In Hanna season 3, John Carmichael (Dermot Mulroney) finds himself caught in the middle of the war between Hanna (Esmé Creed-Miles), Marissa Wiegler (Mireille Enos), and the Chairman of UTRAX, Gordon Evans (Ray Liotta). The former head of UTRAX operations, Carmichael’s fate is decided in Hanna season 3 as he has to choose where his true loyalty lies.
Screen Rant sat down with Dermot Mulroney about how he joined Hanna, where Carmichael really stands in Hanna season 3, and working with Ray Liotta.
Screen Rant: You came into Hanna in season 2 and you’re back as John Carmichael in season 3. What drew you to the role, originally?
Dermot Mulroney: There’s no doubt I was gonna take this part. It just came out of the blue for me. I was blessed that way. But I had already seen Hanna season 1 so I knew that they were really onto something. It’s rare that I would get added – it’s only happened once or twice – to an already hit show. An amazing call to get. But I really didn’t know that much about the character going in. [He] got revealed to me script-by-script. I just knew that character was gonna bide his time throughout the story and then, eventually, [showrunner] David Farr would throw him into the s**t, for sure! [laughs]
It was a great slow burn role that, at the beginning of season 3, is really at a 180 from where he was in season 2. In season 2, he’s running the whole thing [UTRAX]. He developed these wolf baby girl assassins and was pretty proud of himself for it, I think. We find him at the beginning of season 3 about three or four days after getting shot by Hanna and getting told by Marissa, “Now you work for me.” And there he is in a completely different circumstance, and in danger, which he really hadn’t been in season 2. So it really takes off for Carmichael. Again, slow burn, but a great end, reveals, plot twists, and action. It’s really fantastic.
At the beginning of season 3, Carmichael’s between a rock and a hard place. He’s still running UTRAX, but he’s working for Marissa and he can’t get caught. Can you talk about what it was like for Carmichael to balance that tightrope?
Dermot Mulroney: I think in season 1, [Carmichael] would have been working hand in hand with Marissa. And in Hanna season 2, I’m working *for* her. So that’s the big turn. I think his character and his personal nature is pretty contained. He’s a spy. He’s a master spy, even, if you allow his ego to be part of it. Now things are going completely backward for him and he has to act like everything’s normal. Now there’s a liar who has to act like he’s not lying and then about four other layers wrapped around that. That’s from the mind of David Farr and the way he slowly threaded this character out.
You also got to work opposite Ray Liotta as the big bad of the whole series. What was that like?
Dermot Mulroney: The actor also learns, as the audience does, that Carmichael wasn’t the alpha male/apex authority [behind UTRAX]. There’s at least one [guy] above him, the Chairman, as he’s known, of the UTRAX program, and that’s played by Ray Liotta. For me, that was just a dream, anyway.
In one of our episodes, there’s a really intense scene where the Chairman has some choice words for Mr. Carmichael and that turns our story in a whole other direction. And then there’s about six other plot twists after that.
Hanna Season 3 is streaming 0n Prime Video.
