The 'Surface' Cast Tease Their Character Arcs in Season 2

Season 1 of Apple TV+'s mystery/thriller Surface introduced audiences to amnesia victim Sophie Ellis (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). A gorgeous, wealthy woman British expat in San Francisco, she wakes up having fallen off a boat with none of her memories. Aside from her seemingly doting husband James (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), Sophie is pretty much a blank slate so she spends the season finding out she’s quite the complicated lady. 

By the first season finale, Sophie had pieced together big chunks of her life and realized her marriage was built on some unsavory practices against others and plenty of lies. So, she faked her death and took off with a whole lot of their stolen money to London. There, Sophie intends to follow up on the whereabouts of her childhood friend, Eliza Huntley (Millie Brady), and to find out about her family roots. 

In Surface Season 2, three actors from the original season return to expand Sophie’s story: Mbatha-Raw, Brady, and Jackson-Cohen. We spoke with the trio about what to expect from their characters this season.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Telly Visions: Coming into this season, how much did you want to know about Sophie’s arc - just the essentials, or is it better to know everything?

Gugu Mbatha-Raw: Fortunately, I'm one of the executive producers myself, as well, so I get to be a part of those conversations from really early on. It's really wonderful to have this shorthand with Veronica West now that we're in the second season. Season 1, to encapsulate, was Sophie's interior world and her discovering about herself and her dynamics with her husband. There's this love triangle and her accident and how that came about. At the end of Season 1, she kind of discovers that she wasn't the greatest person. In Season 2, it's about her discovering what made her that way, going into her past and her mother. 

For me, it's been a joy to be a part of the shaping of the scripts and the arc of Sophie's journey. Also, for the world to expand so much in this season. We've got a much bigger cast. There's the joy of being able to bring the show to London — not just on a selfish, personal level as a Brit — but it allows the show to evolve. I haven't often played a second season of a character, and I think it allows the characters to go to another place, literally, a physical, another place. And then exploring this family of the Huntleys with Millie's character, Eliza…it's been a really juicy one to get into.

TV: This season, whenever Sophie and Eliza are in a room together there’s all this subtext and history that’s crackling between them. What intrigued you most about getting to develop that dynamic?

Millie Brady: I think it was the separation between as an actor, knowing where your character's journey is going to go, and then playing the character that for so much of Season 2 has no idea who they are to each other. It's playing with that mystery and also playing with that relationship, where they've got this pull towards each other and neither of them can quite understand what that is. There's confusion in that and exploring a huge amount of love between them. 

Also, there's a huge amount of hurt and how they both navigate that. They probably don't navigate it in the best way, where they're testing each other. But it's realistic and really entertaining where you're seeing these two characters sizing each other up and playing this power game, which, to me, was really, really, really fun to play. 

TV: James returns in an interesting way this season. Did the producers give you any notes for the most present emotions they wanted to see from James as he returns to her life?

Oliver Jackson-Cohen: Veronica West and I spoke about it quite early on, about when someone feels betrayed, how does that manifest? What does that look like? If you take into account everything that happened in the previous season, and the roller coaster of what James went through with the lies and the deceit, the support and the wrong moves, the hurt and all of that stuff, it's an amalgamation of all of that stuff. 

So he comes in...I guess the only way to explain it at the beginning is with this underlying rage. He’s seeking revenge for how he feels he's been treated. And that is always quite a great jumping-off point because it's so erratic, and it can go anywhere. There's something quite dangerous about that as well. It's an exciting point to come in. While Sophie is going on this incredibly complex and complicated search, James suddenly drives a truck through her life again and it makes for great entertainment.

The first two episodes of Surface are streaming on Apple TV+, with new episodes arriving weekly on Fridays through April 2025.