Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub moderates a Q&A for Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 with Jeremy Renner, Edie Falco, Laura Benanti, and co-creator, showrunner, and actor Hugh Dillon.

In Season 4, Taylor Sheridan’s hit Paramount+ series introduces a formidable new foe for Mike McLusky.

The stars and co-creator dish on Sheridan’s storytelling secrets, details on Falco and Benanti’s new characters, how Renner’s accident was a “blessing in disguise,” and plans for Season 5.

Taylor Sheridan is no stranger to a hit series, as the man behind some of the best-loved shows of the past decade. A month of television wouldn’t be the same without one of his shows dominating the streaming charts, and, in the same month that Tulsa King continues to draw millions in its third season, Sheridan fans are finally treated to the return of his and co-creator Hugh Dillon’s Mayor of Kingstown for its fourth season. Starring MCU alum Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky, the series has proven a huge hit for Paramount+, with the Season 3 debut hitting 306 million viewing minutes on the Nielsen Top 10. After an explosive third season, fans are expecting the bar to be raised even higher, with the addition of The Sopranos star Edie Falco a sure way of getting there. According to Jeff Ewing’s review of the fourth season for Collider, this latest installment is “ultimately top-shelf” and the “best season yet.” Ahead of Season 4’s premiere, Collider and Paramount+ held a theatrical premiere for the first episode, followed by a Q&A moderated by Steve Weintraub, featuring Renner, Falco, Dillon, and another new arrival in the ensemble, Tony Award winner Laura Benanti​​​​. In this conversation, which you can check out in the video above or the transcript below, the stars and co-creator discuss Sheridan’s ruthless secrets to success, how Renner’s near-death experience in 2023 changed the acclaimed series, who Falco and Benanti play in the show, and tons more.
Jeremy Renner’s Comeback Forever Changed ‘Mayor of Kingstown’

“He came back 70% steel.”

Jeremy Renner smiling and posing at the Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 premiere Q&A.Image via Paramount+

COLLIDER: Season 4 is my favorite yet. What do you guys want to tease people about the entire season? JEREMY RENNER: Well, it’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship that we have, right? [Laughs] There’s a lot at stake. There’s so much at stake. It’s all that poor Mike has to do with his poor brother being incarcerated as a cop. So, it couldn’t get any higher stakes for him, and then sadly, he’s come up against his strongest foe in Edie Falco’s character. It’s just the beginning of a pretty interesting relationship. Do you guys want to tease anything else? HUGH DILLON: From where I stand, I’m super proud of all of us. It’s super collaborative. You don’t see anything coming, and I like the unpredictability of it. Working with all you guys, as you see the scripts, I like that they’re like, “Oh, this is good,” and they lean in. And the work that you both did this year, [Edie and Laura], is phenomenal. I mean, me and J.R. sit back and look at the monitors like, “They’re good.” Then, when we see the end result, it’s exceptional. You blend into this world so effortlessly, and you’ve really helped us all elevate all of it this year, and that’s important. EDIE FALCO: Thank you. That’s very kind. LAURA BENANTI: Yeah, thanks for having us. Laura and Edie, you’re both new to the season. What can you tease about your characters and the way they interact with the rest of the cast? BENANTI: I am a corrections officer at a maximum security male prison, so things go great for me. No, I’m a single mom of three kids. I think she’s always walked a pretty challenging path, and now she’s come to the end of the road, which is Kingstown, and gotten the best job that she can get for her family, with pension and benefits, and health care. She can’t imagine what is about to become her life. When she meets the mayor, played by the brilliant Jeremy Renner, things sort of change for her forever. FALCO: Nina shows up in a world that has a life already, much like I showed up on a set that is already up and running and has its own life energy, which I found very helpful. She does this job, and she’s good at it. She was hired to take care of this prison, and I think she thinks she’s just going to do what she’s always done, which is just make it happen. She also has no idea what she’s up against, and I think that’s what the whole season is about, what each of them are up against and their quest to get done what they need to be done, and there’s a lot of drama in that.

