Corey Stoll as Ephraim Goodweather and Mia Maestro as Nora Martinez in ‘The Strain’ (Photo by Michael Gibson / FX)
Season two of FX’s critically acclaimed The Strain kicked off on July 12, 2015 and found New Yorkers finally accepting the fact they’re under attack. Eph (Corey Stoll) and Nora (Mia Maestro) are busy working on a biological weapon to fight those infected, but it’s a race against time as the epidemic is spreading at an alarming rate.
Stoll and his The Strain co-stars made the trek to San Diego for the 2015 Comic Con where they participated in a packed panel just hours before season two premiered. Stoll and his co-stars also took part in a press room where – without giving away spoilers – they were able to go into more detail about this highly anticipated second season.
Asked how season two compares to the first season, Stoll replied, “There was so much setup in the first season. We were starting in a New York that we know there’s no vampires, there’s no global conspiracy – well at least none quite as virulent as this one. Now it’s pretty much impossible to ignore that there’s something very wrong in New York. […] It’s spreading outside the city and so all that sort of background and mythology of the Strigoi, it’s been laid out. Now it’s really about saving the world.
From Eph’s point of view, I spent a lot of the first season very doggedly being the skeptic and the one that said, ‘Vampires don’t exist. This is impossible. The Master can’t be controlling it.’ That’s now all out the window and now I’m a believer in as much as I believe what I see. In terms of how I fight them, I’m still using – Nora and Eph are still using their backgrounds as scientists, as doctors, as biochemists to defeat them.”
The first episode changes the course of Eph and Nora’s research, and Stoll says that storyline takes a very dark, very unethical turn. “The Hippocratic Oath definitely goes out the window,” said Stoll. “What we do to this poor couple, there’s no way you can rationalize it with medical ethics.”
Stoll went on to reveal those were particularly difficult scenes to shoot. “They put those actors through real hell,” said Stoll.
Stoll also believes that Eph could be losing a bit of his humanity as he delves further into the research and as he gets more immersed in this new world. “He was never a terribly polite or patient person, but now if anybody is going to go actively against his plans he certainly has no time for them. The group definitely splinters in this season,” explained Stoll. “Setrakian has his way of dealing with it and Fet has his way. Eph and Nora have very different ways of seeing this so that’s a good thing that we’ve been able to get past that exposition and get into the drama of the interpersonal conflicts.”
Ian Ziering as Fin Shepard in ‘Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (Photo by Gene Page / Syfy)
Ian Ziering was sporting a shark tattoo on his bicep at the 2015 San Diego Comic, but it wasn’t permanent ink. Ziering, who has now starred in all three Sharknado films including Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, was on hand at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con to support the upcoming July 22, 2015 at 9pm ET/PT debut of Syfy’s latest flying sharks film.
Sharknado 3 finds the action taking place in Washington, DC as well as the Eastern Seaboard and Florida. And if there’s a Sharknado 4, Ziering told us in our roundtable interview into at Comic Con that he’d like to see Tokyo, Singapore, or somewhere in Europe under attack by killer sharks.
Ziering says that since sharks are apex predators we’re still learning so much about, they make for great villains in the Syfy film series. Ziering also talked about his favorite ways to kill Sharknado’s sharks which included blasting them apart with machine guns. During our interview he also discussed working with David Hasselhoff, Shark Week, and how being on a TV film series is different than starring in a normal network series.
Season three of CBS’s summer series Under the Dome turned the story on its head, with the first episode setting up a time jump that introduced new characters including Marg Helgenberger as a therapist. The third season also finds Dale ‘Barbie’ Barbara (Mike Vogel) involved in a new relationship one year after the citizens of Chester’s Mill were freed from the dome.
Meanwhile, Joe McAlister (Colin Ford) has failed to get on with his life and seems trapped under the dome long after it’s actually disappeared.
At the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con, Helgenberger, Ford, and Vogel were teamed up to discuss the current season of the series airing on Thursdays at 10pm ET/PT. Helgenberger explained during our roundtable interview that we’ll be learning more about her character’s background as the season progresses.
“I’m actually doing 10 out of the 13 episodes,” said Helgenberger. “She comes in with an agenda, which is to get this community to work as a collective. Some people agree to it and some don’t, and that’s the divisiveness that happens in Chester’s Mill, which causes a lot of the drama to take place. It’s been a lot of fun to play.”
