When we arrive in the lush P-Valley at the beginning of the first season of the visceral Starz series, if the viewer has anything close to a guide to the unfamiliar setting, it would be the stranger in a strange land, the running for her life Hailey Colton / LaKiesha Savage / Autumn Night. And who better to play this complex character than an outsider herself, U.K. (and now L.A.) based actress Elarica Johnson. Of course, we memorably sat down with Johnson for season one of P-Valley, but the game has changed immensely since then as Hailey Colton is no longer a dancer at The Pynk, she’s actually the proprietor, having bought the club to prevent Chucalissa and its shady mayor from turning it into a casino. Hailey is the boss and trying to keep the dancers in line, while also now dealing with the pandemic and with Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan) constantly testing her authority. Yeah, being the boss on P-Valley is not going to run smoothly for Hailey Colton.
Elarica Johnson has come really far with the character and may even slip into the Chucalissa dialect a little better in season two, (and there is a tremendous scene in which Autumn Night, missing the days that she worked the pole, does a little bit of an impromptu dance before being interrupted). The theme that emerges the most in P-Valley is that of honesty and Johnson embodies that sense of honesty, bringing it into her performance, but also in her dealing with the press as well. In every facet, she seems to understand the language and the nature of the series, and even though she is often at odds with Uncle Clifford, she describes her portrayer, Nicco Annan, as being “the best”. In our video interview, Johnson previewed the coming season, which was a bit tricky as this was the first of our interviews for the new season. She left with the warning to “get ready” and you should be getting ready to watch the exclusive Zoom video interview with the talented Elarica Johnson below.
WATCH:
New episodes of P-Valley season 2 are available Fridays on STARZ and Crave
