Daniella Pineda, who portrayed Faye Valentine in Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop, believes the show was cancelled too soon and says the series deserved a second season to prove itself.
Speaking to The Direct on the red carpet of her new film The Accountant 2, Pineda opened up about the abrupt end of the 2021 series and called out studios for failing to recognize the value of anime IPs like Cowboy Bebop.
“I feel like those animations, they mean so much to people, and they’re so personal, and I think people really connect to when they watched it and the point of their lives. And so, I just feel like, and I’ll say this, having been in one, I think that those studios, they need to do a better job at valuing that IP. It’s really special. And people on ‘Bebop,’ they worked very, very hard, but it’s just a special thing.“
The live-action series ran for just one 10-episode season before Netflix cancelled it weeks after release. The show ended on a cliffhanger.
“And I understand why the fans felt the way that they did, but I also think that there’s a lot of really cool, wonderful things that we did. And I also wish that we could have gotten the second season. You know, sometimes you just need one season to get things going, and then you prove yourself.“
Pineda also took the opportunity to address a past controversy involving a video she posted after the show’s release. The video, meant as a joke aimed at online trolls, was misinterpreted by some fans as dismissive.
“I want to clarify something. So, years ago, when the franchise came out on Netflix – I was shooting a movie in Puerto Rico, and I was goofing off, and I made some — I’m not used to anyone watching my videos—And I made this, dumb video, kind of poking fun at myself, because I was getting all of these DM’s from people saying, like, ‘You’re terrible and you’re fat. Go away.’ Just like, awful, awful messages.
So I just made this, like on-a-whim [Instagram] Story, just joking about the fact that, like, ‘Sorry, guys, I’m sorry I was cast.’ And I used the word ‘fans’ when I meant to say ‘trolls,’ and then it caught wind. And everybody was like, ‘She’s hating on the fans.’ And I was like, ‘This is getting lost in translation. I’m responding to trolls, not fans.’ And it got really swept up anyway. I just had to put that out there.“
Netflix and Tomorrow Studios co-produced the series starring John Cho as Spike, Mustafa Shakir as Jet, Daniella Pineda as Faye, Alex Hassell as Vicious, and Elena Satine as Julia.
Cowboy Bebop is a 1998 Japanese neo-noir space Western anime television series that aired on TV Tokyo and Wowow from 1998 to 1999.
It was created and animated by Sunrise, led by a production team of director Shinichiro Watanabe, screenwriter Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, mechanical designer Kimitoshi Yamane, and composer Yoko Kanno, who are collectively billed as Hajime Yatate.
Source: The Direct
