Valorie Curry talks Season 2 of being Emma Hill on The Following

Fans have a love hate relationship going with Emma Hill on The Following, Joe Carroll’s (James Purefoy) most devoted follower. Valorie Curry, who plays the infamous Emma Hill, gives us some insight into her character and what to expect when it comes to Season 2 of The Following. Prepare yourself, as Curry says Season 2 of The Following is going to be even more shocking! The series returns on FOX with a special preview immediately after the Jan. 19 NFC championship game, and then it moves to its regular timeslot on Mondays beginning Jan. 27.

The Following’s memorable season finale had troubled FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) ending his obsession with Carroll in a fiery explosion that left Carroll supposedly charbroiled. But that wasn’t the final chapter of the finale, as Hardy and his lover Claire Matthews (Natalie Zea) were then stabbed by a trusted friend. Season 2 picks up a year later in the wake of a horrific new murder spree. While we know Hardy survives, it’s Claire we’re less certain of. “A lot of people died literally in the end of Season 1 and everyone who remains has really died and resurrected. Figuratively and metaphorically,” tells Curry. “Emma stands out because she’s still pretty lost when we pick up with her. She spent the last year figuring out mostly how to survive on her own. … It’s a very different Emma.”

Different indeed. Let’s start with her emotional state and then address that new blonde hairdo that Curry is rocking …

On Emma’s fight to survive and find a reason to live …
Valorie Curry: She’s completely alone which she’s never been before – she didn’t have the cult to protect her, she doesn’t have Jacob anymore and most importantly she doesn’t have Joe, who not only protected her but was her whole reason for living so it’s not just about actual survival and invading the FBI, it’s also about finding a reason to live. She’s pretty lost when we pick up with her and she’s in a lot of pain. There’s just a lot of darkness going on and a lot of grief, she’s having to to hold that together and she’s learned a self-control that she’s never needed before. It’s a very different Emma.

On our love-hate relationship with Emma …
People love to hate Emma. The way that her story is told and she interacts with people Emma is never looking to be liked. Sometimes I feel like I’m the lone person in the world who empathizes with Emma Hill but I think there are always those people who can see where her actions are coming from or are able to see the vulnerabilities and the pain she goes through. With this new Emma we see somebody who doesn’t need people to like her. She doesn’t need rescue — she’s more self sufficient than she’s ever had to be. I don’t know, I’m actually really curious to see if people empathize more or less with the new Emma.

So was it really a monstrous act when she slashed her lover Jacob’s (Nico Tortorella) throat while telling him she loved him …
We can talk about that scene. There’s a thing about that scene where there were a lot of complicated motivations for Emma. The mistake that a lot of people make is that they see it as this evil act and that she’s lying with these tears coming down her face about how much she loves him, but the thing about Emma is that she actually never lies. These aren’t conscious manipulations that she does — it’s just that the truth changes from one moment to the next based on circumstances, depending on who she’s with and at the end of the day Joe is the most important person to her. But in that scene, that was incredibly emotional and difficult for her but essentially she felt responsible for Jacob and for where his life had gone and the fact that she had forced to convince him to kill. He was no longer the person she had fallen in love with before. The very human, warm, innocent guy — he had turned into this killer and had no where else to go. He didn’t want to stay in the cut but his whole life was gone. When he asked her to run away she knew that wasn’t realistic either the FBI was going to get them or the cult was going to get them. And if he ran away without her she knew that was going to happen. The most loving thing she could do, and obviously Emma operates from a completely different moral construct than the non-sociopath person, but the most merciful thing she could do was be the one to take his life and do it in that way that was loving and painless and quick. Then move forward.

>>Our Interview with Jacob — Nico Tortorella — before his throat was slashed <<

On what would ultimately make Emma happy …
You know it’s a whole new world in that sense. What was always the ending for her was to be with Joe —  not just as a father and a mentor but as a lover, and to be by his side for these grand plans that he has and to be a part of this epic story that he’s telling. She wants to be his right-hand. She wanted to be a mother figure to Joey. She truly loves Joey so much. She wants to be a partner to Joe and she always did so that’s what I mean when we pick up with Joe gone she’s at a loss. She’s given her whole life to this man, for this man and for his mission and with him gone her whole reason for living is gone.

On this season being more shocking …
On the one hand the action is amplified — some of the scenes that happen, all the shocks that you had in Season 1 are nothing compared to the shocks we bring to Season 2. I look at this and say, “I don’t know how we do this but we do this and we get away with this and it’s fantastic.” It’s all grounded in characters who are real people, who are complex people, where it’s not gratuitous. The action is incredibly intense but at the same time it is a really dark character study and it really plays with the ambiguity between good and evil and explores the vulnerabilities and the darkness of all these characters beyond anything we’ve seen before.

On who is more scary —
Emma or Joe …
Joe you kind of see it coming in some ways. I think Emma doesn’t look like people would assume “someone who murders” looks like, she’s very innocent and she has the ability to be smiling genuinely in one minute and in a second she can turn and it’s very numb and very callous and that’s scary to people. Opposed to Joe where it’s this very intimate, sensual, sexual act of relishing in that violence.

On if it’s better to be a blonde …
It’s kind of nice to ride in the subway without worrying if someone is going to scream. But it’s different. It took a little adjusting but I  like  it.  It’s one of  many new looks that Emma will be sporting in Season 2 because she’s got some fantastic disguises to hide from the FBI. In the first couple of weeks of filming, crew members who’ve worked with me for a year now didn’t even realize it was me.

Tell us what you think of Emma Hill. Do you love to hate her or just plain love her?