Morris Chestnut stars in ‘Legends’ (Photo by Marco Grob/TNT)
Morris Chestnut was among the cast of TNT’s Legends who made it to the San Diego Comic-Con to talk about season one of the new drama series premiering on Wednesday, August 13, 2014 at 9pm ET/PT. Chestnut signed on to the show a little later than his co-stars, and at the Comic-Con he talked about what it was that drew him to Legends and what we can expect from his character, Tony, over the course of the first season.
The Plot:
Sean Bean plays Martin Odum, an undercover agent working for the FBI’s Deep Cover Operations (DCO) division. Martin has the uncanny ability to transform himself into a completely different person for each job. But he begins to question his own identity when a mysterious stranger suggests that Martin isn’t the man he believes himself to be.
Legends also stars Ali Larter as Crystal Quest, a fellow operative who has a history with Martin; Morris Chestnut as Tony Cimarro, a smart, quick-witted and charming DCO agent; Tina Majorino as Maggie Harris, the newest member of the DCO team; Steve Harris as Nelson Gates, the director of the DCO Task Force; and Amber Valletta as Sonya Odum, Martin’s ex-wife; and Mason Cook as Martin’s pre-teen son, Aiden.
Morris Chestnut Legends Interview
What was the original appeal of taking on the project?
Morris Chestnut: “Two things: working for TNT and working for Howard Gordon. I came on after the pilot so I met with the studio and they told me they had a great show that Howard Gordon was involved with. They showed me the pilot and I said, ‘I want to be a part of it.’ So I come in on the second episode.”
How does he interact with everyone else?
Morris Chestnut: “Well, basically, I start off in pursuit of Sean Bean’s character. Sean’s character is involved in a lot of sensitive activities, so I start off investigating him and eventually, I become a part of the company.
Sean Bean is the legend of the show because he assumes…a legend is basically an assumed identity. So I am in pursuit of Sean because I work in a different branch of the FBI. He comes to me for some information about a murder. And when he comes to me for this information about this murder, I investigate and I realize that he was actually at the scene of the murder but he never told me that. So then I start investigating him.”
What does being part of a Howard Gordon series mean to you?
Morris Chestnut: “I’m a huge fan of many of his shows. I’m a huge fan of Homeland. I’m a huge fan of 24. He’s one of the hottest showrunners in town right now, so just the opportunity to work with him… He’s doing something right and I just wanted to be involved and a part of something right. I think this is it. The pilot’s really good. It’s really good.
I can say one of the things when I met with TNT, and they said, ‘We’re thinking about you for this show. We already shot the pilot.’ I watched the pilot, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ It’s a ride. Sean Bean and the whole cast are great, so you’ll see when you see the show. It’s a Howard Gordon feeling to the show.”
What makes Tony a really interesting agent? What are his strengths?
Morris Chestnut: “Tony, his strengths are he’s really not a team player. He beats to his own drum. He’s quick-witted, beats to his own drum and he just does whatever he has to do to solve a case. He feels like he is the best, and even his boss, his supervisors can’t even really tell him what to do.”
Is he a fun character to play?
Morris Chestnut: “Yeah, he’s a very fun character to play because what happens […]is he pursues information. His supervisor actually tells him not to pursue something and let it go, and he does it anyway. I love that.”
How would you describe the journey he’s going to go on?
Morris Chestnut: “The journey that he goes on this season, it’s a fun journey. It starts off in pursuit of Sean, but then at a certain point, I’m realizing things may not be what they appear to be. So I start to change my mind and start taking a different course in pursuit of different things.”
Did you have to take on a different identity like Sean Bean’s character does?
Morris Chestnut: “This season I really didn’t have many different characters. Mainly that burden’s on Sean. I had one assumed identity but it was pretty basic and it was really quick. Sean is really the one that’s changing his identity and playing different characters.”
Nickelodeon and Paramount Television are combining forces for a School of Rock series based on the 2003 music-driven film that starred Jack Black. The new series – a live-action musical comedy – will air in 2015. Nickelodeon’s ordered 13 episodes of the series and filming will begin shortly.
Per Nickelodeon: “School of Rock will follow the adventures and misadventures of Dewey Finn, a down-on-his-luck rocker who poses as a substitute teacher at a prestigious prep school as he teaches his eccentric, unconventional and overachieving students to play and love rock ‘n’ roll.”
Jim and Steve Armogida are attached as writers, executive producers, and show runners. School of Rock‘s director Richard Linklater and producer Scott Rudin are on board as executive producers.
“We are thrilled our first foray into kids programming will be a straight-to-series order with our Viacom partners at Nickelodeon,” said Amy Powell, President, Paramount Television. “With Dewey’s outrageous personality and rock star sensibilities taking center stage, School of Rock will be an irresistibly fun show for the whole family.”
