Claes Bang sober up all while playing the creepiest, spookiest John Paul, “The Prick,” on TV series Bad sisters. We’re talking literally, here too – he showed off his naked beggar in front of the camera. In one scene, he lies in a coffin, dead, in an erect position. And, in perhaps the most challenging acting challenge of the entire series, he was ruthless with 5 of the sweetest women on the planet. Playing a schmuck at the level of John Paul “JP” is no easy feat, but Bang rose to the occasion (despisely).
Say JP dies at the end Bad sisters. (However, warning: There are spoilers ahead.) In fact, JP died in the first scene of Sharon Horgana new dark comedy, returning throughout the series in flashbacks.
In the last few episodes, the Apple TV+ series leaps between the past (in which JP ravages his sister-in-law, who plots to kill him in return) and the present (after JP’s death, the people behind it). his life insurance tries to find out if he was murdered) over the past few weeks. (It’s also really funny, we swear!)
Now, the finale is here, which premiered on the streamer’s Friday. That means we know who killed JP. Was it Eva (Horgan), the big sister who developed a vendetta against him when he became her new boss? Or is it? Bibi (Sarah Greene), who lost his eyes due to his poor driving? There’s also Ursula (Eva Birthistle), who has been manipulated into an affair by his abusive intervention, and little Becka (Eve Hewson), who hates the way he treats his mother, a guest. her massage business.
All four are sisters to Grace (Anne-Marie Duff), the gentlest sister who begs JP to have sex with her—even after he berates and denigrates her for having took their daughter to a Lizzo concert.
Even though he is a common abuser who spreads lies about neighbors being sex criminals and sister-in-law being terrible drunks, it can be quite interesting to watch JP break down the world. the Garvey sisters’ world into pieces. There’s something confusing about enjoying this — like watching White Lotus guests vandalize hotel staff or Love is blind contestants manipulate their lovers — but it’s even more emotional to watch him die.
Oddly enough, Bang said he could relate to JP, which is how he was able to bring the villain to life.
“I’m basically just playing with myself here, in the sense that I’ve brought out all my worst sides and over-exposed them,” Bang said. “I needed to do it to make him manifest, so that he wasn’t just an idiot or a demon or a stinger, but that he was actually sitting somewhere. I also have a tendency to be weird, stupid, where if I become very insecure, I can become mean, upset, or lash out at people.”
In a recent interview with The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, Bang unpacked many of his murder plots. Bad sisters, leading to a violent climax in the finale. Vandals ahead — although we know he’s long dead, we’ve left out the specifics. Until now.
Do you think you said “Mammy” the sisters said “The Prick” more while filming?
Oh my god, I don’t know. We didn’t count. But we ended up calling Anne-Marie “Mammy” all the time, including off-screen. And whenever they talked to me, they would constantly call me “The Prick”. That’s my new alias. “The Prick.” So cute!
Has the word “Mammy” entered your vocabulary now?
Not completely not. It’s better.
However, I heard that you have to cut down on your use of “Mammy” on set.
At one point, it got out of hand. I really tried to put Mammy in every sentence. The director of the previous four episodes said, “Do you think we could do with just two or three Mammys in this scene, instead of 11 or 12?”
My favorite part of watching the show is seeing you play this manipulative tug-of-war who is, somehow, a jerk too. Is that weird?
I was a bit surprised at how it sat with people. One thing that Anne-Marie and I were really careful about – because he was dead in the first place; we know that’s where he’s going—managed him so he’s not so damn miserable from the very first episode. We had to stretch it over 10 episodes. That’s mainly what we care about. I’m surprised people actually hate this guy – I don’t think I knew things would be this bad when we were filming.
How can you combine him being an evil mastermind with an idiot?
It has to be defined, I feel. Something you can relate to, somehow. Even if it’s just, “I had an uncle like that,” or, “I had such a stepfather.” It’s not just that he’s horrible and evil and an idiot, because then it gets very monotonous. Things with my daughter worked, because we need to see that he really cares about someone, has a heart behind him. If he only becomes a caricature after an episode or two, you can’t sit through 10 episodes. I have to find a way to make him identifiable.
He is very protective of himself and his family, and he has the feeling that these sisters are always trying to get him, or get in the way of him having a normal life. He just felt that they were a real threat, and that made him very insecure.
Why does he see these sisters as a threat? They are also a family.
In episode 2, Sharon’s character went out and bought a bra for my daughter. It’s a prime example of this, when he says, “Now, she’s young. I don’t want her to grow up too soon. Don’t start controlling my family, even if my daughter is really happy about it.” Suddenly, they buy a kitten for Grace because the dog is dead. It’s like, get out of my life, man! Don’t buy kitten bras and bras for me and my family. We can buy our own.
