You also cast Frances McDormand as the voice of God, who narrates the story. Why did you like her for the part?
I knew I wanted an American voice. I knew I wanted a female voice, and I was trying to figure out who I wanted because Whoopie Goldberg’s already been the voice of God and the voice of death so I thought, “That’s probably not right.” So I was trying to figure it out and on the way back to America. I had just watched Three Billboards and my head was filled with Frances McDormand. About a day later she sent me an email about something completely different out of nowhere. I wrote back and said, “Would you like to be God?” She said it would confirm something her family already suspected.
What do you think he would have liked about this version?
I think he would have loved Agnes Nutter. I think he would have really, really liked the death of Agnes Nutter. That was something that Terry brought to the table and he would have loved that. I think he would have loved the stuff I did in Episode Three that wasn’t in the book, the whole sort of Crowley and Aziraphale through time. He would have loved it but he would have had some suggestions of bits that I missed, and ways to do it that would have been fabulous. And I think he also would have loved the nuns. Anything with nuns, I think Terry would have found inherently amusing, and our nuns are Satanic penguins. Glorious. He would have loved them.
Fans of the novel will notice some missing elements, like the British motorcycle gang who try to ride with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The other motorcycle gang. We cast them. They were fantastic. They were in the original script. But then we were probably two, three weeks out from shooting and onto a third read-through when we were informed that we were 1.5 million over budget, and we’d have to trim. And they went. They went because they were probably a week’s shooting. And it was the extent of shooting where we would have to close off roads, there were stunts, there was a whole thing, and it was like, “You know, we can lose that.” And it made me sad, but we lost them.
How did you find a child actor who could pull off playing Adam, the Antichrist.
It came down to the audition. We had two contenders for Adam. One of them was Sam [Taylor Buck], who got the part, and one of them was another terrific kid who didn’t. And the other kid who didn’t was actually much funnier than Sam. Every joke of his landed, and landed beautifully. But when he got angry, it was just a shouting 11-year-old. And then Sam, some jokes landed and some jokes didn’t, but when he got angry everybody in the room was terrified. There was something about him that was utterly convincing. He was for real. And I’m like, actually, I think people will believe that this angelic-looking child is indeed the Antichrist.
What’s the ideal viewing experience for Good Omens?
I would honestly find the friend with the best, biggest television, and the best, biggest sound system and I would go to their place. Because Good Omens as seen on your phone, you’re going to miss so many things. There are things you are going to not quite see. Somebody from Amazon was telling me that she’d seen Good Omens several times on a desktop computer-sized television and then got to see it at Cinespia at the Hollywood [Forever] Cemetery, and it was the first time she discovered that all of our nuns have moles or facial hair, and she was finding jokes and things that she’d never experienced before because she could see it a hundred feet high on the walls of the cemetery. So if you can’t find a cemetery that is projecting it, find your friend with the biggest TV.
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