“School of Rock is one of those great movies that always felt quintessentially Nickelodeon in its tone and humor, and we jumped at the opportunity to partner with Paramount Television and bring it to life as a TV series,” added Russell Hicks, President, Content and Development, Nickelodeon. “Once again, kids will be able to laugh and rock!”
The second Alice in Wonderland film with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Mia Wasikowska as Alice has just started production in England. Disney announced the start of filming on Alice In Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass, the all-new tale also set to star Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Tim Burton directed 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, but The Muppets director James Bobin takes over the helm of this second new Alice in Wonderland film.
Linda Woolverton returns as screenwriter, and Burton will remain involved as a producer. Joe Roth, Jennifer Todd, and Suzanne Todd are also producing Through the Looking Glass, with John G. Scotti executive producing.
Disney’s aiming for a May 27, 2016 theatrical release.
Details on the cast and characters, courtesy of Disney:
· Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean films, Alice In Wonderland, Mortdecai, Black Mass) returns to the big screen as the Mad Hatter—Hatter Tarrant Hightopp.
· Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables, The Devil Wears Prada, Alice In Wonderland, Rachel’s Getting Married) portrays the White Queen—Mirana.
· Mia Wasikowska (Tracks, Jane Eyre, Alice In Wonderland) once again appears as Alice Kingsleigh, who’s on a quest to help the Mad Hatter.
· Helena Bonham Carter (Cinderella, Les Misérables, Alice In Wonderland) returns as the Red Queen—Iracebeth.
· Rhys Ifans (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, Nanny McPhee Returns, The Amazing Spider-Man) fills the shoes of Zanik Hightopp, the Mad Hatter’s father.
· Matt Lucas (The Labyrinth, Alice In Wonderland) returns to the revelry in a dual role as Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
· Ed Speleers (TV’s Downton Abbey, Eragon) portrays James Harcourt in the film.
· And Sacha Baron Cohen (Hugo, Les Misérables) was called on to bring Time to the big screen.
· Stephen Fry (24: Live Another Day, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Alice In Wonderland) is back as the voice of the Cheshire Cat.
· Toby Jones (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Infamous, The Girl) provides the voice of Wilkins.
· Alan Rickman (Harry Potter film series, Alice In Wonderland, director/actor/co-writer A Little Chaos) returns as the voice of the Blue Caterpillar.
· Michael Sheen (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Parts 1 & 2, Alice In Wonderland, The Queen, Frost Nixon) once again serves as the voice of the White Rabbit.
· Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner, The Kings Speech, Harry Potter, Alice In Wonderland) returns to voice Bayard.
· BAFTA-winning actor, writer and comedian Paul Whitehouse (BBC’s Harry and Paul’s Story of the 2s and The Fast Show; Alice In Wonderland, Corpse Bride) is back as the March Hare.
· Barbara Windsor (Carry On, EastEnders, Alice In Wonderland) provides the voice of Dormouse again.
Matt Dillon (Photo by Richard Chavez/ShowbizJunkies)
Fox’s Wayward Pines doesn’t premiere until 2015 but the buzz is building as the network brought executive producer M. Night Shyamalan, along with cast members Matt Dillon, Carla Gugino, Melissa Leo, Toby Jones, Shannyn Sossamon, Tim Griffin, and Charlie Tahan to the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con to discuss the thriller. The series, which is based on the book Pines by Blake Crouch, will air as a 10 pair event series.
Dillon plays a Secret Service Agent who travels to Wayward Pines in search of two missing agents. Gugino co-stars as one of the missing agents who is trapped in the twisted small town and can’t seem to escape. Together to talk about the series, Dillon and Gugino discussed the appeal and what audiences can expect when they tune in in 2015.
Carla Gugino and Matt Dillon Wayward Pines Interview
Had you read the books or have you now?
Carla Gugino: “I read the first book. I was told not to read the books initially.”
Matt Dillon: “And I took their advice.”
Carla Gugino: “Yeah, I didn’t and then I did read the first one, but what’s interesting, I think because Blake Crouch was so involved, the novelist was so involved with Chad Hodge and the entire process, it felt like it was adjusting to the story that you need to tell when you’re seeing things which is different than a story you need to tell when you’re actually reading something.
For example, my character has been there a lot longer than Matt’s character and there’s a lot of information that she doesn’t have, that we had to make some adjustments based on because you can believe that if you’re reading it, but if you’re seeing someone every day, you can’t believe that they might not know something. So there were those kind of interesting things. It’s certainly very allegiant to the book but what’s nice is that he wanted to have the departure, make it in a different medium.”
