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" Earlier today (July 24), the cast of Penny Dreadful took to Comic-Con&amp;#039;s Ballroom 20 to discuss season one and the show&amp;#039;s future. Showrunner John Logan shared his thoughts alongside stars Josh Hartnett, Harry Treadaway and Reeve Carney. Catch up on all the action as it happened in Digital Spy&amp;#039;s live blog below.     19:09That&amp;#039;s a wrap! Thanks for joining us!   19:08One actor on set apparently gave Josh the advice: &amp;quot;When in doubt, speak low and fast.&amp;quot;   19:08Time for the final question - a fan asks about the dark look of the show and murky soundtrack. Is it to make us lean in? &amp;quot;Absolutely,&amp;quot; John says. He says he wanted &amp;quot;textures of dark&amp;quot; - &amp;quot;If it makes you lean in, good. If it makes you squint, adjust your TV.&amp;quot;   19:07Harry jokes that he&amp;#039;s not as lonely as he would like to be! &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think he&amp;#039;s got that much time for dating,&amp;quot; he adds. &amp;quot;Tinder, Tinder would probably be good.&amp;quot;   19:06The next question - did the sexuality of the characters affect how they played them? Josh says sexuality should be treated in a modern way - it&amp;#039;s not about whether you&amp;#039;re gay, straight or bi, and more that human sexuality is what it is. Given the circumstances, every character could be attracted to one another. &amp;quot;Come on, look at Reeve,&amp;quot; he adds.   19:05Will Ethan get more power over his werewolf side in season two? He&amp;#039;ll have some &amp;quot;emotional power&amp;quot; - but otherwise he is a &amp;quot;slave to the moon&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;Ladies know what that&amp;#039;s like,&amp;quot; Aisha jokes. Josh points out the rules about under-18s in the audience. &amp;quot;Your show&amp;#039;s full of titties,&amp;quot; Aisha replies.   19:04The next fan is very nervous, bless her. She finally thanks Josh for &amp;quot;bringing your werewolf out&amp;quot; but asks how he&amp;#039;s going to tell the rest of the group (I think). Josh says Ethan lives little of his life not in fear of the moon cycle - he just doesn&amp;#039;t know exactly what&amp;#039;s going to happen each time.   19:01Time for another fan - he asks about the Painting. Was it a curse or something he asked for? Reeve says it was an &amp;quot;idle wish&amp;quot; - he&amp;#039;s not sure it will ever be explained fully.    19:00The next question - what&amp;#039;s it like working with so many James Bond cast and crew members? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s dangerous,&amp;quot; Josh jokes.   18:58The next question - how come in John&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;cosmology&amp;quot; female sexuality is bad? Does it worry him that he can&amp;#039;t say it was Victorian mores? John says he&amp;#039;d never hide behind that because he&amp;#039;s a modern writer working for a modern audience. He says in no way is sexuality a bad thing for him - neither is unlocking a demon. It&amp;#039;s all just about seeing the characters progressing and evolving.   18:56Do the characters believe in God? Frankenstein: no. Dorian: agnostic. Ethan: yes. John says that season two will delve &amp;quot;deeply&amp;quot; into theology - the characters will have to deal with eternity or not.   18:55John is trying to figure out what to do about Brona - but the biggest season two relationship will be Vanessa and Ethan, because there&amp;#039;s such a connection between the characters.   18:54John says they&amp;#039;ll have different combinations of sexuality in the future - which he hopes is just as &amp;quot;joyous and terrifying&amp;quot; as sex!   18:53The next fan says Vanessa shows a lot of &amp;quot;dangerous&amp;quot; female sexuality - sex turns her into a monster. But John says all the characters will continue to evolve and he&amp;#039;d be &amp;quot;uncomfortable&amp;quot; to think Vanessa expressing her sexuality had something retrograde in it. &amp;quot;It doesn&amp;#039;t work out well for any of these people when they have sex,&amp;quot; he points out. &amp;quot;Maybe that says something about me!&amp;quot;   18:52We&amp;#039;re on to fan questions now - first up, do the panellists have a favourite line from the show? Reeve says acting the dialogue is like parenting: &amp;quot;It comes to you pretty perfect - you just have to not screw it up.&amp;quot; Josh picks: &amp;quot;No monkey!&amp;quot;   18:50We&amp;#039;ll learn more and more about the characters bit by bit, John promises. He says he&amp;#039;s still figuring out when he wants to tell certain stories - moments come or they don&amp;#039;t come. He&amp;#039;s hoping that the show will keep going for a while so all the characters&amp;#039; stories can be told: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been thinking about them for ten years.