TV SERIES · 2013– · USA
Banshee
28 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
28 Interesting Facts About Banshee
Interesting Facts (23)
- #001
Trieste Kelly Dunn said that when she asked what her character Hood's real name was, Antony Starr whispered "Gaaaary" in her ear.
- #002
Unusual for a series, Banshee had a fitness department that provided personal trainers to get the actors in shape for the show's physical demands.
- #003
On his first day of shooting, Antony Starr was injured during his first fight scene for the series. According to series co-creator Jonathan Tropper, he had to get 13 stitches in his lip and the producers digitally removed some of the swelling on his lip in other episodes.
- #004
In the show's early years, the first plan for the series ending was for Lucas to die sacrificing himself for his family. But as the series developed over the years, creator Jonathan Tropper decided not to kill off his main character at the end, because he realized that Lucas Hood never really existed and that his character leaving Banshee with the promise of finding himself was a more fitting send-off.
- #005
Burton's unexplored backstory was that he had grown up in a brutal order where he first killed a man who was savagely whipping him as punishment. The producers wanted to explore Burton's past further in the series but never had the opportunity to do so.
- #006
After three seasons of physically demanding fight scenes, Antony Starr asked the producers to have him do fewer fight scenes in the fourth season.
- #007
The producers initially wanted Odette Annable to be a series regular for the show's third season, but she was unable to commit to the series due to other commitments. Her unavailability later led to the decision to kill off Nola early in the third season.
- #008
Whether in his sheriff's uniform or other clothing, Lucas Hood wears the same color scheme in his wardrobe in every episode across all four seasons: navy blue, dark gray and black.
- #009
In a "Zooming in" video about the seventh episode of season 4, creator Jonathan Tropper explained that even he does not know Hood's real name. He said: "I don't know it, nobody knows it…".
- #010
Viewers sometimes complained that the extensive sex scenes and especially the violence were not realistic or believable, but showrunner Greg Yaitanes said he did not care. He said that in the world they created, all of it was plausible and realistic. That was the story they were telling.
- #011
When Ivana Milicevic was asked about performing extensive nudity and sex scenes, she said: "I had never done it up to that point, and I was fine doing it here. I like sexy things and I love sexy. The hardest part of shooting a sex scene is the first few seconds when you take your clothes off. After that it's liberating. But I'm Croatian. I'm European. I grew up without a top on, so it's fine."
- #012
Showrunner Greg Yaitanes said Cinemax gave no instruction about a specific amount of nudity or violence. They just wanted to make a kind of fluid dark drama in which sex and violence came into play. Yaitanes said they respected such scenes and that if they were going to do them, they would do them well. When it came to nudity, he said he leaned toward a more European approach to how things were shown, which was a witnessed approach. He added: "If you're witnessing something, you're going to see both people naked. You're going to see it as it is. I didn't want to over-romanticize it and turn it into something it wasn't. Everything you see is driven by that choice. It's not driven by 'I want to see Antony Starr's ass here.' It's entirely based on what might happen depending on how these characters connect sexually."
- #013
In the ninth episode of season 2, Job was hit by a car and was in hospital room 30 7, numbers that appear in the coded locks in the opening title sequence.
- #014
When Veronica Dawson leaves the hotel room at the end of the fourth season's final episode, she leaves the FBI file behind with Lucas Hood. The file contains an arrest record with her picture. If you freeze and zoom in, you can see that the name on the arrest report is 'John Smith'.
- #015
According to Chris Coy, his character in the fourth season was initially intended to be gay, but the idea was dropped because the final season had limited time to develop it.
- #016
According to showrunner Greg Yaitanes, every director they hired said that working on the series was the hardest thing they had ever done, because the pace of progress was so different. Sex scenes were very slow, while fight scenes were very fast. He said they searched all over the world for people who did interesting things similar to Banshee and had worked on a similar show. He also noted that with the international directors they hired, they got more satisfying results than with American directors, especially when it came to handling uncensored sex and extreme nudity.
- #017
These are the only nude scenes of actress Trieste Kelly Dunn's career. She said that in previous shows and films she had worn underwear and lingerie and had even been semi-nude, but before joining Banshee she had never been fully nude or filmed explicit sex scenes. It was a big transition for her, and it took her some time to get used to being naked in front of the cast and crew on set. She said, "When you shoot a sex scene on a TV show, you don't actually do anything. You just kiss someone. It looks like your shirt comes off, but (only) the sheets are pulled up to your armpits. Nobody wants to see anything on television. So Banshee was obviously a completely different game. The weirdest part of doing a sex scene isn't the nudity. It's the movement. On a television show, you think you're actually having sex, but on cable you really are. It's something most actresses are only used to doing in a certain context. It's a weird day at the office. It's very hard to hold it together."
- #018
This was Lili Simmons's first nudity in her career. After acting as a young teenager on the Disney Channel and other family programs, she said that playing an incredibly sexual character on Banshee was a nice change because she thought being sexy was fun. She said it took her some time to get used to being fully naked on set and acting out graphic sex, but that she fully embraced it and pushed aside the idea some people have that female sexuality means vulgarity. The role and the nudity were so liberating and empowering that she continued to accept nude roles in other projects.
- #019
The writers initially wanted to bring Denis O'Hare back in the fourth season, but according to Jonathan Tropper, he could not fit O'Hare's character into the fourth season's storyline.
- #020
In the first season's opening title sequences, if you look carefully, the images next to the actors' names are connected in some way to their characters, whether it is something they did or something related to their characters. For example, next to Ulrich Thomsen's (Proctor) name there is an image of an Amish woman and an image of a butcher's knife relating to his background and profession. Next to Frankie Faison's (Sugar) name there is an image of a championship fight.
- #021
The main title sequences are designed by Jason Yaitanes, the brother of director and executive producer Greg Yaitanes.
- #022
Some prison scenes were shot at SCI Greensburg in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, which is now closed. The state correctional institution was shut down in June 2013 and has appeared in several films and television programs, including Outsiders (2016) and Banshee on Cinemax.
- #023
Sugar Bates (Frankie Faison) is the owner and operator of The Forge, a bar and grill in Banshee. Sugar is rarely seen without his distinctive pork pie hat, including when he is tending the bar. However, a long-standing superstition holds that a bartender should never wear a hat while behind the bar; if they do, they must buy a round for the house.
Production Story (1)
- #024
The first season of the series was shot out of order. The fourth episode was filmed before the pilot episode.
Characters & Cast (2)
- #025
According to co-creator Jonathan Tropper, Eliza Dushku was the only actress they approached to take on the role of FBI agent Veronica Dawson in the fourth season. She happened to agree to be naked.
- #026
According to creator Jonathan Tropper, Wesley Snipes was considered for the role of Colonel Stowe in the third season.
Deeper Meaning (2)
- #027
Deputy Brock Lotus (Matt Servitto) was originally supposed to die at the end of the first season, but the writers and producers liked what Servitto brought to the character and decided to keep him around. The original plan was for Brock to learn Lucas's secret but be killed in the confrontation with the Ukrainian mob before he could tell anyone.
- #028
The key lock in the first season reads 42, 15, 68. The 42 represents the 42 deaths in that season, the 15 represents 15 years in prison, and the 68 represents Revelation 6:8.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- IMDb
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work