EXCLUSIVE: Karan Soni Talks What’s to Come in Season 4 of ‘Miracle Workers: End Times’

Today, July 10, Miracle Workers will return for its fourth season, Miracle Workers: End Times. We got the chance to chat with one of the stars of the series, Karan Soni.

During our chat with Soni, we talked what’s to come in the new season, his first thought when he learned who he would be playing, who he would like to play if there is a fifth season and so much more.

There are spoilers featured in the below interview, so read at your own risk!

My first question for you, what was your first thought when you found out what you were going to be doing this season?
“My first thought? Oh, that’s a good question. I’m always very nervous and anxious. But you don’t really get the scripts until pretty close to when we’re filming. So they had just been like, you’ll be like a Terminator. And I was, what? And it’s all I knew, but little did I know what kind of terminator.”

What about when you learned about the overall theme of the season?
“They had initially pitched this idea of the show being about growing up and moving to the suburbs, but the suburbs of apocalypse. And I thought that was such a great idea. There was so much material there and stuff, but I didn’t realize how bonkers and crazy it was going to be until we did it. When we first heard it, I was like, ‘Oh, we’re completely going for it’, which ended up, I think, being great, but it was really wild. I was like, ‘Oh, it feels like no one is stopping them from just doing the craziest things’, which is cool.”

How do you prep to be a Terminator?
“Honestly, for this, all the prep was hair and makeup. Cause, I have very curly hair and they wanted to have this matte robotic look. And so, this is the first time ever I’ve had to do two hours of hair and makeup every day, because to make my skin look like it doesn’t have any pores and then to the hair. It was a lot of 5:00 AM, 4:45 AM starts. Then we shot in the heart of summer in North Hollywood. So, it was like a hundred degrees and I’m wearing leather and have a spray tan, and you can’t sweat. You’re not allowed to sweat, because the robot doesn’t sweat. I’m like, I’m going to sweat. I have five layers of makeup on. So that was a lot of the prep was just to look beautiful.”

That’s crazy!
“For me, the biggest experience was the hair and makeup part because it gives you enough time in the morning to then think about how you want to play the scenes and everything too, but almost too much time. Typically by the end of it, I was ready to not have to go through this glam every day. And then towards the end of the season, little spoiler, but I ended up getting a really bad scar. And so they had to put on a prosthetic metal jaw and it added another 45 minutes every morning to the thing. So, by the time we were wrapping up, I was like, okay, great, great. I could use no makeup for a while.”

Did they let you know that the scar would be coming or is that something they waited to tell you about?
*SPOILER* “Nah, they didn’t let me know that. In the last episode, I play a hundred versions of the character, like a hundred clones. And no one ever said how we’re going to film that, because we didn’t have extra time. Then one of them has the scar and the others don’t have the scars. Then, fun fact, how you film that is you just stand in a hundred different spots and you keep moving. Then they just played them together. You have to do this crazy assembly where each one is moving differently in a different spot for 30 seconds. And they’re like, move a step to your right and do that. It was really wild doing a lot of that.
And then one of the other episodes I played five different versions, but they’re all talking to each other in the scene. That was really, but we didn’t have extra time to film it, so we filmed it a regular episode. But I’m memorizing lines for five characters and trying to make each one feel a little bit different. And then acting to nothing, and then acting to someone in a chair, and then going into that chair, and then being like, what did I say to the other person? I mean, it was truly crazy. Not boring, never boring.”

How do you choreograph something like that?
“I think a big thing has to go to the director. Bill Benz directed the first one where we did the five versions. And he really had a lot of it planned out, like this one is sitting here, and that one’s sitting there, and this one’s doing this. And then you just sort of trust that they’re looking at the whole thing as one. Then Claire Scanlon directed the finale where we had the hundred.
And I truly, by then, was so not checked out, but burnt out. They were like, stand here and look menacing here and then look not menacing there. And I was like, wherever you want me to go, I’ll go and do all of the things. But we had a lot of really amazing doubles who would basically sometimes be the shoulder or different things. And it was really fun because they all had to go through my hair and make-up crazy glam and spray tanning and they all looked insane. And then one of them, bless their heart, showed up and they were like, we have to do this to your hair and this to your skin. And he was like, I won’t do that. So, he quit.”

