Euan Cherry/Peacock
Warning: This article contains spoilers about the three-episode season 3 premiere ofThe Traitors.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Why did you decide to introduce Boston Rob with that twist?
Did you think the players were going to take you up on the offer?
Alan Cumming in ‘The Traitors’ season 2.Credit:Euan Cherry/Peacock
And Rob is very much a sort of cat among pigeons everyone’s terrified of him.
It was a twist to immediately unsettle everybody.
And after he’s rejected, it’s very much about again playing on this idea of revenge.
Alan Cumming on ‘The Traitors’.Euan Cherry/Peacock
He’s obviously got some baggage about not getting picked.
I find that fascinating, in the way that it turns.
It plays into the whole screwed up psychology of the whole show, actually…. And heismenacing.
Derrick Levasseur on ‘Big Brother’, Wes Bergmann on ‘The Challenge’.Cliff Lipson/CBS via Getty; Paramount
And why hold back Derrick and Wes' casting from the fans?
I actually missed all that.
But I think that’s so brilliant.
Alan Cumming on ‘The Traitors’.Euan Cherry/Peacock
It’s just another layer of pulling the rug out from under both the contestants and the public.
So there’s the idea of former history of the contestants.
I think it really plays on that.
This series is very much about their former beefs and history.
Also, how exciting on the second episode there would be two more contestants that nobody knows about?
I’m all for it.
Cliff Lipson/CBS via Getty; Paramount
Did it surprise you that two Housewives were murdered first?
And I love that.
It’s so juicy.
But they just love it.
They love to think they’re all being persecuted and everyone’s against them.
It’s a little bit of transference, I think.
So it’s all just, again, this destabilizing, chaos-inducing, juicy, juicy, delicious cake.
Tonys banishment was very dramatic, calling his fellowSurvivoralum Rob a “sell-out.”
Did it surprise you that’s the way that Roundtable went?
Well, I get an idea from [the producers] watching everything.
It’s so based on nothing.
It’s all about intuition, and maybe memory.
I think he got voted out because of his past shenanigans.
But it’s got to besomeone.
It is so wicked.
We are really wicked people for doing this.
And people love wicked.
What about Wells' banishment?
And so he was sort of a little lamb to the slaughter.
People booted him out because he wasnt offensive in any way.
He was a sacrificial lamb.
What else can you tease for the season to come?
I mean, its all so endlessly fascinating.
But I tell you who’s absolutely fascinating to me isDanielle [Reyes fromBig Brother].
It’s just so over the top and ridiculous and audacious.
But she’s playing a blinder.
Its so ballsy, what she’s doing.
And then the level of shaking and absolute…. Its sort of like she’s a little mouse acting.
It is really amazing.
I take my hat off to her as she takes her hat off to herself when it falls off.
Fans of her will be very happy.
The Traitorsairs Thursdays on Peacock.
