Fargo actors talk about the people they portray

Billy Bob Thornton as Lorne Malvo, drifter “He doesn’t have much of a conscience. I think one of the great things about the character, one of the things that I enjoy about it, is that somewhere down there in that alligator of a soul he enjoys manipulating people. He likes to mess with people a little bit ... He doesn’t understand weakness in people.” Martin Freeman as Lester Nygaard, insurance salesman “Lester is a man who has had life happen to him. Stuff just caves in on him. He’s henpecked, to say the least. He’s in a job he’s not very good at and he’s not happy. And he’s in an unhappy marriage. Until he meets somebody in the hospital who very subtly and insidiously shows him there is a different way to approach life.” Colin Hanks as Gus Grimley, Duluth Police Officer and single father “Here’s a character who is hyper- aware of himself, aware of his shortcomings and aware he’s made a horrible mistake, if for the right reasons. Here’s a character who is aware from the beginning and spends the rest of the series trying to atone for that and fix that.” Allison Tolman as Molly Solverson, deputy for Bemidji police force “She is low on the pecking order of the police force. Unfortunately, she’s also the smartest person on the police force, so she has to fight against her superiors. This big case blows into town and they don’t really know how to handle it. But she has a better handle on it than they do.” Bob Odenkirk as Bill Oswalt, deputy for Bemidji police force “He’s not clueless. But he’s holding tight to all the innocence that he can. He’s a small- town deputy who, through circumstance, gains more power and he wants to think the best of the people around him, the community he is in. I think he feels it’s his main duty to maintain his rosy view of the community and the people that he works with.”