James Scully and his similarities with Forty Quinn in a darker YOU Season 2

INTERVIEW BY Natalie Pardo – Labang

James Scully plays the new character Forty Quinn in the second season of Netflix’s psychological thriller series YOU. He is the brother of Love Quinn, Joe’s (Penn Badgley) new object of obsession.

Scully hailed from Texas where he graduated from Robert E. Lee high School’s North East School of the arts and Otterbein University before pursuing a full-time career in acting. The actor’s past acting credits include Jason Dean in Heathers, Quantico, 9-1-1, and sublets.

In this exclusive interview, the actor dishes about his character, stalking, social media, his relationship and similarities with his character Forty Quinn, and the crazier, darker twisted world of the new season of YOU.

How did you feel when you knew will be playing one of the main roles in You Season 2?

I felt really excited. The same week that I was waiting for the job was the same week that the first season was launched on Netflix. The Internet was sort of like exploding in response to the first season. People I was close to, people who knew I was auditioning for the project were freaking out and texting me saying it was so good. When I find out about the job, I just couldn’t believe it. I felt really lucky, I guess.

STYLIST: WILFORD LENOV @ CELESTINE AGENCY, GROOMER: SIMONE @ EXCLUSIVE ARTISTS USING KYPRIS AND LEONOR GREYL PARIS

How do you relate to Forty Quinn’s character? What are the traits you think you share in common?

He was troubled and aggressive. He was a young kid who needs to be loved; someone who just wants to be told that he’s smart, he’s valuable and that people care about him. Those are feelings that we all identify with. It’s probably because of the way his parents treated him when he was younger and the painful experiences he had. But what I can relate more about Forty is the sort of inner kid that I think we all have in us- having that kind of hurting; we just want a hug or a pat in the back, and be reassured a little bit. But he means well. I always mean well.

How do you view online stalking?

It’s funny because in this age where there are so many ways to interact with other people; being digital, online stalking became some kind of commonplace. It’s really normal when one of your friends say “Oh, I’m dating this new guy” and the first thing you’ll say is that “Ok, I’ll look at it instagram”. Or in Twitter, or in Facebook. I feel that we all do a bit of Internet stalking. In 2019, obviously, I don’t know anybody who’s taking it to the length that Joe takes it in the show but I think it becomes fully normal if you meet any person and you’re trying to impress the person, you go on the Internet and try to find out everything you possibly can about him/her first. That part is pretty creepy. We definitely have to be more careful, every time we post something, we really have to decide in our head if this is something we want everyone in the world to react to. Because they do. What you post online is there forever.

You studied in an art school when you were younger. Does that mean that you wanted to become an actor ever since you were a child?

Yeah. I think another thing that I share in common with Forty is that my parents also think that I am a loud and energetic child. They don’t know what to do with him or where to channel all his energy. And so [with] this gregarious nature that I have, they [his parents] tried a lot of things before they tried acting. When I got into acting class in high school, I was like “Yeah, this is definitely the thing for me”. When I was little, I was getting around the house and I was re-enacting my favorite scene from a movie in a kitchen table for the entertainment of my family. One sort of surprise they didn’t catch on is that I wanted to be an actor sooner.

If you’re not an actor today, what do you think you would be doing?

If I wasn’t an actor, I’m probably doing something else creative. Or maybe, I would love to be a national park ranger or force ranger- one of those people in the national parks, driving around, checking on the animals, making sure that fences are okay, talking to the trees.

What can people expect from YOU Season 2?

People can expect everything that they loved about Season 1 and then more. I think the writers, of course, were really excited by how the people perceived the first season. I think that sort of involved them to be more creatively ambitious in the second season. This is about Penn Badgley being wonderful, lovable, and dreamy. This time, they brought in extra characters and even more ridiculous circumstances, like having wolves, etc. It is exciting and scary. Just more about the stuff that they loved in Season 1.

Catch James Scully as Forty Quinn in Season 2 of YOU streaming now.