Rebecca Ferguson, Steve Zahn and Common on What to Expect From ‘Silo’ Season 2: ‘What Is So Great About These Stories, It Just Doesn’t End’

For Rebecca Ferguson, star and executive producer of the Apple TV+ series “Silo,” the layered mysteries hiding beneath the surface of the sci-fi drama remind her of the sometimes perplexing rules of England’s national sport, cricket.

“Every time you think you’ve solved something, whether it’s an emotional mystery or a connection or a bond, there is another hinder and another hinder,” Ferguson said. “And that’s what is so great about these stories, it just doesn’t end. And when you think you got the story, it’s like cricket, you just haven’t. It just evaporates. Did that make sense? Like cricket, like the game, it makes no sense.”

Ferguson sat down with her co-stars Steve Zahn and Common, as well as showrunner and executive producer Graham Yost and executive producer and author of the “Silo” book series Hugh Howey in the Variety Studio, presented by Google TV, at 2024 San Diego Comic-Con to discuss the upcoming second season of “Silo.”

“Silo” takes place in a dark post-apocalyptic future of Earth, where humans are forced to live in massive underground bunkers known as silos to protect themselves from the toxic refuse that contaminates the surface world.

For Zahn, a newcomer to the show, the process of joining “Silo” was a “very unique job.” Although he had to catch up on the expansively complex world set up by showrunner Yost in Season 1, he only interacts with one character in Season 2, Ferguson’s Juliette Nichols, due to the solitary nature of his character.

“It’s a huge world, there’s a lot of people involved, there’s a lot moving in and out with characters and this and that,” Zahn said. “But my character has been living alone for decades, and so I act with really one person here.”

“He’s weird,” Ferguson interjected about Zahn’s character. “He’s scary and weird.”

Season 2 also brings a rebellion within the confines of Silo 18, a rebellion that the head of security Robert Sims, played by Common, will have to deal with. Although the role was difficult for him, Common welcomed the challenge and was excited to explore all the repressed questions and insecurities within the head of Sims.

“Sims is experiencing a lot of things that may not even come out all the way yet in Season 2, but there are definitely some questions, at least in the way I approached this season dealing with the rebellion,” Common said. “It’s something being a part of the government [in ‘Silo’] for me as a person. Like, being a part of the people who established society and perpetuating the lies, or maybe some of it is the truth. It’s funny for me to play this character, but I love it.”