NO HOLDS BARRED

newcomer Jeremy Bobb talks about grappling with the role of Jessica Jones’s latest bad guy

Season three introduces a new villain to the show: Sallinger, played by Jeremy Bobb, whom you may have seen as slimeball literature professor Mike Kershaw in Russian Doll.

“He comes in early on when it’s discovered that he’s doing some illegal things,” Bobb tells SFX. “When he figures out they’ve learned some of the stuff he’s been up to, he gets pretty angry. Then it’s, ‘What can I get on [Jessica] and a couple of people in her group that can help me keep this secret, and maybe keep doing it?’ They egg each other on for a while, until it gets way out of control.”

Though the name doesn’t ring any bells, fans of the comic may recognise him...

“There is a character that he’s drawn from,” Bobb teases, “But my understanding is it’s pretty loose. I think it was an inspiration more than anything.”

By the sound of it, Sallinger may be a vigilante.

“This stuff he does is a big part of his sense of himself, and it’s something he associates with justice,” Bobb says. “And he has no intention of stopping.”

The big appeal about the character was how many faces he has.

“I like to play characters that shift shape a bit,” Bobb explains. “That’s interesting – that he carries himself one way with one set of people, and a different way with others.”

He also appreciates that Sallinger is not stereotypically villainous.

“He has a childhood that’s damaged,” he reveals. “I’ve worked pretty hard to make him not seem too evil. On the surface he seems pretty harmless. He has a normal list of activities outside of this stuff they discover that’s buried underground.” Sallinger is also rather anal. “Everything’s very specific: the way he keeps his home, the way he goes about his work. And he speaks a little more crisply than most of the characters. His general tone clashes a bit with what this world is.”

One last intriguing detail: he’s a wrestler (Greco-Roman, not WWE).

“One thing from childhood is that he had some damaging stuff at home, and an escape was the wrestling team. So his physical antagonism is driven heavily in that way.” This necessitated some training. “I visited a couple of wrestling camps, and we had coaches come in. The stunt guys trained me up really well to do most of it myself, which I think is helpful for this guy because that’s a big part of the multiple sides of him. You wouldn’t see him walking down the street and think he could do some of the things we see him do...”