“Season one was really about the sins of the past, and season two is the future”: Emily Hampshire, Iain Glen and Rochenda Sandall on The Rig season two

Plunging viewers into uncharted territory, the second season of supernatural thriller The Rig expands the world beyond the remote Scottish oil rig the first season takes place on as the survivors venture to the Arctic’s frozen frontiers. Creator David Macpherson draws inspiration from polar extremes, integrating thrilling action with pressing themes of climate change, corporate cover-ups and human resilience. Against breathtaking icy landscapes, the remaining crew members face dangerous new dynamics, high-stakes conflicts and haunting consequences of the North Sea tsunami. 

Ahead of the show’s release on Prime Video, returning stars Iain Glen, Emily Hampshire and Rochenda Sandall sat down with The Upcoming to discuss their onscreen and offscreen dynamics, the show’s exploration of humanity’s relationship with the mysterious ancestors and the environment, and the challenges of delivering gripping performances – including capturing the Arctic’s icy intensity within the confines of a studio.

Audiences absolutely love The Rig, and with season two now approaching, many fans have been sharing their own theories as to what they think has happened – where the spores came from, what’s happening with Pictor. So what is the craziest or best fan theory that you’ve heard, and were any considered for season two? 

Hampshire: I mean, there was the main question after people finished watching, everyone was like, “Where does the chopper go?” I think I might have spread the biggest fan theory, which was Hawaii – and I believed it. David Macpherson, the show’s creator, was joking, but he’s very dry so I thought he was serious. So we don’t go to Hawaii, we go to the Arctic, which is the anti-Hawaii. But it’s beautiful onscreen.

Glen: We don’t go super hot, we go super, super cold.

And speaking of the Arctic, this season sees the crew in a new onshore facility in the Arctic Circle. If you had to pick one castmate to be stuck with in an isolated place like this, with who would you pick and why?

Sandall: I would probably pick Molly, who plays the lovely Heather, because she’s very kind, she’s got a great sense of humour, and she’s just a great all-around person. I choose her to be isolated with. 

Glen: I’d pick Emily, because she’s really daft, she’s very silly. You have no idea what she’s gonna say and she keeps you guessing. As a person, as an actress, you never know what’s coming at you. And so I think that would keep you entertained.

Hampshire: I don’t want to ruin your question, but I really think the combination of Martin and Iain is the best. So I’d slice them in half and glue them together so I would have the combination of them, it’d be perfect.

Sticking with the Arctic theme, the freezing environment plays a crucial role in the second season. As actors, how did you bring that sense of coldness to life?

Glen: It was because we had to get into the full Arctic gear. The majority of it was shot inside the studio, and it sounds odd, but being really, really, really hot and being really, really cold – they’re kind of like strange cousins. So the feeling that you had to fight it, to fight not feeling too hot is quite similar to trying to stay not too cold.

Hampshire: It was too hot because you had to wear those coats and everything. 

Glen: And they’re putting us in these extraordinary sets inside the studio where they’re creating a huge snowscape in this vast studio space. But then you kind of get into it, and over time, there’s big sequences that take place outside.

Hampshire: Iain was really into it. Because he went to RADA and he studied how to act cold. It was kind of like when we had the earthquake. Yes, Martin and I felt really dumb doing it, but you were like, you’ve been a tree before, so you do have to do a lot of things like go “Brrr”.

Glen: Not quite like that, we’re gonna have some more classes. But we just saw the first episode, and I don’t think you question it. Not only because of us and what we were doing, but just the environment that’s been generated. I think it looks absolutely fantastic, and I’m believing every bit of it.

The Ancestor is such a fascinating and mysterious part of the show. What are your thoughts on how it is portrayed? And how do you feel about it in the broader context of portrayals of the supernatural and the unknown?

Sandall: I think the perception of the Ancestor is gauged quite well, really, because it’s up to you as an audience member – through our characters to understand – is it coming for us? Is it against us? Are we working together? And we go on that journey together, discovering what this thing is. And I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to feel like it could be real in today’s world and everything that’s happening. There’s a line from Mark in the first series: “If you punch the Earth hard enough, eventually it’s going to punch back.” And I just think that’s such a poignant line and so specific to the present and the world that we’re living in. I find it believable, for sure.

