Colin Farrell opened up about how that explosive “Sugar” twist was actually supposed to be in the pilot episode of the drama series.
During a sit-down with Jess Cagle of “The Jess Cagle Show,” the actor, who plays character John Sugar in the show, explained the backstory of how the twist in “Sugar” — the reveal that John is actually an alien — ended up getting moved from the first episode to the sixth. He says the creative team first wanted to build up viewers’ trust.
“I knew the big reveal that happens, which is a bit of a divider for people, what happens at the end of six. That I knew going in,” Farrell said. “That was actually in the first episode and there was a call made because we didn’t really know the mythology of the backstory yet, which has since become clear, which even though it’s become clear to us, creating the show still wasn’t really delved into because the reveal happened too late. So there was only like an hour, two episodes of 30 minutes, an hour left of the show, and we didn’t really get to get into the backstory of Sugar’s mythology that would be explored more in a second season.”
In the show, Farrell’s character is a private investigator who was tasked with to looking into the disappearance of Hollywood producer Jonathan Siegel’s (James Cromwell) granddaughter. John’s twist takes place at the end of Episode 6, during which he is revealed to be a blue-colored alien.
Farrell said he knew about the twist, but wasn’t sure when they planned on writing it in.
“I knew it was decided to take it from the first episode and put it to the sixth or maybe the fourth or maybe the fifth that much,” Farrell said. “We didn’t know exactly when that reveal was gonna happen, but it was certainly decided to be removed from the first episode because we just wanted to not rely on what is of course a contrivance.”
He continued: “In the first episode, we wanted to get into the human drama first and win people’s trust and see if we could win an audience’s favor in regard to Sugar’s journey and everyone else’s journey before we drop that bomb in six.”
“Sugar,” which premiered on Apple TV+ on April 5, was created by Mark Protosevich, and was directed by Fernando Meirelles and Adam Arkin. The cast includes Farrell, Amy Ryan, Sydney Chandler, James Cromwell, Dennis Boutsikaris and more.
All eight episodes of “Sugar” are now streaming on Apple TV+.
