Scott Speedman Breaks Down That Brutal 'Teacup' Season 1 Finale

5 days ago 4

Teacup

[Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Teacup Season 1]

The Big Picture

Collider's Perri Nemiroff sat down with Teacup 's Scott Speedman, Émilie Bierre, and Caleb Dolden at Fantastic Fest 2024.
Teacup Season 1's final two episodes are currently available to stream on Peacock.
During this interview, the stars discuss that unforgettable drowning scene, James' death, and more.

At this year's Fantastic Fest, Collider's Perri Nemiroff sat down with the actors who play the Chenoweth family in Peacock's horror series Teacup, which is inspired by the Robert McCammon book Stinger. In the first half of the interview, Scott Speedman, who plays James, and Émilie Bierre and Caleb Dolden, who play Meryl and Arlo Chenoweth, spoke with us about their family dynamics and the on-set relationships they built, including with co-star and producer Yvonne Strahovski. Now, the final two episodes of Season 1 are available to stream, which means we can release the full spoiler portion of the conversation!

The mysteries of Harbinger, Assassin, and this entire waking nightmare are coming to light, but there are still countless mysteries left to unfold. The Chenoweth family and their neighbors have been through the wringer in this first season, and unfortunately, not everyone survived to see a potential Season 2. In this interview, we were able to dig into what it took to get those emotional beats on-screen and find out where these characters' minds are at in those final moments.

For the Season 1 finale conversation with the cast of Teacup, check out the video above or the interview transcript below. Speedman and Bierre discuss the challenges and fun — yes, fun — they had filming the drowning scene, and they also talk about the mechanics of the Assassin behind the scenes, the details behind James' death, and the strengths the Chenoweth siblings will carry into Season 2.

No Daughters Were Harmed During the 'Teacup' Drowning Scene

PERRI NEMIROFF: There are so many really big scenes that I want to hit, but drowning scene has to be the first one on my list.

SCOTT SPEEDMAN: You knew she was gonna say that. [Laughs]

I feel like we could spend hours having a conversation and still not hit all of the acting feats that are on display in that particular scene. Can you each isolate the most difficult part of that sequence for you?

EMILIE BIERRE: Having to stop filming it. We did that on two days, that scene. Well, maybe my biggest challenge on that day is I woke up with this crazy migraine, but then I was just so excited for it. When Ian told me that we were gonna do this at the end, I was like, “Thank you so much for this,” because I love the character just in her simplicity, but this is just so fun. I didn't want to stop doing it. The whole thing!

SPEEDMAN: It was fun.

BIERRE: I don’t know if you were as excited.

SPEEDMAN: I was! It was a weird thing. There were people who were very trepidatious about doing these scenes and were nervous about them and scared by them, and I totally understand that because of the children aspect of it, and that's a very dark thing to have to do. But to be honest with you, I was like, “This is gonna be so great as an audience to watch, and it's gonna be so exciting.” It can be crazy to see where the show goes, so I was like, “I could not believe this is where Ian took it.” Once I got my head around that, I was excited by it. I think you were kind of alluding that it wasn't the worst. It was fun to do, too. It was scary and crazy, but we knew each other so well and trusted each other by that point so much that it was easy to kind of jump off the cliff with each other. That's how I felt. Maybe you felt differently?

BIERRE: No, no, no, no. Everything just felt right, and just filming it, too, everything felt so safe and fun, truly. We could really go all out by that point. Like you were saying, we really knew who those characters were and what they really had to do in that moment. It's such crazy circumstances to be in, to actually do that to your kid, and you guys kept it so, again, grounded, and Yvonne did that beautiful… All of it was just so powerful, and I just got to be there and watch them do it.

She has a scream in that scene that just absolutely destroyed me. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out when a show will go there and when it will stop, but I was fully convinced you were dead — fully convinced.

BIERRE: Thank you. I’m glad that happened. [Laughs]

9:11

Chaske Spencer as Ruben holding up a rifle and flashlight outside in the dark

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I have a super specific question for both of you. Did you talk to Ian about when the exact moment Assassin leaves her and goes into him is, and how that needed to look so that if an audience member goes back and watches it again, they see you've planted that seed?

