In Season 2 of the AMC series Lodge 49, Sean “Dud” Dudley (Wyatt Russell) is recuperating from his shark attack while also trying to cope with the pool shop being under new ownership. At the same time, his beloved fraternal order is suffering under new rule and his twin sister Liz (Sonya Cassidy) is struggling with starting over.

While at the AMC portion of the Television Critics Association Press Tour, Collider got the opportunity to sit down and chat 1-on-1 with series executive producer Paul Giamatti about the challenge of selling this show to audiences (it’s great, but impossible to describe!), how he ended up guesting, his reaction to learning about his story arc, and what he looks for when reading scripts as a producer. He also talked about his hit Showtime series Billions, which will be heading into its fifth season, and how long it could continue, as well as the upcoming Disney flick Jungle Cruise, the movie’s sense of humor, and how “wacky” the plot is.

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Image via AMC

Collider: As a producer, I’m sure the goal is to have a show that you can easily sell to people, but with a show like this, it seems like the whole battle is trying figure out how to sell this show.

PAUL GIAMATTI: Yeah, I never was under the illusion that this was gonna be an easy thing for people to hook onto. I think we’ve accepted, to some degree, and I think it’s true, that it’s a word-of-mouth show and critics like it. Hopefully, it will open up more slowly. We all knew that. But it’s part of the nature of the show. I’ve had this little production company for awhile, and we’ve done various things, and I have an unfortunate tendency to be interested in things like this, so I’m used to it. It’s okay. We would love it to go on forever, and for more and more people to watch it, but it’s okay, right now, for what it is.

It’s also not a show where you can have a new audience come in, in Season 2.

GIAMATTI: No, it would be helpful to have seen it, from the beginning. It unfolds, novelistically, and people are actually changing and growing, and things are happening and developing. It’s not the same thing, over and over again, which I feel like a lot of shows are, where it’s a repetitive thing that you get every episode, so you can jump in and understand. You’ll be a little bit disorientated, if you haven’t followed it from the beginning. There’s a shark attack, and [this season] starts with people on a plane, and one of them is on fire, and they’re jumping out of the plane, and one of them is dressed like a Mariachi guy, which is great because, hopefully, that sets things up for people who like the show, or don’t know the show, that this is where it’s gonna go. You’re gonna follow a journey to this point, and how you’re gonna get there will hopefully be entertaining.

How did you end up in that opening scene?

GIAMATTI: I got the pilot, originally, and loved it and wanted to make it, and I had no intention of being in it. But when AMC was like, “Well, could you be in it?,” I couldn’t do it ‘cause I’m on another television show (Billions on Showtime). But I am in the first season of it. I’m the voice on the audio books, and then that character becomes a real person. (Show creator) Jim [Gavin] then said, “If they would let you, could I actually figure out a way to have that guy appear?” And I was like, “Fantastic!” And then, I got that, and that was the first way the guy appeared. I was like, “This is fantastic! I can’t wait to see where this guy’s gonna go.” I didn’t even wanna know, until I got there later to film the other scenes. I waited until the scripts came out.

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Image via AMC

What was your reaction to finding out what happened?

GIAMATTI: Oh, it’s so much weirder than you can even imagine. It’s such a bizarre character that I was incredibly excited. It ended up being one of the funnest things I’ve done, in a long time. It was really a joy of a character to play. Jim, in a very nice way, gave me certain things to play that he knew I’ve always wanted to play. He gave me a gift, a little bit, and said, “You can play this kind of wacky person that you’ve been dying to play.” It was fun for me. I was perfectly content to really just be a fan of this show, so getting to be in it is really exciting. It’s great.

I love that Lodge 49 is a show where there’s a nemesis that doesn’t even speak, but then does insane things.

GIAMATTI: I’m always saying that the show is about the need and the power of community. The lodge is the bulwark against this insane world because, when it comes to the people outside of the lodge, there are so many menacing, crazy people, but comically so. My character is also completely insane. He shows up and endangers everybody’s lives, in a completely crazy way. It gets away with it ‘cause they manage this funny tone, in a really good way. It gets really absurd, and then it gets totally believably gritty and intimate, and then it gets surreal, and then it goes back to being very real. It’s a trick that they’re pulling off really well. You have to find the right actors who can play those tones, in a way that seems consistent.

We’ve talked previously about Outsiders, which you were also an executive producer on, and that was so very different from this show. How did you go from that show to Lodge 49? Are you just always reading different stuff and looking for what speaks to you?

