Executive Produced by showrunners/writers Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage and Marvel’s Head of TV Jeph Loeb, the Hulu series Runaways is back for Season 2 with higher stakes and greater danger, as this group of teenagers who realized their parents were evil have now left their homes and are learning to live on their own and take care of each other while working to take down PRIDE. At the same time, PRIDE is looking to find their children, and a secret plan has been set in motion that might lead to betrayal from one of their own.

While at a junket held on the set for The Hostel, an underground dilapidated mansion that the runaways take shelter in this season, co-stars Allegra Acosta ("Molly"), Ariela Barer ("Gert"), Rhenzy Feliz ("Alex"), Virginia Gardner ("Karolina") and Gregg Sulkin ("Chase") spoke to a small group of outlets at roundtable interviews, and Lyrica Okano ("Nico") spoke to Collider by phone, about the big journeys that each of their characters will go on in Season 2, how this season is more of everything, getting to explore the character relationships deeper, having a dinosaur for a co-star, and the reaction from fans of the comics.

Be aware that there are some spoilers discussed.

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Image via Hulu

Question: Because these characters all go on such a big journey this season, what have you enjoyed getting to do?

ALLEGRA ACOSTA: I think what I love is that there’s more character development in the storyline. Even though we’ve followed that strong storyline in the first season, we’re going even deeper into what other relationships she has and what she wants. She wants a family that looks like her, and she’s striving for that, this whole season. That’s why she rebels a bit. She wants to find someone who has the same capacity of powers as her. So, when she finds a certain character, she’s like, “Oh, my god, you’re like me! We can fight together! We’re the same!” She’s very curious. We all want to know what our background is. But my favorite part of this season was being able to work with special effects and learning how to make Molly a bad-ass. What I’d love to see in Season 3 is for her to fully come into her powers and be invulnerable, like in the comic books, where she takes on this very super-human path. I’ve done stunts, but the comic book fans always tell me, “I would love to see her invulnerable! I want to know if she’s a mutant!” Hopefully, they can tie that in, without saying the M word. That would be awesome!

ARIELA BARER: This season is very interesting because Gert has always been an activist and social justice warrior, for lack of a better term. She comes from a very privileged lifestyle in Brentwood. In a not racist way, she’s the armchair anthropologist of activism. She doesn’t make weird generalizations about people. Now, she’s living this lifestyle first hand and she’s seeing this real gender and race oppression, but also socio-economical oppression. She’s doesn’t have a home, and she’s fighting for her meals. This isn’t something where she’s ever really considered the human side of that. She’s always known, intellectually, but now she’s living it and it’s different. It’s hard, but she’s living. Of course, it’s through the lens of fantasy, so we don’t have it as hard as a real homeless teenager would because it’s a superhero show. It’s also nice that it doesn’t feel as bleak as it could be, if we really showed the nitty-gritty of getting into that. I don’t think it leaves people feeling miserable. It leaves people feeling hopeful and triumphant.

RHENZY FELIZ: I feel like, at the beginning, Alex isn’t as accepted into the group as he once was. In the first season, if he was the leader, I feel like he’s less so, in the second season. He goes on this journey of finding himself. I think a lot of it has to do with self-identity and trying to figure out who you are, as a person. What every teenager wants to do is figure out who they are. Then, to throw into the mix that, they have to run away now and there are these survivalist tactics, which makes everything that much more complicated. For Alex, it’s a lot about finding himself and a figuring out what he really wants in this world.

VIRGINIA GARDNER: In Season 1, Karolina was just figuring out her powers and what she could do with them, and she was really afraid to embrace her powers. She didn’t want to be labeled a freak or a mutant, or anything like that. This season, she’s stopped caring about anything like that and just hones in on her powers, owns them, is proud of them, and shows them off. I got to fly so much more this year, and there are really intense light battle sequences. On a personal note, she embraces who she actually is and who she loves, and completely explores that. There’s no more fear there. She’s completely out in the open with everything. This season, Karolina has such a fleshed out arc. She’s discovering her powers and her relationships, so as an actor, I really got a lot of fun stuff and a lot of really emotional stuff to do, this season, which was a lot of fun. Hopefully, if we get a Season 3, I’m excited to see where she’s gonna go next because we’re only gonna learn more about where she comes from and her destiny. A lot of stuff that was in the comic books is finally starting to come to a head, towards the end of this season, and hopefully into the third.