Edie Falco speaks on stage at the Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 premiere Q&A.Image via Paramount+

I’m always curious about how actors get ready in the weeks leading up to that first day of filming. Two of you were brand new and had never been on this set, and obviously, two of you are experts and have done this for a number of years. For all four of you, what was it like in those days leading up? DILLON: Everything changed when Jeremy got hurt. That’s really it. It’s the way he came back. I remember going to his place and having to promise his mom that we were going to look after him, and he came back 70% steel. RENNER: Yeah, she would’ve killed them. [Laughs] DILLON: Dave Erickson, myself, and Taylor [Sheridan] make it work and get J.R. whatever he wants. And Jeremy, actually, from the inside out, inspired everybody. Even as you guys came to work with us this year, he just elevates everything. For such a dark show, I grew up in a prison town, I worked at a hospital for sick children for five years, and the surgeons and the people who work there always had a real killer sense of humor. It’s funny how, to me, history repeats itself, because with J.R., he was the first one to be like, “I’m good. Don’t touch me,” and funny and inviting. He sets the tone for us. We work long hours, and that is real winter, and it is cold as hell. [To Benanti] You say it best. BENANTI: Oh, one day we were outside and Jeremy was in, like, a peacoat, and I was like, “Can I have four blankets and a hat?” And then I thought to myself, I was like, “That guy died.” DILLON: [Laughs] Nobody says it. BENANTI: “I need to get my shit together.” You know what I mean? Like, his eye popped out, and he’s out here in the freezing cold. I think that I can not have hand warmers for four minutes. DILLON: He can stop it in a heartbeat, because I’ll be like, “I’m cold. Where’s my coffee?” “I almost died. And action!” BENANTI: Yeah, 1,000%. DILLON: In that moment, you smarten up. But it’s a lot of fun, really, and that’s kind of what brings us together. The work is serious. As soon as we say action, we’re in it, and it’s collaborative and exciting, all the things that I dreamt it would be when I started out. BENANTI: For me, I was very curious as to why a woman would choose to be a corrections officer at a maximum security male prison. I listened to a lot of female corrections officers on podcasts, and almost exclusively, the thing they said was their children, that they grew up in environments where they didn’t have a lot of jobs with benefits and health care available to them, and this gave them a sense of security. One woman said something really interesting. She was like, “Look, I used to work in a bar and those dudes weren’t behind bars. I feel safer in here,” which I thought was really interesting. So, for me, I listened to a lot of those women talk about that. That was my way. And then they don’t let me wear any makeup at all, and they put me in that outfit, and that was that.

Cindy stands in uniform, looking over her shoulder.Image via Paramount+

DILLON: [Laughs] And you nailed it. FALCO: My vantage point was that Nina is new to the job, she’s new to the town, she’s new to the people, much as I was walking into this job. I don’t know that I always feel this way, but I found that to be very helpful this time. She knows what her specific job is, she knows that part’s okay because she knows how to do that, and she’s also got her antenna up. “Who is this person? Can I trust that one? This person looks helpful.” Edie was doing a version of that while Nina was doing a version of that, and I found that very helpful.
Jeremy Renner Calls Season 4 an “Out of Control” Roller Coaster With No Brakes

He also reveals a side of McLusky viewers don’t see on screen.

