The third season of A&E’s drama series Bates Motel kicked off on March 9, 2015 with Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore back as Norma and Norman Bates. The relationship between mother and son promises to get even more complicated and twisted in this new season, as secrets have been revealed and Norma acknowledges that Norman has problems.
In support of the new season, Farmiga joined executive producers Kerry Ehrin and Carlton Cuse for a conference call to talk about what fans of the critically acclaimed series can expect and to provide a little insight into Norma and Norman.
Norma became, oddly, sort of a stronger and more confident woman in season two. Will we continue to see signs of her personal growth throughout season three?
Kerry Ehrin: “Yes. I think Norma’s whole plan in going to White Pine Bay was to have a normal life. Although she had a hell of a lot of trouble since she got there, it has forced her to have to deal with a lot and interact with a lot of people and find parts of herself that were stronger than she probably ever knew. And that, actually, has had the affect of making her stronger.”
And has it made it more interesting to play that Vera?
Vera Farmiga: “To say the least, yes. You know, Kerry’s taken the lead on writing Norma, and she writes Norma for me like I’m some sort of a demigod. But I’m not man, I’m just a mere mortal and I’m mortally wounded from what she has me go through.
It’s pretty nutty to see now what we explore with this character this season, like the height of righteousness that she possesses and the depths of manipulation and depravity almost that she is capable of. And there just is so many antics and adventures for me to explore. It’s an outstanding role. I have never been challenged the way I am with this story in this particular character. And even as we speak, I swear it’s like I’m heavily medicated right now with tremors and spasms and a torn shoulder and neck muscles and the like. I am broken in smithereens.”
Kerry Ehrin: “It’s a physical role.”
Vera Farmiga: “It’s not even that. It’s like a mental role that is frankly so not healthy for me, with all due respect to everyone. But it’s formidable. It’s torturous to us all to hit the notes that are required emotionally and to do it earnestly. And Kerry really keeps us on point like that. But it just requires the tenacity of ten f’ing tornadoes, and I only had about 9-1/2 in me. I didn’t get to finish that last day on set.”
Kerry Ehrin: “But what we have is pretty amazing.”
Now that Norma knows about Norman’s blackouts, will she ever let him back out into the regular world again or is she going to try to just trap him at home?
Vera Farmiga: “Well, yes. I mean, you’re going to see a more unraveled Norma this year. I mean, there’s mammoth stress in dealing with Norman’s mental state, you know? It has a whopping physical and emotional torn toll on Norma the way it would on any parent of a ‘special needs’ child. And I think following the events of last season, Norma is more aware, she’s more circumspect, she’s more attentive to Norman’s fragility. I think you’re going to see her playing her cards really close to her chest in the beginning of the season but she’s got to reach out.
I think she’s at a point where yes, to answer your question, she’s protective of him as ever and determined to help him as best as she can. But she doesn’t always know how. And I think she’s going to start reaching out to others. I think that relationship evolves as they allow more people in their lives, and you’re going to see how the mother-son bond kind of withstands those pressures.”
You’ve got some great guest stars lined up for this season, one of whom is Joshua Leonard who Vera directed in Higher Ground. What was your experience getting to work with Joshua again? And also from the writing point of view, could we get a little tease of how Joshua’s character will play into the storyline of season three?
Vera Farmiga: “Well, let me explain James Finnegan. I think that Norma’s determined to make her business a success and so she starts enrolling in business classes at the local community college. And so there she meets James Finnegan and he kind of launches her into a whole new path of discovery. I rooted for Joshua to get this role. You know, it’s very interesting though in Higher Ground he played a husband in a relationship that I’m leaving, and this is more of a romantic role. Yet we’re very close friends.
It was a very interesting and bazaar dynamic between the two of us. It’s a character that Norma bonds intensely with. And, you know, he’s just phenomenal. It was a quirky experience to embarking on. We were so close and this is just a weird twist. It was amazing but odd at the same time to work so closely in a different capacity.”
Carlton Cuse: “You know, the quirkiness of it is great. I mean, it’s exactly the right word. Kerry and I strive to create characters who are quirky and odd but yet believable within our sort of larger than life pulpy world of White Pine Bay. Joshua did such an incredibly great job of fitting that mold exactly. He’s odd but he’s really compelling. And over the course of a few episodes, I think the audience will find themselves incredibly engaged in this relationship with these two characters as it starts to deepen and unfold.”
How do you manage to keep the dynamic between Vera’s character and Freddie’s character fresh and inventive and innovative? In some ways, it’s the easiest thing in the world to have it grow stale and run out of new ways to keep audiences riveted by it.