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Image via Hulu

LYRICA OKANO: As you know with Marvel, they don’t really tell you things until the day comes, so I didn’t really know where they were taking me for the season, but I was just really excited. And then, as soon as each new episode script would be at the table read, I’d be like, “Oh, boy! Wow, they’re really giving me a lot of fun things to play with and work with!” It’s been such an honor to be Nico, in Season 1 and Season 2. Last season was nice because it started out with me doing my job, as an actor, and just using my imagination for the backstory for my character. But as each new episode would come out for the season, I would discover more and more about Nico, and that was always really fun to do. And then, in Season 2, when you think that you’ve seen all of Nico, it gets even darker in Season 2. Nico is in that headspace of trying to keep everyone safe and making sure everyone’s okay. She’s the reluctant leader of the group, and which you’ll see this season. She’s trying to work together, as best as possible, with her friend, Alex. With two leaders in the group, it gets a little messy at times, but Nico is just trying her damn hardest to keep things together for everybody.

GREGG SULKIN: Chase wants to be the leader of the group. Prior to Season 1, Alex was always the one that everybody loved, and Chase had his own group. Chase was too cool for school, and they really loved Alex. And so, Chase deals with trying to be the one that everybody loves and looks up to, and wants to be the leader of the group, which is very fun. I love Rhenzy [Feliz], as a human being. He’s a real friend of mine, so to be able to play that with him is fantastic.       

Would you describe this season as more serious?

FELIZ: I think it’s more of everything. There’s more action, there’s more drama, and there’s more plot twists. At every turn, it’s like Runaways Season 1, times three. The action is amplified. The way we move our camera and the sets are amplified. Everything is on a bigger scale, this season.

What has most surprised you about Season 2?

BARER: Everyone is growing, in a new way, together. There are definitely tensions within the house, but honestly, the one that surprised me the most was Chase. The way they go in the comics is beautiful, and I love that for what it is, but on a show, you have to fill in however many seasons you’re gonna get. So, it didn’t go the route that it could have gone, which I’m really happy about because I think it’s really human and beautiful. The way they grow together is very beautiful. You get to see their vulnerabilities together.

OKANO: I’ve never had the chance to do stunt work, before the second season of this show. I trained in martial arts and gymnastics when I was a kid, growing up, and it was nice to use those skills for this season. I’m a little bruised up still, but I’m excited to see how it all looks when it comes out. Nico goes through a huge emotional journey this year, and it was really challenging for me, as an actor. I didn’t know what I was getting into, and once I was in it, it was like, “Wow, okay, so this is Season 2 and 13 episodes. This is the role that Nico is going towards.” It was a lot to work through, and there were a lot of challenges. It pushed me to my limits, emotionally, mentally and physically. I’m sure it’s gonna turn out really well, so I’m very excited.

What are the character relationships you’re excited about exploring, this season?

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ACOSTA: For sure. Last season, it was more about Gert and Molly’s relationship, and our family’s backstory. This season, it’s more about Molly’s origin story, but it’s also following the yin and yang of Nico and Molly. Nico is so goth, and Molly is so not goth. Molly is rainbows and butterflies, and Nico is just dark. But it’s interesting, the way the writers have decided to make us very compatible, this season, in different ways. Even though we’re very different, we work really well together when we’re brought together. It’s really cool to work with Lyrica [Okano] in all of these different scenes, and throughout the season. It’s very exciting.

GARDNER: The Karolina-Nico relationship is completely explored this year. It peaks, then it hits the floor, and then it comes up. There ends up being almost a love triangle situation. We see every aspect of that relationship this year, to the point where Alex is sleeping below our bedroom upstairs. Poor Alex, I totally stole his girl. So, we go from softly exploring that relationship to completely exploring it, and not only Nico and Karolina, but what it looks like when any 16-year-old is in their first relationship, with all of the teenage aspects of figuring out how to love and care for somebody, at that age.

OKANO: We left the first season with them running away, knowing that there’s a new relationship between them that’s budding. Season 2 picks up with Karolina and Nico pretty much discovering what it’s like to be in a relationship with each other. And like all relationships, it gets complicated, at times, especially if you’re in a group of runaways together. In a mansion that’s underneath a hill, somewhere in Griffith Park. Things get tough, but Nico and Karolina they have a lot of love for each other, and I’m excited for [the fans] to see their journey together. It’s quite beautiful.

