Take him down to the paradise city.
James Marsden stars as President Cal Bradford in the Hulu sci-fi show “Paradise,” which releases new episodes on Tuesdays.
Created by “This Is Us” mastermind Dan Fogelman, “Paradise” is a dystopian political thriller set in a city-sized underground bunker after a doomsday event. The plot follows Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), a Secret Service agent who is trying to find out who murdered President Bradford (Marsden).
“We know he’s dead from the first five minutes. But I looked at it as a challenge of, ‘How do we make this interesting, knowing that the audience already knows the outcome?’” Marsden, 51, told The Post.
Marsden was still getting scripts as he was shooting and didn’t know all the plot points.
“So, that’s what makes it fun for me,” he explained. “But also it allows some latitude creatively for interpretation as you move along.”
Over the years in his career, Marsden has played both stalwart heroic types (“Westworld,” “X-Men,” “The Notebook,” “27 Dresses”) and jerks (“Jury Duty,” “Sex Drive.”)
“I guess it’s fun to play a jerk,” said Marsden.
“Or, a character like ‘Jury Duty’ where I’m a version of myself, but a bit of a clown… But then I also like roles that allow me to [use] my natural self. There’s a lot of me in Cal. There’s a lot of his playfulness, his spirit. He gets a bit darker than I do.”
“Paradise” has already been renewed for a Season 2. Season 1’s penultimate episode, out Tuesday Feb. 25, reveals that President Bradford was partially responsible for the state of society in the “present” day of the show, and he’s also partly culpable in Xavier losing his wife amidst the disaster.
“He has a deeper sadness there,” said Marsden. “He carries a lot of regrets with him, but it makes him that much more interesting. So, I do feel like it was the spectrum of color that I get to play with. This character was really broad and I get to pull from different roles I’ve played before, and then kind of insert that into this portrayal.”
Marsden, who is the father of three kids – two with his ex-wife, Lisa Linde, and one with his ex-girlfriend, Brazilian model Rose Costa – said that he and Brown didn’t spend much time together away from the set.
“He’s got kids, I have kids. We value our family time. Once work was over with, we would go home to our families and be with them,” he explained. “But, there was plenty of time on set for us to bond and hang out.”
Marsden, who showed off his singing chops in the 2007 movie “Hairspray,” added, “There’s a real joyous nature to Sterling…we bonded over some ‘90s R&B. There was a lot of singing on set. We were doing duets together – which is nice. Sometimes when you have heavy scenes it’s nice to kind of forget about them for a bit, and take your mind and your spirit to another place – so that you don’t overthink the heavy stuff. We had a really good time together.”
Since “Paradise” initially didn’t reveal its plot twist – that it was a dystopian show set in a bunker – Marsden said he mostly kept that to himself.
“I think I might have told a few people close to me that I could trust…But I typically am pretty good about that,” he told the Post. “I did tell a few close friends of mine like, ‘It’s more than just a political thriller. It’s more than just a crime mystery drama. It’s science fiction.’”
But Marsden, who has been romantically linked to Dutch model Frederique Brons, 26, since 2023, added, “My girlfriend is like, ‘who killed you?’”
He quipped, “I’m not telling you!”
