the cinema, all the way up to the concession stand. I’ll never forget the lights going down and that thing coming on.

But for me, in my later years, Close Encounters, like in the last 20 years, and in the first 25 years of my life or whatever age I was, five when I saw it, or six when I saw it, E.T. So this trilogy, or the idea of Disclosure Day being an organic, natural conclusion to a trilogy of questions about what is out there I’m so excited about it.

Because Chris Nolan has The Odyssey coming out, what is your favorite Chris Nolan?

FARRELL: I just thought Oppenheimer was perfect. I thought everything that Chris Nolan and his folks have… every creative waters and intellectual waters that they’ve swum in before, and sound design and the visual accouterment of film, and the performance and the writing, it all just came together. Like when you see Star Wars, and then it goes like this? That was Oppenheimer. Everything just came together so perfectly.

But I really enjoy The Prestige. That’s the one I go back to, man.

I love The Prestige.

FARRELL: Or The Dark Knight.

[Laughs] Basically, you have three answers.

FARRELL: Gold, silver, and bronze.

Colin Farrell Returns to Gotham City Next Week for ‘The Batman: Part II’

“Matt [Reeves] is just so brilliant, and he just cares so deeply about the stories he tells.”

Image via HBO

Before I jump into Sugar, which you’re fantastic in, I definitely have to ask you, coming from Collider, when are you putting on the makeup again and filming a certain sequel?

FARRELL: They start, think, in a week. Is there a plan for you to go over and see?

I would pay someone to let me go do that.

FARRELL: I don’t have the power to charge such an invitation, but it’ll be an amazing set to be on. The script, I’ve said before, and you know, I said it to you, it’s extraordinary. It really is. Matt [Reeves] is just so brilliant, and he just cares so deeply about the stories he tells. I will go fly to London in four or five weeks. I haven’t got much to do on it, but I’ll go for four or five weeks. I’ll be there for a few weeks. I’m so excited to see it as a fan.

I’m over the moon.

FARRELL: I can’t wait.

Colin Farrell Thinks ‘Sugar’s Main Character Would Hate AI

But what would he think of pickleball?

Jumping into Sugar. John Sugar is obsessed with human culture, and I’m curious, of these 2026 Earth things, tell me if Sugar would love them or be completely baffled by them.

FARRELL: Tell me. Lay it on me.

AI-generated movie trailers.

FARRELL: [Laughs] Hate, hate, hate. He loves human beings. He loves the tactility of human beings. He loves how flawed human beings are. That’s kind of one of the things that fascinates him, how broken we are and how, through those fractures and those breaks, we are still capable of decency. So, anything that’s as synthetic as that, no.

Pickleball.

FARRELL: Yeah! Cool. Yeah. Bizarre. His alien antennae are like, “What the fuck?” But yeah, cool.

Trend cycling.

FARRELL: What is it, even?

I looked that up. It’s E-bikes, custom designer bikes…

FARRELL: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think he’d be cool with that. Anything that he can move through the world with — he loves that car. That car is not something that keeps him away from the world, it’s something that allows him to move through the world with grace.

Driverless robo-taxis.

FARRELL: Hate. Hate.

We’re on the same page.

FARRELL: I mean, I want to throw a Molotov cocktail at every Waymo I see. Well done. Someone’s getting rich, and drivers are going to be out to work. Well done.

What’s funny is people don’t realize what’s going to happen in five years with all the people driving, but we’re off on a tangent. People wearing spatial computing or VR headsets at coffee shops.

FARRELL: [Laughs] I’ve yet to see it myself. Is it happening? Have you seen it? I’m sure it’s happening. Of course.

I’ve seen it a little bit.

FARRELL: Someone in the enthrall of an orgasmic moment at the coffee shop with their latte. Oh my God, I haven’t seen it. He would hate it. He would hate.

Smartwatches that track your exact stress levels and yell at you to breathe.

FARRELL: Uh, like this Oura Ring I have? No interest. Neutral on that one.

How Long Could ‘Sugar’ Go on For?

“Shooting in LA is extraordinary and uncommon.”

Image via Apple TV+

Jumping into specifics, for people who were intrigued and loved the sci-fi aspect of Season 1, what do you want to tease them about Season 2 with the mythology?

FARRELL: It’s explored a little bit more. It’s deepened a little bit more through a certain very important personal relationship that Sugar has. But I would love to get four or five seasons out of this.

I was going to actually ask you that.

FARRELL: I would love to get four or five seasons. I can’t get a straight answer out of Apple because they pretty much go season to season, which I get, it’s a business, based on the viewership and all that kind of jazz. So, I don’t know if it’s a month or two months after this would screen on June 19th. It’s probably that. Two months later, we’ll know whether we get a third season or not. But I would love to. And part of the reason why I would love to, I think, is because there’s a really interesting way to further explore the mythology that was introduced in the first season.

You have a new showrunner with Sam [Catlin] coming in for Season 2. Can you talk about what it was like meeting with him at the beginning and the conversations you had in terms of, “This is what I loved about Season 1. This is what I think we could do differently in Season 2?” What were those conversations like, and how much input did you have or want to have in the storyline and the mystery that would happen this season?

FARRELL: Sam wasn’t the showrunner on Season 1, but he became our primary writer on Season 1, as well, and he did an extraordinary job. And yeah, we were kind of, as we said, building a plane mid-flight on that season very much and managed to pull it off, and at least get a second season. So, for him to have time and have a writers’ room, which he did, and bring in writers that he trusted, I trusted him. He broke a story, the story was really exciting, explored some new avenues, and honored what we established in the first season at the same time.

I came in about maybe two months before we started shooting and started having more conversations, and it was a constant work in progress. We weren’t as up against it; we had the scripts. We didn’t really have all the scripts in place when we started the first season, but the second season we did, so it just became an opportunity to modify what we had in a really fun way, and it was great.

I love being part of the creative process. It’s fun for me, man. It’s not to do with ownership. I don’t feel a preconditioned desire to put my stamp on it. I don’t need to touch anything. My ego has no need to change a word, but sometimes things ask to be kept alive in a way that means they’re constantly changing and evolving and growing as you’re shooting them, and that’s okay, too. That’s an interesting sandbox to play in, as well. So yeah, I was up for it.

I just want to commend you guys on filming in LA. It’s so important to the community.

FARRELL: I love it! California, sort it out.

It also adds so much to the show. Can you talk about filming in LA, what it means, and also, how do you decide where the car is going to go because you film in some great places?

FARRELL: It’s magic. The car is a tricky one because evermore they’re trying to stop you from doing things like drive, and they want to put you on a stage with LCD screens, which are really impressive, annoyingly, because they’re always fighting, “Can we just go ahead and drive, and put someone in the passenger seat?” I’m old school, like, “Just put someone with a camera in there.”

But shooting in LA is extraordinary and uncommon. That’s one of the most attractive things about doing the show. I get to be home, get to be with my kids, and it’s a much more interesting city than maybe it gets credit for, Los Angeles. It’s a much more culturally deep and rich city, as well. There’s extraordinary music, extraordinary theater, albeit smaller than in New York or even Chicago, perhaps, but it’s so culturally eclectic. I’ve grown to love LA, and to have it as kind of the foundation upon, the canvas upon which all these stories can happen and these lives from various divergent cultural origins can converge, it’s awesome. I love it.

Sugar Season 2 premieres on June 19 on Apple TV.

Release Date

April 4, 2024

Network

Apple TV

Showrunner

Mark Protosevich, Sam Catlin

Directors

Fernando Meirelles, Adam Arkin

Writers

Mark Protosevich, Donald Joh, Sam Catlin, David Rosen

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