Chase has gone from being the jock in Season 1 to being one of the most vulnerable characters in Season 2, especially with his relationship with Gert. What’s it like to get to explore that in a male character?

SULKIN: My girlfriend says to me, all the time, “Dude, can you please just show some emotion?,” and I’m like, “I’ve been doing that for 12 hours [on set]. Do I really have to do it with you?” It’s funny, and I’m speaking as a male, but I think times are changing and it’s okay to be vulnerable and open up, in the same way that it’s okay for a female to stand her ground, voice her opinion, and feel okay, perfectly normal and happy with voicing what they stand for. Hopefully, it’s coming together in society. Chase is also dealing with the fact that he and Gert are living together. I know, from personal experience, living with your significant other is a whole different ball game, especially when they have a dinosaur that does not like you. This is a very sweet dinosaur, to who it chooses to be sweet to, my character not being one of them. During the second season, you’ll see Chase try to become a good boyfriend. This is Chase’s first real relationship with a woman who stands her ground, and he has to deal with that.

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Image via Hulu

What’s it like to play all of the emotions that come from everything these young people are dealing with?

SULKIN: I’m not sure people know this, but when you shoot, you don’t always shoot in order and, on this season, we’ve had a lot of, “We need to go back a couple of episodes, and shoot this and do this.” This season has been very tough, as an actor, to make sure that the emotional arc matches from scene to scene. The characters had to grow up extremely quickly, within a very short space of time. Being a teenager is hard enough, but they’ve also found out their parents are super-villains. The bond that the runaways form is one where they’re in this together. No one else could relate to this story. They only have each other. And it becomes a matter of life and death. The stakes become very high. These parents are not in a grey area. The advice that they’ve given is actually incorrect. The show is about the parents versus kids, but the kids are right and they’re fighting for justice.

What was it like to walk onto the big, new set for The Hostel, for the first time, and to see what the runaways’ new home would look like?

OKANO: It was during pre-production that I got to walk onto the set, for the first time, and that’s when it really hit me that Season 2 is a whole other animal. That got me really prepared to get the first script. And then, once I got the first script, I put it all together in my head. I miss that mansion already. It was like a second home, this year.

What’s it like to have a dinosaur for a roommate?

OKANO: There’s a tree growing through the floors and the ceilings in the mansion. And then, there are the chandeliers, and the every detail in every room, with a whole story behind it. It’s amazing! It’s really interesting. I could take you on a tour of the mansion and show you all of these little details that I picked up and was like, “Wow, I wonder what happened here."

How is it to play scenes opposite a dinosaur puppet?

BARER: Honestly, it’s so easy. I wish I could say it was hard, in order to make myself seem like some amazing actor who overcomes CGI, but no, they made it so easy for me. [Old Lace] is this amazing puppet. It literally breaths, and you see her eyes moving, to the point where I am better about it this season. Last season, it was a little weird. I’d walk past and see Old Lace moving, and I’d be like, “‘Sup girl!” That was a little weird. This season, I’ve gotten better about it. I know she’s a puppet. It’s actually crazy fun. It’s almost like doing a monologue, which is fun to do, as an actor. It’s nice to have alone time.

They tell you not to work with animals or babies, but you have a dinosaur. Did you ever worry about not emotionally connecting with her?

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Image via Hulu

BARER: Not really. It’s easy because Gert isn’t immediately like, “This is normal. Cool.” There was an adjustment period that I got to go through, as both Ariela and Gert Yorkes. I got to be weird until I warmed up to her, but now, it’s so easy. I’d say that the only hard part about it is that when you touch her, she’s very slimly, so you get slime all over you. I’ve messed with Gregg [Sulkin], in the past, where we’ll be doing a scene and I’ll hold his hand after, and he can’t do anything about it. He just looks at me.

Since Molly is younger than the other kids, it seems like they don’t take her as seriously.

ACOSTA: Yeah, a lot of people don’t take her seriously because she’s a kid and she’s like any young teenager who just wants to go and experience things. She wants to go through a trial-and-error process for herself, and no one’s really letting her have the capacity of doing it on her own because they’re wounded and want to protect her from the evils of the world. That’s what every parent or sibling wants to do, in general. So, it was just really phenomenal to get to see that tug and pull from other characters. I got to work a lot with Lyrica, who kind of played my mom throughout this season, and Ariela, which was really phenomenal.