Hampshire: I love how it is that “other” a lot of the time. With any “other”, people are afraid of it and want and feel like you have to ward it off or attack it. And Rose really wants to understand it. And I think you can translate that to anything, any “other”. 

Glen: In a very simple sense, it feels like that we, humanity, have been around a lot, lot shorter – a tiny, tiny length of time compared to the life of the planet Earth. And it’s just saying that maybe we should be listening to it. Maybe we should see if it can speak to us, if it can tell us something. I think sometimes when I’m in nature, or you’re in a very beautiful setting, or you’re looking at the sea, or you look at a night sky, it’s kind of mind-boggling. And you feel tiny – but you feel like you’re communing in a sense, to just be inside the planet and to really take it in properly. And we don’t do that, we neglect the planet, we abuse it. So in a way, the Ancestor is just asking to be heard, asking to be understood. 

Hampshire: Visually, they also made great choices with it, because seeing that monster could have been really bad. And always, as an actor, you never know what something’s gonna be like. Sometimes you’re reacting to the monster, which is supposed to be really big. And then you see the monster, and it’s like a puppet. It was amazing, honestly, as the season as it unfolds, it just gets grander and grander. It’s extraordinary.

Now the audiences know that the Ancestor exists, and that part of the mystery is kind of been told to us. How does that affect the overall feel and tone of the series as it goes into season two?

Glen: It’s a funny one because what happens is that the searching for the Ancestor, what it is and what it’s trying to say, goes much, much deeper. We were only just introduced to it in a way before it reacts at the end of season one. And the way it affects, or seems to get inside some of the people during the course of that first season – we kind of move a little bit away from that and [season two is] more to do with where the Ancestor is living within the planet as a whole, not in a specific part of the North Sea. I think our notion of it deepens as we try to understand how it’s speaking to us.

Hampshire: I think season one was really about the sins of the past, and season two is the future, and that is represented by the Ancestor. Like Iain said, you punch the Earth, it’ll punch back. That’s what we thought it was doing, and now we’re kind of trying to work with it.

I think another thing that really came across in season one is how you really get the sense that your characters are a crew. What was the vibe like on set, and how did you bring that togetherness to your roles?

Glen: It is part of the advantage of working in a studio, because you’re all coming to the same place every day. Film can often be sporadic, as one storyline takes place another day, but if you’re all sharing the same space, it just means we’re around each other a lot, and it’s just a really great dynamic. We all take the work seriously, we’re all trying to do our best, but we’re all also trying to have a laugh as well. And we do have a great social life around it. I may be a wee bit biased as I’ve been born and bred there, but Edinburgh is a fantastic city to work in and a great one to socialise in. And we do, we have a ball.

As you’ve already touched on, The Rig tackles this very big question of whether humanity can coexist with the environment. Does it feel as though a winner emerges by the end of the season, or is there more of a peaceful resolution to coexist?

Glen: I don’t think a winner emerges, but rather, a deeper understanding emerges. And again, it’s a very different type of cliffhanger.

Hampshire: It’s not a competition anymore, it’s a collaboration from our point of view, but there might be outside powers. It feels like there are higher powers that are manoeuvring to see if they can take advantage of this. So it’s still all up in the air.

It’s clear that there’s still some tension between Coake’s team and the Bravo crew in season two. Iain, your character seems very observant of the manipulation at play, where does his curiosity lead him this season?

Glen: Magnus? Yeah, he’s keeping an eye. In a way, he’s kind of given over leadership to – well, he didn’t, the leadership was given to Rose. I think he’s very wise and he always knew about Coake’s total disregard for the devastation that had been caused, and he was very alert to the corporate cover-up. And that starts to play out in this. Although the initial Kinloch Bravo crew are in a very new and disorienting space, it becomes clear that we’re much more united as a group. There’s much less infighting and we have a shared enemy.

Hampshire: But at the beginning you kind of smell something off with Lennox, you know?

Glen: And that, again, is David’s really, really good writing. I think Rose has either a subliminal or a conscious desire for the relationship with this new CEO, who she had a relationship with in the past. You feel more defensive of her, don’t you? But we sense that there are ulterior motives being played out. All that gets conjured up very nicely in the second season.

Christina Yang

The Rig season two is released on Prime Video on 2^nd January 2025.

Watch the trailer for The Rig season two here: