Legion

Season 1 Thu 30 March FOX (*125) 20:10 Repeats Saturdays 19:20 & 20:10 Sci-fi

Thanks to sci-fi show Legion (2017-current), Jean Smart’s 28-year-old son Connor thinks that she’s cool again. “I didn’t know the X-Men Marvel Comics [which Legion is based on] and when he found out that I’d be in Legion, he told all of his friends how cool his mom is,” Jean laughs over the phone from LA. And while her other roles are more straightforward – like playing Charlene Olivia Frazier Stillfield in Designing Women (1986-1991) and ruthless mob boss Floyd Gerhardt in season 2 of Fargo, (2014-current) – her Legion character Dr Melanie Bird is shrouded in mystery…

How much did you know about Dr Bird when you signed up? Nothing! [Laughs] I only appeared in the last 30 seconds of episode 1 (9 February) and only found out two days before that I’d play someone who gives sanctuary at her compound to people with special abilities. Talking about special abilities, is there one that you’d love to have? I don’t know if there is any one thing, but if I had to choose, it would be to heal people because I like to take care of people. Do you take care of the other actors on set? [Laughs] Absolutely, they refer to me as “the mother hen”. I take treats for the cast and I even baked a batch of cupcakes and put a big “X” on top of the icing as reference to the X-Men [movies 2000-current] link in our show. What was the most difficult part of filming Legion? I’ve never used a greenscreen before and Legion uses a lot of it. It was difficult to figure out how to interact with the screen, but once I saw the final cut, I went, “So that what it looks like!” You’ve been on TV, film and stage, so do you have an ideal medium or role? I’m a stage actress by heart and I still hope to play Cleopatra one day…