Exclusive: Maggie Q and Kal Penn Talk ‘Designated Survivor’ Season 2 At The Tribeca TV Festival

The White House, Drama and Conspiracies.

Season 2 of ABC’s ‘Designated Survivor’ promises to bring the political thrill, and then some. Maggie Q, Kal Penn, Italia Ricci and Paulo Costanzo were some of the cast in attendance, to dish on the new season at the first ever Tribeca TV Festival! 

Season 2 begins with ‘President Kirkman’ being a year into his presidency. We spoke to Maggie Q who plays Hannah and Kal Penn who plays Seth. They discussed their expectations, thoughts and excitement for what this season will bring and where these characters will go from here.

Maggie Q

Q: When it comes to the stunts, do you do your own stunts on the show?

A: I do. I mean honestly this show for me is so light on the action, I could do it in my sleep (laughs)

Q: Yes, Nikita was a stunt-intense show that you were on?

A: (laughs) Right yeah! I mean this show is like a walk in the park compared to that. But yeah, on Nikita I did and on this one I definitely did. I make it a point to.

Q: What should the fans be expecting this season?

A: Oh my gosh. Every episode kind of has its own thing. But we’re going to try to really get to the bottom of the conspiracy that plagued us in the first season. Hopefully once we kind of get towards the end of that, we’re going to be exposing a web of people that really worked to make this happen. That to me is entirely interesting because you realize that when something does go down in that way, it’s always a village that makes it happen, it’s never one person. So that web needs to be exposed and we’re going to do that.

Q: What was your favorite episode to shoot?

A: I think last season was probably the finale. I mean usually the finales are huge. Normally it takes around 8 days to shoot an episode, I think our finale last year was 13 days.

Kal Penn

Q: Any surprises that we can expect from season 2?

A: I think surprise-wise, the show has a little bit of a different look, and it’s a little more aspirational. There’s a little more balance between the conspiracy theory stuff and some of just the human interactions within The White House.

Episode 2, I’m the press secretary but I’m still sort of the de facto speechwriter. So, there’s a correspondents dinner episode where Seth think he’s way funnier than he actually is. Obviously we’re an hour long drama on ABC, so the humor has to be a little bit layered and kind of subtle. So, literally the opposite of “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle”. (laughs) And I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that the humor was a lot more understated than  I’m used to

Q: Where do you see the development of your character going?

A: Yeah I’m curious to see where Seth goes in the course of the season. Right now, I’ve learned a little bit more about him. We meet one of his family members in the first half of the first season. You see a little bit of his home life,a little hint of maybe- maybe a dating life, I don’t know yet. We don’t find out anything in advance, so I only know up to episode 8.

Q: So you’re somewhat surprised with the fans?

A: Oh yeah! We all text each other when we get the full script.

‘Have you read it yet?’ ‘Which draft do you have?’ ‘Skip to this page.’

Q: What’s your favorite episode that you’ve shot from the upcoming season?

A: I like the second episode. I like the correspondents dinner.

Q: What about last season?

A: I think the Pilot was my favorite because Seth, -this is totally selfish obviously-  the way that Seth and Kirkman meet, so when Kiefer and I have the initial scene in the bathroom. It’s this junior speechwriter with a newly inaugurated president. Both of them are throwing up in the bathroom. One is because he’s drunk, the other one is because he’s nervous. We don’t ever speak of that ever again (laughs).

Kiefer and I talked about this, where there’s this implicit trust that comes out of the relationship from that moment, is kind of how they’re entire arch is built. So, that will always have a special place.

Q: What is the most challenging part as an actor on this show?

A: Hour long drama generally on TV, you don’t know a lot about the character in advance, you find out things with each script. And so, that’s a challenge, because you want to ground your character in as much reality as possible. But, you might make a choice for 5 episodes and find out 6 episodes in that there’s another piece of information that could’ve maybe negated that. So you then have to build a world around that and expand who you are. It’s a welcomed challenge.