Edie Falco leaned into Nina Hobbs’ Texas roots to transform into the Anchor Bay Prison Warden for Mayor of Kingstown season 4.
“It felt different playing someone who grew up in Texas then a very east coast, urban environment that I’m more familiar with,” Falco, 62, told Us Weekly exclusively during the Mayor of Kingstown red carpet on Tuesday, October 21. “I think that helped me figure out more about who she is.”
Falco joins the Paramount+ show’s star-studded lineup for its fourth season — set to premiere on Sunday, October 26 — and her character is a “pretty powerful” woman with a “huge responsibility” to keep her prison in line. Not to mention, Hobbs will also be going head-to-head with Jeremy Renner’s Mike McLusky.
“I had not anticipated getting as deep into the scenes as we ended up getting into,” Falco told Us earlier on Tuesday about working with Renner. “When you work with someone, in the course of the scene, as it kept going, I realized I was becoming more invested in my character’s point of view.”
Edie Falco as Nina Hobbs and Clayton Cardenas as Torres. Dennis P. Mong Jr. / Paramount+
Even though they’re both major Hollywood players, Falco and Renner had never worked together before. She told Us that it was “great fun and great tension” with Renner that comes across onscreen.
“You never know, when you start a project, how that’s going to feel,” Falco added. “So I was pleasantly surprised.”
Renner was taken aback by how Falco is totally different in real life compared to her “pretty intense” character.
“She ends up being one of the sweetest, most gentle girls around,” Renner added. “You wouldn’t think that when she plays this gnarly Nina in the show.”
Season 4 is a pretty personal one for Renner’s Mike as it will see his brother, Kyle (Taylor Handley) as an Anchor Bay inmate. Renner doesn’t think that this makes him reckless, but “certainly desperate” when dealing with Falco’s Hobbs.
“It’s a big thing for him. He was very desperate a lot of the time and very helpless,” Renner teased. “That drove him to be desperate and have to make different choices and [be] vulnerable.”
Falco teased that Hobbs won’t be “going down easy” throughout the season — no matter what gets thrown her way.
“She’s a survivor. She’s been through a lot, even having to do this job in this environment,” the actress shared. “She’s been faced with all kinds of adversaries. She’s just having to recalibrate, perhaps, in a way that she didn’t anticipate.”
Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky and Edie Falco as Nina Hobbs. Dennis P. Mong Jr. / Paramount+
Renner explained that Mike will feel “defeated in some ways” because Kyle is behind bars. (The Mayor of Kingstown season 3 finale showed Kyle getting arrested after shooting a fellow SWAT team officer.)
“He just feels that he can’t protect [Kyle],” Renner added. “That’s a pretty frustrating feeling for Mike for a lot of the season.”
While he didn’t give away any specifics about what’s to come, Renner did tease that “there’s lots of hope” left once the season ends.
New Mayor of Kingstown episodes premiere via Paramount+ on Sundays.