All of Molly’s vigilante fighting has to backfire, at some point. It can’t go well for her for long, right?

ACOSTA: Yeah, it has to backfire because she’s still learning. In Season 1, she fell asleep after fighting, but now, she’s growing and learning how to control not sleeping after everything, but that also backfires. Molly just wants to help everyone, even though that person might not need saving. Every kid wants to help and make the world a better place, but sometimes there are certain areas that you shouldn’t touch.

Since they’re such an important part of who Molly is, which is your favorite way that the cat ears have been worked into your costume?

ACOSTA: Molly’s hats are one of the most iconic things, and it’s so incredible. Brian K. Vaughn had the pussy hat before the pussy hat was even a thing. One of my favorite looks is actually coming up this season. It’s when Molly turns her hat into a vigilante mask. She’s embracing that she’s growing up and wants to do things her own way, and she fights for what she believes in, as this girl who is more advanced than everyone else, in her little mutant powers. It’s very exciting to see that happen.

What’s it like to get to explore Gert’s anxiety, this season?

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BARER: As an actor, it’s great to have something to dig into deeper, but I also feel like that’s a lot of women right now. I don’t want to site any specific statistics, off the top of my head, because I wouldn’t get it right, but women are experiencing staggering amounts of mental illnesses right now. This world that we live in is very anxiety inducing, so it’s nice to be able to dive into that and not shy away from it. It’s scary because, as someone who has anxiety in my real life, I know that anxiety doesn’t look the same on everyone. Because of that, I can only do what’s personal and real. People on set have been kind enough to offer up their stories, and I’ve talked to people privately. It’s one thing to get messages on the internet, because it’s easy to be anonymous, but for people to come up privately on set, and pull me aside and tell me their experiences, and that just being our secret for the rest of the season, is really beautiful. You connect with people that you never would have thought you’d connect with. I don’t know if everyone is going to connect to this version of anxiety, but this is the version that I know. It’s not an impression of a thing.

What can you say about Alex’s relationship with his parents?

FELIZ: He grew up, his whole life, loving his parents. They gave him everything he has, and he loves them. He absolutely loves his parents. They’ve been nothing but great to him. But when you find out that they’ve murdered people, over and over and over again, every single year, it throws everything you know for a loop. All of a sudden, you think, “Is everything they’ve told me true? If they’re murdering these people, who won’t they murder? What lines won’t they cross?” I feel like he does love his parents, but they’ve done something that there’s no turning back from. There’s no going back on what they did and he knows that.

Do you think that Nico misses her family, at all, or would she never admit that, even if she did?

OKANO: At this point, Nico has a very special relationship with her family. All of the runaways have their own dynamic with their parents, but Nico has a very extraordinary one, where she doesn’t trust them, at all. It couldn’t have turned out worse for her, with what happened to her sister, and realizing that there were a lot of secrets kept about her sister’s death that she could have known about, a long time ago. She turns away from her family, at the end of Season 2, without looking back. Nico has no mercy and no fear, this season.

Without discussing specifics of the outcome, what’s it like to shoot those confrontational moments?

OKANO: It’s fun. It’s actually one of the more fun things to shoot. Everything that we shoot for the show is fun. Of course, working with everybody is always a great party, but I love action and doing stunts, and especially working with Brittany Ishibashi, who plays my mom, and James Yaegashi, who plays my dad. They both have some martial arts training, so we were all very stoked to work together in these battle and fight scenes.

Because you get to use the staff, have there ever been any staff mishaps?

OKANO: Yeah, I got hit in the face by it, a couple of times. Nico uses the staff quite a lot, this season. She trains with it, and it’s not only a big wand, but she uses it as a weapon to fight with. There were a little, a few mishaps, but nothing too major. I walked away fine from it. That staff has a mind of its own.

What was it like for Alex to have such a separate storyline this season, dealing with some family issues and having a girl that he likes who’s not a part of the group? Did it feel very different to have a whole new group of people to work with?

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Image via Hulu

FELIZ: It absolutely did. It’s a completely new world that they threw me into. It’s nothing like what he was thrown into, in the first season. The first season, he was trying to get the whole group back together. Now, he’s leaving the group to go do something separate and to have this separate life, without the runaways. While they’re trying to figure out their powers and all of this, he’s creating a relationship. As the season goes on, it’s really interesting, the way that plays out, what that does to him, as a person, and how it shapes him, from then on out.

