sunshinetoday:

Bryan Fuller: We knew very early on that Gillian had to be part of this show and we wanted to see her like we had never seen her before. Since she had already done a photo series where she was portraying Lucy Ricardo, we had that image in our mind, so it was a very short step to casting her as Media, whose first incarnation in the book is as Lucy Ricardo. We called Gillian and told her what we had in mind for the character and how the character was going to manifest as a different dead celebrity every time we saw her; that it would give her an opportunity to create a hybridization of the Media character and the personality of the dead celebrity, and she was instantly on board. She’s a big fan of Neil Gaiman’s and we had a lot of fun working together on Hannibal.

She surprised us every time she took on one of these characters and inhabited their personality, but still maintained who she was as Media. I think Marilyn Monroe was the biggest transformation. She does Lucy Ricardo, David Bowie, Marilyn Monroe, and Judy Garland. She does, in one episode, David Bowie and Marilyn Monroe. We need to submit that to the Emmys. (X)