‘Scarpetta’s Young Cast Reveal the Things They’re Dying To Do in Season 2

5 hours ago 4

Published Mar 15, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

Taylor Gates is an Indiana native who earned her BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Evansville. She fell in love with entertainment by watching shows about chaotic families like Full House, The Nanny, Gilmore Girls, and The Fosters.

After college, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a writer, editor, and filmmaker. Today, she’s a sucker for dramedies — especially coming-of-age stories centering around complex female and LGBTQ+ characters. She has been with Collider since May 2022.

This interview contains spoilers for the Scarpetta Season 1 finale.

Rosy McEwen, known for her breakout, critically acclaimed role in 2022’s Blue Jean, plays a young version of Nicole Kidman’s lead character, Kay Scarpetta, a forensic pathologist who struggles to balance her demanding job and equally demanding family. Together with Pete (Jake Cannavale, playing the younger counterpart of his father Bobby’s part), a charismatic but frequently insensitive detective, and Benton (Hunter Parrish in the past timeline, Simon Baker in the present), she attempts to investigate a series of complex and highly disturbing murders that are puzzling and terrorizing their community.

Collider got the chance to speak with the trio of McEwen, Cannavale, and Parrish about how they worked with their counterparts to build their characters. They also discussed what they’d like to see in Season 2, which has already begun filming.

‘Scarpetta’s Young Cast Talk Studying Their Older Counterparts

“Both parties would be a little bit of an island if we didn't have that.”

Nicole Kidman as Dr. Kay Scarpetta in 'Scarpetta.'

COLLIDER: Rosy, I want to start with you. What is it like cracking skulls with a baseball bat?

ROSY MCEWEN: [Laughs] It's great. It was great. We actually filmed that once, and then the final scene of the whole shoot, we went back, and David Gordon Green said, “There's not enough cracking. We need to do some more skull-cracking.” And so the final shot was the first shot you see of her with the skull that she goes and she smatters, and we got it in one take, and that was my final wrap. It was very satisfying.

JAKE CANNAVALE: Hell yeah.

You guys all do such a great job with your older counterparts making these characters feel really seamless all the way through. What was it like working with them to develop that character, and was there a specific mannerism that sort of felt like the key to unlocking them?

MCEWEN: There were a few mannerisms. I don't want to say what they are, actually. I don't want to give away my secret, because I don't want anyone to look for it — I want it to be subtle. It was amazing in lots of ways. You had a constant source of information. I was always asking, “Does Nicole do this with her coat? Where did she put her bag?” All these little things. It was nice to have a reference point. But also, the sort of constant checking in meant that, in some ways, I was like, “I need to kind of just let go and pursue the Kay that I have now.” I think about a month into filming, I had to just trust what I'd learned and run with it.

HUNTER PARRISH: had a conversation with Simon, and we kind of dialed things in. We have a really great dialect coach who helps. He's on set when we're there, and kind of helps bring the two together, and I think that that makes all the difference. Both parties would be a little bit of an island if we didn't have that, so that's really huge. The accent for us — for Benton — is probably the most key part that kind of unites us and helps us ground and anchor in something, so that's helpful.

CANNAVALE: Bobby and I definitely found out the core of Marino and where he's operating from in each scene, and once we figured out that motivation, that inner drive, that inner conflict, what have you, the mannerisms would sort of fall into place. I guess that's probably an advantage of having the same DNA as the other actor.

Yeah, a little bit of a cheat code there.

CANNAVALE: [Laughs] Little bit.

‘Scarpetta’s Young Cast Reveals What They Want to See in Season 2

“I hope this time I can weave in a little bit of softness.”

Scarpetta-Bobby-Cannavale-Simon-Baker-Interview

I know that you guys are starting to shoot Season 2 pretty soon. What would you like to see for your character in the next season?

MCEWEN: Well, personally, I haven't read all of it. I think I'd like to see Kay relax a little bit more. I'd like to see her loosen up and maybe have a little bit more fun. When we met her in Season 1, she was on day one of this brand new job, and I think she was tense and nervous. I hope this time I can weave in a little bit of softness.

CANNAVALE: I think for Marino, it's kind of the opposite. I feel like Season 1 is him really desperately wanting the kind of stuff you think a cop does as a little kid to go down. He wants a car chase and a shootout, and he wants to go catch bad guys and be the cop he fantasized about being. He had so much energy in the first season, and I think he needs a bigger funnel for it in Season 2.

PARRISH: I know a bit of both timelines — how Liz has woven these books together — and it's fun. The work that Benton did prior to the show even starting, prior to the books even starting, we get to tag into that a little bit, and it's psychological stuff. He's the behaviorist, so he's really into the mind of serial killers, and he's done significant work interviewing them. I'm excited to see some of that and how we then get to see why Benton is the way that he is, because of all of this time that he's spent putting his mind in the minds of many numerous serial killers.

All episodes of Scarpetta are now streaming on Prime Video.