From show creator Noah Hawley and Marvel Television, the FX drama series Legion is wrapping up its third and final season, as David Haller (Dan Stevens), a man who believed himself to be schizophrenic only to discover that he is the most powerful mutant the world has ever seen, is forced to confront his actions and the decisions that he’s made. With the dark voices in his head lusting for power and at odds with everyone he once considered a friend, David is now leading a commune to satisfy his need for adulation and he’s enlisted the help of the young mutant Switch (Lauren Tsai), with the hope that she can help him time travel and repair the damage that he’s caused.

While Season 3 was still shooting, Collider got the opportunity to tour the incredible sets at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood and participate in a series of interviews to talk about all things Legion. During 1-on-1 interviews, co-stars Amber Midthunder (“Kerry Loudermilk”), Bill Irwin (“Cary Loudermilk”) and Jeremie Harris (“Ptonomy Wallace”) talked about what they enjoyed about their character journeys in the final season, the evolution of their characters over the years, having the consistent voice of Noah Hawley to guide them, how much they were told about in the beginning, the Kerry/Cary dynamic, and what it’s like to know that you have to say goodbye.

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Image via FX

Collider: What did you enjoy about your character’s journey, this season?

AMBER MIDTHUNDER: It definitely has a finale feeling, without rushing to close. This season, you hopefully got to see Kerry in a more personally developed place. There’s been a lot of talk about time this season. Each person feels time differently, and maturity is how Kerry feels time. She went through the pain of understanding what it feels like to be separated from somebody that you’re close to, and that initial sting of independence. Now, she’s in a place where she’s turning inward and facing the question of, who am I?

BILL IRWIN: Of course, this narrative is full of time travel, which is really interesting for a guy my age to think about. It’s the confusion and the weight upon one’s shoulders, that I feel from this story. It’s fully of action, too. There’s a fight sequence in Season 3, and what the stunt team did was so visceral and full of comic book stuff, but at the same time, there’s a Shakespearian feeling of not knowing what would have been right in the world. The lesser of two evils is still so evil that I don’t know how to feel about it. It’s not a flag waving kind of show.

JEREMIE HARRIS: At the end of Season 2, we saw Ptonomy become a part of in the mainframe, so the Ptonomy that we once knew is completely transformed into something different. He’s really taken on more qualities of the mainframe, the season, in the way he dresses and the way he talks. We see a lot of that going on, this season. Adopting those qualities has been a lot of his journey, and somewhat wrestling with the old him and whether there’s any of that there. For the most part, it was almost like playing a completely different character, this season.

Jeremie, as an actor, what’s it like to go through that, with a character?

HARRIS: It’s an interesting and fun challenge. Anytime you play a new character, there’s always that initial part of it that is really just unknown. You have to just dig in and explore, and try things and go out on a limb. That’s a lot of what it was like for me, this season. I was like, “All right, I just have to try something different because this is a completely different character, in the way that he moves and interacts with people.” It was so different than anything that I’d developed, in the past two seasons. It’s a challenge for yourself to accept that. The reason why we do this is to play different characters and to have a good time, and to find all of those nuances and variations.

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Image via FX

Did you always know that evolution was coming?

HARRIS: I had no idea. I just got an email from Noah that said, “Are you cool wearing a mustache?” I was like, “Yeah,” and that was it. I had to do some make-up tests, and then I was like, “All right, I guess I’m on a different type of journey this time.” We didn’t really talk much about it. That was just it. Once he asked me about it, I was like, “All right, we’re going somewhere, and I’m just along for the ride.”

Amber and Bill, how much of her full journey were told about, when you signed on for this?

IRWIN: We all thought we wanted to know what was going to happen, and we badgered Noah with questions and thoughts, and he’s good at dodging them, but to what extent he’s known is another question. This is really corny, but like life outside of television, you just don’t know what’s coming next. We live with the knowledge of death, eventually. As you get older, you realize that the horizon is here now. Every story is a story of loss, so I’m feeling the loss and the moral confusion about things, like is David the hero? I don’t know whether he’s redeemable or not. I know that’s a question that’s being asked, and I know that his heroism is tarnished, at the very least.

