American Gods: Unexpected Surprises, New Gods, but the Same Old Gaiman

We dish on the fresh faces of familiar characters with the cast and creators of American Gods!

We can’t wait for American Gods on Starz. We’ve talked about it before and our anticipation is ratcheting up every week! While you’re waiting for our in-depth reviews of each episode, we sat down with the creators and several members of the cast to get their take on the upcoming series to whet your appetite for the series premiere on April 30th, 9PM ET on Starz.

We’ve seen the first four episodes of American Gods, and take our word for it guys: This is television like you’ve never seen before. Based on Neil Gaiman’s novel of the same name, the show explores the Old Gods that came to America with immigrants who brought their culture with them. Gaiman says, “You brought culture with you and then you abandoned it and let us make that culture old gods who are wandering around on the fringes.” So who exactly are the new Gods? “The New Gods aren’t really gods of religion. They’re gods of attention. It’s the phones, it’s technology, it’s the media, it’s all of that kind of stuff.”

Technical Boy. Media. Mr. World. And a new creation by Bryan & Michael called Vulcan, these are your new Gods. There are some stellar surprises in the show that knocked us out when we were watching the New Gods. What do the people that play them and wrote them think?

Some book readers were a little…  put off by Technical Boy’s look. He’s not exactly as described in the novels. As Gaiman said, “It was very interesting watching the reaction online… ‘What the fuck have they done to Technical Boy…Why isn’t he the fat kid in the trench?’” But Technical Boy’s look is calculated, and Gaiman is thrilled (we think you’ll be, too- Langley’s Technical Boy was one of our favorite parts about the premiere). “The joy for me of the Technical Boy when I wrote him…was you know he’s fundamentally a snotty brat who is absolutely terrified that something else is going to come along.” The show’s Technical Boy is riding high. “Everything about the character kind of screams, ‘Fuck you,’” says Langley. “When you look at me and kind of go, ‘Huh. I feel like that guy’s flipping off just by looking at me.’ That’s the general feel.”  Every detail of Technical Boy has been calculated to do just this. Langley revealed to us that even though we’ve only seen him once in the episodes that were screened, every time we see the Technical Boy his look will completely change to reflect our constantly changing relationship with social media, technology, and the internet. So tell the truth. What do you think about the hair swoop?  We think all of Langley’s time in hair and makeup was completely worth it: We love Technical Boy’s look.

But will we love Technical Boy? Let’s face it, there are just some characters we love to hate. We’re pretty sure Technical Boy is going to go right up there in the pantheon of Joffrey Baratheon’s (they’re even both blond, for God’s sake). “There are certain aspects of the character, I absolutely understand are going to rub people very, very quickly up the wrong way.” He’s hoping you won’t send him death threats, though. And Pablo Schreiber chimed in with his own helpful advice: “I’ll be here to talk to him through the ins and out of dealing with being an extremely hated character.” Something that we probably won’t see? A scene between Mr. Wednesday and Technical Boy where they verbally eviscerate each other (Langley thinks it was cut). Maybe it’ll be on the DVD Bonus Features?

Some of the Old Gods have been adapting with the New Gods in Fuller, Green & Gaiman’s vision for the show. Green decided, “At the time thought we would do something about gun culture or at least the conversation of it. It’s just part of something that Americans worship, whether, they know it or not because the show is all about where your attention goes as a form of worship.” In a new Gaiman creation from the show, Vulcan, based off the God Mars. Vulcan gave up his old power and has been able to turn it into a new mythology all about fire, gunpowder, and guns. He’s an old God who has managed to turn new, and we can’t wait to meet him. 

Look out for Gillian Anderson, giving a stellar turn as Media. So far we’ve seen her doing a pretty spot on Lucille Ball. Gaiman gives us a spoiler of the scene he’s in love with, where she gives us David Bowie in a limo and we’re practically salivating to see it. So we’re going to infer that the majority of the time we see Media, she’ll be rocking it as some pop culture icon. At least we hope she will, because we just want to see Gillian Anderson do that. She does have scenes with the Technical Boy, because Langley talked about the joys of working with her (she has gravitas, y’all). Also hinted at by Bruce Langley and Pablo Schreiber: A major scene they called “All Star Day” in a police office. They were going to tell us who was there, but they got shut down.

Related | Check out our interviews at the black carpet premiere!

Finally, the most mysterious character so far: Mr. World. We haven’t seen any of Mr. World’s scenes, but Crispin Glover confirms his introduction will be in episode 5. When asked how Mr. World looked, Orlando Jones offered, “You know, all sexy and creepy and stuff.” Sounds promising! Apparently, when Bryan and Michael met with Crispin about the character, they told him about Mr. World and gave him this quote: “We are the world, we are the children.” Laugh if you want! Glover acknowledges there’s humor in that. Mr. World works in metaphor, and also delves into aspects of our corporately funded media. Glover also hints at connections between America’s large military organization and Mr. World.

But what about that twist that book readers are dying for? No spoilers for Glover! One of the most shocking things we learned in our interview was that he hasn’t read the book, and not only that, nobody has told him and he still doesn’t know. When he asked us, “Do you think I’m gonna like it?” Well, we were all flabbergasted. But Orlando Jones knew. “Oh you are going to loooooooove it.”

We just know that from what we’ve seen so far, we are absolutely loving American Gods! Tune into the series premiere on Sunday, April 30th 9 PM ET/PT on Starz, and check back here for our in-depth episode reviews!