You’ve played this character now, this is the fourth season, and in those few days leading up to that first day of filming, is it just flipping a switch in your mind? How much are you still getting ready to play Mike? RENNER: I think I was ready for that. It’s really the narrative. It’s very complicated this year. So when you have a lot of the scripts, many of them, and it wasn’t about laziness, but I’d only just focus on block by block, which is we’d shoot, like, Episode 1 and 2, and then 3 and 4, and 5 and 6. Knowing that we had them, there was too much going on and too many shifts that happen throughout the season. It’s insane. So, if you go to the bathroom watching the show, you’re going to have to press pause because literally something could happen, and you’re like, “What just…?!” It’s insane. This is, like, I don’t want to say the slowest episode because we’re introducing all these characters, but after this, it’s a downhill roller coaster out of control, no brakes. So, there are so many puzzle pieces. It’s like playing chess. You can’t go 10 moves ahead, so much. You’ve really got to go step by step and breath by breath in this thing, and that’s what I focused on. And just keep it as honest and truthful as possible. That’s all I can forge ahead and do. And obviously stretch and do all the things I’ve got to do for my tin body. [Laughs] I want to just say, and I speak for everyone in the theater, how grateful we are for your recovery. RENNER: It’s way better than being dead, that’s for sure. This is way better. Jeremy, I love your relationship with Bunny on the show. It seems so genuine, and he cares so much about Bunny. What is it you think drives that relationship? Because he cares about him like a brother. RENNER: I think all of Mike’s relationships are quite complicated, and they don’t ever look nice. Even with Ian, they don’t say nice things about each other. They’re pretty awful to each other. Even the lawyer — that’s my lawyer in the show, and I was yelling at the guy. But I think the baseline of it all is that there are certain checkmarks that have to be there for Mike to even engage. It’s loyalty, it’s family, and it’s things that are grounded in real truth and a kind of peace. There’s real value in that love, and I think that’s a big part of what Mike is. It’s not really discussed in the show, but it’s something I sort of force feed into the narrative, that that relationship really kind of flourished. It’s kind of like a weird Of Mice and Men kind of dynamic, you know? It’s Odd Couple-y in a lot of ways, but they have the same sort of principles, and I think that’s why that friendship flourishes. But at any moment, they can stab each other in the back for some reason. But, at some point, though, they’ll work it out.

Bunny in a camouflage jacket outside, smiling.Image via Paramount+

I think what drives the show and why I think it’s so good is that you are not afraid to kill off characters. There’s a moment in the season where you are doing something, and I’m like, “Is he about to get attacked?” Because it can happen at any moment on the show. Can you talk about the importance of removing chess pieces from the board? Because it adds so much to the show. DILLON: Taylor was my acting coach for 75 episodes of TV. I brought a printer over to his house. We talked for over five years about how I’m from this town, and we’d talk about everything. We often talked about, “What would we do if we got the chance to do what we wanted to do?” So we’d get into it like we were shooting it then. In this world, nothing’s safe. Nothing is sacred. The character I’m named after was a friend of mine who committed suicide when I was 27. I just wanted to have it be real. I’d seen my friends have to deal with grief and all sorts of things, and Taylor had his own stories. I mean, he was the one who, right out of the gate in the pilot, when he wrote the pilot in two days, and it was just me in Venice and him at his place, and only we are the fans of the show, and he killed the brother off in the first three pages. We’re just two guys, we’re the only ones who know, and I’m like, “Oh! Awesome!” And you know me, I go over to his house because I don’t want to talk on the phone, and then we just get into it. “And then what?!” And then we just play it out. We had so many stories, and there are so many real, tragic events. And as I said, I worked at the hospital for sick kids — shit comes out of nowhere, and I wanted to see that reality in our show,
Jeremy Renner Admits Mike McLusky “Operates in the Gray” – But He Could Be Worse

“He’s basically the anchor so the rest of us and the town don’t drift into hell.”