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Image via Showtime

GIAMATTI: Yeah, we’re always reading different things. It’s funny, both of those shows have genre elements, but they’re not genre shows, and I like things like that. I like off-center genre things, so it’s somewhat consistent, in that way. But I also like all different kinds of things. I don’t have one specific thing. People say, “It’s so different from what you do normally,” but I have done a lot of different things. I get a certain pleasure out of being in all of these different worlds. I don’t even need to have a big part, or anything. If I find the story really imaginative and it definitely gives me a charge, that’s great. I almost feel like it’s an important part of my job, as I see it, to satisfy myself by just being in as many different things as possible because I like all different kinds of things.

And Billions could not be more different than either of those two shows.

GIAMATTI: Yeah, and I never expected to be on that show. Really? I’m on this crazy financial crime show? And sometimes I do sit there and go, “How the hell did I end up on this?,” but I like that, too.

But that show has some of the most truly fascinating characters on TV.

GIAMATTI: Super strange characters, yeah. Very strange characters.

Have there been conversations about how long that show will last? Have you talked about an ending for that show yet?

GIAMATTI: I think those guys have a long-term idea, but I don’t think they know how long it will take them to get there. They respond, in some ways, to real life and real world situations. The show has changed, over time. I think they would be happy to let it go on for as long as it could, and there’s so many different moving parts in that, that they could let it go on. It doesn’t just have to be about me going after Damian [Lewis], and it’s not really anymore.

There was a definite shift, this season, with your character being done with his character now.

GIAMATTI: Yeah. Although that’s shifting back a little bit again, but it will be a different dynamic, with the way that I’m going after him and how I’m going after him, I suppose. I don’t know what they’re gonna do.

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Image via Showtime

What did you enjoy about that dynamic, this last season, and how do you think that will shift into the next season?

GIAMATTI: I’m not sure what’s gonna happen in the next season. It relaxed the character, in some ways. I liked the sense that these two guys actually recognize that they’re similar and feel comfortable, in that way, with each other, even though they’re also using each other. It was also nice to actually get to act with Damian, in a different sort of way, and to get to act with him more because I hardly ever saw him, in the past. This season, I actually saw him a lot, and I really enjoy being with him and acting with him, so that was nice. It’s gonna switch again, I presume, and I’m gonna pursue him again, but it’s gonna be using this other character, Taylor, and I don’t know how that’s gonna play out. With that show, it could all be a ruse. Who knows? You never know how it will end up. With my character, too, it could all be a ruse.

Do you know when you’re shooting the next season?

GIAMATTI: We start in November. They took an extra long break ‘cause I think they wanted to re-jigger things, which they’re very good at, those guys.

How long does it typically take to shoot?

GIAMATTI: Six months. It’s 12 episodes in six months.

In the seasons that you’ve done so far, have there been any big changes in things that you were told were going to happen but then shifted, or do things get pretty set when they tell you what’s going to happen?

GIAMATTI: I enjoy not knowing what’s gonna be happening. What I’ve done, at the beginning of each season, is ask them “What’s the end point?,” and they know that. How they’re gonna get there, they don’t often know, and I actually don’t wanna know. So, to some extent, I’m not sure what they’ve maybe had to change up, if they’ve had to. This season was a big change up that I didn’t necessarily see coming, that he and I were suddenly gonna become buddies, but I guess it was inevitable, in some way. They’re very good at going with the flow and introducing new characters. I don’t know that Taylor was necessarily supposed to become the character that they became, but they saw something interesting there, and they went with that. It’s a great character and a really interesting storyline. It’s an interesting character to have in that world.

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You also have Jungle Cruise coming out.

GIAMATTI: That comes out next year, I think.

I love Disneyland, and depending on who you would get as a guide, that ride could be really fun with a certain twisted sense of humor to it.

GIAMATTI: I didn’t know the ride. The movie actually has a good sense of humor. I think it borrows from that idea of a slightly corny humor. It borrows a lot of that stuff. I got the script and read it and it’s actually kind of a crazy script. It’s really nutty, and it goes some really nutty places. It’s got stuff in the past, and it goes to a slightly fantastical place. It was a crazy script. I thought it was interesting, and it was a character where the director (Jaume Collet-Serra) said to me, “There isn’t much of this character here. We wanna make him a more important thing. We wanna expand him out. Do you have any ideas?” I had a weird idea, and he was like, “Great!” And they let me do it. I’m in this big Disney movie, and they’re letting me do this totally weird, random thing that I’m doing. They let me do it, so that was fun. They let me do something odd, but it’s got a lot of odd things in it. It’s an odd movie, and I liked that about it. It’s a wacky plot to the movie. It’s very strange, but it’s cool, though.

Lodge 49 airs on Monday nights on AMC.

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