Creator Frank Spotnitz on how he kept the villainous Marshal from becoming too cartoonish.
Read on for his thoughts on episode 3, The Illustrated Woman.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Lets start with the Marshal.
Credit: Liane Hentscher/Amazon
How did you juggle these three villains?
What separates them from each other?
You find yourself on his side, because the storys being told from his point of view.
Its the same as, like, Tony Soprano or Walter White.
In the San Francisco story, Inspector Kido has a code.
Hes upholding a society and a certain set of beliefs.
But The Marshal, in Canon City, is a psychopath.
Theres a place for a man like that.
This society can use people like that, and that is the truth about the Nazis and the Reich.
On that note, was it challenging to keep him from becoming too cartoonish?
Well, it was really tough.
I did worry about the long coat and the cowboy boots and everything.
He feels very powerful, and I liked his deliberate speed.
Did you have Burn Gorman in mind for the role from the start?
The only actor that I thought of before we started casting was Cary Tagawa for Tagomi.
Speaking of Tagomi, the plan he and Wegener have cooked up is moving along.
You do not step out of line, you do not take initiative.
And of course Wegener is betraying the Nazi Empire…
The thing about a show like this is its got so many concurrent storylines.
As for the Resistance, clearly theyre not doing so well.
Are they running scared or are they just disorganized?
I think theyre running scared.
Theyre poorly organized in the West, but running scared in the East.
Obviously, it givesmea longer journey to travel in the series.
The Man in the High Castleis available for streaming on Amazon.