Jeremy Renner in Mayor of KingstownImage via Paramount

I love learning about the behind-the-scenes, the making of shows and movies. For all four of you, what do you think would surprise fans to learn about the making of the show? BENANTI: Everybody’s really funny. I came onto the show not knowing what the ecosystem was going to be like, to Edie’s point, and pretty quickly, I was like, “Oh, it’s everybody just making fun of each other,” which is my love language. So, that felt really easy and nice, and I think that camaraderie allows, in a way, for one to feel safe in a scene that feels really dark and hard to do, to know, then, when you say “cut,” you’re going to have just a communication with a normal human being who’s going to be making you laugh really hard. So, I think people might be surprised by how much humor there actually is on set. RENNER: Yeah, because nobody smiles in the show, right? And I think that was one of the notes that Taylor said to me, is, “This character is this, this, and this, but he doesn’t fucking smile. He doesn’t smile.” I’m like, “Dude, there’s just no joy?” [Laughs] But shooting, I’ll have my family come, and it’s not like it’s the greatest sort of place to come hang out — it’s a prison half the time — but we still do have a good time. We still enjoy each other’s company. It really is a nice set to be on. Everybody feels very grateful for the job, and everybody’s great at what they do. We have a really great cast and a really amazing crew. It’s a well-oiled machine, too. We move fast, man. We don’t mess around. It’s pretty fantastic. So, yeah, it’s a good time, man. So, come on down. [Laughs] Come on down to Kingstown. FALCO: To that point, I was still sort of feeling out who’s who and finding my way around the set, and I had a scene further into the series with a particularly bad inmate, tattoos and scars, and the whole thing. We met for a second before we started shooting. We shoot the scene. He’s got very few lines, and he’s got a monotone. Anyway, this guy was scary. I mean, he was genuinely scary to Edie, but Nina’s doing her job. They say cut, and the guy looks at me and goes, “I hear you work with animals. You do a lot of work with animal charities?” And I had that moment where I had to remind myself, “These are actors, Edie. They’re all actors. He’s not really a bad man.” But it was alarming the extent to which that happened time and time again with people I worked with on this show.

Jeremy Renner standing in front of Edie Falco’s desk in Mayor of Kingstown Season 4.Image via Paramount+

Hugh and Jeremy, Mike and Ian have done some pretty dark things. DILLON: No, they haven’t. RENNER: It’s him. He did it. Do you think they consider themselves criminals at this point, or do you think it’s sort of like they’re walking a path and just stay on that path and not go to jail and not get fired, that whatever needs to happen will happen? DILLON: Oh, you’re talking about the show. [Laughs] It’s just such an interesting dynamic in the way J.R. plays it. RENNER: Look, he does more dirtbag stuff than I do, man. I operate in the gray. BENANTI: He’s way more of a dirtbag. DILLON: I am trying to protect him. RENNER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ian is walking away from a black car with his hands in his coat pockets, as snow falls around him.Image via Paramount+

Mike has done some pretty gnarly things, too. RENNER: He operates in grays, for sure. Yes, he does. He’s an ex-con. What do you expect? By the way, I’m just wondering if you think that the characters see themselves as criminals at this point? What is their mindset? Because they’ve both done some dark stuff. DILLON: What they know is they are always trying to keep their darkest impulses at bay. This is a different world, the criminality and what they grew up in, and it’s a different kind of justice. Some of it is horror, and they don’t know how to deal with it. They honestly are doing the best they can after their dad and their mom were killed. When Mitch got killed, the whole place just kind of started going downhill, and Mike’s just been trying to do his best. He basically is the anchor so the rest of us and the rest of the town don’t drift into hell. That’s really it.
Jeremy Renner Calls His Accident a “Blessing in Disguise” for ‘Mayor of Kingstown’

“We’ll just keep getting better.”

Jeremy Renner speaks on stage at the Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 premiere Q&A.Image via Paramount+

I’m curious what you guys learned making the first two seasons that you took with you into Season 3 and now Season 4 in terms of the behind-the-scenes of the writing. You obviously have a schedule and a budget, and I would imagine you’re learning during each season how much you can accomplish based on the resources given. DILLON: It just was a different thing. Taylor Sheridan and I had that first season for 10 years, and so it was a different thing seeing it finally come to fruition. Then I met J.R. on Wind River, and I would, like a child, be like, “Taylor, do you think we can get him?” And to finally get there, and then it’s COVID, and then so many things kind of got in the way. Then Taylor had to fly to Kingston to shoot those first episodes. It was just a struggle to get through COVID, to just deal with everything. Then, by the time we got to Season 2, New Year’s Eve, Jeremy’s hurt, and everything stopped. It stopped, and I just expected that’s where it would stop. But this… rhymes-with-trucker, mind over trucking matter! And just to watch this dude, it’s so inspiring. See what I did there? That’s magical shit. [Laughs] But it’s just so much fun. It’s inspiring. These are just dreams. I was a kid in this town who had never left this city, and I had these dreams. I somehow got to LA and met Taylor, who was my coach, and met these folks, and still it isn’t easy. You think, “Oh, I’ve got it. Oh, I have it.” And my poor wife, who’s here, Midori [Fujiwara], just watched it all, going, “You’ve got to go to rehab.” And she would do that over and over again, and then she thought, “You can do anything now.” And we did. And it’s unbelievable to see what Jeremy did. I was like, “Are you sure you want to go back to work?” And the fact that he was like, “Yeah. We’re going to work.” And then all of a sudden, “Okay, then we better get to fucking work!”

