Corey Stoll Interview on ‘The Strain’ Season 2 and Eph’s Journey

Corey Stoll Interview on The Strain Season 2 and Eph's Journey
Corey Stoll as Ephraim Goodweather and Mia Maestro as Nora Martinez in ‘The Strain’ (Photo by Michael Gibson / FX)

Season two of FX’s critically acclaimed The Strain kicked off on July 12, 2015 and found New Yorkers finally accepting the fact they’re under attack. Eph (Corey Stoll) and Nora (Mia Maestro) are busy working on a biological weapon to fight those infected, but it’s a race against time as the epidemic is spreading at an alarming rate.

Stoll and his The Strain co-stars made the trek to San Diego for the 2015 Comic Con where they participated in a packed panel just hours before season two premiered. Stoll and his co-stars also took part in a press room where – without giving away spoilers – they were able to go into more detail about this highly anticipated second season.

Asked how season two compares to the first season, Stoll replied, “There was so much setup in the first season. We were starting in a New York that we know there’s no vampires, there’s no global conspiracy – well at least none quite as virulent as this one. Now it’s pretty much impossible to ignore that there’s something very wrong in New York. […] It’s spreading outside the city and so all that sort of background and mythology of the Strigoi, it’s been laid out. Now it’s really about saving the world.

From Eph’s point of view, I spent a lot of the first season very doggedly being the skeptic and the one that said, ‘Vampires don’t exist. This is impossible. The Master can’t be controlling it.’ That’s now all out the window and now I’m a believer in as much as I believe what I see. In terms of how I fight them, I’m still using – Nora and Eph are still using their backgrounds as scientists, as doctors, as biochemists to defeat them.”

The first episode changes the course of Eph and Nora’s research, and Stoll says that storyline takes a very dark, very unethical turn. “The Hippocratic Oath definitely goes out the window,” said Stoll. “What we do to this poor couple, there’s no way you can rationalize it with medical ethics.”

Stoll went on to reveal those were particularly difficult scenes to shoot. “They put those actors through real hell,” said Stoll.

Stoll also believes that Eph could be losing a bit of his humanity as he delves further into the research and as he gets more immersed in this new world. “He was never a terribly polite or patient person, but now if anybody is going to go actively against his plans he certainly has no time for them. The group definitely splinters in this season,” explained Stoll. “Setrakian has his way of dealing with it and Fet has his way. Eph and Nora have very different ways of seeing this so that’s a good thing that we’ve been able to get past that exposition and get into the drama of the interpersonal conflicts.”

Watch the entire interview: