The following contains spoilers for the season finale of Black Snow

In season two of the crime drama Black Snow, Detective Cormack (Travis Fimmel) takes on two different missing persons cases. For work, when possible new evidence comes to light, he investigates the disappearance of Zoe Jacobs (Jana McKinnon), who vanished from her own 21st birthday party in 2003. In his personal life, he searches for his own younger brother who went missing when they were both children and he now has reason to believe may be alive.

Recently, McKinnon spoke with SciFi Vision about taking on the role of Zoe, her inspiration for the character, dealing with the more emotional aspects of the story, if she knew ahead of time her character’s fate, and more.

Black Snow can be streamed on AMC+.

Read the transcript below.

***Edited for length and clarity***

SCIFI VISION:   What was it that made you first want to be a part of this show?

JANA McKINNON:   I really loved season one, actually. I was living in Queensland at the time, and I was watching it with my whole share house. I sort of started off watching it alone, and then everyone joined in, and everyone got hooked, and we sort of watched it all together on the couch, squished together.

So yeah, I really loved it, and I got the invite to audition for season two, and I just felt like it had to be. I just had this deep feeling that it had to be.

SCIFI VISION:   Was there anywhere other than the script where you took inspiration as you created your version of her?

JANA McKINNON:   Well, the music was a big part of it and actually learning how to use all the different tech that they use back then and being in the room and going into the community radio station that they actually built for us. Yeah, I think a lot of it I found in the music. I had my own little playlists going and every morning before I'd go to set, I'd listen to the music that Zoe would listen to if she was on the way to somewhere.

I also obviously did political research as well, because I was quite small at the time that we're telling, so I had to do a little bit of research on that as well, because it was very important for me to just be truthful in that and know exactly where she stands.

Also, I had lots of conversations with people who had lost someone in their life to suicide. I really wanted to honor that as well, as an aspect that's very, very important to the character.

SCIFI VISION:   I do wanna ask about that, but first I wanna ask you, because you mentioned it, did the playlist you played, was it music from the show or did you choose songs for her? I just was curious kind of what was on that playlist that you listened to.

JANA McKINNON:   No, I did choose some. Well, some of the music was already written in the script, so I used that, and then I sort of went in deeper and deeper. Yeah, I actually got into Peaches for the first time…I purposefully listened to Peaches for the first time, and I really, really enjoyed it. So, I basically put her on every morning.

SCIFI VISION:   You were mentioned about Cody (Nicholas Bakopoulos-Cooke)’s suicide. I was going to ask, talk about getting into the emotional aspect of it, and was that hard kind of delving into that part of it? Because obviously there's a lot of really emotional stuff in it, because of what happens with Cody.

JANA McKINNON:   Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's such a responsibility to bring something like that on screen, because it's an experience that a lot of people have had in their lives. I just really wanted to be truthful for those people who are watching who have maybe experienced something similar. So, yeah, I had deep and meaningful conversations with people who had lost someone to suicide. I was just really trying to understand the impact and how it never leaves you ever again and that it's something that you carry with you your whole life and that it might not always be at the forefront of your mind, but it's stored somewhere in your heart or in your body. It's just always there, I think, for a lot of people.

So, there was a big change, obviously, from the first episodes to the other episodes where Zoe obviously is going through that grief and it takes on very different forms. And to me, it was also interesting to portray a woman who doesn't retreat into her grief, but she goes outwards, and she gets angry, and she wants revenge, and it becomes destructive in a way, but there's so much life force in that as well that I found inspiring in a sense.

SCIFI VISION:   Did they tell you at the very beginning what the whole trajectory of your character was? Did you get the whole script or did you kind of find out whether she was murdered or not? I know it's only six episodes, so I don't know. You might've known everything from the very beginning, but I was just curious.

JANA McKINNON:   I only had a couple of scripts when I had my first call with the director, and I actually said to her, “I need to know what I'm getting into here. What am I going to have to do? What is my job gonna be on this show? I just need to know if I can do that, if I can handle that.” So, yeah, she told me. And then, I wasn't meant to tell anyone else for a while, and it was sort of like all the cast members, it was slowly, slowly trickling through, and people got told from the showrunner what was gonna happen. Yeah, I had to keep it for myself for a little while, which was hard.

SCIFI VISION:   Were you surprised when you found out who the murderer was – well, I guess he didn't really murder her, killed her accidentally. But if you didn't read the whole script at that point, maybe you weren't to the point that you had any guesses of what had happened, I don't know. Are you somebody who likes mysteries like that? Are you usually trying to figure things out? Are you good at those kinds of things or is that not something you like?

JANA McKINNON:   I think I'm pretty mediocre with that, but I do love it. I do love being - I think as a kid, I went through a phase where I wanted to be a detective. So, yeah, I find it really enjoyable.

SCIFI VISION:   What did you learn from this experience or how has it changed you in some way just from being on the show in general?

JANA McKINNON:   Well, I think on a personal level, I really learnt that there's so many different ways of dealing with grief, and we see that throughout all the characters on the show, how everyone is dealing with it so differently. And for my character as well, she probably deals with it very differently than I personally would. So that was a big takeaway for me, that there's no right or wrong in that and to just be kind to people, because you don't know what they've experienced or what's going on in their lives. And just, yeah, treat people with empathy.

SCIFI VISION:   Do you have a favorite scene that you can talk about?

JANA McKINNON:   Well, actually, I think my first scenes, from the first episode. My favorite scenes are from the first episode, because we meet Zoe at her best, and it's actually quite rare to play someone who's at their best. Like usually you play characters that are in some way conflicted or torn or stuff is happening to them. So, just to meet someone who is joyful and present and in the moment and with her friends, and she's having fun. There's this scene where they are actually smoking a joint on this viewing platform, and they sort of just basically talk shit, and that's it, and I love that scene so much. And it was such a hectic day, because we knew we didn't have light for more than two takes. So, we had to shoot it all basically in one or two takes. So, it was sort of like the pressure was on all day. We knew it was gonna happen, and then we took the space and the time to rehearse, and we did all of it. We tried to get all the preparation that we could, and then we just had to let it go and be in the moment and like be with each other and have fun. And that was really lovely. I really loved that.

SCIFI VISION:   Do you have anything other than this coming up that you wanna promote or talk about?

JANA McKINNON:   I mean, it's all German.

SCIFI VISION:   Oh, okay. That's a good point. Okay, what's something you still wanna be in? How about that? What's like your dream role if you could pick anything? Because I'm not going to know the German things, you're right.

JANA McKINNON:   Well, I do have a list of directors that I wanna work with. Yeah, I mean, being in a US production would be a big dream. That would be amazing.