While behind bars, an anxious Billy falls asleep and lapses into a bizarre dream. Jason Thompson (Billy) weighs in on the special episode.
Your first stand-alone episode was over a year ago, when Billy was battling his demons. What does it mean to you to be called upon for another one? “The fact that they want to tell a story with Billy in it always makes me excited, but this time was different. Before, we were warned [a special episode] was coming up, but with the writers not being in the building and not seeing Josh [Griffith, co-executive producer/ head writer] around the set means we don’t get to talk with them anymore. So, I didn’t know this one was coming.”
When did you find out? “I didn’t know until the day before. I kept flipping through the pages of my script and saw my name everywhere and I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’ The last [special episode] I had a little more understanding of where the story and Billy were kind of heading, so this one caught me off-guard a little.”
How did you react? “It always feels fantastic to be able to have fun in this kind of way because there’s a little more freedom in dream sequences. Still, the pressure to deliver is dialed up a little bit and it is a lot of work.”
How long did it take to shoot? “Actually, we did this in two days, and on top of that I was shooting six episodes that week, plus the dream sequence, so it was a heavy week for me. I would be on the prison set with Amelia [Heinle, Victoria], to going at it with Mark [Grossman, Adam] for a few scenes. Then I would have to change clothes and shoot another episode that had nothing to do with the dream and after that, put my prison garb on again and try to get back into that mindset. Schedule-wise, I was all over the place. But it’s weeks like this that I like being on the hamster wheel because it keeps me really connected to what’s going on and I love the work.”
Was there an extra layer of challenge because of the Covid safeguards? “There’s definitely a different tone because there are things that you can’t do. If someone is crying, you can’t touch them to console them, or Billy can’t grab Adam by the neck and throw him up against the wall. We even had to stop a couple of times because we got too close to each other, so those things change the process. But everybody has to make adjustments and we’re all doing fine.”