SPEEDMAN: I don't remember. It was in the writing and in the choreography, and then it was clear that when the mask gets pushed up, and think you kick me off again right after that or something like that?

BIERRE: There’s a lot happening, but I basically take off your mask, and you cut into it.

SPEEDMAN: Yeah, I had to take a breath.

BIERRE: That would be like the breath — the bad one.

SPEEDMAN: The bad, bad breath.

Caleb, now that it's safe to ask this, what was it like being a lead in the show and playing two characters?

CALEB DOLDEN: This was the first-ever show that I've really done that's this big. I think that was pretty amazing. And I think playing two different characters really helped push how far I could go with acting.

Was James Aware of Everything in the End?

I have to go to the next really big scene for the family. It's James' death scene. What kinds of conversations do you all have to have with each other and what kinds of things do you have to sit with yourself to make sure that all plays as well as it does in the finished product?

SPEEDMAN: To be honest, the rest of the family have the heavy lifting on that just because I come down and get attacked and get thrown into a freezer, and then they have to do the rest of the really quote-unquote hard stuff, which they really did amazing. I was listening. It was intense to listen to.

BIERRE: You would just come out at the end of every day, and we were, like, balling. Then you'd just be like, “Oh, okay.” “Oh, you were actually in there!”

SPEEDMAN: They forgot a couple of times that I was in there.

I don't know how much you thought about this, but when Assassin takes James over and you're playing those moments, is there any of him left in there for you?

SPEEDMAN: I think we tried to play with that a couple of times and to be honest, I don't know what's in the edit and what's not in the freezer stuff. I can't remember if they get that in there or not. They might have changed. But there was stuff where he's fighting to come through and then losing the battle, really, at that moment. I think that actually might be in there. It's when Yvonne's closing the freezer, and I kind of give her the OK to do that. That's the only time he really comes through, I think, and that's obviously the finish of his arc. Where he starts, it’s sort of this fraught place outside of the family; he’s cheated on his wife and all those things to this end point, which is a kind of a great arc.

BIERRE: And the thing with Assassin, by the time James has it in him, it's the angriest that it can be. It's just so mad and just wants to get his job done, so it was pretty intense, but you did great. That scene was a lot, but again, we had so much fun. I remember when we just got to set that morning, Yvonne just gave me a hug and we were like, “Okay, let's do this. Let's just cry it all out.” And then he started crying, too, and then it was just really intense and lovely. It was very fun.

Scott Speedman and Yvonne Strahovski in Teacup

10:45

Custom image of Rob Morgan, Ian McCulloch, and Chaske Spencer at Fantastic Fest for Teacup

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Scott, I have a personal acting question for you about that death scene. Do you find that you can have closure with a character when his end was essentially stolen from him?

SPEEDMAN: Yeah, you can. I mean, obviously, we're shooting that in the last couple of weeks of the production and all that, and those elements come in. If we shot that first, I don't think we would have felt as bonded together as an actor troupe/family unit so that part of it was really there. You did feel this finality to it, and it was very poignant that way. I don't think I've done that much on television where you really don't see this character leaving the show at that point. You know what I mean? So, it was great that way. And it did feel like when that freezer closes, and the sandbags go on, it does feel like the end of something for sure.

The Chenoweth Siblings Will Take These Strengths Into Season 2

Sorry, Scott, you don't get to answer this next question, but for the two of you, given everything they've been through and my hope that we will see a Season 2, what would you say is the greatest asset your character gained during Season 1 that you would be most excited to play with in Season 2?

DOLDEN: I think the greatest asset really that Arlo got was probably learning to lean on his family so much to depend on them.

BIERRE: And he also knows Harbinger by the end. He really understands him more.

DOLDEN: And I think another good asset he got was Harbinger.

BIERRE: I would say for Meryl, I think she grows so much throughout the season. She really does become that little woman by the end of it. Losing her dad and having been through, like, literally dying and coming back to life, she's definitely got some real big trauma, so I'm interested to see where that would take her, but I think she is definitely stronger and would do anything to protect her little brother. I'm interested to see how she would deal with her family, especially her mom after seeing the decision that she had to make with James, even though she understands it. I love how there's just this open door for all of this complexity with all of our characters when it all ends for Season 1. I love it.

Every episode of Teacup Season 1 is available to stream on Peacock.