“What I always look forward to is when you wake up on the day that it comes out and you go on Disney+, and it's just there,” Extraordinary star Máiréad Tyers said about her anticipation for the March 6th premiere of Season 2 (or Series 2 for UK readers), which streams stateside on Hulu. Máiréad and her costar, Sofia Oxenham, recently visited Southern California to promote the superpowered comedy’s second season, where I got to chat with the ladies who bring Jen and Carrie to life. “There's so many shows nowadays. It's so nice when you find a show that you like, and then it's back for another season… To feel like people are looking forward to that, it feels really rewarding.”
(Natalie Seery/Disney+)
“It's also so nice hearing the fan's response and what they think,” added Sofia Oxenham. Because the show streams globally on Disney+ and Star, the cast routinely hears from fans in other countries, particularly Brazil. “A few [fans] have messaged us saying they're excited for it to come out, so I'm really excited for them to see it.”
Extraordinary had a somewhat miraculous launch, with Disney ordering a second season from creator Emma Moran before the first even premiered. “[Emma] would have written maybe four of the second season episodes before there was any green light,” Máiréad revealed when asked how this season may have been tailored to the cast. “By the time it got to us, it was kind of already there. But the excitement we had when those episodes came through and we got to read them for the first time, it was amazing.”
The girls hinted at a special ability one of Kash’s Vigilantes brought to the show, which Emma Moran found a place for in this season’s final episode. “She's quite open-minded to those things,” revealed Sofia Oxenham. “She's not precious. She's like, ‘Okay, you can improvise around the script a bit afterward.’” But because the writing on the series is so good, Sofia added that their improvised lines rarely make the cut. And while it’s too early to discuss a third season, both actresses are hoping to convince the series creator to take the characters out of East London for future storylines, preferably someplace warm.
There are a few changes coming this season, with Jen finally enrolling in a clinic to help discover her powers (mentored by guest star Julian Barrett) and Carrie breaking up with Kash at the top of the first episode. But one thing that hasn’t changed is Carrie’s ability to channel the deceased, letting them take possession of her body. “I have a Zoom call with the actor sometimes,” Sofia Oxenham revealed about the process of shooting these scenes, where someone else’s voice comes from her body. “When we're actually filming on the day, we don't have a track at all. I basically do the accent and the voice. And then after that in post, they come in to ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement), which apparently is really hard because normally in ADR, you're matching yourself, which is kind of normal because you know the delivery you've given. But they have to match to a performance they've never seen before. They have no idea what it is.”
Fans of the show know both actresses best through their characters, but how similar are they? “There are elements of me that exist in Jen,” explained Máiréad Tyers. “Me in a bad mood is like Jen all the time” (Sofia interjected that Máiréad is never in a bad mood). “There are absolute levels to Jen's personality that I definitely share with her. I don't necessarily think I've based her on anyone, but I can resonate, and I feel like a lot of people can resonate with her struggles and feeling like she's inadequate. I think we all felt like that at one point or another, which is why I think so many people relate to her. Procrastination is something I definitely share with her, too. We're good at that.”
“I sometimes have moments, especially with the first series, of really doubting myself,” revealed Sofia Oxenham about tapping into Carrie’s insecure qualities. “That's exactly what Carrie was going through at that time, so it felt like an interesting correlation.” But Sofia dropped a bit of a bombshell during the interview. “I actually base [my performance] on a friend of mine. I've never told her because I don't know if she'd be offended or if she'd like it. I never mentioned it because I don't know if it's a bad thing, but whenever I'm with her now, I'm watching how she moves because I'm like, this is really good character research.”
Extraordinary is to the superhero genre what What We Do in the Shadows is to supernatural horror. While Shadows is coming to an end, it inspired a question about their dream crossover. “We love Stath Lets Flats,” Máiréad and Sofia agreed. Since time travel is an ability in the Extraordinary universe, Máiréad added Friends to the list. “I’d kind of like to see them navigate something like the Normal People cast,” Sofia joked. “Imagine them being in the same place. It'd be so bizarre.” Their short list of dream crossovers ended with The Bear. “I feel like Ayo Edebiri in her natural habitat could exist in the Extraordinary world,” Máiréad explained.
Since Extraordinary follows a group of outcasts in a superpowered world, each with a peculiar power (or lack thereof), it felt fitting to end on a silly note – an obscure superpower that would perfectly fit each actor. “I just love crisps,” Sofia Oxenham shared, wishing to be able to release whatever type of chip she’s in the mood for like a human Pez dispenser. “I wish I could click my fingers and just be able to go to sleep,” added Máiréad Tyers, who sometimes experiences revenge procrastination. “It's when you feel like you haven't had enough time in your day to do the things that you wanted to do, so you end up staying up and just ruin your sleep.”
With all 8 episodes of Season 2 of Extraordinary launching worldwide on Wednesday, March 6th, hopefully the only kind of revenge procrastination fans experience is wishing they could binge the whole series in one sitting.