QUESTION: Mr. Barclay, what brought you aboard?  And, Mr. Sutter, why Mr. Barclay?

PARIS BARCLAY: You only get maybe two or three chances to find a show where the passion is as good, as the writing is as good, as the cast, and I've had a couple. NYPD BLUE was one. And SONS OF ANARCHY, which I did a couple of episodes of before, had that nexus. What Kurt's created, what the cast is able to do, it's lightning in a bottle. So Kurt cajoles me. Last time last season, I almost did it. I was doing IN TREATMENT at the same time. He bought me an expensive dinner. I said I want to do it. I want to be there. I want to play. And this time, I did it and I've loved this entire season. I think you guys will see very shortly we've done something extraordinary here.

QUESTION: Mr. Barclay. David Milch, Kurt Sutter, compare, contrast.

PARIS BARCLAY: Yeah. Well, both geniuses. Both really know what every character thinks and feels in a way that I find is highly unusual in television. Usually the writer is hoping that the actor will fill it all in. These guys know, when they're sitting there to write, the life of what that character is. It's very, very unusual. David likes to actually direct the actors more than Kurt does, if you can imagine such a thing. And Kurt is much more timely than David is. But both of them, I would say, with Aaron Sorkin, those are the three great television living writers now -- Kurt, Aaron, David Milch.

KURT SUTTER: That's why I hired him.

QUESTION: So it's been 14 months that these guys have been in jail. What has changed for them? What was the experience like, and then how has Charming changed in their absence?

RON PERLMAN: Well, Charming has changed rather dramatically. Dayton Callie, who plays Sheriff Unser, has been retired. We have a new sheriff who we haven't met yet. We come to meet very early on and come to dislike very quickly thereafter. We have a new mayor, Jacob Hale, who is determined to change the sort of spiritual socioeconomic makeup of the town. So we come out to a transformed environment to a place where they've tried to scapegoat the club and say the Sons of Anarchy are responsible for all the ills that you've ever experienced in Charming. And we've got our work cut out for us because the town has always been something that was partially in our own image of what it was we found tolerable about a decent mom and pop, rural American place, so.

QUESTION: What was the experience in prison like for the characters? Have they changed in that process?

RON PERLMAN: I'm bisexual now.

KIM COATES: Theo's had a sex change.

THEO ROSSI: I have. How has prison changed us? Fourteen months is a long time. I think that for my character -- this was his first long prison stretch -- and I think it's really made him delve much deeper into the club and really just get involved with these guys because now it's real. It's realer than it's ever been for Juice. And his prison stretch only established that more for him.

QUESTION: Maggie Siff, fourteen months is a long time, and the burden falls on the women of SAMCRO to run the business, take care of the kids, wait, and keep things together. Can give us some insight into Tara's rethinking.

MAGGIE SIFF: Well, I think that 14 months is a strange time for the women. Because in one sense, it's very peaceful. There's a reprieve from all of the general shenanigans that happen in Charming. My character's had a child, and so there's a real sense of waiting. And also, Tara sitting with a whole bunch of information from those letters that she read at the end of last season.

QUESTION: The Irish adventure last year was so different.  What did that year feel like to you? And by comparison, how does it feel to you this year when you're presumably able to spend more time all in the familiar location and back to more of the regular stories?

KATEY SAGAL: Well, last year I thought it was bold and brave to kind of take us out of where we were in the story that Kurt wanted to tell. I think as actors we didn't get to see each other quite as much. We were sort of on different [schedules and] definitely different countries, and it kind of played out that way. So sometimes felt a little odd, but it kind of worked with the story, because of what was going on with them. You felt kind of odd.

KATEY SAGAL (cont): There we were in this other country and trying to desperately get my grandson back. And so that felt splintered as, I think, was appropriate. And this season feels different, but splintered in another way because there's a lot of internal struggle that goes on this season. So I think as an actor, I really like seeing some of the people I wasn't able to see that much last year, so that's kind of fun. I've had scenes this season with Boone, and I've had some stuff coming up with Tig, which is really, really great. So different. That's what I'll say.

