SENSE8: Co-Creator ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ About Season 2, Cast Reflects on Season 1

SENSE8 launched its first season in June, but its fate is still very much up in the air.

“We’re still awaiting word,” co-creator J. Michael Straczynski told reporters during the show’s Television Critics Association panel. “[But] we’re cautiously optimistic.”

If the series does move forward Straczynski, acknowledged he and co-creators The Wachowskis have a five-year plan. “We’re long-game kind of people,” Straczynski said. “[But] it would not be in the best interest of the surprises we have in mind to [reveal it all now].”

For Straczynski — who recently made the trek to Comic-Con to panel the series — he shared that while talking to fans, “what you realize after talking to them is [the fans have] seen it three, four, five times.”

By being on Netflix, “you don’t have to dilute what you’re trying to do by appealing to everyone,” SENSE8 star Brian J. Smith (Will) added. “You can make your thing and be satisfied with it.”

“The whole reaction has been wonderful…it’s gone so well,” executive producer Grant Hill shared. “There are always people it’s not going to be their thing…[but] the overwhelming enthusiasm has been great.”

And the enthusiasm is also felt by the actors. During the panel, they praised the ability to do different takes on the same scene — and the emotions that get showcased in it — over the course of several months (and cities) due to the nature of the interconnected characters.

“It really gives me a chance as an actor the chance to explore the emotions,” Jamie Clayton (Nomi) said.

“[When you don’t find it the first time] you can maybe find it in Berlin or Seoul,” Smith added. “You have all these extra opportunities to find what you’re looking for.”

The travel between locations also allowed for the cast to bond as they moved from location to location.

“It’s like a big circus troop,” Clayton laughed. “We were beginning in San Francisco for two weeks. As I was working, they were playing.” (And the same pattern followed as they went to each city: whichever actor’s character’s city they were in ended up working the most, while the rest of the cast had adventures.)

Clayton also took the opportunity to praise the way Nomi was written, and the experience of getting to play her.

“It’s never been done before with [a trans character] written and directed by a trans woman,” Clayton said of working with co-creator Lana Wachowski. “I knew I’d be represented in a way that trans people haven’t…I’ve never felt as safe on set [as I did with SENSE8]…I love Nomi, I love the character. I think she represents something we haven’t seen before…I knew in my gut that if I was ever going to have an opportunity this big in Hollywood, it would be with Lana.”

“There has never been a trans character whose story did not revolve around transition…she just is,” Clayton continued. “She’s a whole complete person who’s thrust into this amazing cluster…at the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter she’s trans, she’s a human being.”

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