#nina interview

The Good Omens Article From the TotalFilm Magazine, Issue August 2023 :)

POST APOCALYPSE GOOD OMENS The heavenly and hellish creations of Gaiman and Pratchett ride again…

Having averted Armageddon, angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and demon Crowley (David Tennant) have settled down to the quiet life in London – but the arrival of a familiar face shakes things up for everyone.

Season 1 covered events in the novel you wrote with Terry Pratchett – what was the inspiration this time?

Neil Gaiman (showrunner): Terry and I were sharing a room at Seattle’s World Fantasy Con in 1989 and, by the end of one night chatting, we had a huge, apocalyptic sequel to Good Omens. Season 2 is all the stuff we had to put in place before we could get to that sequel, and it starts with the archangel Gabriel [Jon Hamm] wandering through Soho, with no memory – a mystery that doesn’t have giant consequences for the universe, even if it does for Aziraphale and Crowley.

What has changed between Crowley and Aziraphale?

David Tennant (Crowley): Aziraphale is a much more enthusiastic detective in this mystery and, as with most things, Crowley is reluctant to get involved or to exhibit any kind of energy or enthusiasm, so he’s dragged into it. They no longer have to report to head offices, so they’re in this slightly grey area – neither supernatural, nor of the Earth.

Michael Sheen (Aziraphale): They’ve always been the only two beings who could understand each other’s position, but now they’re slightly freer agents so they’re pushed even closer together. It’s an interesting dynamic.

Maggie and Nina, you’re back too – although not as satanic nuns this time…

Nina Sosanya (Nina): No – we’re two human women! Nina is slightly cynical, churlish and owns a coffee shop, Maggie runs the record shop and she’s rather sweet and hopeful. It’s an ‘opposites attract’ thing and Neil kindly gave the characters our names so we couldn’t say no.

Maggie Service (Maggie): Aziraphale is still running his bookshop, but he’s also Maggie’s landlord. She thinks he’s the best because he lets her stay on and doesn’t really mind if she doesn’t make too much money. Maggie and Nina act as catalysts in a way, when Crowley and Aziraphale get involved in their relationship.

Neil, you’ve had some writing help this year…

Nina and Maggie interview with Matt Mahler for Movieweb :), 10.7.2023

Question: What was it like playing new characters in Season Two?

Maggie: I immediately cried and then said, yes, please, that, please, I'll do that.

Nina: I didn't think it was particularly real. Why would that be real? I got an email at 02:00 in the morning, but it turns out it was. I think, I think it's lovely that you think it was beautiful because I think it is much more personal and it's much more about people or entities learning to trust each other and realising that they might need each other in order to live well. So I think that's rather lovely.

Question: How did you prepare your on-screen relationship?

Maggie: Well, yeah, the characters are written so beautifully that the dynamic is a lovely thing to play.

Nina: Well, the characters are really very well drawn and you sort of instantly know who they are, from the first few times you meet them in that first episode. And I guess we had conversations about the tone and about how big to play some things. And I guess the conclusion was not big .It was to be just as natural, as sincere and true to the real situation as possible. Even when something miraculous might be happening in front of you as humans, you interpret it in away that makes sense of your world.

Maggie: Yeah. And there's always room for sort of quiet, unspoken connections...

Nina: Yeah, between the lines.

Maggie: Yeah, those were a good few days, working out the looks and the unsaid words, what we were actually saying.

Question: How does this season question good and evil?

Maggie: Yeah, I think it does endlessly in both the seasons, actually. And I don't think that we ever come to an answer. I think the point is that we have to keep asking the question and possibly not judging things and looking within ourselves .And if everybody did that, maybe the world would be in a slightly more nice place.

An interview with Nina Sosanya (Nina), Maggie Service (Maggie), Liz Carr (Saraqael), Quelin Sepulveda (Muriel) and Shelley Conn (Beelzebub) on a possible Season 3 and who they would like to play with Serialowa, from July 2023. (x)

Maggie: It turns out when somebody, you know, creates a universe, they can literally write what they want.

Nina: They can do what they want.

Maggie: They can do what they want.

S2 trailer + Neil Gaiman said recently that he had plans for Season 3 and he wrote Season 2 as sort of a bridge between the first season and the third one. Do you know anything about what's next?

Maggie: If we did, we couldn't possibly tell you or we'd be fired from all jobs in the future forever.

Nina: Yeah, I think we get struck down by lightning, probably above and below and sideways. I expect

Maggie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shelley: First of all, yeah, of course, it'd be lovely to do another season. I mean, obviously, we're still kind of dining out on this one and enjoying everything that comes with it. So we're really focused on how this one will be received.