MARK BOONE JUNIOR: This year it seemed there's a lot more about what our personal relationships are about. And then the troubles that are brought on the club this year, it seems like we bring them on ourselves somehow as opposed to exterior things. We kind of invite them into our lives, and that kind of that's really what it's about been about for me.

QUESTION: Has anyone from the biker community ever reached out to you? Is there a biker version of Comic Con where they squeal when you show up?

KATEY SAGAL: Lots.

DAYTON CALLIE: A million of them.

QUESTION: Do you have any sort of freaky, stalker stories or any sort of moments where really scary people have walked up to you out of the public and said, "Hey, I really like your show" or anything like that? 

TOMMY FLANAGAN: The stalker story. Actually, Dayton Callie doesn't work on the show. He just follows us around.

THEO ROSSI: Yeah.

TOMMY FLANAGAN: He's our frickin’ stalker.

QUESTION: This year, just based on the premiere, obviously there's some issues between Jax and the rest of the club, but you also introduce Ray McKinnon and Rockmond Dunbar's character. How do you decide how much is going to be about the club fighting within itself and how much is going to be sort of people coming at them from inside?

KURT SUTTER: I think the idea always is to use those external pressures to incubate what's going on inside the club. So when you have these dynamics set up, as we set up this season with the Russians in the premiere and then ultimately with the Mexicans, there's all these internal conflicts going on.

QUESTION: Kurt, not to open this can of worms again, but I heard you were somewhat perturbed by the lack of Emmy attention last month that the show got. I wondered what your theory is as to why the show can't get arrested by the TV Academy, so to speak?

KURT SUTTER: Clearly, we know why we won't get an Emmy nod now. But I'll just say my tweets are more about my bad relationship with my father than they were about the actual Emmy nominations. [Laughter.] If any of you want to lay me down on a couch and talk about that afterwards, I will gladly open up that can of worms, and perhaps pay you. But it's a long answer that I really don't know where it's going to lead, to be honest with you.  We have a tremendous cast up here, so I'd rather point the questions at them rather than my neuroses.

QUESTION: What was it like to work with David Hasselhoff? 

TOMMY FLANAGAN: [Muttering as if his mic is cutting out.] Great. Thank you. [Laughter.]

MARK BOONE JUNIOR:  He was fun. [Laughter.]

KIM COATES: What we're finding with this show is that everybody wants to be on it. All the actors. Whatever you might think of as great want to be on this show. So that's really in Kurt's hands.

RON PERLMAN: So we started with David Hasselhoff. [Laughter.]

KIM COATES: He was hysterical, really.

TOMMY FLANAGAN: Yeah.

KIM COATES: The porn stuff that we did. He's supposedly well endowed so I think he played that to the hilt. [Laughter.] And it was funny. That's all I got to say about it.

KATEY SAGAL: I actually went to school with David Hasselhoff, so I was happy to see him.

QUESTION: Any other guest stars that you care to mention?

KATEY SAGAL: Well, we always have wonderful guest stars. I love Ray McKinnon. We have Ray McKinnon. He's not a guest star. He's got a recurring part. It's a really interesting role this season. Rockmond Dunbar is great.

MARK BOONE JUNIOR: I mean, we are a pretty tight group, and you come in against, you know, a big bunch of men and it's...

KATEY SAGAL: Intimidating.

MARK BOONE JUNIOR: It can be, but I think everybody comes ready to...

TOMMY FLANAGAN: Relax and feel...

MARK BOONE JUNIOR: We try to...

RON PERLMAN: We also have the great Danny Trejo all season long doing a rather powerful arc on the show, so there's some major gravitas that's been added to what had already been.

QUESTION: Katey, what have you seen as the result of the Golden Globe win? Have you found that more people are aware of the show, more people are telling you that they appreciate and like the show than maybe they did before?

KATEY SAGAL: It's been a very nice compliment to get the Golden Globe. I think that more awareness from the show's happened from Netflix more than winning the Golden Globe. I don't know yet. We'll see what kind of audience response we get to Season 4. I would like to think that any kind of notoriety we get will bring some more eyeballs. I just know for me personally it was really wonderful, so we'll see if it brings more viewers. I don't know.