Matt Dillon: “Well, I didn’t read the book beforehand. I read it after we shot the first episode. I read most of the first book. I spoke to the author [and], yeah, there’s a lot of things in a book that work in a book, but there are questions that need to be answered. There are structural things that you need to have in place and character development.”
Carla Gugino: “And things move faster on camera because you as an audience are with us.”
Matt Dillon: “There were certain questions my character, frankly, wasn’t asking. Because he’s an investigator, he’s a law enforcement person and these outrageous things are being presented to him, and what I did was start asking questions as the character would ask questions. Giving voice to those questions helps because he would ask those. There are questions he would ask, so sometimes that happened and good things came as a result of it. You know what I’m saying? Things that he might’ve overlooked because of the style of the writing.
As we went forward, there were things that he’d say, ‘Well, why wouldn’t he ask something like that? Why wouldn’t he want to know that?’ That started to bring things up and forced the other characters to answer questions, to find out.”
Carla Gugino (Photo by Richard Chavez/Showbiz Junkies)
Carla Gugino: “Yeah, for sure.”
It sounds like a very collaborative process.
Matt Dillon: “Yeah, it really was.”
Carla Gugino: “It was. It was an incredibly collaborative process. I think what’s interesting, what I love anyway about making television or film, is that when you see those credits at the end, you couldn’t have made it without every single one of those people.”
Matt Dillon: “That’s true.”
Carla Gugino: “And in this particular case, it really – in terms of the writers, the directors and the actors – it was a true group effort.”
Matt Dillon: “I think it was a little unique in television maybe…well not unique but certainly uncommon…is that it was very director-driven. So it was nice to be able to have [that] and Night said that to me, ‘This is a director-driven thing,’ so any questions we have, typically that goes to a writer, producer, and everything runs through that. That was there, absolutely. There’s a lot of writing that needed to be done. The directors actually got much more involved. The directors really got involved.”
Carla Gugino: “And that was encouraged.”
Matt Dillon: “That was good. That was good for us. Me, coming out of film, that’s what I’m used to.”
What should viewers of Wayward Pines expect?
Matt Dillon: “Well, I think expect a good yarn. There’s going to be a lot of reveals. There’s going to be a lot of reveals as you go along. You’re not going to maybe understand everything right away, but that’s okay. Still, I would like them to watch something that’s really very atmospheric, very textural, interesting characters. And be prepared for some surprises.”
Carla Gugino: “Yeah, definitely. What’s interesting is all the characters have a different level of information and the audience, the same. So basically we’re all kind of going together into this world that is not what it seems. It’s a good idea and it’s well structured and you get to live with these people as these mysteries are unfolding. And it’s also, by the way, beautiful to look at. It’s very beautifully shot and where we shot this town, obviously which is Wayward Pines, is these huge looming magnificent mountains that are like characters. You can tell something is not quite right here.”
Nina Dobrev (Photo by Richard Chavez/Showbiz Junkies)
Keeping track of the multiple characters Nina Dobrev has played on The CW’s The Vampire Diaries requires a good memory and/or a flow chart, but Dobrev’s enjoying the challenges presented with each new season of the supernatural drama. “As an actor, the challenge has been so great and so welcome and wonderful that I’m so lucky,” said Dobrev during our interview at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con.
Dobrev and her co-stars on The Vampire Diaries were big draws at the Con, with fans of the series – and the media – hoping for news on what’s happening to the main characters following season five’s cliffhanger finale. Dobrev didn’t give away any spoilers, but she did talk about what’s going on with Elena and what we might expect to see in season six.
Nina Dobrev The Vampire Diaries Interview
Elena has an interesting way of mourning. Can you talk more about that?
Nina Dobrev: “Not very much, but I can tell you that I went to college for sociology and psychology, so I’m very fascinated. I was very interested when I read her approach and what I had to do. It made sense, but it’s very, very strange.”
And she’ll be pursuing a pre-med degree when she returns to college this coming season?
Nina Dobrev: “I don’t actually know why yet she’s studying med. They haven’t explained to me where that’s going, but it definitely has made my job a lot more difficult because I feel like I’m on Grey’s Anatomy, and I have to say all those complicated words that I don’t understand. I mean, I understand them after, but at first, when I’m in the read-through, I’m like, ‘What? What’s my line?'”
How much of that will we see in the new season?
Nina Dobrev: “I’ve only shot one episode so far. I don’t know where it’s going to go. They don’t tell me, really.”
What else would you like to see Elena do that she hasn’t done already?