Asked about that alternate universe introduced in the first episode of season three, Vogel says we’ll be revisiting what happened during that time throughout this summer’s shows. “I mean, it sort of presents itself throughout the season just because of the fallout and damage that it’s done. But it was a finite thing so now that we’re out of that…because to all of us that were cocooned, we lived a full year’s worth of experiences. For Julia and I that clearly poses a problem because her and I had only been together for a little over three weeks. So, three weeks versus a year – even though it didn’t happen, to us two it feels like it did. So getting past those hurdles becomes a big deal.”
Vogel admits that when they told him they were introducing a love triangle, he was leery about how that would play out. But after the alternate universe was introduced, it became an interesting dynamic to play. “I was, ‘How are we going to bring yet another beautiful woman into town that we have not seen before? How is that going to happen?’ But I think the way that Marg and Kylie (Bunbury) weren’t just popping out of a barn one day like they’d been hiding there the whole time, I think that the way that they introduced everybody this year was really great and believable. It’s been fun to play and it’s been fun to see the fans’ reactions. It kind of reaffirms that it’s nice to have them supporting that Barbie/Julia thing. It shows that we’ve really struck a cord there and when they see that challenged, they start resisting and fighting back against it. It’s kind of cool.”
Watch the entire interview for more on what we can expect this season:
What animals do the stars of CBS’ Zoo James Wolk and Nora Arnezeder absolutely not want to work with? Wolk’s answer to my question during our roundtable interview at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con was definitely unexpected. “I’m not that comfortable around squirrels, to be completely honest with you. I’ve gotten better at it, but I’m just glad we haven’t been that close to squirrels because squirrels… They’d be like, ‘Hey, James, you don’t mind being in a scene with a squirrel, right?’ As opposed to like a leopard, you’re like, ‘No, I’m not going to be in a scene with a leopard!’ They understand. With a squirrel, how do explain like I don’t want to be by a squirrel? And thank god we haven’t,” said Wolk, laughing.
Of course I had to follow that answer up by asking if he was attacked by a squirrel as a child. “A squirrel fell on me when I was on a camping trip,” revealed Wolk. “It ran all up and down my body. It didn’t do anything but ever since then I’ve been a little [leery] around squirrels.”
Meanwhile, Arnezeder was campaigning for ants to be a part of the show. “Ants, I had no problem with. I talked to the producer and I was like, ‘Hey, listen, I have to talk to you. What if we put ants in one of the episodes? Like, ants are so scary!’ He was looking at me like, ‘And what? [Slapping her arm] To do this?”
There’s a lot of CG involved in creating the CBS series based on James Patterson’s book, but when the animals are on set Wolk says in a lot of cases they’d split the humans and animal shots up so they weren’t actually confronting each other. “Even in the shots where we are working with the animals, some of them we are in proximity to the animals,” explained Wolk. “Others they’ll shoot us and then they’ll turn around and shoot the animals and put it together. It looks like they’re right there.”
In order to prepare for the series, Arnezeder read the book because she wanted to know more of the story. “But the show is different. I’m very happy because James Patterson is a big fan of the show, which is really important for us to make him happy – to not disappoint him,” said Arnezeder.
Both Wolk and Arnezeder say they were immediately sold on the idea of being a part of the series. “It was like James Patterson’s doing something that’s going to be on TV, and then it’s these producers like [Jeff] Pinker and [Josh] Appelbaum and [Scott] Rosenbaum and [Andre] Nemec and their body of work behind them, and what they’ve done with big concepts and made them really palatable. It all seemed to just feel right. And the script was great. It was interesting and different than a lot of things that are on TV right now,” explained Wolk.
Watch the entire James Wolk and Nora Arnezeder interview:
In addition, executive producers Zoo executive producers Josh Appelbaum and Jeff Pinkner also took part in Comic Con and discussed the source material, the animals, and what viewers can expect from season one.
Bella Thorne joined her MTV Scream co-stars at the San Diego Comic-Con where it was announced that although – spoiler alert! – she’s killed in the very first episode, she’ll be coming back in flashbacks. Sitting down for a roundtable interview, Thorne said, “I think what’s really interesting is that everybody knows how my character ends up, what happens to her that she ends up that way – the fact that we get to see into that.”
