STARZ' Spartacus: Vengeance season two is set to premiere on January 27, 2012, and this season promises to be just as violent, gory, sexy, and entertaining as season one. And although Steven S. DeKnight, the show's creator, writer and executive producer, wouldn't give away any spoilers in the conference call he did with the press, he did reveal a few behind-the-scenes secrets and answer a few questions that have been on the minds of viewers since the first episode debuted in January 2010. Why don't the gladiators have chest hair, will there be a Spartacus movie, and has there ever been a death so violent that it almost didn't make the show? DeKnight, who cut his teeth on network TV with Buffy, Angel, Smallville and Dollhouse, answered these and many more questions over the course of the hour-long interview.
DeKnight also addressed whether Spartacus as played by Liam McIntyre will change from Andy Whitfield's portrayal of the character, and he even provided a little insight into what we can expect from some of the characters we love – and the ones we love to hate.
Steven S. DeKnight Spartacus: Vengeance Conference Call:
No character is safe at any time. How do you go about deciding which of the characters should go and when, and is there any character you wish you still had for this upcoming season?
Steven S. DeKnight: "Yes, there's always a question of, you know, on this show characters literally get the ax. I think, really, ultimately for me it's always – it comes from the story. How is the story best served by a character's death? I don't ever want somebody to just die. It needs to have ramifications either emotionally or towards the plot. So that's always the number one driving force on who do I kill.
And do I miss people? I don't regret killing anyone, but of course, you know, John Hannah, number one. His presence was just so fantastic on the show and he was such a joy to work with and write for. You know, he had to go, but that was a painful one."
In this second episode of this season we get like a Oenomaus origin story. Can we expect that to be a similar format for some of the other characters later in the season?
Steven S. DeKnight: "No. Oenomaus was kind of a special case because this is something that we hint at in Season 1 and we hint at even more strongly in Gods of the Arena with his relationship with Titus Batiatus. So we always wanted to explore that in a one episode, quasi-flashback kind of way. Something like that might happen in future seasons, but that’s the only time it happens (in this)."
Liam McIntyre seems to have captured the essence of what Andy Whitfield did, but he makes the character his own.
Steven S. DeKnight: "Right. Thank you, yes. And that’s really what drew us to Liam is that we didn’t want to try to duplicate (Andy). I mean, that will never happen. He was such a singular, amazing talent. But we wanted to find somebody that had the same base qualities of compassion. And I told all the actors when they auditioned that even though Spartacus may fly into a rage now and then, he never comes from a place of anger, it's always from a place of a wounded heart. And we really felt like Liam captured that essence."