Oh my god.
“And I’m like, respect. He’s like, ‘I don’t want to cut my hair or do that to my hair’. I was like, respect, go for it.

What was your first thought when you saw everyone else’s costumes?
“I had some thoughts and then all left my head when I saw Jon Bass in what can only be described as something bought from a sex store. I just think that every year the costume designers do an amazing job. And this one, I thought everyone looked like so cool and badass, and kind of hot. But John to me is truly, what a trooper to wear that and truly degrade himself to the lowest lows. Then as it goes on, they really put him through some other really bad stuff and he was just game for all of it. And he just made me, it never didn’t make me laugh seeing him in that crazy outfit.”

The writers, the directors, they put you guys through a lot of stuff each season. What makes you keep wanting to come back every year?
“That’s a great question. It’s one of the best jobs I think I’ve ever had just because everyone on the cast is very close to each other. We’re really good friends. And then the other part is, when else will we ever get to do something this bonkers? I think we all are a little bit; we just really get to go for it and do crazy things. And the other thing is the more seasons you do, even if the writing is really good, it does feel a little bit repetitive that you’re doing the same thing. But this show has never felt that way. We have the joy of being with the same cast every year, which is the best part of TV, but also getting to do something completely different. And then, the last two seasons we shot in LA, but the first one we did in Atlanta, and a second in Prague. So, it also feels like this weird summer camp where we get to be in another place together and go out to dinner and do all that stuff. Then I think for all of us really, we were like, I don’t think we’ll ever have a job quite like this again. So I think all of us are, as many times as you want to do this, we’ll do it. It’s never boring.”

I love that!
“Then it’s also really exciting each season to see who you’ll be paired up with more and who you get to spend time with. That’s always really fun and exciting to be like, oh, this year I play Geraldine’s [Viswanathan] best friend, very toxic best friend. We get very excited that we’ll have scenes together and all that stuff. So, it keeps it exciting that we’re doing stuff together.”

Is there someone that, if the show gets picked up for a fifth season, you would like to be paired with?
“Ooh, I think, yes, Jon Bass for sure. We’ve criminally never done a lot of stuff together this season. We have one episode where it’s just the two of us, we go on an adventure and it was so fun. And I think there was a moment we did the table read for it, and then all the writers were like, oh no, we should have done this sooner. But that is definitely one I would love to, he’s become one of my best friends through the process of making it. And we hang out all the time off camera anyways, so I think it would be really fun to work together.”
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What about what character you would like to play if there is a fifth season?
“Yes. There was an idea briefly of them wanting to do a clue style, murder mystery. And we get to play these heightened Professor Plum, those kind of characters. I would love to do something like that, an Agatha Christie, and then not be the detective, but be one of over the top with a mustache maybe. And do all of that stuff like that to me is a really fun world. A murder mystery kind of thing.”

Someone with less hair and makeup.
“Yes, yes. Zero. I have so much respect for the Kardashians now. It’s a lot of work to look like that.”

Well, for my final question for you today is, why should fans tune in for the fourth season?
“I think the fourth season, I know this is so cliche. I think it is our best because specifically, when we started the show, it was supposed to be limited series. We were just supposed to do that one season that was based on Simon’s [Rich] book. And then everyone had this idea of what if we just came back every year and played different parts and made this a weird kind of show like that. I feel like this season is the one where we really fully embrace that idea and it’s gone completely bonkers and really dug into what the potential of that can be. Because the other ones, I think we’re still trying to tie together some of the things that had already happened. And with this one, it just throws it all out the window and it’s just like, what if we fully commit to this insane world? It sort of made it the most fun one for sure. And so, I think it’s the show at its best.”

I would 1000% agree. I feel like this season there’s a groove, like a natural groove.
“Truly. Yeah, there’s not a lot of straight comedies anymore, which is so crazy to me because, obviously I’m biased, I love comedy, but I feel like we need that more than ever, to watch, in entertainment maybe. But it’s like a dying genre. It’s so sad. And so, I feel very lucky to be on a show that just purely what gives you joy and it’s so silly and fun.”

The first two episodes of the new season will premiere tonight on TBS!

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Photo credit: TBS