“Kate [Chastain] actually had unfinished business from Season 1, and she was a fan favorite,” The Traitors executive producer Sam Rees-Jones said during a TCA press conference for the hit Peacock reality competition series. Kate Chastain was the lone returning contestant in Season 2, which drops new episodes on Thursdays. But unlike her fellow players this season, she entered the mix mid-game, which became a shock for viewers. “We enjoyed spicing things up, having a little bit of a lift.” It probably shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to viewers that the masterminds behind a show like The Traitors like to shake things up. “We want to keep the players always guessing what's going to happen next. It’s a murder mystery at the end of the day.”
(Todd Williamson/Peacock)
Series host and executive producer Alan Cumming referred to Kate as his “Agent of Chaos,” joking that the show should have a special phone that calls Kate in whenever she’s needed (The Traitors has already been renewed for a third season). “Whenever Alan calls, I will always go,” Kate Chastain shared. “I wasn't sure going in if they'd be like, ‘Hey, you just got here,’ and I'd be the first one to go because, frankly, I feel like that's how I probably would have felt. Like, we've already done so many missions, and you haven't done that. But I was pleasantly surprised that I did not go home that first day, and I think everyone was surprised to see me show up, including myself.”
“I'm the most indiscreet person that you can meet,” confessed Alan Cumming about the pressure of keeping the show’s secrets close to his scantly clad chest. He shared an anecdote about spilling the beans on his character’s fate on The Good Wife to fans before the episode aired, and with so much attention on The Traitors, he has to be extra cautious. Similarly, selecting the first traitors this season was a nerve-wracking process for the actor. The contestants are blindfolded around a table and discover they’re a traitor when Alan taps them on the shoulder. “I have Sam in my ear, and I was very aware of the tension, and also the contestants are all really tense and anxious. My heart is pounding. But I do all these tricks to sort of confuse them, and stop, and walk back, and do things with my arm.”
American fans may or may not be aware that The Traitors is an adaptation of a format that was already proven successful elsewhere. “When the format was originally devised in Holland, the people who created it found it very difficult to sell it because a lot of buyers thought that's never going to work, you're giving away who the traitors are,” revealed executive producer Stephen Lambert. The biggest change from the first season to the new one is the loss of non-famous contestants, but the series wasn’t designed with average joes in mind. “The original Dutch version is all with celebrities. Different countries do different ways. We initially thought we would do civilians here, in the States. But, then, there was a change of view towards the end of the preparation period for the first season, and we decided to have people who were well-known as a result of mostly being on other reality shows and had achieved fame. It's a very, very crowded market here, and NBC, Peacock all thought that it would be helpful in terms of the profile of a new show to have those people that were well-known.”
While Season 2 of The Traitors is still playing out on Peacock, the creative team is gearing up for Season 3. In the meantime, Peacock plans to keep viewers engaged by importing international versions of the series, starting second seasons of The Traitors UK (March 8th) and The Traitors Australia (March 28th), plus the first season of The Traitors New Zealand (also March 28th). Casting is still underway for the next US season, but the panelists shared their top choices for the new season. “Beyoncé,” Alan Cumming said, eliciting big laughs. “If we're aiming that high, I'll have Taylor Swift,” added Stephen Lambert. But probably more realistically, Kate Chastain suggested the cast of Vanderpump Rules, a Bravo show that is part of the Peacock family.
New episodes of The Traitors stream Thursdays exclusively on Peacock.