Hugh Dillon speaks on stage at the Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 premiere Q&A.Image via Paramount+

RENNER: But also, you have to understand, too, we were kind of like the first original show for Paramount+, which is kind of late to the game in streaming, so they came out pretty strong, and we had our first season. Then that was, like you said, COVID, and we’re in another country. That’s when we shot in Toronto, and then we moved to Pittsburgh in the second season. We’re also learning a lot as we go, as a production, and the behind-the-scenes with our producers and editors. So, there’s a lot of paving our own way in this process, and we’re kind of the blind leading the blind in a lot of ways, like, “Whatever’s working, let’s keep, and whatever sucks, let’s get rid of it.” It’s that kind of thing. And we keep learning season after season. So, by the time we got the third season, we kind of knew what we were doing, but like he said, the accident happened with the damn snowcat. Stupid thing. But we had a good thing going, and we really had a great season, Season 3. It ended up being really wonderful. I think, also, a lot of the narrative had to kind of shift off me just because of my inability to perform as I did in the past seasons of carrying a lot of the load of the narrative, so I think that actually helped open it up a lot for other characters to grow more, and I think we learned a lot in that. So it was just a blessing in disguise, taking a ride on that cat that morning. There are some good things that came out of it. Then this season’s gonna crush Season 3. It’s really just gotten better. We got new cast, which is amazing. Our crew got better. We got clearer about having a couple of seasons behind us for where to push the narrative. We keep growing, and I think we’ll just keep getting better. As long as the audiences keep liking what we’re doing, I think I got a couple more in me, you know? DILLON: Awesome. I really mean this so seriously when I say I watched Season 4 — I was spoiled because I got to watch the whole thing — and no bullshit, every episode would end, and I’d be like, “I need to push play.” It’s an intense season.
‘Mayor of Kingstown’ Season 4 Was “Truckin’ Hard”

The cast reveal the most challenging scenes to shoot.

Hugh Dillon speaks on stage at the Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 premiere Q&A.Image via Paramount+

For all four of you, which shot or sequence was a real challenge to do? BENANTI: I had a sequence that’s in Episode 9 that is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. RENNER: Obviously, you can’t say anything. No, it’s a great tease. FALCO: Yes. [Laughs] You have some stuff this season that is really… I know, it’s effing hard. FALCO: Truckin’ hard. Maybe you guys could talk about the first three seasons. Was there a shot or sequence that was really challenging? RENNER: When you have the yard, and you have a thousand prisoners or 300 extras, whatever the heck it might be, those are quite challenging. I’m always so impressed when we have the director being able to handle that many cameras and that many people. You have to really orchestrate and move that around. I tip my hat to all those behind the scenes in the production that really can make those things happen because they’re really realistic. They’re beautiful to be a part of when you’re in it, like the prison riot and all that sort of stuff in the first season. I’m impressed by those. I guess that’s the safe way. There are no spoilers in that, right?

Jeremy Renner speaks on stage at the Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 premiere Q&A.Image via Paramount+

