Entertainment
Prime Video’s ‘Scarpetta’ Stars Tease What Needs To Happen in Season 2 After That Finale
This interview contains spoilers for the Scarpetta Season 1 finale.
When he’s not making headlines for buying bearded dragons for his family, Bobby Cannavale is giving some excellent performances. From winning two Emmys (for Will & Grace and Boardwalk Empire) to earning two Tony nominations, he’s taken on a wide range of roles in an equally diverse range of genres and mediums. Simon Baker’s resume is equally impressive. Though best known for playing a former psychic who helps solve crimes in The Mentalist (a role that earned him Emmy and Golden Globe nominations), he’s also appeared in projects like The Devil Wears Prada and the upcoming Taika Waititi film Klara and the Sun.
Scarpetta sees the two of them take on polar-opposite, fascinatingly complementary characters. Cannavale stars as Pete, a blunt, rough-around-the-edges former detective who is in a relationship with the eccentric Dorothy (Jamie Lee Curtis) despite always having a thing for her sister, the brilliant pathologist Kay (Nicole Kidman). Kay’s husband, Benton (Baker), is a reserved, mysterious FBI profiler who’s nearly impossible to read. The series sees the former co-workers living under the same roof, which, predictably, leads to some tension and complications.
Collider got the chance to speak to Cannavale and Baker about their game-changing scenes in the Season 1 finale. Cannavale also discusses reteaming with Kidman after working with her in Nine Perfect Strangers, and the duo pitches a hilarious idea for Season 2.
Bobby Cannavale and Simon Baker Reveal How They Prepared for ‘Scarpetta’
“It’s just so rich, the possibility of where you can go with that.”
COLLIDER: Bobby, you and Nicole did Nine Perfect Strangers together, which also had a wellness cult somewhat in the vein of Yama Matt’s. I’m curious if 1) you noticed that parallel at all and 2) how the experience of working with Nicole differed this time around.
BOBBY CANNAVALE: That is so funny. No, we never talked about the parallels between that. So funny. I think, you know, you do these things, and you’re so immersed in it when you’re doing it, and then it’s just out of mind — at least that’s how it is for me. I’ve done that with everything. I’ll do a play for six months, and then the moment it’s over, I don’t remember any of the words anymore, so I didn’t quite track that. But that was a great launching pad for our working relationship because, when I got asked to do it again, I didn’t hesitate. She’s one of our great actors, and I jumped at the chance to get to work with Nicole again.
I would love to see many more collaborations between the two of you. Simon, your character is so fascinating — I feel like I can’t quite pin him down. It’s implied that he has these sociopathic tendencies, but he’s very different from what you assume a sociopath might be. I’m curious what your process for cracking this character and getting into his head was.
SIMON BAKER: How do I answer that without giving it all away?
CANNAVALE: The thing that you loved so much is what he worked hard on.
BAKER: Is not knowing, yeah. So I’m not gonna tell you. When I was offered the job, I was sent the first two scripts, and there wasn’t a lot going on on the page for Benton, relative to the other characters. The other characters are kind of, pretty much writ large, on the page, right? And they jumped off the page at me. But Benton was kind of, “What’s going on with this guy?” It wasn’t until I got to the second episode that I was like, “Oh, okay — there’s something here.” I got on the phone with Liz Sarnoff, who’s our showrunner and creator, and had a really good chat with her about it. She was awesome with, “Look, this is what I’m thinking, and I’m really curious about what you’re thinking, and we can explore this. We’ve basically kind of got an open book with this — of where we can go.” I happened to be reading a couple of books at the time that were memoirs, and they were giving me some inspiration, and I talked to Liz about them, and we sort of built from there. But yeah, it’s somewhere in there, and I don’t really want to show my work too much.
CANNAVALE: It’s pretty amazing, though. I think the script is so good, and Patricia’s source material — those books are so amazing. It’s just a little detail, like the book that your mother gives you. It’s just so rich, the possibility of where you can go with that. A kid getting that book who ends up being an FBI profiler? That’s like a lot of information, and you don’t need much more than that. You just need a great actor to fill that in, and I think that’s what you’re reacting to.
Bobby Cannavale and Simon Baker Explain the ‘Scarpetta’ Season 1 Ending
“They’re both trying to find a truth, and they’re not really able to.”
The finale obviously sees Kay and Dorothy both trying to pull Pete in their direction, and he ultimately does choose Dorothy. Why do you think he made that decision, and what do you think is going through his head in that final shot of him on the bed?
CANNAVALE: I think it’s complicated. I think he does love Dot, and I think he loves Kay, and it’s complicated. I think he doesn’t know where he’s going from there and is conflicted by what he should do. I think he’s close to Kay and Benton as a couple, and I think he knows that that is collapsing as well — that’s in trouble. I think he’s stuck in a limbo there — an emotional limbo — so I don’t know where he’s going. That’ll be up to Liz and us to talk about, and figure out, and hopefully tease out and extend the tension of that for as long as we can.
Another really complex scene in the finale is between Kay and Benton, where we have Kay lashing out and sort of trying to bait him, and he ends up asking for a divorce. Simon, can you break down what you think both Kay and Benton’s motivations are, or what they’re both trying to sort of accomplish in that moment?
BAKER: If you really want to make it simple, I feel like, in hindsight, that scene is really just about two different people trying to come to the truth — of what their truth is — but they have different ways of coming to the truth. I think, from Benton’s standpoint, it’s somewhat of a confessional scene. He’s expressing something that’s deep inside him that he doesn’t necessarily like about himself. Kay is demanding something else from him in that moment. They’re both trying to find a truth, and they’re not really able to, and I think Benton’s way of controlling being out of control is just calling it.
Bobby Cannavale and Simon Baker Reveal Their Hopes for ‘Scarpetta’ Season 2
“I think a present-day Pete/Benton road trip would be good.”
I love to watch you guys play off of each other. I think there’s so much interesting tension there. I know you’re starting to film Season 2 very soon, which is very exciting. Is there an element of your character that you feel like you haven’t gotten to explore in Season 1 that you would really like to dive into in this next installment?
BAKER: That’s part of what’s fun about the serialized show is that there is always stuff, and there might be something that comes down the pike in the script where you go, “That doesn’t seem right,” but you’ve gotta kind of noodle and figure out a way that you can make that work and make that your own, and I think that’s part of what’s really challenging in these sort of shows. I think there’s plenty of room with Benton.
CANNAVALE: I think a present-day Pete/Benton road trip would be good.
BAKER: I would like to do more stuff with Bobby.
CANNAVALE: I feel like our young versions have more to do [with each other] than we have.
BAKER: They hang out a little bit more. It’s so interesting because they’re so different.
CANNAVALE: It sucks, because we hang out in real life. Maybe that’s why.
BAKER: Because they know the show would go off the rails. Veer off.
CANNAVALE: We’d be like Bill and Ted. We could be a spin-off like Wayne’s World.
BAKER: You just talk the whole time, and Benton sits there going [growls].
CANNAVALE: Brooding.
I love this. I think, yeah, we need a spin-off comedy of the two of them. Let’s just completely change the genres and tones with it.
BAKER: [Laughs] Roommates.
All episodes of Scarpetta are now streaming on Prime Video.
- Release Date
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March 11, 2026
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Elizabeth Sarnoff
- Directors
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David Gordon Green, Charlotte Brändström