5 Things We Learned About Preacher At Comic-Con 2016

After more than a decade in development, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher finally made the transition from page to screen earlier this year, and the series that was once considered to be "unfilmable" has become another successful venture for AMC. A second season renewal - and an expansion to 13 episodes - was granted last month, and ratings have been on the rise as the show finishes up its initial 10-episode run. With the season finale looming on the horizon, the cast and creators made a special appearance at San Diego Comic-Con last weekend to chat with fans and journalists. We were lucky enough to be in attendance at the event and here's what we learned during the Preacher press conference. Graham McTavish Didn't Meet The Rest Of The Cast Until Comic-Con While most of the events in Preacher's first season take place in the small town of Annville, Texas, there have also been a handful of flashbacks to the late 19th century, where a soft-spoken family man (Graham McTavish) on a doomed mission to rescue his daughter finally goes over the edge. Fans of the comic books will know this character as The Saint of Killers, who plays a significant role in Garth Ennis' sprawling narrative. But because the series is still exploring the origins of this deadly bounty hunter, McTavish never had the opportunity to interact with the other Preacher cast members until he showed up at Comic-Con. "It's been terrible," he told journalists. "I've felt a little lonely and sad and isolated in my 19th century world, with my horse - and the horse doesn't last! He's dead within a few minutes! But it was interesting, and in fact I've only just gotten to know these people. I was in isolation, like some kind of strange quarantine up in the desert. But I look forward to hopefully seeing a little bit more of them." James Franco Was Considered For The Role Of Jesse Custer If there's one thing the Preacher television series has done well, it's been casting incredible actors in the leading roles. But although Dominic Cooper has quickly become synonymous with the hard-drinking Jesse Custer, there was another actor - and a close friend of executive producer Seth Rogen - who was considered for the role at one point. "We had a nice conversation with James Franco at one point," revealed executive producer Evan Goldberg. "He looks very Jesse-ish. He was into it, but just literally he has to make 4,000 things in 20 different formats. It would take up his time and he wouldn’t be able to do a Tori Spelling movie or whatever the hell he was going to do." "He was dangling from a crane in Venice at the time," Rogen joked. "So he couldn’t work us in." But he also pointed out that Franco was someone whose name came up very early in the development process, and he never auditioned for the role. "That was in a very preliminary phase," Rogen said. Rogen And Goldberg Always Wanted A Black Actress To Play Tulip O'Hare It's no secret that Hollywood has a major problem with diversity, and it would have been easy to cast the character of Tulip O'Hare just as she appears in the comics: a blonde-haired, hazel-eyed white woman. But Rogen and Goldberg knew from the very beginning that they wanted to break from the source material by putting a black actress in the role. "We did it intentionally," said Goldberg. "We just thought having an all-white cast was lame, and it's also interesting for their love story, because it's the South." "We thought it added to the character, to the story, to the themes," Rogen continued. "And it made it slightly more of our time in some ways - literally, of 2016 - and allowed us to potentially explore some of the things that are clearly going on in our world and our country. There were really endless reasons to do it, once the idea came up, and literally no reason not to do it." Ruth Negga, who landed the role with an audition Goldberg says she "knocked out of the park," is not only grateful for the opportunity to play such a interesting character, but is also well aware of the significance. "I think it's a relief to play someone like her," she said. "But I also find when I'm watching this, it's a relief to see someone like her. It's very important for me, and I'm glad there's discussion now about visibility, because I think for so long we've been so complacent about there not being enough people of color, and I think that conversation needs to keep happening." The Producers Initially Refused To Watch Joseph Gilgun's Audition Tape It's no surprise that one of the most beloved characters from the comics has quickly become a favorite on the television series. But unlike co-star Ruth Negga, Joseph Gilgun didn't have quite such an easy time securing the role of Cassidy the vampire. "His mother videotaped him in their basement and sent a video in that Sam Catlin watched," Goldberg recalled. "And we just didn't , for like weeks. We just kept meeting with all these people and Sam kept being like 'you've gotta watch this Joe guy.'" "And for some reason," Rogen added. "We were like 'no, we'll be auditioning actors with agents.' And we didn't realize that he was an actor with an agent, just the tape had come in from his basement. But we finally watched it, and we were just kind of blown away by it, and then we Skyped with him and it was like talking to the character. It was amazing." That initial conversation was more than enough to convince Rogen and Goldberg they had found their vampire. "He's the least disappointing person you could ever meet," said Goldberg. "He's like everything you ever hoped someone was." Garth Ennis Plans To Write Future Episodes The Preacher television series has already diverged widely from its source material, a decision that has raised the ire of some fans, but for the most part has been embraced as one of the most positive choices made by the creative team. Goldberg credits Ennis himself with allowing the producers a certain amount of creative freedom with his characters. "Garth kind of set us free by saying as long as we maintained the core characters' emotional arcs and the damage that they have, that we could kind of run wild," he said. "Which, if he hadn't said, I would've been trepidatious the whole time and uncomfortable changing too much, but he told us to go for it." In fact, the changes Rogen and Goldberg have made to the original source material have left Ennis intrigued with where the journey might lead, and the prolific comic book writer hopes to have an opportunity to script some of those new adventures himself. "A provision has been made for me to ," he told journalists at Comic-Con. "I do have this ongoing feeling that I should just sit back and leave them to it, because what they're doing is so good. But yes, I would like to try my hand at it, eventually."