Trigger warning: This interview goes into topics of suicide and death.
We have spent the last couple of months going through a traumatic and twisty journey across two timelines in Black Snow season 2. It all started with hope that Zoe, played by Jana McKinnon, was still alive, but things took a turn by the midpoint of the series.
Now we know who killed her and why. There are no spoilers in this post for the finale, though. When we chatted with McKinnon it was earlier in the season, as some of the more traumatic and heavy topics came up. This is an important story to tell, and it’s one of those crime dramas that you’ll need to put on your watchlist if you haven’t already!
Jana McKinnon discusses the joy of playing Zoe in Black Snow season 2
Precinct TV: Thanks for taking the time to chat. Black Snow is one of these intriguing storylines that gives us the past and present in conjunction, allowing time to get to know Zoe. How fun has filming the series been for you?
Jana McKinnon: I was so excited to be part of the show. I watched Black Snow season 1 myself as an audience member, and I would chat with my housemates in Queensland, which was where season 1 was shot, so it was exciting to see that represented on screen. We all got hooked.
When I got the audition for season 2, I was really excited. I was adamant that I wanted to do it, and then I got the job.
PTV: What was it about Zoe in particular that drew you in?
JM: I love that she’s not the typical Sunny Coast surfer girl. She’s quite edgy in her own way, and she’s interested in politics, and she listens to indie music, and she’s got her radio show. She’s just very cool, and I just felt really excited to bring a character like that to an Australian screen, and now a U.S. screen.
Also, being able to go into that time, 2003, which is considered a period piece now, it was just fun to be able to really immerse myself in that world and all the different costumes and amazing set design. Everything is just slightly different but also similar to how it is now.
PTV: What type of research did you have to do since it is set in 2003?
JM: I did do a bit of research, especially on the political landscape, because, obviously, when you’re a very small child, you don’t really hear much about it. So, that for me was a very important aspect, because of how she thinks and how she views the world and how she positions herself within the political landscape.
I also had to research some bands because I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in Austria, so I didn’t know all the Australian bands. That was fun to explore that world.
PTV: You got some cool new music to listen to.
JM: Yeah!
PTV: How did you approach going into playing Zoe to flesh her out and make her someone we hoped would survive?
JM: To me, from the first scripts, she was this incredible life force that I wanted to channel, and this big energy that she sometimes can’t really contain and doesn’t really know where to go with it and how to use it in the world. She’s also funny and she loves having fun with her friends, and she’s so interested and curious about the world. Then obviously how we meet her at that point where everything’s going really well and then she loses her best friend.
I had so many conversations with people who had similar experiences on how big of an impact an experience like that has on a person for the rest of their life. So, to me, it was also a distinction between Zoe before Cody dies and then Zoe after Cody dies, and how that life force changes into something. It still burns very strongly but can become a bit destructive.
She’s not a character that sort of retreats into her grief, but she does the opposite, and she goes out and gets angry, and I just thought that was also really inspiring to me to see a woman like that. I’m not really like that.
PTV: Cody’s death is traumatic, and I was going to ask if you’d done research into how people deal with that sort of trauma afterward. Having a friend die is one thing, but Zoe walking in to find Cody had taken his own life is another layer of pain.
JM: I think I’m very lucky that nothing like that has happened to me. I think it’s something that you carry forever, and it was so important for me to honor that and to not ever forget it. It’s always there as the character. You may be laughing in a moment or having fun, but it’s just there always inside. So it was very important for me to portray that in a realistic way.
PTV: We now know that Zoe sadly didn’t run away. At what point did you learn that Zoe wouldn’t survive?
JM: I remember I had a conversation quite early on with the director, Sean Davies, and I told him I needed to know. I needed to know what I was getting into, if I would have to portray some gruesome death. So, she told me, and I wasn’t allowed to tell any of the other castmates for a little while, which was hard.
But yes, I did know about it. I needed to play it like I didn’t know. So, it was important to channel her life force and her energy and what she wants to do in the world and how she’s going to live her life. She’s not thinking about dying, so I couldn’t ever think that either. That was one of the early questions, because we were never working towards death with her character development.
PTV: Is there anything that surprised you about Zoe as you developed the character?
JM: I think the aspect of how grief can find so many different forms, and none of them are good or bad or wrong or right. And how different people deal with experiences that have a heavy impact on their lives.
Black Snow is now available to stream in full on AMC+.
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