Vera Farmiga: “It’s a really great question because it’s an acting challenge for me and for Freddie as well. I think, you know, as they sort of head towards what seemingly is going to be their inevitable Hades, these emotional scenes also come at such high frequency and duration that sometimes I honestly am just sort of running out of ideas.
It’s really interesting the closeness and the best friendship and the respect and the trust between Freddie and myself. And Kerry, you can talk about the writing aspects of this but from an acting perspective, it’s really intense work. Freddie has become really particularly adept at sort of instigating me and knowing my soft spots emotionally and treading like a bulldozer over them. It’s like in this last season in particular he can be a real prick when it comes to helping like that endurance and the emotional [earnesty].
But I’m going to say it’s hard. It’s hard. And sometimes it’s just nutty. I literally get angry at Kerry for writing this bat sh*t craziness and then you just kind of find it and just because of endurance, man. Sometimes I just don’t know where it’s going to come from and you find a way to transfer it into the scene. Sometimes it’s just the panic of not knowing where to drill that wellspring of emotion to quench the scene. Sometimes that’s enough to set me off. But it comes down to what Freddie and I have together as colleagues and as team players.
There’s so much trust that we can get pretty wily with each other. And certainly that goes for the entire cast and with every year we just draw nearer and dearer to each other and can push each other’s limits. And we push each other for better, for more, for deeper.”
Kerry Ehrin: “Well, I mean it’s similar in writing. Carlton and I like to change up the storytelling a lot. And so you are telling a very intimate story of two people over a very specific and somewhat small period of time. So it does require a lot of thought about how is this going to be different. I think what personally is so fascinating is that it is a psychological thriller. If you’re in a bad marriage let’s say for like two years, every single day is going to be specific and different and fascinating, and it’s going to feed into what happens the next day.
So I think the joy of it is getting under that and playing with it and exploring it so that it’s constantly growing and moving forward in ways that surprise us because Carlton and I like to be surprised. So, yes, it’s fun. Not so much fun for Vera.”
Vera Farmiga: “No. But despite that, look, I’m not going to lie. Like especially this season there’s some big dingy, stingy ordeal in store like we’re going to wade through and drown in some agony. But there’s also so much joy and burlesque and absurdity and buffoonery and above all love. There’s so much love there. And that’s what makes this show so special that there’s so much [love], so much darkness and yet so much humor watching these characters navigate in some ludicrously improbable situations, you know? But that’s what makes it for me so exhilarating. It’s acute, it’s intense, it’s agonizing most of the time but it’s balanced so beautifully. There’s a lot of joy and beauty and friendship and love.”
Carlton Cuse: “Yes. I think, you know, ostensibly the label of the show would be that it’s about a guy who’s growing up to become a serial killer. But we strive really, really hard to make it feel so human and real, and part of that is humor. I think that that’s something that really the sort of the humor and heart of our show is what distinguishes it from other shows in the genre.”
This season Norman is starting to manifest himself as Norma. How much of that are we going to see and is Norma oblivious to it?
Carlton Cuse: “Well, she’s certainly not oblivious to it. You know, we try to make the relationship between Norma and Norman different every season. And, we’re watching a progression here. It’s the story about a mother who desperately loves her son and is trying to prevent him from becoming this guy that’s he inevitably going to become.
This season he starts to slide much more significantly into that character. He becomes less able to the kind of modulator or be conscious of his decline. And that causes just really serious consequences in his relationship with his mom. I think we explore that in a lot of different ways and that’s really the journey of the season.”
Norma really doesn’t realize that what she and Norman are doing and have done all summer is so strange until Dylan mentioned it to her. Will we see her try to find more of a balance in her relationship with Norman because of what Dylan has to say?
Vera Farmiga: “Yes indeed. I think she’s relying on Dylan in a way that she’d never expected to, and that relationship really deepens. They both share the same concern. They both want to help Norman. So I think she is relying on him for a male perspective on how to care for Norman and that’s going to trigger something in Norman.”
Do you have an idea of how many seasons you’d like to see Bates Motel last?
Carlton Cuse: “Yes, five seasons. I mean, Kerry and I have a pretty clear roadmap. We’re just finishing the third season right now and we feel pretty strongly that there’s two more seasons in the show. We have a pretty clear plan of where we want to go and we want to bring this story to its inevitable conclusion. I think Bates is not its best version if it’s an open-ended series and I think the audience is sort of waiting for the conclusion and we’re heading there. We have that mapped out.”
