1 of 2 | Tony Dalton stars in “Sugar” Season 2, airing on Fridays. Photo courtesy of Apple TV
Better Call Saul, Hawkeye and Daredevil alum Tony Dalton says he was a fan of Sugar long before he was offered the role of Los Angeles police detective Ray Vega in Season 2 of the series.
“I loved it. I watched it when it came out and I thought it was a great show, a very interesting concept,” Dalton, 51, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“I didn’t ever imagine in a 1,000 years — not even close — that I was going to end up being in Season 2. But you know what that means? It was a great, wonderful surprise.”
Co-starring Jin Ha, Raymond Lee, Sasha Calle and Shea Whigham, the series airs on Apple TV Fridays and follows John Sugar (Colin Farrell), a private detective, who also happens to be a space alien, as he solves missing-person cases in contemporary Los Angeles.
Ray Vega is someone with whom Sugar crosses paths while searching for a boxer’s brother, who vanishes after a drug deal gone wrong.
“This guy and his team are not exactly straight arrows,” Dalton said of Vega and his fellow cops.
“They’re kind of morally corrupt and [Vega] has it all figured out. He’s been doing it for a while until John Sugar comes around,” he added.
“[Vega] doesn’t think it’s going to be a big deal and, then, little by little, it just keeps getting under his skin. He just can’t help it. But they cross paths and it changes his life forever.”
Dalton loves how the show combines the sci-fi and noir genres to comment on the human condition and why it is worth observing and protecting.
“He’s not human, but he’s sort of a humanist,” the actor said of Sugar.
“He believes in human beings and he believes in the good in people,” Dalton added. “It’s sort of a reflection of our times, to see what immigrants and what people who come from other places are struggling to sort of make their way in this world. This is sort of a mirror of that. You could really step out of it — the character of John Sugar I mean — and show the audience the beauty of humans, of mankind.”
Dalton said he was also happy to work with Breaking Bad writer-producer Sam Catlin again.
“Sam’s the best. Sam is great,” he noted. “He kind of really lets you just do your thing, which you really appreciate when somebody kind of respects the work of everybody there,” the actor said.
“There’s very little direction. He’s just like: ‘Oh, that’s good. Well, maybe just veer towards this way,’ and that’s it. He knows that we all showed up knowing our job. That’s probably why he hired us in the first place. So, it’s a breath of fresh air to be able to show up on set and just let it all go and see where it kind of is heading.”
