'Preacher' star Mark Harelik teases God's '5-dimensional chess' plan involves getting at Jesse through Tulip
As 'Preacher' barrels down to the finish line, it is obvious God (Mark Harelik) is the last and final season's Big Bad. Earlier seasons saw him don a latex dog suit, content to passively evade Jesse and Genesis.
But in Season 4, the gloves (and the suit) are off, and God is embracing his vengeful 'Old Testament' side instead. In an exclusive interview with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), Mark Harelik spoke about "all things God", and teased what fans can look forward to in the final episodes.
In the preceding seasons, God has tried to influence Tulip. Harelik remarked that the "long game is to influence Jesse Custer, but he doesn't want to confront him directly." But since Jesse will always come to Tulip's rescue, "God has faith that whatever he asks Tulip to do, she will either do the opposite out of stubbornness, or f**k up because she is an O'Hare, and the O'Hares always screw things up. Either way, he gets to Jesse through Tulip."
We have already seen this play out in season 3 when God asks Tulip to "get those sons-a-b*****s" when she was about to be resurrected. When Tulip wakes up, she immediately goes after Herr Starr and his operatives, as Jesse wails that she could have waited until he got his 1% soul fragment back. Tulip's actions played right into God's masterplan to strand Jessie in Angelville without Genesis.
In season 4, God is back to making strategic moves, including a team-up with The Grail, to get the key players in place for his still-mysterious plan. Harelik joked that, "just between you and me", God's plan was anything but simple.
"God is fulfilling a plan, and he is also developing a new plan. At the conclusion of the first plan, the second plan will be implemented. It will require the cooperation of all the major characters, none of whom are in the least disposed to cooperate. It's [like] 5-dimensional chess," he added. This would explain why God was peering so intently at his diorama that represented all the places Jesse and his crew have visited.
This season has seen Harelik share many scenes with Pip Torrens' Herr Starr, the current All-Father of The Grail, in a lair befitting villains at the Masada. "I love him," said Harelik, speaking about his co-star Torrens, who he described as "a cool, clever, goofy, and understated professional."
He revealed that while Torrens' on-screen character, Herr Starr, met with setback after setback during the season's run, Torrens "relished the agony". In an almost-spoiler, Harelik revealed that in their last scene together, "he was lying naked in a pool of...well, you'll have to wait and see".
He also revealed that the scene that he is most proud of in the entire series is yet to air. "There is a scene in the final episode with a fellow actor/actress. It takes place in the actual setting of a historic confrontation. Watch for it," Harelik teased.
'Preacher' has always invited controversy as a matter of course. So it would be natural to expect Harelik to have borne the brunt of some of that ire. Not so. "Mark Harelik is my Clark Kent. There were people working on the show that didn't know who I was because they only saw me in my makeup," said the actor.
While his 'God disguise', which includes a majestic beard, white hair and bushy eyebrows, can be handy at times, it has led to one major blooper. Did you spot it back in season one's finale episode, when God is on video-call? "It took several days to shoot that scene because there were so many characters that spoke to God via the angel phone flat screen hookup. Overnight, midway through the shoot, God's eyebrows went missing. We shot the scene anyway without me wearing them because we knew there were so many other takes. But the editor (and the director and the producers) edited in one of the shots without my eyebrows. Nobody noticed until I saw it on the air."
Looking back on the 'Preacher' journey, Harelik compared it to a quest story "like The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Once and Future King", saying it was "pleasurable and poignant to bring the journey to its conclusion". Putting any rumors of another season to rest, he said, "Our hero is on a quest to find God - to bring him to account. We completed that story. There are no 'Further Adventures of...' It was quite, quite satisfying and meaningful."
Speaking about the creative team that brought 'Preacher' to life, Harelik joked that showrunner Sam Catlin was "one of my finest creations [as God]," calling him "a monstrously talented writer, director, and showrunner". He also appreciated Evan Goldberg's "continuous stream of notes" praising his work.
But will Harelik be leaving with more than just those notes of appreciation? "Well, it's too late, but I wanted my damn [dog] suit. God, I looked good in it. I also wanted to take something that God creates later on the season. I can't tell you what it is, but you'll know it when you see it." The actor is slated to return to our screens in HBO's 'Perry Mason' and is currently busy directing his own play at the Berkshire Theater Group in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