As for actually filming her death scene, Thorne couldn’t have been more excited about taking on the challenge. “I’ve always wanted to die onscreen and I haven’t gotten to die yet. [It’s] so cool! I always had to watch other people die, and I got to get my throat slit, which was a very interesting, classic death,” revealed Thorne, adding, “A lot of people asked me if I wanted to do her death in a different way, but I didn’t. I got it on the first take and that is like one thing that I really cherish.”
Thorne, whose credits include The DUFF and Shake It Up!, also warned fans of the new series based on the horror movie franchise that there will be so many people she interacts with it will drive them crazy trying to figure out the killer. Thorne says she’s a horror movie fan and has watched them all her life, so she was completely prepared to be a part of Scream. But don’t ask her who the killer is as she claims to have no idea.
20th Century Fox has brought online their final trailer for the comic book-inspired Fantastic Four reboot from director Josh Trank. The cast of this new attempt at a Fantastic Four movie is led by Miles Teller as Dr. Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Kate Mara as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/The Thing.
Toby Kebbell co-stars as Doctor Doom.
Fantastic Four arrives in theaters on August 7, 2015.
The Plot:
Fantastic Four, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.
Peter Bogdanovich makes his return to feature film directing with the Lionsgate comedy She’s Funny That Way coming to theaters and VOD on August 14, 2015. The new trailer featuring Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Imogen Poots, Kathryn Hahn, Rhys Ifans, and Will Forte spotlights the characters’ dysfunctional relationships as well as the film’s screwball comedy tone.
The Plot:
From renowned director Peter Bogdanovich, She’s Funny That Way features the interconnected personal lives of the cast and crew of a Broadway production. When established director Arnold Albertson (Wilson) casts his call girl-turned-actress Isabella “Izzy” Patterson (Poots) in a new play to star alongside his wife Delta (Hahn) and her ex-lover Seth Gilbert (Ifans), a zany love tangle forms with hilarious twists. Jennifer Aniston plays Izzy’s therapist, Jane, who is consumed with her own failing relationship with Arnold’s playwright, Joshua Fleet (Forte), who is also developing a crush on Izzy.
FX’s Fargo returns for a second season that’s a prequel to the award-winning, critically acclaimed season one, with the network just releasing an official short-but-entertaining trailer. Debuting this September, Fargo season two takes place in Sioux Falls in the 1970s and features Patrick Wilson as a younger Lou Solverson (Keith Carradine played the older version in the first season).
The cast also includes Kirsten Dunst, Ted Danson, Jesse Plemons, Jean Smart, Jeffrey Donovan, Kieran Culkin, Angus Sampson, Nick Offerman, and Bokeem Woodbine.
The Plot:
The all-new “true crime” case of Fargo’s new chapter travels back to 1979 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Luverne, Minnesota, where a young State Police Officer “Lou Solverson” (Wilson), recently back from Vietnam, investigates a case involving a local crime gang and a major Mob syndicate. Helping him piece things together is his father-in-law, “Sheriff Hank Larsson” (Danson).
The investigation will lead them to a colorful cast of characters that includes “Karl Weathers” (Offerman), the town lawyer of Luverne, Minnesota. A Korean War vet, Karl is a flowery drunk blessed with the gift of gab and the eloquence of a true con artist. Three-time Emmy winner Brad Garrett will play “Joe Bulo,” the frontman for the northern expansion of a Kansas City crime syndicate.
The new face of corporate crime, Joe’s bringing a Walmart mentality to small-town America. His number two is “Mike Milligan” (Bokeem Woodbine). Part enforcer, part detective, Mike is always smiling – but the joke is usually on you. Bulo and his crew have their sights set on the Gerhardt crime family in Fargo, currently led by matriarch “Floyd Gerhardt” (Smart). With her husband at death’s door, Floyd takes over the family business, frustrating her eldest son, “Dodd Gerhardt” (Donovan).
An impatient hothead with a cruel streak to match his ambitions, Dodd can’t wait for both his parents to die so he can take over and expand their business from kingdom to empire. “Bear Gerhardt” (Sampson) is the middle son, an intimidatingly large man who, although inarticulate, is the most decent of his clan. “Rye Gerhardt” (Kieran Culkin), the youngest of the Gerhardt clan, views himself as a big shot, but in reality he’s just a small dog who barks big.
Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan in ‘Outlander’ season 2 (Photo Credit: Starz)
When Outlander‘s Sam Heughan sat down for our roundtable interview at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con, the first thing we chatted about was whether he’d seen any Comic Con attendees walking around dressed as Jamie. He hadn’t, but he confessed the opportunity had not come up to actually look around much as he’d been kept very busy.
Heughan, his Outlander co-star Caitriona Balfe, series creator Ronald D. Moore, and author Diana Gabaldon were among the most sought-after celebrities at the sold-out event, which reflects on just how popular and well-received season one of the Starz series has been.
Describing his second Comic Con experience as insane but wonderful, Heughan opened up about filming those incredible Wentworth Prison scenes (which garnered Emmy buzz in response to his performance) and the journey Jamie and Claire will be on in season two.
Sam Heughan Outlander Interview:
How did you mentally prepare and get into that specific mindset for the Wentworth Prison scenes? How were you able to take yourself there?
Sam Heughan: “We knew it was coming up. I was excited by it, nervous, but we knew it was going to be challenging. We wanted it to be a challenge for the actors but for the audience as well. We approached it like any other theater piece; myself and Tobias [Menzies] started from a theatre background. We sat with the director and the writer for about a week worth of rehearsals. Discussed the scenes, sort of cut it down a bit. We worked on what we wanted the audience to feel, what we wanted them to see. Pretty much set the guidelines, set the boundaries of filming the scene. And then we filmed it over a space of 10 days, two weeks.
It was pretty intense stuff, primarily because of the content, but also there was a lot of prosthetic work. I’d be in at 4am and not finish until 10 at night or something, so they were long days. But in a way that was perfect because it got me into that mindset of I had to work three or four hours in the morning to prep, to stand there as someone painted something on your body. Then in the evening taking it off was a good way to lose the day’s filming, but it was heavy stuff. We knew that we were doing something quite bold, so I was excited to see the end product.”
How do you play a damaged character without playing him as a victim?
Sam Heughan: “Jamie did get some resolution at the end of season one. I mean he was not cured in any way, but he’s looking forward. I spoke for hours with some doctor about the medical conditions and what happens with the psychology as well. But, ultimately, everyone is different. Everyone deals with torment in different ways. Jamie is very particular in the way he deals with things.
Before we’ve seen when he got whipped or other scenarios in season one, he lets it fall of his back. But this has certainly affected him. But he’s not a victim; he’s moving forward. He’s got this mission. He’s there for a purpose, and it’s not weighing him down or incapacitating him. But he has things that he’s got to deal with, and we’ve just finished filming for the moment. He maybe finds some resolution and that’s kind of nice to see. I’ve discussed that and we see that in a lot of cases where people had some sort of trauma it would be something really random that would trigger that moment of healing or moving forward. I’m very lucky to be able to play that part of the character.”
Jamie begins season two in a completely different place than season one. What did you feel were the specific challenges of this season?
Sam Heughan: “In a way I suppose it’s more of a challenge actually because the first season Jamie’s got no responsibility. He’s out looking after himself. He’s reacting to every moment. And, yeah, in season two it’s completely different, you know? He’s got the trauma of season one and also the responsibility of having a wife, being a father, of becoming a parent. So he’s had to grow up, and in season one he certainly did.
In season two he’s trying to come to terms with that, but also he’s gone to Paris which is not alien to him but it certainly is a world that he’s not particularly comfortable with. He’s having to assume a new identity there as well. It feels that he’s a different person.”
You and Caitriona Balfe are obviously the two main actors we follow throughout the series, and lots of supporting characters come in and out of the story. How does that feel as an actor to constantly have different actors and characters to act with?
Sam Heughan: “I think it’s wonderful. We are in the French Court at the moment. Murtagh is the other character who is with us, Duncan Lacroix who’s terrific. But it’s just a few of us and we’ve got this cast of French actors who are amazing and brilliant, totally different energy to a different world. And that’s what the joy of our show is, constantly changing our locations and the storyline. But also it’s a little sad. We’re all kind of missing the old Scotland boys, but we know we’re going back there.
