‘Imposters’ Stars Explain Why Season 2 Kept Them Up At Night

Imposters is back, baby! Bravo’s secret weapon scripted show returns for season two tonight, and is somehow even more fun than the first — but what else would you expect from a show that expertly blends drama, action, dark comedy, romance, and tops it all off with a bunch of sexy and shocking moments?

If you haven’t seen season one, get your eyeballs over to Netflix ASAP and remedy that. Really, you don’t want to be spoiled on this one.

But for those that have been drooling for more from Maddie (Inbar Lavi) and The Bumblers, aka Richard, Ezra, and Jules (Parker Young, Rob Heaps, Marianne Rendón), you’re about to get it in a big way. Season two finds everyone back on the run: Maddie away from Patrick (Stephen Bishop) who turned out to be an FBI agent, and The Bumblers, in any direction that can get them some sweet, sweet cash in exchange for that super sparkly engagement ring they got away with.

As Maddie slips into her new identity and The Bumblers slip into trouble, Imposters continuously creates moments that are unexpected, poignant, and even silly — sometimes all at once! In honor of the new season, we caught up with stars Inbar Lavi and Rob Heaps to hear about why season two caused them to get less sleep, more bruises, and endlessly introspective.

We meet some new faces this time around — how much do you ask about new characters? Do you want to know if you should trust them, or do you want to keep a little part of your character naive about the people they’re encountering?

Rob: You want to know no more than your character. The uncertainty is great, it gives you that energy of trying to work out what someone’s motives are. It’s just easy to act it that way, not to know too much. Which is good because they don’t tell us that much.

Were there questions that you wanted answered about your character and were they this season?

Inbar: I think season two definitely dives a little deeper, and for me there were a lot of questions I had to answer last season for myself before I could even approach working on a character like Maddie. And then season two, some of the questions were answered and they were very different from what I had prepared, so I had to figure out a balance between the two versions I had. And yeah, you’ll definitely get a lot more answers.

And more questions, I’m sure, in the process.

Inbar: And more questions.

Rob: Ezra is kind of the opposite of Maddie. I think a lot of his mystery is ahead of him rather than behind him. There’s no real mystery about where he’s come from or his life, which is so obviously mundane and run-of-the-mill and boring. The great thing about Ezra is no one really knows, least of all himself, where he’s going and where he’s going to end up on this new path he’s on.

I’m so excited about the new season, but the thing that hit me more than anything else is that all the characters have been fleshed out. All the characters now have more revelations about where they’re from, their family, their back story, and emotionally there’s a lot more depth there. Jules, and Richard, and Patrick, they’re all more fleshed out. Hopefully people will really respond to that.

The first season was more of an introduction, there was some action, but now we’re really getting inside these characters, going deeper and seeing who they are. Does it feel a little bit more vulnerable and even scary this time around?

Inbar: Absolutely. I think for me that was probably the biggest challenge of season two, to keep the balance. When you go deeper like that, you obviously want there to be depth, but you don’t want to confuse that with weight. Those are two very different things, and I think a part of the charm of the show is the balance between the drama and the comedy. Our writers truly understand the painful absurdity of life. I think in life when someone deals with a crisis, we try not to sink into it. We try to reach out to those lighter moments. I think it’s the difference between the two that is really interesting and that’s what probably draws our audience.

Rob: Absolutely, yeah. There are so many shows out there right now that are so brilliantly done, but so obviously gloomy. Even the way they’re shot, the palette, everything’s very doom-laden now. The thing about our show is tonally it’s always shifting and surprising and I’ve seen the scenes get quite emotionally earnest and suddenly there will be a line of dialogue where literally you’re like, where did that come from? The audience is kept on their toes not just in terms of the plot but in terms of the tone as well.

This season starts off a little bit lighter than last season, (not hard considering season one starts with an attempted suicide). Does season two lean a little bit more into the comedy or should we brace ourselves because darkness is coming?

Inbar: I think the beauty of the show, [is that] it’s a con show. As soon as you think it’s going somewhere, you better get ready because there’s going to be a shift. I would always say, trust your instincts and then forget about them.

I’m hoping we’ll get to see you two share some more screen time this season.Will your characters be teaming up at all? 

Rob: Our paths may cross. Ezra and Maddie, they’ve got this weird bond now. Ezra obviously changed a bit before the end of season one and Maddie saw that and I think she even said, “You’re not the same guy that I conned. You’re not the same guy that I married.” And he says, “No…thank you for that.” There’s a weird kinship there almost, and I don’t know if it’s competitive or sexual or romantic, whatever it is. The writers, they’d be foolish not to make the most of that. There’s some good stuff coming.

Now let’s talk about the show’s co-creator Paul Adelstein. He’s jumping in front of the camera this time around and he’s playing quite the new character, as Shelly Cohen. What was the transition like from working with someone that you know and trust to having scenes where he’s throwing you around and chasing you? 

