Warrior-executioner axes his way to destiny
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It’s not the most obvious idea for a series.
The Bastard Executioner tells of Wilkin Brattle, a 14th-century warrior who, at the behest of Annora, a mystical healer, assumes the identity of a journeyman executioner while pursuing his true destiny under Annora’s divine stewardship.
It’s also not the most obvious choice for creator Kurt Sutter to have made as his followup to his motorcycle melodrama, Sons of Anarchy, which concluded a seven-season FX run last fall.
The Bastard Executioner, which premières with a two- hour opener tonight at 10 p.m. on FX, does boast a family connection to Sutter’s previous show: It features his wife, Katey Sagal, who on Sons played Gemma, the tough, sprayed-on-leather matriarch of the outlaw biker club, but here displays long, grey tresses and a Slavic accent as Annora, co-starring opposite Lee Jones as Brattle with other cast members including Stephen Moyer, Flora Spencer-Longhurst, Sam Spruell, Sarah Sweeney, Danny Sapani and more.
In short, Executioner demands to be experienced on its own terms.
“This is not Sons of Anarchy on horses,” Sutter says during a recent conversation alongside his leading lady.
“I knew creatively I did not want to do another series in the contemporary crime mode,” he explains. “But here I do get to do what I do best: tell the story of tortured and conflicted heroes living on the fringe, and with a great deal of violence, which I feel I do well.”
“Kurt came home after his pitch meeting and said, ‘I have your next job,’ ” says Sagal, “and I’m in love with my character. She is so different from Gemma. She’s kind of a medicine woman. She’s lived a long time and she’s lived many lives. We know that she has a connection with Brattle in helping to guide him to this other life that he’s supposed to live.
“Meanwhile, she floats around with the Dark Mute, with whom she has a long history of unrequited love, on a mission together.”
The Dark Mute is played by an unrecognizably masked Sutter, who played another on-the-edge and larger-than-life character on Sons.
Why his peculiar on-camera turns?
“Nobody else in town will hire me as an actor except me,” he jokes.
“It’s been an adventure!” chimes in Sagal, who since March has been shooting the season’s 10 episodes in the wilds of Wales.
“It’s stunning: to go from working in North Hollywood in the summer in a lot of leather, then, all of a sudden, I’m in this open field in peasant clothes, no high heels, flowing hair, and I get to ride a horse. It’s beautiful and very liberating.”
A risky project for all concerned?
That’s for sure. Staking his claim in a distant period and culture and capturing that flavour “terrified me,” declares Sutter — “but in a good, exciting way.”