Warning: SPOILERS for Snowpiercer Season 3, Episode 1 - "The Tortoise and the Hare."
Now that Snowpiercer season 3 has begun, the passengers are still divided between two trains. Mr. Wilford (Sean Bean) rules over 1,023 cars but he eliminated the classes, leaving everyone aboard hungry and freezing. Meanwhile, Wilford is desperate to catch up to his nemesis, Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs), who stole Snowpiercer's Eternal Engine. With his small band of loyalists aboard a 10-car pirate train, Layton is searching for Melanie Cavill's (Jennifer Connelly) New Eden. In Snowpiercer season 3's premiere, Layton saw a vision of where New Eden could be as well as bringing a new survivor aboard named Asha (Archie Panjabi).
Screen Rant interviewed Snowpiercer director and executive producer Christoph Schrewe about what it was like producing the show during the pandemic, whether Jennifer Connelly will be in Snowpiercer season 3, and the possibility of a Snowpiercer musical episode.
Screen Rant: You directed several episodes including the first two episodes of Snowpiercer season 3 and you’re also an executive producer. Can I ask what else your role encompasses on the show?
Christoph Schrewe: I joined Snowpiercer at the beginning of season 2 so I directed the first two [episodes] of season 2 and I was a producing director on the whole season. In season 3, I [directed] the first two and then the last two [episodes]. In all of these complications shooting in the [COVID] environment, we lost one director and I took over another episode, which is episode 7 of season 3. Which is kind of the weirdest of all of them!
Season 3 was produced during the pandemic. What was it like shooting under COVID protocols? I imagine it was a challenge considering the size of the cast and the cramped train sets.
Christoph Schrewe: In a weird way, I think, at this point, we -- the whole industry -- had learned how to deal with it. With our great testing protocol, it just worked. You cannot see [the protocols]. We didn't use fewer extras. We did the show as we would have done it [pre-COVID]. We were just super protective, wearing masks and everything. The actors were all tested before they worked. I knock on wood that it continues like that. But it went well.
It's true that the show does not look different. You'd never know it was produced under pandemic conditions.
Christoph Schrewe: I'm very proud of it. We figured out the way to do it safely and it works. And [because of] all of the travel restrictions, basically, me and the rest of the cast were not leaving Vancouver anymore. We kind of had [Snowpiercer] in our lives. A very different version because we weren't living on a train but in a town. We were just away from our normal lives and stuck in this Snowpiercer world. I feel like, in the best possible way, we turned it around and it shows that the intensity of everyone being stuck there together got even higher.
I’d like to ask about Jennifer Connelly, who is just fantastic on the show. Why was she in fewer episodes in season 2? Was that a creative decision or because of scheduling?
Christoph Schrewe: It was absolutely a story decision. The thing that we do on this show is have huge surprises and huge turns. I think we pulled big ones off in season 2 with Melanie leaving the train for the station, being stuck there, and then all of the fights on the train and the disaster of not picking her up in the end.
Jennifer Connelly comes back in season 3. And she's on everyone's mind. Melanie doesn't leave [people's minds], especially Alex [Rowan Blanchard]. She is her mother. There is a deep connection and sometimes, it materializes. We have what's more like dream sequences. Melanie is with the show one way or another again and again. You will see a lot more of her.
There was a lot more action off of the train in the season 3 premiere. Shows like The Mandalorian and Star Trek: Discovery use a VR wall but did you go on location to shoot the exteriors in the snow with Ben, Layton, and Josie?
Christoph Schrewe: We go on location. The show is not set up for virtual reality. We go on location. The location was probably a couple of hours north of Vancouver. There is a massive ice field, a bunch of beautiful glaciers. That's where we went to shoot the base of those scenes. We altered them with CGI, added elements to it. A lot of stuff was done on the glacier with stuntpeople. At least for the scene with Ben [falling through the hole], the actors were in the backlot. It's a complex combination [of techniques].
