Nicole Beharie, who plays Abbie Mills in Fox’s supernatural drama is a magnet for supernatural trouble. Beharie recently spoke with journalists about preparing for Sleepy Hollow‘s supernatural war, The Mills family
Can you talk about Nick Hawley? After what happened with the succubus, do you think he will be a little more receptive to helping Abbie without expecting payment?
Nicole Beharie: The nature of Hawley’s character is he’s an arms dealer. He’s like a black-market dealer. He should expect to be paid for his time. I think that slowly, the Witness pair – Crane and Abbie – are both working on pulling his heartstrings. He’s warmed up to Crane. I think you saw him in Club Twerk. When the succubus took Hawley over and took him back to the docks, he realized there are much bigger things at stake and that the money isn’t going to save him.
When it comes to Abbie, I think they have a really strange relationship, where she hears what he wants and he knows what she wants. They just barter and bargain.
This season has mostly featured folklore creatures. Will the series be going back more into demons from the Bible?
There is a bit of that coming up in the [mid-season] finale. We definitely go back to the biblical storytelling, especially when it comes back to the Headless Horseman and the Apocalypse. But I’m personally really loving all the different folklore. The episode that we’re shooting right now is based on Voodooism, so we’re taking it international in a way. We’re just exploring all the different dark entities. I personally think it’s fascinating.
Will we get to see more of the effects that Purgatory had on Abbie?
I think the characters are so resilient. They just had to get it together. The Purgatory situation was really quick. It just sort of happened and they popped out of it and had to keep going. That is definitely systematic and true of people who are in a battle situation. There’s a horrible thing going on, but they don’t even have the time to catch their breath. They just had to keep going. I don’t necessarily think we’re going to be exploring what happened in purgatory. But, there’s a hell of a lot of fighting coming up that is as dynamic. You’ll get to see the Witnesses come together and discuss a little bit about their battle wounds, but not from Purgatory.
What if Abbie had to take Henry out without the support of Ichabod? Do you think she would do it?
Absolutely. No question.
How would she take him out?
I don’t know. That’s for the writers to decide. For the remainder of the season, you actually see them becoming a lot more, rather than reactive, they are proactive. They are trying to get ahead of Henry and Moloch. You seem them planning and doing the espionage by having Katrina in the house. They are doing all the little things that you would do to win a war. It takes us back to the first episode of the season where they say, “This is war.” We’re back on track. That’s really exciting to me.
You and Tom have an amazing chemistry. Abbie is the “straight man” as Ichabod discovers all the technology. Does Tom ad-lib a lot? Are there times when you want to burst out laughing?
There’s not a great deal of ad-lib. The writers are really talented. They come up with it and Tom has a dexterity with language. It feels very natural. It feels like it’s been ad-libbed. Those are actually the lines on the page. He just takes them off the page and brings them to life. As far as cracking up, there are a few moments we die laughing. It’s normally not even the text. It’s just little goofy things that we’ll do off set. We have little these warm-ups that we do together.
We saw a little bit of a verbal smackdown between Abbie and Katrina. Who would win a real smackdown between the two of them?
Oh, no, no, no. Why do women have to fight each other when they are both on the same side? I just don’t get it. Why can’t Katrina be an awesome witch and do amazing things, and Abbie do really well what she does, and they unite? That’s what I want to see. I don’t want to necessarily see them fighting one another. I think they probably have to work out the kinks in their relationship as a group. Hopefully, there won’t have to be a smackdown. If there is a smackdown, I’ll let the audience decide.
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