He is far from the Ichabod Crane of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and yet British actor Tom Mison, gives us a protagonist to remember in the Sleepy Hollow series. Rising from the dead to find himself in a modern time zone, yet intrinsically tied to the headless horseman he killed in 1781, Crane is forced to deal with mysterious problems that plague the land.
The series, renewed for a third season, brings plenty of change, says Mison. “I’d rather welcome that change. Every writer comes to set with their episode, and we sit around, have a drink after work and discuss so many amazing ideas,” he begins, adding that he probably knows what is expected in season three, when season two is still a mystery. “One big change seems to be when a character dies, you can safely expect them back. But, for the rest of the season, the danger returns and death comes in a more permanent format,” he says, biting his tongue to stop himself from revealing more.
Telling the future
If you feel that Crane is getting a bit serious, the latter half of the season sees him taking on karaoke. Titled Kali Yuga, the episode has him solving a murder within a Hindu cult and managing a night on the town. “It was something I joked about a long time ago with Heather Regnier, who wrote the episode. She called my bluff and wrote it in. So I cursed myself and Heather. But she was kind enough to allow me to choose the song - A Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime, a haunting tune about ‘a young sailor who tragically dies of syphilis’.
Mison tells fans to ‘brace themselves’ for the end of the current season. “There’s no cliffhanger like season one. Instead, there is a level of finality that is rather shocking. It will change everything. It’s an exciting way to end the season,” he explains. Emphasising that it is a mix of drama, comedy, action and horror that keeps him going, he adds, “I watched an Australian horror film the other day and had a bit of an epiphany. The thing that has always been most successful with Sleepy Hollow is that it is horror that really gets the joke.”
And what of his topsy turvy relationship with Katrina, his wife and also a witch (played by Katia Winter)? “It’s quite nice to have the relationship be so layered. It’s easy to criticise Katrina and Ichabod. Is there a way for them to survive in the modern world? Probably not. But it does reach a rather exacting dilemma very, very soon,” Mison says in conclusion.
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