I'm really proud that we go out there into the real world with the show. What is so fascinating is being up there on the glacier and shooting there. And at the same time, you see climate change in real time. I've been [shooting Snowpiercer] for a couple of years and the glacier is actually shrinking. Hundreds of yards gone in just two years. Just gone. It's so fascinating and our show started with fixing the climate change that's gone wrong.
Snowpiercer has incredible sets. As a director, is there a particular set you get excited about shooting in?
Christoph Schrewe: I love all of them. I always love the Tail. I think we have five or six wagons in the studio which are directly connected and we can move them around. If you are there, there are people who get seasick from this, because [the set] is really moving and shaking and turning. So I love this.
And I was really excited about shooting in the Library, the new set for season 3. Which is a fantastic, amazing, high-end set. Believe it or not, the tiniest set we have, the Maintenance Bubble, this little bubble at the top of the train where you can look out, it's one of my favorite sets too. I always love that space because it's so tiny.
One of the things that makes shooting Snowpiercer so cool is we don't pull walls. We are with the cameras in there with the cast. We'll shake the wagon and it is as real as it gets. And as close and claustrophobic and intense. That's something I really enjoy about working on the show. You get so close to the characters and their lives. I always want the audience to be part of it, to be the best friends of our heroes. Live with them and go for this thrill ride.
The cast is extraordinarily talented. As a director, is there anyone who exceeds your expectations and gives more than even you expected?
Christoph Schrewe: That is something that happens every day. Everyone who works here loves the show. Everyone is so into it, loves their characters, and fights for them. We go there to play together. We have the scripts and we try to push it as far as we can. We push each other to go to new places. It's fantastic, great acting. Two things: it gets me by the heart [because] there's so much emotional truth to it. And then, on the other side, [Snowpiercer] just entertains me like hell.
I like how Snowpiercer weaves in sci-fi elements. When she was alone in season 2, Melanie had conversations with Wilford, Layton, and Alex. In the season 3 premiere, Layton has a vision of the tree in New Eden. Are these signs of the characters wrestling with their psyches or is there something more to the visions?
Christoph Schrewe: I think this is a very good question. In season 2, when Melanie was wrestling with her demons while stuck alone in this abandoned weather station in the mountains, that was an exploration of the inner duelings of her psyche and of her relationships with these people while being stuck alone in this grim, cold place forever.
Layton having a vision in kind of a near-death experience at the end of [episode] 3.01, that is a determining thing. The vision is also in the new opening title sequence. You see the same tree which he sees in his vision. It is the idea for hope, for another, better life outside of the train. Now, the big question of the season is, what do you do to follow this vision, this dream? How much are you willing to risk for something you truly believe is there, this vision? But you have no proof. That is an extraordinary and new element to the show. I think that's the defining element of this season.
If you watch the opening of episode 1 of season 3, Wilford is making a decision. There's a track switch and he has to decide which way he goes. Right or left. He looks at it carefully and makes the decision to go right. And it has consequences because he goes in a very different place. These kind of decisions go through the whole season. Decisions where you are at a crossroads in your lives, and in our lives, and in our characters' lives. This vision is what drives Layton. I think he's not always sure what's the right thing to do, but he strongly believes in it, and we'll find out where it leads us to.
Snowpiercer's cast is also very musical. You have Lena Hall, Daveed Diggs. Sam Otto can sing and play the piano as he showed in season 2. Will there ever be a Snowpiercer musical episode?
Christoph Schrewe: (laughs) I think it's such a great idea. I will go to the writers room right now and pitch it. (laughs) I love it. It's so good. I think [the cast's musical talent] is part of the show. It's an action show, yes, but it has musical [elements]. That's why I'm so happy to work on this show. It's full-life. You have drama, you have music, you have dance, you have parties, you have thrill rides, you have the abyss in front of you. It's great.
Snowpiercer Season 3 airs Mondays @ 9 pm on TNT.
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