&amp;quot;    18:49&amp;quot;At some point, something happened in Ethan&amp;#039;s life that led to this curse/blessing... And that led him to try to run away from himself, and sadly it led him to violence of the most extreme degree, which we&amp;#039;ll begin to hear more about as the series goes on,&amp;quot; John explains.   18:48So what is Ethan running from in America? John says he&amp;#039;s looking forward to exploring that in a back story episode - where we also find out how he became a werewolf! But he&amp;#039;s not sure if it will happen this season or next or in the future.   18:48In the second season, John says Ethan will find out exactly who he is. And Josh is looking forward to it because he spent a lot of the first season reacting to everything around him, whereas now he will be actively discovering what he&amp;#039;s all about.   18:46Josh quips that Ethan&amp;#039;s middle name is Shame: &amp;quot;He lives in a shame spiral!&amp;quot; He thinks he&amp;#039;s afraid of his own capabilities... and doesn&amp;#039;t even really know what they are or the extent of what he becomes.   18:45John reveals that initially the Portrait was going to be seen in the finale, but they decided to hold off because they enjoy the mystery and to expose it in season one would be premature. &amp;quot;It was Magic Eye,&amp;quot; Josh jokes.   18:44At some point we&amp;#039;ll see the Portrait of Dorian Gray, John promises. Reeve says at first, all he saw when he was looking at it was a black screen with green tape on it.   18:43John jokes that Frankenstein and the Creature &amp;quot;both grew up with way too much poetry&amp;quot;. He says selfishly he could let the characters &amp;quot;explode&amp;quot; in language, which he couldn&amp;#039;t do with the rest of the cast.   18:41Was there any reference to Phantom of the Opera with the Creature? &amp;quot;Not especially,&amp;quot; John says - though he loves it. He thinks the Creature and Frankenstein combined are very similar to him. He thinks they come from his saddest, most poignant place.   18:40Harry adds that it&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;stimulating&amp;quot; to go back in time and be surrounded by the props and costumes. &amp;quot;I love a pocket watch.&amp;quot;    18:39John says he was raised with a lot of British and Irish literature and culture from his Irish parents - he loved the period. So he felt good about writing his &amp;quot;version&amp;quot; of Victoriana - it&amp;#039;s heightened for the show&amp;#039;s characters.   18:38But hey, it did also include Simon Russell Beale as Ferdinand Lyle - he&amp;#039;ll apparently be part of the &amp;quot;family&amp;quot; in season two too.   18:37Well that was intensely creepy, with Madame Kali saying that either she or Vanessa will die and promising to unleash horrors. Eep.   18:34We&amp;#039;re getting to see a deleted scene from season one that will be in season two, now! It&amp;#039;s a Madame Kali scene.   18:33John says he was frustrated that at the end of season one he didn&amp;#039;t have a villain that could speak. So he created Madame Kali, who was in a couple of season one episodes. She&amp;#039;ll be the antagonist in season two! Her supernatural world will become the big threat.   18:32He&amp;#039;s also excited about the &amp;quot;cosmology&amp;quot; and the &amp;quot;theology&amp;quot; of the show in season two - there&amp;#039;s a much more &amp;quot;threatening and supernatural world&amp;quot; coming up.    18:32As the series goes on, we&amp;#039;ll meet more characters leading into the Dracula story, John continues. He&amp;#039;s also keen to get Doctor Moreau in there, depending on how long the show lasts!   18:31John teases that the first season presented the question about Vanessa... the second will start to provide the answer!   18:30We&amp;#039;re on to Vanessa&amp;#039;s possession now. John explains that the big question of the show is who Vanessa is and whose lives she will touch and how. So did she invite the possession, or did it take her? John says it&amp;#039;s in the middle.   18:29&amp;quot;I can do surgery if anyone wants any surgery,&amp;quot; Harry adds helpfully.   18:29Harry is apparently a master prop actor - he uses real Victorian gear and it&amp;#039;s all him - whereas Eva Green just drops everything (that&amp;#039;s what John says, not us!)   18:28&amp;quot;The stuff they used to get up to was insane,&amp;quot; Harry continues. He says they would chop your head off and make your arm move with diodes because they were fascinated by people moving after death.   