If you’ve been tuning into Foundation for the sci-fi intrigue, detailed world-building, and the way the characters wield math like a superpower—you’ll be very pleased with season three. But if you’ve also been enjoying the hell out of Lee Pace’s performance as Brother Day, the middle brother among Foundation‘s ever-revolving ruling trio of clones named Cleon, well… let’s just say you’re in for quite the delight when the Isaac Asimov adaptation returns to Apple TV+.
And Pace himself agrees: this Brother Day, who has checked out of palace life as much as he can in favor of a more leisurely, drug-fueled existence, is an all-timer.
“It’s been my favorite [version of Day] so far,” he told io9 at a recent Foundation press day. “It’s one of the fun things about this show, is that I get to play some characters that are just wildly different than each other. But I really kind of learned a lot about what the emperor is in playing someone who rejects it. You know, he’s not interested. He’s going to mind his own business. He is not going to try to control anything.”
This is the most quotable Cleon we’ve met by far; “Welcome to my filth!” and “I’m leaning into indignity” are just two of his golden zingers. “I think he’s funny,” Pace agreed. “I think even I think he finds himself funny. He’s still got the Cleonic ego. He is just not executing anyone.”
No spoilers here, but let’s just say Brother Day goes on an intriguing journey in season three—one that’s far different from the paths we’ve seen other versions of him take, including the deeply cruel, space-traveling Cleon the 17th of season two.
“Like I said, I think he wants to just mind his own business,” Pace said. “He doesn’t want to try to influence [politics]; he’s not trying to save the day. He’s not trying to be the hero of the story. There’s other people in the story that are serving that function. He just wants to mind his business. And he doesn’t think he has any role to play in the galaxy.”
Day’s relationship with Demerzel (Laura Birn), the ancient robot programmed to serve Empire—making her the true architect of its regime, as we saw in season two—is frosty as season three begins. She’s who “decants” each new Cleon and controls their lives from the inside, and Pace’s character resents her for it.
“He thinks he’s this product that is made by a robot to serve her purposes, and he is… It feels disgusting for that reason, you know? So he runs from it all. And in running from it, he kind of finds himself back home again.”
Pace continued. “And he finds himself with purpose and with something extremely valuable to fight for. Because he [comes to realize that], like right under his nose the whole time, he has the most magnificent opportunity to help the galaxy that anyone could have.”
“I find it surprising. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil it, but the changes within him are delicate. And inside of a show that is about the fall of the galactic civilization and the possible extinction of the human species after it has swelled to this unfathomable size, I think there’s something really interesting. It’s a show about minds, human minds: Gaal Dornick’s mind, Hari Seldon’s mind, Demerizel’s electronic mind and emotions. I think with Cleon, we’re looking at his very messy, fallible… deeply subconscious human mind.”
Welcome yourself to Brother Day’s filth when Foundation season three premieres its first episode: July 11 on Apple TV+.
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