Myths and legends
Ian McShane creates another iconic role in ‘American Gods’
Ian McShane is, at 78, apparently hot-wired to an inexhaustible energy source. In a nearly six-decade career, he’s triumphed onstage, in movies like the current John Wick franchise and television with the longrunning British “Lovejoy” series (1986-94), HBO’s adult western “Deadwood” and now Starz’s “American Gods,” whose Season 3 kicked off this week.
With spectacular special effects, complex, convoluted storylines and transformative characters, McShane, a Critics Choice nominee as Best Actor for Season 1, is having the time of his life as, literally, an Old God in America.
It’s based on Neil Gaiman’s epic story of an inevitable war building between the Old Gods of mythology and our New Gods of technology.
England’s Ricky Whittle (“Nappily Ever After”) is excon Shadow Moon, who is pulled into the service of McShane’s mystery-shrouded Mr. Wednesday. He discovers that not only is his charismatic but un-trustable boss actually Odin, the Norse god, he’s Shadow’s father.
For McShane, the series’ success is due to Gaiman, the bestselling, critically praised author (“Coraline,” “Stardust,” “The Sandman”).
“This all starts,” McShane began, “with Gaiman’s book and thoughts about metaphysical societies. He wrote it driving across America.
“It’s really fascinating as he asks, ‘What if this guy who is mixed race (Whittle) is really a god? And the gods in America think, ‘Should we go back to the old style now with a little respect for everybody?’
“It’s also about immigration; people who came to America to escape organized religion, to escape all sorts of bondage of any kind, mental or physical.
“And now we find ourselves repeating what he tried to escape. That I think is Gaiman’s book basically:
You’re saying, ‘Let’s go back a little more to the original, where the roots came from.’
“The book is full of ideas, which is why the first season succeeded, because it’s so passionate with people who love the book and have their own ideas about it.
“This third season is when Shadow goes to Lakeside, Wis., which is a part of the book. He escapes from Wednesday, has an ordinary American life for a while till I find him.”
As for that other Odin, the one in the Marvel universe, “That’s slapstick and slapdash, that’s all about action and BS. No matter how many highfalutin ideas they think they put into the feature films, they never quite come across.
“‘American Gods’ tries to get some ideas across and with the level of a 12-episode television series, you got more time to play with those ideas.”