DILLON: Well, Season 3, when Jeremy came back and we had the explosion at Miriam’s funeral, that was crazy. And to see him come back, it was freezing, it’s icy. I become like a weird old lady, as he calls me. He’s like, “Are you okay? Are you all right?” I’m like, “Yeah. I’m good, I’m good.” And he’s got to walk on these slick-ass shoes on the ice, and he’s just gotten out of surgery. I’m like, “Jesus Christ, why did we shoot this today?” But he pulls it off. We did it, and here we are. One of the actors in Season 4 is Lennie James, and he plays Frank Moses. He adds a lot to Season 4, and what I love about his performance is that it’s not over the top. He’s just a normal guy running a big criminal enterprise. Something I was curious about is, did you base Frank Moses on Frank Lucas? DILLON: We didn’t. I had a heroin dealer who was never arrested, so that’s where that first started. Midori, you remember Phil, who worked at that…? That’s where it originally came from, because we were sitting around… That is so not where I thought the story was going. BENANTI: No! “Remember Phil?” #RememberPhil DILLON: But a lot of it, that’s where it comes from. You’re sitting around, and what Taylor always made me do was tell the truth — “make it come from where you came from.” So that’s what I do. So it starts there, and then you build it. RENNER: Look, Kingston is a real town in Canada with nine prisons in it. That’s where he’s from.

Lennie sits in a black turtleneck with his legs crossed, looking to the side pensively.Image via Paramount+

Jeremy, talk a little bit about working with Lennie, because I really think the dynamic between Lennie and [Tobi Bamtefa] and you is so good. Talk a little bit about that dynamic and the relationship because, again, I just thought that he brings a lot because of the way he portrays it and not being so over-the-top. RENNER: Yeah, the subtlety in that, I think, really makes him very, quite dangerous, or at least that’s how it comes across, because there’s always something underneath. He’s a really good actor, so you can’t just be cut off and be scary; you have to have a lot going on and not give a lot away. I worked with him a lot on the show, and he’s a very generous actor, as well. Really good actors have a lot to give. That’s our job, for God’s sake. But yeah, it makes work very easy. It makes it like a playground. Lennie’s tremendous in this.
‘Mayor of Kingstown’ Co-Creator Shares Taylor Sheridan’s Secret to Success

This crew is ready to go for Season 5.

Mayor of Kingtown’s Hugh Dillon, Laura Benanti, Jeremy Renner and Edie Falco pose at the Season 4 Q&A.Image via Paramount+

Season 4 is 10 episodes. Do you have a favorite or one that you really can’t wait for audiences to see? RENNER: It all leads to 10, doesn’t it? DILLON: It’s [Episodes] 9 and 10. The whole thing is great, but… RENNER: It’s trucking amazing. DILLON: Yeah. I called J.R. as soon as we finished three, and I go, “I got this idea for the end of 10.” He goes, “You need to take a vacation.” Then I pitched it, and he goes, “That’s pretty good!” And then we shot it last year. Do you have a favorite episode? BENANTI: Yeah, nine. FALCO: It feels like shooting one long movie to me. I don’t know where one episode ends and another one begins.

Edie Falco in uniform in Mayor of Kingstown Season 4.Image via Paramount+

Again, I want to reiterate, the second each episode ended, I needed to push play. Hugh, I am a big fan of the show, and everyone in here who’s attending the premiere tonight is obviously a fan of the show. I know that Season 4 is just coming out, I get that, but I’m already thinking about five and beyond. If you get to make another season or another two seasons, how far have you thought along the tracks, and is there a number in your brain that you’re like, “This is how far I’d like to take it?” DILLON: When we started, Taylor always taught me to have the end in sight, and then you work to it. So, you have to ask him and Jeremy, but I’m ready to go when everybody else is ready to go. But I will say that this season did end beautifully, and we’re all lucky to be here, and I thank Jeremy Renner. We’ll play this out, and it’ll speak for itself. RENNER: We’re not irresponsible. We do plan forward. We don’t just fly by whatever. You plan for things, but you can’t expect things either. We still have to please the audience. That’s going to be the barometer if we continue. So, if you guys love it, then we get to do five. So, we plan for five. We’ve got some really great ideas and we’re writing them down, but we still have to perform. Mayor of Kingstown Season 4 will premiere on October 26, exclusively on Paramount+.

Release Date

November 14, 2021

Network

Paramount+

Directors

Stephen Kay, Guy Ferland, Christoph Schrewe, Clark Johnson, Paul Cameron, Tasha Smith, Taylor Sheridan

Writers

James Arcega Tinsley