The Rig Season 2 official trailer on Prime Video
The Rig star Iain Glen has revealed that he was so impressed by the scripts for the second series that he was left wondering how the producers would manage to pull off certain scenes.
After the massive wave that ended the first series, the crew of the Kinloch Bravo find themselves in the deadly Arctic Circle.
However, they barely have time to adjust to their new surroundings in a secret facility known as the Stac before they are plunged into more conspiracies, corporate conflicts and investigations into the unknown.
Game of Thrones actor Glen reprises his role as crew leader Magnus MacMillan, joined by Schitt's Creek's Emily Hampshire as scientist Rose Mason and Line of Duty's Martin Compston as communications officer Fulmer Hamilton.
"I think the challenge is reading it on the paper and thinking, 'How on Earth are we going to pull this off? This looks just impossible'," Glen admitted in an exclusive interview with Screen Time and other press.
"But you bring all the magic of film to bear with an amazing cast and crew."
He also spoke about returning to FirstStage Studios in Edinburgh after the first series became Prime Video's first streaming project to be filmed entirely in Scotland.
"It's just fantastic that we're producing this in Scotland," he continued. "But it's just one of those where you read it on the paper and you think 'I just don't know how we're going to do it' and then you start getting into it and everything starts to land.
"You feel, as an actor, what you've just got to concentrate on is relationships and trying to get the story down as much as possible. Make the most of it then let them create the magic around you in certain scenes.
"But it's story-led, it's character stuff, however weird and wonderful the worlds we inhabit, it's still about the people, I think."
The second outing of The Rig will also be a huge departure from the first series as the six episodes will follow multiple groups of characters in different locations. Following the destruction of the tsunami, medic Cat Braithwaite (Rochenda Sandall) and agitator Lars Hutton (Owen Teale) will be dealing with the aftermath in Edinburgh.
"Myself and Owen, we really missed everybody to be honest!" Sandall admitted.
"We had a lot of fun doing it but the team that we built in such a suffocating environment with The Rig season one... we missed it. We missed being with everybody.
"But obviously we know that it's such an important part of the story to tell, seeing the aftermath of the disaster and what it does to the average man rather than just concentrating on heroes and saying, 'Yeah, they're alright. Let's move on to the next bit of the story'.
"You get to really see the utter destruction that the wave has caused off the back of things that have happened in series one. But we missed everybody, of course we did. There was a little bit of crossover, but not enough for our liking!"
Glen cheekily dished on his co-star: "Owen Teale is irrepressible, so he will stay an extra day and arrive an extra day early and want to inveigle everyone into rocking and rolling into the early hours of the morning.
"But I'm a true professional, so I never got drawn into it," he quipped.
The Rig season 2 premieres Thursday, January 2025 on Prime Video.
