drinks blood from live humans only if they threaten him. On being revived as a human, Cassidy becomes heavyset (with strong arms) over the years, growing his hair out into a ponytail, wearing a Father Ted t-shirt, and wielding a small axe to keep out rowdy Irish-Americans acting like "Stage Irishmen" on St. Patrick's Day. In the third season of the 2016–2019 AMC television series adaptation, Cassidy learns from Eccarius that by drinking the blood of another vampire, he can additionally make use of the vampiric abilities of hypnosis, animal transformation, and flight. Development On March 24, 2015, Joe Gilgun was announced to have been cast as Proinsias Cassidy as one of the main characters in AMC's Preacher, with the first season serving as a loose prequel to the comic book storyline before serving as a direct adaptation of the Preacher comic book series from the second season onwards. Sam Catlin had found Gilgun, to which Evan Goldberg said, "The first audition Sam saw was Joe and he kept saying, 'You guys have got to see this guy. It's a weird tape that he filmed in his mother's basement", to which he added, "It was one of those weird things where we just didn't watch it for weeks. We met with 100 other people." However, after watching the audition tape, Rogen and Goldberg were impressed. Both men first met Gilgun during a Skype call with Rogen noting, "[...] it was like talking to Cassidy. He was the guy. There was no one who was even close to a second choice for that role. If we hadn't gotten him, I don't know what the f— we would've done." Speaking of his portrayal of Cassidy, Gilgun remarked that "They let me by myself", while furthering that sentiment by stating, "They let me run riot and be a total a–hole and do my job [...] There's not the right words in the right order to describe it. 'Thanks' just feels a bit empty. And they pay me! They pay me to be a complete wanker every single day! And I’ve been doing that for years without making a f—ing penny." Speaking of the casting of Gilgun, Seth Rogen said: "It's one of those things that happens only a few times throughout your career, where you just go 'Oh, it's you. You're the character that is written on the page'... You could tell Joe's