18:27Harry says he knows about Frankenstein from general culture, but he hadn&amp;#039;t read the novel before this - and he only read up to the point it was useful. He also spoke to Cambridge historians about physicians at the time and was horrified by what they got up to! (As well as impressed by how &amp;quot;groundbreaking&amp;quot; they were, of course.)   18:26John reveals he had Dorian Gray in his head when he was writing the show, but found it really hard to cast - until Reeve walked in.   18:26How much did Harry and Reeve know about their characters before the show? Reeve says he studied the work, but John told him not to incorporate the novel into his character. He says he didn&amp;#039;t want to be asked if he&amp;#039;d read The Picture of Dorian Gray and have to say no!   18:24So why did Van Helsing get bumped off? John tells us that he did it as a &amp;quot;provocation&amp;quot; - to say that he cherishes the sacred texts, but they aren&amp;#039;t creating or recreating them. He says he likes allying with mythology - and also breaking it.   18:24John says the eight episodes were structured to build a family and bring them together. Now he can build relationships and mix things up a little bit - all the relationships will go on in &amp;quot;ways that are surprising and exciting&amp;quot;.   18:22So is that Ethan/Dorian relationship going to continue? John says it would be &amp;quot;corrupt&amp;quot; not to deal with all forms of sexuality in the show - he thinks they deal with all iterations of what it means to be human. He says he&amp;#039;s been asked if Ethan is gay or bi, and if Dorian is omnisexual, but he dismisses the question as irrelevant - people behave in the moment in a way that is true to them. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s 2014, we can have people be true in a sexual way,&amp;quot; he concludes to claps.    18:21Ethan and Dorian! Let&amp;#039;s talk about that. Reeve says that when he got the part he didn&amp;#039;t know, but he got the episode four script within a week. &amp;quot;I told John, &amp;#039;You&amp;#039;d better cast a hot guy as Ethan&amp;#039;, and he did, so.&amp;quot;   18:20Frankenstein has feelings, right? Harry says he&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;in touch with his emotional side&amp;quot; and is a mixture of obsessional doctor and poetical young man. He says he loved working with Rory Kinnear this past season.   18:19Josh says he loves coming up with the back story of his characters and had a lot of conversations with John about it. &amp;quot;Eventually it was like get off the fence and make some choices!&amp;quot; he jokes.   18:18Eva Green isn&amp;#039;t here, but John brings up episode five - her back story - and praises her. The audience seems to like her too! He wants to continue to delve into the other characters&amp;#039; back stories in the future.   18:17Has Ethan been bitten or is he in a long line of werewolves? &amp;quot;To be determined!&amp;quot; John says!   18:17Josh suggests that Ethan may have been hurt in some way earlier in his life, and when you&amp;#039;ve been hurt you have a &amp;quot;visceral reaction&amp;quot; to violence - perhaps this curse is a reaction to what he&amp;#039;s most afraid of in himself.   18:16This panel, by the way, is being moderated by Aisha Tyler (a big fan!) She asks about Ethan&amp;#039;s human character vs his werewolf side. Josh says when you&amp;#039;re constructing a character with monstrousness that will emerge, it&amp;#039;s a good idea to give them an idea of who he is first - make them love someone who they&amp;#039;ll eventually hate!   18:14He says he thought about just doing Frankenstein but also wanted some female characters - he finds it interesting that at the time women were physically and metaphorically corseted.    18:14John says the show has a lot to do with growing up as a gay man before it was accepted as it is now. He says he knows what it feels like to be alienated, but also that his differences make him who he is.   18:13So where did the idea for the show come from? John says he found solace in the romantic poets, which led him to Mary Shelley&amp;#039;s Frankenstein and made him cry because it moved him so much. He thought it was a &amp;quot;fascinating world&amp;quot;.   18:13Josh says the news about Ethan&amp;#039;s werewolf nature actually made him more into the show, instead of turning him off. Also, he&amp;#039;s super nervous about being at Comic-Con, bless him!   02:12Creator John Logan is here with stars Josh Hartnett, Harry Treadaway and Reeve Carney. He thinks the show is about the &amp;quot;beast in all of us&amp;quot; - hence the big reveal about Ethan in the finale!  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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