Mary talked with The Daily Beast to discuss Fargo. Check out the interview below (or click here)! Warning: the interview contains spoilers. What did you think of the season finale?

‘Fargo’ Season 3 Finale: Mary Elizabeth Winstead on Nikki Swango’s Tragic Ending

The actress who brought Nikki Swango to life explains how her quest for ‘vengeance’ went so wrong. Warning: Major spoilers for the Season 3 finale.

After nearly two decades of important television dominated by “difficult men,” we may finally have the 21st century’s first truly great TV antiheroine.

From the moment Mary Elizabeth Winstead appeared on screen in Fargo’s third season as Nikki Swango, bridge-playing parolee to Ewan McGregor’s down-and-out parole officer Ray Stussy, it has been impossible to look away. When, in episode two, she spontaneously decided to leave her bloody tampon in the desk drawer of Ray’s brother Emmit, also played by McGregor, she was seared in our memory forever.

The third—and possibly final—season of Noah Hawley’s Coen brothers-inspired anthology series may not have been as exhilarating as the first or as beautifully constructed as the second, but it did have its standout moments. And many of them belonged to Winstead, who emerged as the unexpected protagonist by the end, seeking vengeance for the untimely death of her beloved Ray and teaming up with Russell Harvard’s Mr. Wrench (the only character to appear in all three seasons of the show) in an attempt to take down David Thewlis’ terrifying V. M. Varga.

Months after braving the “Calgary cold” of Fargo’s shoot, Winstead is back home in Los Angeles, where she caught up with The Daily Beast ahead of Wednesday night’s finale. She says the experience of playing the indomitable Nikki Swango has “spoiled her” to the point that she’s taking her time to look for the next project. And she’s not quite ready to say goodbye.

Below is an edited and condensed version of our conversation, including major spoilers from Fargo’s season three finale.
Continue reading “Fargo” Season 3 Finale: Mary on Nikki’s Ending

Fargo actress teases season finale: ‘You do not know what to expect’

Last week marked Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley’s admission that season 3 might be the last for FX’s anthology series. But there’s still plenty to look forward to before this season comes to a close, as star Mary Elizabeth Winstead told EW on the latest episode of Entertainment Weekly: The Show

There are plenty of references to the filmography of original Fargo directors Joel and Ethan Coen throughout the show’s scripts. If the dynamic between Nikki and Ray (one of Ewan McGregor’s two roles this season) doesn’t remind you of the relationship between Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter in Raising Arizona, maybe it should. Winstead said, “That’s actually the one Coen Brothers movie I watched before we started, because I thought maybe there would be something there to kind of pick up on.”

She even called out a shot from the season premiere as a possible “homage to a shot of Nicolas Cage getting arrested in Raising Arizona.”

Though such allusions aren’t always blatantly mentioned by Hawley, Winstead explained, “I think most of us involved are very familiar with the movies … so I think they kinda stand out on the page, even if it’s not referenced. But occasionally a script, a line would say, ‘A la The Big Lebowski’ or ‘By the way, this is The Big Lebowski moment’ or something, but usually it’s sort of unspoken…”

Winstead remained pretty tight-lipped about the finale, saying, “I think, as ever, in Fargo, you do not know what to expect in the end, and I would hate to give anything away, because that’s what’s so lovely and sweet and special about it, is that, like, you get that experience of going, ‘Oh my God.’” She did make a point to tease that Nikki will get to drive none other than a semi-truck, come episode 9.

To hear more about Fargo, check out the clip above.

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