The Big Picture Maggie Service and Nina Sosanya, who played minor roles in season one of Good Omens, return as series regulars in season two, playing characters named after themselves. The actresses were excited to be given larger roles and were surprised when writer Neil Gaiman created a character specifically for them and named after them. Service and Sosanya discuss their favorite rom-coms, the experience of working with Michael Sheen and David Tennant, and the clever use of Queen songs in the show’s second season.

This interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA Strike.

With the return of Prime Video’s Good Omens comes a whole host of new characters for fans to fall in love with. Returning, of course, are everybody’s favorite Apocalypse-averting pair Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and Crowley (David Tennant), alongside a familiar face in the archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm), though he doesn’t exactly remember that he’s familiar. But alongside them are a handful of new recruits, brought into the fold by actors who may be more recognizable than not.

Such is the case for stars Maggie Service and Nina Sosanya, who played minor roles in season one as nuns in the Chattering Order of Saint Beryl, the Satanic order tasked with the birth of the Antichrist. Now upgraded to series regulars, the two play characters named after themselves — Maggie, Aziraphale’s tenant and record store owner, and Nina, the slightly surly owner of the coffee shop across the way, both of whom have their own normal, human problems. But when their ethereal neighbors decide to meddle in their love lives, things get a bit complicated, and the two are drawn together in ways they could never have imagined.

Collider was excited to sit down with Service and Sosanya prior to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike to discuss returning for season two, their experience on the show, and their new characters. During this interview, we also discussed what it’s like to have writer Neil Gaiman create a character just for them, their favorite rom-coms, and just how nice it is to meet another Maggie.

Check out the full interview down below or in the player above, and stream Good Omens on Prime Video.

Image via Prime Video

RELATED: David Tennant on ‘Good Omens’ Season 2 & Crowley’s Favorite Queen Song

COLLIDER: So nice to meet you guys, and so nice to meet a fellow Maggie! That very rarely ever happens to me.

MAGGIE SERVICE: Great name. Lovely to meet you.

NINA SOSANYA: I’m really left out. Thanks guys. [laughs]

I was excited to see that you play a Maggie who owns a record store because, sitting just off camera here, I have a very large collection of vinyl records. So I was like, “Oh, she’s just playing me then!”

SERVICE: Right! I love hearing this.

It’s amazing! But you both, obviously, were in the show in the first season. You played quite small roles, and now you’ve come back in a much bigger capacity. What was that like getting to be a bigger part of the story?

SERVICE: Just really extraordinary and absolutely wonderful. Neil [Gaiman] emailed both of us separately in lockdown, actually, at a time when honestly nothing was happening, it seemed. I couldn’t imagine a time when we’d be able to have a crew together and a whole bunch of actors together, so the fact that he had that in his mind that he was going to be spending his time writing Season 2, writing a part for me, calling her the best name ever, Maggie…

SOSANYA: [laughs] Debatable.

SERVICE: It was just a gift in itself. So the fact that we even got to make it in itself is extraordinary. But I think we’ve really made these six episodes that are completely beautiful, actually, and the stories that we get to tell and the adventures we get to go on is…yeah, just wonderful. Couldn’t see that coming.

SOSANYA: Couldn’t see that coming, and just as actresses, you spend a certain amount of time on a show. Although, playing the nuns was just brilliant because we were also fans of the books, so we knew the kind of influence that they had in the plot. We were there for quite a relatively small amount of time, and in this version of the world, we really never left. So we’ve got this whole journey through, which is really nice because we set the tone in the first one for the whole tone of the show, and that carries on in this one, but we’re different characters, which is great.

Image via Prime Video

You mentioned that you got an email from Neil Gaiman about this. How do you react when Neil Gaiman, of all people, emails you and says, “I’m going to put you in the second season of the show, and it’s going to be a character specifically tailored to you and named after you?” That must be insane, right?

SOSANYA: Yes.

SERVICE: I immediately cried.

SOSANYA: [laughs]

SERVICE: What was your reaction?

SOSANYA: It was two o’clock in the morning because some time difference was occurring, so I was a little bit like, “Well, that’s clearly somebody else…Some weird joke going on.” But I mean, even the first time around was just as mad. I think it’s because we were fans already. I think we probably reacted the same way you would if you were a fan asked to do the same thing.

SERVICE: And obviously you’d cry or think it’s not you, and then you immediately say, “But yes, please.”

SOSANYA: And then you have to get professional and do it properly.

SERVICE: Yes. Yeah, I mean, it’s one of my most favorite gifts I’ve ever been given.

Did it get at all confusing on set being named the same thing as your character? Because I can imagine, because I never hear the name Maggie, I would just be going, “Yes? Yes?” to everything.

SOSANYA: That’s the thing. You don’t hear your name said that often, and especially when you’re an actor, you’re referred to as the character’s name. So first of all, your name’s being bandied around, and then people would get us mixed up.

SERVICE: Yeah, they would.

SOSANYA: Even though we had our own names.

SERVICE: Or we’d just become “Maggie-and-Nina,” like it was one word, which I quite liked.

SOSANYA: It worked just fine.

SERVICE: It could be a double act that tours the world!

Image via Prime Video

You two get quite a fun subplot because you do get to be the characters that Aziraphale and Crowley are kind of trying to Four Weddings and a Funeral a bit, like you’re in your own little rom-com. So, I was curious, do you guys have favorite rom-coms? I know, Nina, you were in Love Actually, which is one of my personal favorites.

SERVICE: When Harry Met Sally — that’s a rom-com, right?

Yes!

SERVICE: I mean, it’s just perfect to me. Oh, I just love it so much! It is my absolute favorite of all time.

SOSANYA: I really like The Wedding Singer.

SERVICE: Do you?

SOSANYA: It starts, and I start crying. I don’t know why, don’t know why. I love that.

SERVICE: But I did actually watch Notting Hill the other day as well. I’d sort of forgotten how completely brilliant that is too. I really enjoyed it.

Very good choices, very good choices! Nina, I know you also worked with Michael Sheen and David Tennant on Staged, I assume between seasons of the show. So, working with them on that and working with them on this, how different is that?

SOSANYA: Well, when we first did Staged, that was right in lockdown. So, no one met anyone, we were all on Zoom. I’d actually worked with both of them before in real life, so I knew what they looked like in 3D. And it’s been three series since, but each one has sort of grown out of just Zoom, so that was nice. They’re pretty similar to how you see them. [laughs] What you see is what you get with them. They’re very cool dudes.

Image via Prime Video

I have one final question for you two, and that is the fact that one of the most iconic parts of Good Omens is Crowley’s Bentley, which is cursed to play nothing but Queen songs forever and ever and ever, so I’m curious what your favorite Queen song is?

SOSANYA: I mean, I love, “Don’t Stop Me Now,” and I love “Killer Queen,” and I also love “These Are the Days Of Our Lives.” That always makes me– yeah.

SERVICE: There’s still some really beautiful little Queen snippets quite cleverly used in Season 2, so be on the watch for that.

SOSANYA: Yeah, keep your ears open.

SERVICE: It’s really clever.

Good Omens Season 2 premieres on Prime Video on July 28.