The second half of the season is very much going to be the antithesis to the first half. The first half is very ostentatious and luxurious, the costumes are amazing. The second half is going to be more blood and battles. It’s like being in a different world. I know that this series does constantly travel and that’s going to be the journey that Jamie and Claire and the characters are going to develop.”
What are Jamie and Claire trying to accomplish in this first half of the season?
Sam Heughan: “They’re here to change history, basically. The Battle of Culloden…it was very popular. [Laughing] The Battle of Culloden was basically this big battle between the British and the Highlanders. Bonny Prince Charlie believed he was the rightful King…and he probably was. He came to Scotland to try to rally the clans to put himself back on the throne and overthrow the king. It failed basically, this battle they got wiped out. The repercussions were that the British army bans the whole Highland culture, the wearing of kilts, the speaking of Gaelic, the bagpipes. So we’re there to change history. That’s pretty much what we’re there for.”
Can you talk about how Jamie and Claire’s relationship changes as a couple?
Sam Heughan: “In season one they were newlyweds; they were young, new lovers and they were finding out about each other, and obviously they’re still finding out about each other. Before the trauma at the end of the first season has affected their relationship a lot. Also the fact that she’s a parent, she’s a mother and he’s obviously got responsibility regardless. They’re working it out together, but there’s a lot of issues they haven’t dealt with yet and we do play that out in the season. But ultimately the mission is the most important thing to change history and make sure that everyone survives. But, yeah, their relationship will definitely change.”
Who are some of their new allies and foes?
Sam Heughan: “Well we have a lot of terrific actors that have come in, Dominique Piñon, Marc Duret. There’s countless of them. Frances de la Tour. So there’s really powerful and amazing actors coming in and bringing in a different dimension to the show.
It becomes almost a different kind of battle with the politics that are played out. Our St. Germain is the extraordinary good-looking actor, Stanley Weber. He’s French and I think he’s going to do very well. It’s a different kind of enemy that they’re facing. They’re also have this surrogate son almost that they get, this adopted son named Fergus who brings another dynamic to their relationship. It’s all moving their relationship forward.”
Is being an unexpected father going to change Jamie’s behavior?
Sam Heughan: “Yeah. I think before he met Claire he was more than happy to put his body on the line but now he has to think twice about that. And that’s one of the lessons he’s learned in season one. In season two he’s still the same guy and still can be hotheaded at times or stubborn, but he certainly has grown up a bit and knows that he’s got a responsibility. At times he does forget that.”
What does being on such a Scotland-celebrating show do for your country’s identity?
Sam Heughan: “I think I’m very proud of Scotland. I’ve gone back and rediscovered my country, and I’ve fallen in love with it again. I’m very proud of the production. It really shows off Scotland. The craftsmanship, the locations, the studio, we’ve got now has four sound stages, you’ve got whole workshops, you’ve got one workshop where they’re just building French furniture. We’ve got another workshop where they’re doing props. It’s creating a lot of industry within Scotland. It’s attracting more production, a lot of TV shows and films as well. I’m delighted that we’ve been given it that opportunity.”
Suicide Squad cast photo (Photo Courtesy of David Ayer / WB)
After a leaked copy of the Suicide Squad footage shown at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con found its way online, director David Ayer (who was rightfully upset with whoever illegally posted the footage) decided to fight fire with fire by officially releasing the screened footage. The video opens with the line: “It’s taken some work but I finally have them – the worst of the worst.”
Commenting on the pirated copy of the Suicide Squad footage, Warner Bros President Worldwide Marketing and International Distribution Sue Kroll stated, “Warner Bros. Pictures and our anti-piracy team have worked tirelessly over the last 48 hours to contain the Suicide Squad footage that was pirated from Hall H on Saturday. We have been unable to achieve that goal. Today we will release the same footage that has been illegally circulating on the web, in the form it was created and high quality with which it was intended to be enjoyed. We regret this decision as it was our intention to keep the footage as a unique experience for the Comic Con crowd, but we cannot continue to allow the film to be represented by the poor quality of the pirated footage stolen from our presentation.”
The Suicide Squad cast including Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney and Joel Kinnaman (but no Jared Leto) made a surprise appearance on stage in Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center and earned thunderous applause for just showing up. Warner Bros is releasing Suicide Squad in theaters on August 5, 2016.