Nina: It will be wild, I think. And, I mean, it's not a secret that Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman had talked about where the story might have gone before Terry passed. So, yeah, we've known that. There's all stuff in Neil's head.

S2 trailer + If Season 3 actually happens, would you rather come back as your current characters or the new ones? You could also switch places and go from Heaven to Hell.

Shelley: It's a good question, actually.

Quelin: I know.

Shelley: That is a very good question.

Nina: I think all of those.

Maggie: Yes, one, two and three, please.

Nina: Yes.

Maggie: Yes, we'll do all of it.

Nina: I think we'd love to be satanic nuns again. We'd love to be Maggie and Nina again. But then there's all sorts of who knows what's in store in Neil Gaiman's head. Yeah. So it could be anything.

Quelin: I mean, I loved playing Muriel, so, you know, but I'm going where Neil takes me. If he takes me.

Liz: Yeah.

Shelley: Yeah, absolutely.

Quelin: I 100% just trust him.

Maggie: It turns out when somebody, you know, creates a universe, they can literally write what they want.

Nina: They can do what they want.

Liz: I would trust him with that. But, to be honest, even though you're on one side, we're both anyway. Do you know what I mean? I don't think my character. I don't think Saraquial is like, you know, that... good, in a way. I might wear white, but I'm not sure I'm not evil in a way. So, I think whatever I play, there's always you know, if I came back in the same character, I think I could embody both sides, the good and the evil.

Shelley: I would go with whatever Neil wants to put my way.

Maggie: So that's a very cool, you know, person to know, actually, isn't it?

Nina: Yeah.

Maggie: Thinking about it.

Maggie and Nina interview with Cheryl Eddy for Gizmodo au, 10 July 2023

Good Omens fans know what it means to pine for a couple to be together. Season two adds more shipping to the mix with Nina (Nina Sosanya) and Maggie (Maggie Service), shopkeeper neighbors of bookselling angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen). If their names and faces are familiar, that’s because you’ve seen them together before: as Satanic nuns in Good Omens season one.

This time around, of course, they are completely different characters who just happened to be named after the actors who play them. They were “beyond thrilled” to return to Good Omens, Service told io9 at a recent press day.

Sosanya agreed. “There was a sort of shock when we first heard that the second series was happening, a bigger one when we realized that we would be in it,” she said. “Then there was the adjustment that you have to make when you’re not going to be playing the previous characters. And then, just delight when you find out you’re going to be playing something new and named after our own selves, which is unprecedented, really.”

Without getting into plot spoilers, we can say that Good Omens season two acknowledges the queer subtext that fans read into Aziraphale and Crowley (David Tennant) in season one, and brings it out into the open with these new characters. Maggie, who runs a record shop, has a huge crush on Nina, who runs a coffee shop and is unfortunately already partnered up. They’re lesbians, but Good Omens doesn’t make a big deal out of that fact; that’s just who these characters happen to be.

“Season one [really] connected with people,” Service said. “The Good Omens universe, it’s a place where you can just be—you know, you’re welcome, whoever you are, however, whatever. If something makes you feel ‘other,’ you’re not. You’re fine. You’re welcome. That reaction from the fans has painted into what they wanted to write in season two, to just absolutely make that message more than 100% clear and tell some more stories. It’s not a big deal [that they’re gay] it’s just who they are.”

Added Sosanya, “I think that’s what Neil does with a lot of his writing and with a lot of the graphic novels as well. Those characters, they’re not explained particularly, they just are. It doesn’t have to be justified in any way.”

Maggie and Nina are unique in Good Omens season two because they’re both mortals—even if they don’t realize at first that they’re surrounded by characters who are actually angels and demons. “They didn’t really know particularly that there are ‘sides’ to be taken, so they’re sort of working their own moral compass,” Sosanya said. “Following instincts, and trying to do the best they can and look after the people who look like they might need help,” Service added.

Said Sosanya, “And then, [once they do realize what’s going on], it’s not actually clear which side they would be on. They’re well-rounded characters—they could go either way. They’re just sort of experiencing it in the moment and seeing what occurs because nothing is as it seems.”

Both actors agreed they’d love to return for a hypothetical Good Omens season three, either as Nina and Maggie again or as another set of new characters—“any chance to spend any time in the Good Omens universe will be a great day in the office,” Service said. And they both think the themes of Good Omens are important ones.

“In both seasons, the question of what makes a good person, what makes a bad person is prevalent. I think much more in season two, [also] something about authenticity. But lots of parties seem to be searching for something and it might be within themselves,” Service teased.