‘Sense8’ Stars Max Riemelt & Tina Desai On Season Two, Meaning Of The Netflix Series [Video Exclusive]

Sense8, one of Netflix’s most popular new shows, will begin its second season on May 5. The show hit the streaming service in a time of increasing division within the U.S. and the world – July 2015, less than a month after now-President Donald Trump called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “criminals.” The divisions between the ‘us’ and the ‘them’ have only grown more cavernous in the time between the first season and the second. But Sense8 has something to say about that, even if they don’t mean to.

“I think the message is that we all have the potential in us, or the goodwill, to just see certain things and to accept certain things and not to categorize,” says Max Riemelt in an exclusive discussion with uInterview. He plays Wolfgang Bogdanow on Sense8.

“When you label too many things you make it too easy for yourself. The world is much more complex than we can ever understand and I think this show represents that so well.”

Riemelt’s co-star and fictional love interest, Tina Desai – she plays Kala Dandekar – feels similarly but that there are also two sides to the show’s message – the division and the connection.

“I think the writers came up with this idea because of mobile phones and how they connect all of us even when we are in different parts of the world and I think they took that a step further and said, ‘Well, what if it’s mental and not just technical,’” Desai told uInterview.

“And on the flip side, we are all disconnecting so much because of technology and because of distance. It would be nice if we were a lot more connected, and if we were a lot more empathetic, and a lot more available for each other. So taking these two things together they came up with the concept of Sense8.”

The message of empathy and connection isn’t just for the audience, though. The actors found that the process of filming the show brought them, all of whom come from different backgrounds and cultures, close together.

“We are all away from home, it is an international cast and crew, we are all, culturally very different, and we are all dealing with high-stress situations together, so we just end up becoming family,” says Desai.

Riemelt agrees, “We go through this together and the more we are experiencing together, the more we are bonding and getting to know each other. It is really transcending through the whole show I think.”

Sense8 was created by Lilly and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, V for Vendetta). The first season and the Christmas special are currently available to stream on Netflix. Start binging on the rest of Season Two of Sense8 on May 5.