“Learning more about Jane and her crazy backstory was so incredible and such a gift to get to explore,” Brydon Bloom told UPI.
1 of 4 | Julianne Nicholson (L) and Nicole Brydon Bloom can now be seen in Season 2 of “Paradise.” Photo courtesy of Hulu
The Gilded Age and We Were the Lucky Ones actress Nicole Brydon Bloom says she is glad viewers will learn more about what makes her homicidal Secret Service Agent Jane tick in Paradise Season 2.
Season 1 ended with Jane shooting SInatra (Julianne Nicholson), her mentor and the mastermind behind the high-tech, underground bunker in Colorado where thousands of people have been riding out the apocalypse for the past three years.
This week’s Season 2 episode reveals how Jane grew up mentally ill with violent tendencies and neglected by a mother who was afraid of her.
As an adult, she joins the FBI and learns how to reign in her impulses and use her youthful appearance and slight physical frame to her advantage.
“Learning more about Jane and her crazy backstory was so incredible and such a gift to get to explore,” Brydon Bloom, 31, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“Getting to work with Julianne and study her in the way that Jane studies Sinatra was so fascinating,” she said. “Jane is kind of mirroring her physically and becoming pseudo- obsessive about her desire for love from Sinatra, approval from Sinatra.”
Nicholson was an excellent partner with whom to explore this emotional complexity, the actress noted.
“Julianne is such a unique person and actor and artist and so intelligent and I think that comes through in her portrayal of Sinatra,” Brydon Bloom said.
“Getting to step outside of myself as Jane and do the scene with her was really, really special. So, Jane’s obsessed.”
Although Jane’s penchant for violence was evident in Season 1, Season 2 shows how she became the cool-headed assassin we know her as now.
“When we started Season 2, they were like: ‘OK, we’ve got to get you into fight training. We need to get you in with a Russian dialect coach.’ And it was actually supposed to be French that I was going to speak, which I grew up speaking. So, I was like: ‘OK, great. That’s great.’ And then, at some point, it switched to Russian, like three days before. I was like, ‘Oh, I feel like my Russian is going to sound very French,'” she said.
“I suddenly was like, ‘OK, I need to remember the Russian words that I’m saying, the fight sequence that we’re about to do.’ So, it was just a challenge in a new way for myself as an actor.”
To cover the tracks to her misdeeds, Jane frames her boss, Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Nicole Robinson (Krys Marshall), for shooting Sinatra.
“The thing that I was most excited about returning to for Agent Robinson is her connection to the tactile, her association with guns and fighting and things like that,” Marshall, 37, said.
“I’m a girl who lives in Los Angeles. I’m a mom. I’m a wife, so my everyday life is not me loading a gun and knocking a dude out,” added Marshall, who is also known for her roles in For All Mankind and Bad Monkey.
“Getting to play that — not just killing — but getting to fight, getting to sneak through sewer tunnels and break out of jail, it’s just such a fantasy world to get to play in and I love that our writers have written this really bad-ass woman for me.”
Marshall said Robinson’s feelings toward life in the bunker have changed dramatically since she and the survivors first moved in.
“Season 1 Agent Robinson is like a part of the infrastructure and the institution of the bunker,” she noted.
“She firmly believes in the mission, which is to protect the president, save the people left on Earth and, then, she very quickly discovers that this is all a total farce, that the people who are in charge can’t be trusted,” Marshall noted.
“So, I think the mission of protecting humanity stays the same and the mode of doing that totally changes. So, I love that Robinson shifts and becomes this sort of agent of chaos in this way. I feel like her efforts are really valiant in trying to protect the people who remain and trying to bring down the structure that we see is evil.”
Now streaming on Hulu, the show stars Sterling K. Brown, James Marsden and Sarah Shahi.
Sterling K. Brown, Shailene Woodley attend ‘Paradise’ Season 2 premiere
Cast member Sterling K. Brown (R) and his wife Ryan Michelle Bathe attend the premiere of Hulu’s “Paradise” Season 2 at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on Wednesday, February 18, 2026. Storyline: A Secret Service agent investigates the murder of a former president in a seemingly peaceful community. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI.. | License Photo