If JP wasn’t such an asshole, then he would have found that it would be a miracle to have sisters with that kind of relationship and that kind of bond. If he were at home with himself a little more and had a little more confidence, a little more confidence in himself, he wouldn’t feel that kind of threat. Because he is a very insecure person, he feels that things are a threat, instead of being able to be there and welcome them. It can be a miracle to have a wife who has that wonderful connection with her sisters. But he just sees it as a threat.
What is your favorite murder attempt in the whole series?
Obviously, the most awkward scene, but also the most interesting, is the one that happens in Episode 6, where they try to put rohypnol in my nasal spray and I end up walking around the room almost naked, driving. a car and fell into a lake. That’s just that, very stupid. But pretty good fun!
How was filming it?
It’s a bit awkward. I watched some unfinished stuff in the episode, where my ass lay right, straight into the camera. I’m glad it wasn’t shown on international television.
You posted about another awkward scene that was funny. In the first episode, you have that damn guy boner. “Negligence after slaughter.” How hard – no pun intended – is it for filming?
I have nothing to do with it! I lay in the coffin for five hours while they were trying on me. I lay there while they were trying different vegetables, different types of penises, all kinds, trying to film and figure out what worked. Someone wrote me a letter about it, and I said, “Yeah, that’s my best acting method ever.” Which is not true at all!
Wait, have you tried vegetables?
They tried anything. Sometimes, I fell asleep. It’s clearly a question to get it right. You have to be able to see what it is, but it can’t be too monstrous or too weird or too small or too big.
It arranges the tune a bit, because it’s pretty early. I think we’re going to be like two minutes in the first episode where you have a corpse with a boner. That could have gone horribly wrong. We shot all kinds of different versions so they could decide in the editing room what got it right. It can get completely weird, too much, if it’s not right. There was a lot of attention to detail on that day. But I have nothing to do or say. I’m dead.
I kept hoping that there was some reason why he would die of an erection, that he would scream while watching porn or something.
Not so right! Someone investigated and reviewed it, and this is what happens to everyone. I’ve actually never heard of it before. When I first read it, I thought, “Ah, it’s a bit steep, isn’t it? That’s a bit weird.” But it To be an object. As you know, he doesn’t die watching any kind of television. He died at the hands of Mammy, with the bloody thing she knitted over the course of 10 episodes.
That’s right. [Spoiler if you’re curious how JP ended up being killed: Grace ends up choking him to death, calling in Roger to help her hide the body]. He was also slightly killed by his neighbor Roger (Michael Smiley), which feels well deserved. Why does JP hate this poor guy so much?
It’s the same thing as sisters. The son of a bitch brings seafood to my house every second, damn it! Why are you bringing all the clams and cockles and the damn thing? Why are you dancing with my wife in the garden? Get out of my life, you bastard! But it’s the same, where it’s as if he doesn’t have all these inferiority complexes, and if he doesn’t feel like he has to prove something about himself, then he has a little room for neighbors come. He is so lovely and sweet. He never really harmed in any way.
In addition to accusing Roger of being a pedophile, JP also suffers from a porn addiction. He’s sexually weird, but still treats himself like he’s an alpha male.
We don’t see him having a mistress or anything. It’s not like he has a connection with someone else. I think he just lacks the ability, in a way, to be intimate and close to someone. It’s not like he’s powerless. We see him doing his own thing. But the whole intimate thing, he just can’t have other people in his life. He couldn’t even allow his very, very sweet and lovable wife who used to be so patient with him. She doesn’t mean anything to him in any way.
What do you think JP is wrong with the most?
Apparently the person I raped. [Editor’s Note: In Episode 10, it’s revealed that JP once raped Eva, leading to her miscarriage. Still, he blames her for the fall out.] There can be no question about that. The way he talked about it and said, “That’s not how you rape someone,” it was horrible. That’s when you know that he has a very very very confusing way of life with people. It was terrible. It’s as if there’s a way to rape someone, and there’s some way that’s not a way. When I read it for the first time, and to put it into words, it was like, “Fuck, man, this guy is psychotic. He deserves what’s coming his way.”
It’s not comparable in any way, but beats Bibi’s eye in the back.
That is terrible! But in a way, it’s not intentional. He didn’t try to take his eyes off her. What he did to Ursula was much more intentional. He wanted to hurt her, he wanted to expose her. With Bibi, of course he should slow down when she says slow down, but what happened was not what he had planned.
There’s a big difference in knowingly wanting to harm and hurt others just like him – and then when something happens unintentionally, what he says afterwards is terrible.