Inbar: First of all, I will say, I’ve been working with Paul for a while now. Even when I had a break from filming Imposters I got to work with him on Prison Break. So there’s no escape from this guy, man. He just shows up. I adore it and I love it and he’s such a great guy and a wonderful artist. I feel very lucky to get to work with him as close as I do. This season he comes in, his character is so kooky, that I didn’t really know what to make of it at first. I thought he was joking. When you see it on camera, you realize that no matter how big it goes, it works. It’s interesting and it’s different and it’s quite terrifying. We had a lot of action together. There’s a lot of running going on. I was bruised like a peach for weeks after shooting that scene with him. I hope people appreciate it because damn, that was a lot.

You give Tom Cruise a run for his money as far as best on-screen runner. You did an amazing job.

Inbar: Thank you.

Rob: That’s a very specific category.

Inbar: Watch out. Watch out, Tommy.

Did it feel badass in the moment or did it feel draining? 

Inbar: It was exhausting. We shot that in a whole day. We shot the action stunts the day before or a few hours before. My body was drained. I remember I wanted it to be as authentic as it could be, so I was trying to draw from whatever it was in my personal life that I needed to run away from.

I feel like it would make me have weird dreams of being chased, did that happen to you? 

Inbar: You know, season two for me wasn’t easy. Maddie for me is kind of like a mirror, right? A mirror of the good and bad and imperfections. I obviously have a lot in common with her and I had to ask myself a lot of serious questions that I couldn’t run away from anymore. And it did, it kept me up. It wasn’t easy and I’m still on this journey of self discovery right there with her, but she’s already taught me so much. I feel quite grateful for that.

In your mind, when you’re acting specifically for your character, are you basing it at a point where you’re like, “I’m Maddie, I’m this girl from Pennsylvania?” Or are you slipping into completely different mentalities when you’re juggling Saffron, Alice, etc.? How does that work for you?

Inbar: Yeah, I’m not Maddie. I’m not from Pennsylvania. I am a person who pretends to be other people for a living. I am a person who feels probably most comfortable when pretending rather than being. And that definitely brings up a lot of questions. Why is that? What am I hiding from? Why am I less comfortable in my own skin? So there are a lot of similarities.

Rob: I think that’s why the show resonates so much as well. People watch this and they can identify with that. Especially with social media right now, everyone is putting out a version of themselves into the world, playing dress up, as all the characters are in this show. That thing of shifting identity really hits home because people feel that now. In a good and bad way. And it’s weird because when you play more with your identity, you start to worry more about who you are and where you came from. You start to realize, am I losing touch with who I am?

Rob, you get to bust out your Hugh Grant impression this season. Did the writers know that you had this talent and they wrote it in or was it something that they wrote in and you had to learn? 

Rob: I think [it came up] on the pilot in 2015, believe it or not, because Paul really likes impressions. He said, “Do an impression.” I start doing a Christopher Walken impression and he said “No, everybody’s got a Christopher Walken impression. It’s boring. Do something only you can do.” And I said I could do Hugh Grant and then he loved it. And then we joked about Ezra going undercover and being a British person or something like that. So they wrote it in. It was a thing. And then I felt this weird pressure that I had to do it really well. Because I didn’t even know, I was like, are just Americans finding this funny?

I did my best. I was actually fighting over the quote because Adam [Brooks, the show’s other co-creator] wanted, “I’m just a boy, standing in front of a girl…” which isn’t actually a quote from Notting Hill. That’s Julia Roberts who says, “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy…” and I wanted another quote from Notting Hill, but they wouldn’t let me have it. They wanted that one because it’s more famous.

Is there anything else that came up in season two that really helped your character click for you, that made you feel even more attached to them? 

Rob: There are consequences that are going to hit home for Ezra. The consequences of what he’s been doing. As much as it was difficult in season one, it was kind of fun as well. And that was part of his journey, he was like “Good, I’m having fun with it.” He enjoys his new lifestyle and his new identity, and you see the fun continues in Mexico. And then the consequences are going to come in. When I first read the scenes, it was sobering and I can identify with that in my own life. You know, you’re off out in the world having a great time and being selfish often and then you realize you neglected other things. That was it for me. Grounding it in the sense of what he’s been neglecting.

This season, the show filmed in Mexico and in Canada. Was there a location that made things feel real and super intense for you?

Inbar: Well obviously Rob got to go to Mexico and I wasn’t invited.

Rob: We sent the invite. It must have got lost in the mail.

Inbar: For me, it was really special we got to shoot in Niagara Falls. I’ve never been before but filming there and it just felt special to get to work in a place like that. But the concept came from Marilyn Monroe’s film, Niagara. And I get to have a little Marilyn moment which was surreal, and that was probably the most special location I’ve ever shot at.

Rob: Mexico was just amazing. It’s just real and very vivid. We have loads of things that were shot that just happened on the day. A big shot of performers just walking down the street, a pack of dogs comes running the other way. That was the kind of thing that just happened. I think Marianne even met and then adopted a stray dog. There were people walking in the shot and there was a rawness to that and just the energy. The way we shot was very different. It was all handheld, we weren’t really rehearsing, we were just shooting everything. It was great.

Imposters season 2 premieres Thursday, April 5th at 10pm on Bravo. 

Where to watch Imposters