Few shows have been met with as much critical praise as the second season of FX's Fargo. Credit can be thrown in many directions, but much of the violent, dark, humorous and all-engaging drama's success is due to its fantastic casting. From main players like Patrick Wilson's small-town police offer, Lou Solverson, and his partner/father-in-law, Hank Larsson, played exquisitely by Ted Danson, to secondary roles like Jean Smart's devilish Floyd Gerhardt and Bokeem Woodbine's maniacal Mike Milligan, the swerving tale of Midwest crime syndicates mixed with down-home values is peppered with brilliant performances.

None is as engrossing as Kirsten Dunst's Peggy Blumquist. A stuck-in-a-rut hairdresser, equal parts sympathetic and psychotic, she transitions from a stifled wife to a self-motivated woman on a mission for self-redemption. Dunst captures the delicate seesaw balance of Peggy's aw-shucks Midwest mentality and a dangerous desperation that spills over into violent acts. To that end, yesterday it was announced she'd been nominated for a Golden Globe for 'Best actress in a TV movie or limited series.'

In the lead-up to the show's season two finale on Sunday night, Esquire talked with Dunst about Peggy's wavering levels of sanity, the genius of Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley, and why she and her onscreen husband, Jesse Plemons' Ed the Butcher, are "like two peas in a pod."

ESQ: Peggy shouldn't be an easy character to root for. But we can't help but love her.

Kirsten Dunst:That's good! That means I did a good job! [laughs] I mean, she's a wild character. You root for her because she's so gung-ho about her whole plan for [her and Ed]. And in a way they're coming together and working together because of this crisis.

This being a 10-episode series, were you forced to dive deeper into this character than if this were a film role?

My process is the same for everything I do, but this is more of a commitment and a longer time being with a character. Not that I feel like I immerse myself less in other things; it's just that this did take really long and we were very isolated up in Calgary. We all lived and breathed Fargo. I hadn't been on a movie that took five months in a long time. Usually it's a few months at the most.

One can't help but feel some sort of sympathy for Peggy early in the season. It seems like she's trapped in this small-town life with Ed.

We filmed a scene that was cut out with Peg and her fiancé, which wasn't Ed. They go into the butcher shop and he's going to Vietnam. And he says to Ed, "If anything happens to me take care of her." So there was this back history that we didn't really show: that Peggy had a fiancé that died in the war. You could tell from the beginning that she is someone who is pushing down a lot of stuff. I think this just opens up her.

Even in the first episode she didn't seem particularly thrilled with the prospect of starting a family with Ed.

Yeah. She still has her plans to go to California and be a celebrity hairdresser. She hasn't given up on that yet. And I know Life Spring [conference] was definitely her way to fulfill those dreams.

In the previous few episodes we start to see that Peggy may not be mentally stable. She hoards old magazines. She thinks nothing of stabbing a man repeatedly. Did you view her as an insane character?

I don't think of her as insane. I just can't. I have to make sure everything comes from a real place. I think having that vision that she has in the garage [where she hallucinates a therapist] really gave her this new understanding of what she needs to do. Nothing's going to stop her. I think it gave her that high energy I imagine when people go to church and people say they have been cured of being blind or they speak in tongues…that's her version of that. This is her high on that spiritual journey. Nothing can kill her. Nothing can stop her.

Virtually every single scene you did on Fargo was with Jesse Plemons.

Jesse and I were like two peas in a pod pretty much from the start. We're a similar type of actors. And he's just a great guy. We got along so well from the beginning. So a friendship was immediately there. We would work on our scenes the night before because the dialogue is so quick and there's such a rhythm to way these scenes go. We were totally immersed as one unit. We had each other's back the whole time.

I get the sense that as the season progresses Ed starts to wonder whether Peggy might be crazy.

The way we saw it is there is a weird love story in here. They weren't doing that well before all this happened and weirdly doing all this bonded them. It's a very co-dependent relationship. He has to protect her because she's not well. But also, if he admits that she's not well then he has to admit that there's something wrong with him. So I think it's just one of those vicious cycles of a bad relationship [laughs].

Let's talk about your initial involvement. I know you've said you were a major fan of the show's first season. Was it your love of Season one or the scripts for this one that sold you?

It was the scripts I read. Meeting with Noah [Hawley]—he's such an intuitive brilliant man—I wanted to be part of it. I knew he was going to create something special again. He's his own genius, for sure.

Showrunners like Noah have become a revered breed in the TV world.

I don't know what every showrunner does on every show but I'm assuming it's with the same level of dedication [as Noah]. With Noah, he wasn't around all the time but he was always around to talk to. He was editing while we were filming and he directed one of the episodes as well. In terms of Fargo, Noah is so hands-on. Most of the music you're hearing Noah picked out. He's so immersed in the world.

I know you can't reveal anything about Monday's season finale, but in the first episode as well as in last week's a UFO appears. People have been quite divided on how to feel about its role or meaning. Peggy though, for her part, had a fitting line: "It's just a flying saucer, Ed. We gotta go."

[Laughs] I thought, "Oh, this is weird!" But that's kind of what the Coen Brothers do too. So since it fits in with what they do it didn't surprise me. Didn't Billy Bob [Thornton] see a UFO or something in one of their movies? I think he did.

Yes, you're right! In 2001's The Man Who Wasn't There.

And also, why not?! It was that time when everyone was paranoid. So I think it fits in with that.

I hear you were so concentrated on your scenes that you didn't even know how the plot was advancing as a whole?

I've been kind of watching along with the rest of you guys, to be honest.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io