MIDTHUNDER: What’s interesting is that, to this day, I can go back to my very first conversation with Noah, that I had about Kerry, and pull from things there. Noah is an artist, and he allows for a lot of collaboration and invites it, but he’s also a leader like no other, and he has a mind like nobody else. He has a great way of setting an arrow, and then letting it fly, in the sense that he lays down a very specific path, and then lets us play, on top of those orders. Since the very first day that I ever knew about Kerry until now, it all follows suit, which is really cool. It’s incredibly rare, and it’s such a gift that we get to be in a place like that. Every single day, it’s all gone into the same bucket, which is so cool.

Jeremie, what’s it been like to have the consistent voice of Noah Hawley’s, throughout the seasons, while also having different directors come in with the different voices and perspectives that they add to it?

HARRIS: It’s good. Working with different directors is always a fun thing because you get to see everyone’s different process. My most enjoyable experiences are when you have someone who can work with you, as an actor, and also understands the visual aspect of storytelling, as well. I’ve gotten to work with a lot of those people who have that within them. The combination of all of those things together is cool. It’s almost like an avant garde art piece. It’s just open to so much interpretation. It’s one of those shows where I’m sure you can go down a rabbit hole of so many different fan theories and so many different people’s ideas of what’s really going on. It’s just its own unique work of art that people can appreciate. That’s been cool.

Amber and Bill, since Kerry and Cary were so close, what has working with each other, over the seasons, meant to the two of you?

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Image via FX

MIDTHUNDER: There are not words to talk about what it’s like to work with Bill Irwin. He’s the most incredible. Everything about him is spectacular. It has been an honor to get to work with somebody who is the most humble and the most legendary person that I will ever meet in my life. He is endlessly talented. He is just unbelievably amazing. I call him sunshine in a person. If you took a ray of sunshine and you put it in a body, it would be Bill Irwin, and it’s the coolest thing, ever. He’s the nicest guy in the world, and he’s also the most talented. There’s no way to describe it that’s gonna do it justice, but it’s been an honor. Personally, we’re so different and we have such different lives, but it feels cohesive.

IRWIN: For parts of Season 2 and 3, we’ve had separate trajectories, and both of us would look at each other and be like, “I don’t like this. I don’t get this, acting without my other half.” She calls me “other half,” and I call her “youthy.” As people, we’re almost exactly 50 years difference in age, and that is really such an adventure. For Season 1, which we shot in Vancouver, we entered into this incredible thing together, to tell the story. We would talk about the characters, and I said, “Do you wanna eat something?” She said, “I better call my mom.” It was late in the evening because it was after a day’s work, and she called her mom and said, “I’m gonna go out to dinner with Bill.” That’s what things were like in Season 1. Now, she’s in a relationship. Three years, at her age, makes such a huge difference. That’s how it’s been for Bill and Amber. As far as Kerry and Cary, fortunately, it wasn’t that big of a job really to find this bond. We would sing together in the trailer. We had a feeling that it wasn’t just wasting time, so there was some singing this year. Noah has a big strand of his brain that’s musical. 

What’s it like to know that you’re shooting the final season? Is it a season-long grieving process, or are you trying to compartmentalize?

MIDTHUNDER: It depends on the day. There’s definitely a grieving process ‘cause this has been my home. It’s been such a great place, for the last three years. All of these people are my family, and I love them. But there’s still work to be done, and it’s not over until it’s over. We’re all here and we’re present, and we’re just soaking it up, as much as we can, until the white flag flies.

IRWIN: I don’t know how well I’m doing with it, but the instinct is to compartmentalize it, both for Bill, the actor, and Cary, the character. With the way the events of this comic book based series are, things are always changing and happening, which is not so different from real life. We’re all talking about how we’re not gonna work together or see each other. There was a scene, last season, in Episode 2, that I would just about sell my soul to be able to go back and redo because now I get it. Now, I get how it could and should have gone. It was fine, but as a storyteller and actor, you always think about that, and that’s tricky with television. Once it’s done, you race on to the next thing.

HARRIS: I haven’t gone through a season-long grieving process. Everything has to end. I made some great friends, and I got to meet really great people. I got to work with so many brilliant people, and I got to work with Noah, who’s brilliant. I’m just grateful. I’m grateful for the opportunity and for the journey, and what it’s been and what it means. So, it’s not a grieving process because I’m the type of person who understands that everything has to end, in all aspects of life. There’ll always be a new beginning, thankfully, so it’s okay.

The series finale of Legion airs on FX on August 12th.

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Image via FX