Do you feel like his absence makes them realize that they actually do need him?

FELIZ: Yeah, I would hope so, at least. I think they do realize that. They imply that they do miss Alex. They’re like, “Wow, maybe we do need this little skinny kid on our team.” It’s nice to be needed, is how Alex feels. Once he’s separate, they realize that they do need him.

Does Karolina’s desire to learn more about where she came from make it easier to manipulate her?

GARDNER: I think it can. I also think that she’s someone that wants to see the best in people, all the time, so she’s very eager to trust people and very eager to believe whatever it is that they say. Living on the streets and having her parents end up being murderers has made her realize that she can’t trust everyone. She’s listen, but she’s also gonna protect herself. We’re living on our own and obviously we think our parents are evil, and we’re very anti-everything that they’ve done, but you’ll also see us all miss our parents. We’re living in this beautiful hostel, but with cobwebs and nasty floors. We miss our cushy Brentwood lives and our families. At some point, every character is pulled back to their family for a little bit because they do miss that comfort.

Molly is from a Latino community that’s very similar to the ones in Los Angeles. How will her roots play into things for Molly, this season?

ACOSTA: It’s interesting because she was very much isolated from that, growing up, because her parents died and she got brought in by other people. This season, she’s very curious about where she comes from and her background, and that tends to happen with a lot of kids. I grew up in Texas, in a community of people of Latino and Hispanic heritage, but that didn’t really affect me. I was just a normal girl without that affecting me so much. But then, I came out into this world as a Latina actress, and I’m representing. It’s honestly so inspiring and amazing to see the impact this has had.

What’s it like to have young girls look up to you, for playing Molly?

ACOSTA: It’s so exciting. There was a girl at a restaurant who was like, “You look familiar.” And I was like, “Yeah, I’m on a show.” And she was like, “You’re on Marvel’s Runaways, right? “That show and that comic book saved my life!” To hear that from a girl, and not even talking about the Latina aspect, but talking about LGBT rights and just being able to be free in this world, whatever your race, gender identity, or sexuality, was so phenomenal. Our show literally changes and impacts people’s lives. I’ve gotten DMs from girls who are Latina, who have been like, “You made me feel comfortable in my skin.” What’s so cool about this project is that they said, “Molly should be Latina and should be a girl.” Our market is very much not represented in a positive way, but it’s now showing this girl who is strong, iconic, 14 and Latina, and she can take over the world and doesn’t have to be labeled in a bad stereotype kind of way. That’s very cool!

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Image via Hulu

How would you like to see Chase continue to evolve?

SULKIN: I definitely don’t think the Chase and Gert storyline is finished yet. We’ve got a lot of love to give, so to speak. I’m not sure if this would ever happen, but I would love see the kids become their own detective team and take down not just PRIDE, if we ever destroy PRIDE, but to also just become Los Angeles’ young detectives, that no one expects. That’s what I would love for the show, but I don’t know if that will ever happen because I’m not in control of the scripts. Thankfully, the writers are very nice, and if we float ideas by them, they’re never disrespectful or rude. I can normally always tell if they like the idea ‘cause they’ll tell you. If they don’t, they’ll nod and smile politely and say, “Okay, yeah.”

What reaction have you heard for the show, when it comes to fans of the comics?

FELIZ: It’s all been positive. People who’ve read the comics, love those series. I feel like we’ve captured a lot of it, and we’ve added a bit to it, as well. I feel like in the second season, we’re really diving into the comics, even more so. We’ve got The Hostel, and we’ve got a bunch of characters that are coming into Season 2 that are in the comics. When I read them, I was like, “ No way! They’re on our show now?” Getting to live out those plot lines from the comics was really exciting, and I feel like it will be really exciting for the fans, too.

GARDNER: The feedback has been amazing. I’ve had women come up to me and tell me that because of the show, they came out to their parents and they’re no longer afraid to embrace who they are in their relationships. The response has been as positive as I could have hoped. It’s really, really cool that we’re on a show that actually gets to make an effect on people and help them feel understood, which has been really huge. I recently saw a pillowcase with me and Lyrica’s face on it. I’m flattered, but it feels weird that I’m in people’s beds.

Marvel’s Runaways Season 2 is available to stream at Hulu.

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Image via Hulu