Banshee: 5 Fun Facts From Behind The Scenes

“Banshee” returns tonight on Cinemax with all-new episode that will no doubt pack a punch — or seven.

Antony Starr’s Sheriff Lucas Hood has already dusted off his knuckles and been in a few scrapes since he assumed the identity of the town’s law man in Episode 1, but you can bet there’s plenty more on the way.

The quick-to-fight Sheriff Hood is on a collision course with the fists, legs and brawn of a mixed martial arts fighter, who has come to the town of Banshee for a title bout being run by the local tribe.

But, it looks like Ivana Milicevic’s Carrie (Lucas’ former lover and partner in crime, who is now a soccer mom) will be getting her punch on too, as we find out more about her old life as Ana the thief.

Putting together those kinds of scenes sometimes ends up with unexpected results as Antony found out while shooting the drama (from “True Blood” creator Alan Ball and showrunner Greg Yaitanes). Find out exactly what happened to the New Zealand hunk as AccessHollywood.com shares 5 fun facts from behind the scenes of “Banshee.”

5. Antony needed stitches his very first day of filming. “One of the fights – the choreography – got just a little bit, we had a little mix up,” he told Access, shrugging off the incident. “It happens. It’s like dropping a line in a scene. In this case, the dropped line ended up with a hit in my face and a split lip. It’s one of those things… No matter how you prepare, you’re still gonna get knocks and you have to go through a toughening up sort of process.”

4. After turning down nudity on other projects, Ivana Milicevic felt it fit this time around during her character’s super-sexy scene from Episode 1. “I’m not doing it just to do it,” she told Access of the moment when Carrie is having a bedroom romp with her husband, but dreaming of her former lover/partner in crime, Lucas. “You see how not necessarily connected to [Carrie’s] husband [she is] at that moment and how connected she was to the love of her life. And for me, I’m like… ‘Let’s like do it, let’s push it.’”

3. The intense shoots, and scripts brimming with dark drama, left some of the cast and crew wanting to go to their happy place after filming. “It was really hard,” Ivana said after we asked her about the stories ahead for Carrie’s kids (beyond the rave tragedy in Episode 2). “We had this one director [for] two episodes – Ole Christian [Madsen] — he did Episodes 3 and 6. Six is just gnarly because it’s flashbacks to the prison, and when he was done shooting our show, he was like, ‘I want to do a show where two people meet, and they fall in love and they are happy and as time goes on they are more happy and more in love,’ because our show is so dramatic.”

2. As a youngster, Antony wanted to wear the badge. “But don’t all young boys want to be policemen?” he told Access with a laugh. “I’ve got no idea where that came from in me. There’s no police in my family… I guess, as a little boy, you look up at the people that you think represent strong, good [people]. You’re looking for role models.”

1. Sexy? Yes. Action-packed? Definitely. A love story? Wait and see. “The biggest threat to me is that Lucas and Carrie won’t come together,” showrunner Greg Yaitaines said. “‘Banshee,’ while a heightened, action drama, is still very much a love story for me and there’s a lot of external threats that will pull those two apart… Everything is on a collision course for Banshee – Rabbit, Job, Proctor. All these things are intersecting and right in the middle of it would be Lucas and Carrie.”

“Banshee” airs Fridays at 10 PM on Cinemax.

— Jolie Lash