Life has changed for Dr. Kurt Boggs (Kurt Fuller) ever since his patient and friend Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) got wrapped up in the unexplained, investigating cases for the church alongside David (Mike Colter) and Ben (Aasif Mandvi).
Take, for instance, the demon Boggs saw last season on Evil. After, he was ready to take a break, only for the beginning of Season 3 to reveal that didn’t happen, due to, he claimed, back problems. Now, he’s told Sister Andrea (Andrea Martin) he doesn’t know what he saw.
So why is he having such trouble accepting demons? And how much can we trust him (and his wife we’ve never seen?) TV Insider turned to Fuller to find out, plus get teases on where the season is heading for Boggs.
I love Boggs and his reactions to everything.
Kurt Fuller: It’s interesting, especially as it started out, his main patient, Kristen, is also a good friend and trying to be therapeutically professional and also involved with her on an emotional level was a real tricky thing to try and figure out. Because I don’t know if in real life, a therapist could do therapy with their best friend, but I’m sure it happens. It must happen, if you’re the only therapist in town or something. I had to think about that a lot.
Boggs has to deal with the fact that he saw a demon, but he doesn’t want to say that he saw a demon because he doesn’t know how to accept that. Why is he struggling so much with it?
That’s a good question. Boggs, his whole life, has been a scientist and an empiricist and he believes that science and the scientific method can answer just about any question in life and any question with his patients and anything else would be hallucination or psychopathy, really. But Boggs, who doesn’t think he hallucinates or is a psychopath has seen a demon, hasn’t he? And you will see as the season goes on, it has opened a door and through that door has come a life and it changes his life in very dramatic ways.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
What does that mean for Boggs and Sister Andrea’s dynamic? That is so much fun.
Yes. Boggs really likes Sister Andrea, and Sister Andrea says things that are completely antithetical to Boggs’ worldview, except that Boggs has seen a demon. And even though he hasn’t yet admitted that’s what it was or that he saw something out of the corner of his eye or whatever he says to himself, the things that Sister Andrea says to him about demons and about angels, it resonates and it makes him feel deep down inside, my God, she’s right. And it’s a very hard thing, especially at my age and at Boggs’ age, to change a worldview of over 60 years in a split second. Not easy to do. And it comes with a lot of soul searching and breaking down. Working with Andrea Martin and just learning from her every time on the set has been, this last season, the greatest experience for me. She is absolutely phenomenal, and I love working with her and I love her character.
I am slightly suspicious of Boggs’ wife, and when I spoke with the Kings last season, Robert said they wanted to leave some mystery about whether she even exists. What can you say about his wife?
Well, we never see Boggs’ wife. And Boggs may never see his wife. There’s some things in a show that they leave out there and they don’t know what they’re gonna do, and it could happen in the future that Boggs really doesn’t have a wife, but I think he does. I don’t think Boggs has enough imagination to have a fake wife. I just don’t think he’s that crafty or devious, but Boggs is evolving as every season goes on and he certainly, as you’ll see by the end of the season, is a completely different person. He could very well end up not having a wife, but the jury is out. That’s what I will say.
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
I’m wondering if maybe someone is manipulating him or if he’s manipulating Kristen…
It could be. That’s something that I won’t answer, but that could very, very, very well be true. There’s a lot of manipulating and subterfuge that is going on in this show at all times from every character, and it’s kind of great that you can never tell where a character’s coming from. You can’t tell. Everybody seems so sincere except for Leland [Michael Emerson] — and Sheryl [Christine Lahti]. Sheryl’s right out there. She has no filter. But Boggs has a huge filter. So it’s hard to tell. You know, the teddy bear that I used on my back, I thought, why would they introduce a teddy bear? And it’s always been my suspicion that that teddy bear, there’s something going on. There’s something creepy about that teddy bear. And yet they won’t tell me. I’ve asked them. They won’t tell me.
He said that his wife was calling a chiropractor and you can connect that to what’s going on there maybe…
There you go. What wife?
Robert also noted that Boggs “has always been a slightly suspicious character,” pointing to “some questionable choices.” Can he be trusted, not only by Kristen but also Sister Andrea?
I’ve gotta say, last year, I thought, this guy’s a terrible doctor. He overprescribes medication. When Kristen comes to me and says she’s having trouble with something, I say, “Oh, well, keep taking it.” “It’s giving me hallucinations. I’m seeing things–” “Well, you gotta continue to take the medication.” I just sense that if Boggs is really as smart as he says he is, he’s doing some things on purpose. There’s something going on. And Sister Andrea actually sees into your soul. That’s what it looks like when she looks at you. She scares me. When Boggs is with her, he’s actually frightened at what she’s seeing and what she’s thinking and what she knows about him that he doesn’t know about himself actually.
Elizabeth Fisher/CBS
Speaking of questionable decisions, he told Kristen to normalize the relationship by inviting David over for family dinner, which —
That’s not good advice!
Exactly! What does he think of that whole situation?
[Laughs] I’m gonna tell you what I think Boggs the man thinks. He thinks her husband’s a bit of a drip. He thinks that Kristen is more than her husband can react to and it’s not necessarily a good match. And he thinks she’s really in love with David. He senses that she’s really in love with David, and I think he would like to see them — even though David’s a priest now, that changes things. But last year he wasn’t. We’ll talk about last year. I think he wanted them to explore further their completely submerged feelings for each other because he thought, just from a therapeutic point of view, that it was extremely unhealthy for her and that she was acting out because of that emotional and sexual frustration, in my opinion. Listen to me talking like a therapist.
Who will we be seeing Boggs mostly with for the rest of the season?
Very little with Kristen, but a lot with Leland. Now that Boggs has seen a demon, Leland sees a weakness and he’s like a vulture. He’s been flying around and now he lands and boy, it gets really intense.
Does that mean we’re seeing more Boggs and Sheryl? I really liked those scenes.
No. You know what? Boggs and Sheryl should have an affair. I talked to Christine about that, and she agreed — this couldn’t happen now. But when she came to see me in Season 2 , I thought that’s where it was gonna go because she’s so insidious. But it hasn’t. … I would like to see Boggs and Sheryl have some sort of affair or her try to kill him. I think she’s really capable of murder now. I think Sheryl could kill now.
And because they’re both getting deeper and deeper involved in everything that’s going on on the evil side…
We’re moving towards the same side. It’s kind of scary. We’re moving towards the same side. And if we get another season, I sense that we will be on the same side, but I don’t know. I don’t want to turn completely bad, but on a show like Evil, you’re either possessed or you’re not possessed, and being possessed is a very interesting storyline. So it could be a lot of fun and very frightening, too.
The more that Boggs sees, you don’t know how that’s gonna change him and he’ll handle it.
I just hope Boggs is smarter than he’s shown. Boggs thinks he’s a genius, but when I read it and I look at it as Kurt the person, I think, God, this is just not smart. This is just not good. He’s making mistakes, but Boggs really has a God complex. I think he thinks he’s right all the time, and so it’s interesting.
Evil, Sundays, Paramount+