Season 3 of Foundation serves as a terrific showcase for Cherry Jones, especially once the full weight and humanity of her performance becomes clear. The legendary actress brings her all of her experience and natural gravitas to Felice Quent, the Foundation ambassador to the Empire. The result is an engrossing and quietly heartbreaking story, especially considering how things play out with her and Terrance Mann’s Brother Dusk.
During an interview with TVBrittanyF, Cherry Jones sat down to discuss her history playing political figures in extreme circumstances, finding a perfectly tragic romantic dynamic with Terrance Mann, and how cool it can be to hold the Prime Radiant.
TVBrittanyF: As a performer, what was it about Foundation that got you excited?
Cherry Jones: You know, I’ve never done sci-fi — although another interviewer pointed out that Handmaid’s Tale and Extrapolations count as sci-fi. But I wasn’t from that world. I had never grown up reading sci-fi. But when I read the script, I just thought, ‘This is the coolest thing in the world.’ I was just fascinated by it, because it’s just about the human condition.
It may be 35,000 years in the future, or whatever it is, but that’s what it is about. The other thing I loved about it, besides the fact that it’s about humanity, is that Asimov writes about this galaxy. He never goes beyond our galaxy of reference… I’m just fascinated that he doesn’t have aliens with little green men and all of that sort of thing. It’s just all from the Earth.
The galaxy has been populated by human beings, and we just have not changed a bit since our Genesis on Earth. The notion of a group of people who came together with the brilliant mind of Hari Seldon, and whose sole purpose is to try to spare humanity 30,000 years of darkness, appealed to me tremendously. I won’t get into politics, but it appeals to me tremendously.
I mean, we do have to get into a fantasy politics a little. You play Ambassador Quent, and having that kind of government position is at least familiar ground for you after shows like 24.
It does help to have played a couple of Presidents, I have to admit. The first time I did get offered the the president on 24, I had just played a nun, and had originated the role on Broadway in Doubt. I had played an old crusty nun for about 700 performances. So I thought, ‘Well, really, playing the President after an old crusty nun is sort of a linear move.’
So I went into it, but I tell you what helped me with that was that everyone that I worked with on 24 was so deferential that they made me feel like I was the President. It was sort of the same thing with Quent. Everyone was so respectful, in a way, to that character that it gave me a nice guide into being an ambassador 35,000 years in the future.
Over the course of the season, you get to build this great emotional arc with Terrence Mann that is only done in a scene here, two scenes here, across the whole season. What was it like for the two of you to work together and craft that relationship in these bite-sized pieces?
Well, it was a little frustrating, because as an actor, you want more than a bite. Especially when it’s something as complex as two people who are diametrically opposed in their belief system. Yet there’s another kind of appreciation — It’s interesting, because in the writing, I always talk about him as though he were the good Dusk. Quent thinks he was a good man.
He was the good Day in his time, he was the great conciliator. She didn’t fall in love with a monster. But of course, she kind of did. All empires, they’re not the nicest guys. But there are things you overlook when you’re in love, I guess. I think she genuinely does love him, but at the same time, her loyalty, her allegiance, is unwavering to the Foundation and to the teachings of Selden.
We spend so long building to when she can finally plant one on him — what was it like filming that one scene? She’s had thirty years of history; we don’t even get to see you building to this moment. How do you do that justice?
Well, I just imagined what those 30 years were like alone on another plane. I imagined what she went through in those years, what she saw in him, what she admired, and made her able to lose a bit of herself to him. I was also thinking he was someone… different. That’s the one thing. Love blinded her. She, even for a moment, thought that he was different.
Are there any elements you would have wanted to explore more thoroughly if you had the time?
I’ll tell you what, this show is so massive, and they’ve got so many fish to fry, I didn’t think that way about it. I’m glad that these two characters even had this much time together, to develop to that point, so that what happens in the last few episodes has impact.
As an actor, what has been your favorite thing about this experience in the world of Foundation?
Lee Pace is a neighbor of mine, so now I get to walk with Lee and his little girl along the river occasionally. I became buddies with Laura Birn. I just adore her and Cassian, who plays Dawn, we just had the best time. They are such good, solid folks. And of course, Terrance Mann, who is the greatest of gentlemen.
I’ve been such a huge fan of Jared Harris… Lou Lobel was the one I was so excited to meet. It was exciting for me to see them give that part to a young woman. The moment I was most excited about, like a child, was when I read that I was going to get to hold the Prime Radiant. That was thrilling! I mean, it’s just a prop, but when you hold it, you really do expect it to expand into that globe of swirls and numbers. It was all just so thrilling.
Foundation is now streaming on Apple TV+
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