Nina Dobrev: “I was asked this question a little while ago and I don’t know. I feel the same way. I’ve done so many things and it’s been so cool. Julie [Plec] has backed herself into a corner. Good luck with this season. I’m looking forward to seeing [it], she always does it. She works wonders. Elena is an amazing character. She’s like a real person. She’s transitioned through so many phases and she’s very well-rounded. So I’m really excited to see what Julie’s going to have in store for me next.”
When you started the show, could you have imagined playing all the other characters?
Nina Dobrev: “Definitely not. I was just excited to get a pilot, to land the gig, and I hoped we would get picked up. Fingers crossed, I was praying, and then it got picked up and I was like, ‘Maybe we’ll get picked up for season two.’ Now here I am six years later with one of the coolest characters I think on television, between the many roles I’ve played. I’m so lucky that this happened and I really feel, I have this mentality, this thing, my friends all know. I kind of go with the flow. If I go traveling, I won’t really make any plans. I’ll see where it takes me, meet people, go different places, countries, whatever. They’re always like, ‘How do you do that? I need to book a hotel, I need to have everything planned.’ I’m like, ‘Well, everything always works out.’ For me, I got this job and I didn’t know what I was signing up for but it worked out. I got one of the coolest experiences and one of the best roles that I could’ve ever wished for.”
Jon Stewart took time off from his The Daily Show hosting gig to make his feature film debut as a writer/director with Rosewater, based on Maziar Bahari’s bestselling memoir, Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival. Open Road Films picked up the dramatic movie back in May 2014 and has now set a November 7, 2014 (a prime awards season contender opening slot) for its theatrical release.
Gael Garcia Bernal leads the cast and Stewart, Scott Rudin, and Gigi Pritzker produced the film. Lila Yacoub, Eli Bush and Chris McShane executive produced Rosewater.
Here’s the details on Rosewater, courtesy of Open Road Films:
Rosewater follows the Tehran-born Bahari, a 42-year-old broadcast journalist with Canadian citizenship living in London. In June 2009, Bahari returned to Iran to interview Mir-Hossein Moussavi, who was the prime challenger to controversial incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Moussavi’s supporters rose up to protest Ahmadinejad’s victory declaration hours before the polls closed on election day, Bahari endured great personal risk by submitting camera footage of the unfolding street riots to the BBC. Bahari was soon arrested by Revolutionary Guard police, led by a man identifying himself only as “Rosewater,” who proceeded to torture and interrogate the journalist over the next 118 days.
In October 2009, with Bahari’s wife leading an international campaign from London to have her husband freed, and Western media outlets including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart continuing to keep the story alive, Iranian authorities released Bahari on $300,000 bail and the promise he would act as a spy for the government.
Morris Chestnut, Sean Bean and Ali Larter in ‘Legends’ (Photo by Marco Grob/TNT)
TNT’s Legends is based on the novel by Robert Littell and stars Sean Bean (who the executive producers promise not to kill off), Ali Larter, Morris Chestnut, and Tina Majorino. The drama focuses on Deep Cover Operations Undercover FBI agent Martin Odum (Bean), who transforms himself into a completely different person for each undercover investigation he embarks on.
Larter also plays an FBI operative, and at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con, she talked about why she wanted to be a part of Legends and what we can expect from her character, Crystal Quest, this season.
Ali Larter Legends Interview
What drew you in and made you want to be a part of Legends?
Ali Larter: “One of the things I was really attracted to was the emotional toll that the work takes on these characters. Of course, when you’re telling a story like this, you have to move the story along and you have to make sure that all of that works in the mythology of it. What’s interesting to me is where they break. Especially when you’re in such a high pressure job, finding those places where it just kind of picks away at your skin and what you do to deal with the stress. So there’s some interesting ways that Crystal deals with that.
It was also really important to me that I held onto her emotional side and femininity. I think a lot of the time with female characters, especially in these high-powered jobs, they have to cut that off. I really felt like with Crystal, no matter what had happened the night before, when she woke up in the morning, she took a shower, she did her hair, she put on her lipstick. It was part of the ritual of keeping life normal for her and how she held it together. So that was something that I kept throughout. But, yeah, it’s interesting when you see just different shades of ways that it really affects these characters.”
Was committing to a TV series a tough decision?
Ali Larter: “I mean, I couldn’t be more excited about this schedule. It’s 10 weeks. You know, from being on Heroes where we’re doing 24 episodes, I think it’s really difficult to keep the stories up to the level that is riveting, that the audience deserves. When you take something like this, there’s really a chance to keep it tight where the writers can get really specific and layer things in. So that’s something I was excited about.
I also think that for the actors, especially Sean [Bean] but anyone who’s taking on these different legends, you can’t do that for 10 months a year. You would lose your mind. We’re shooting 14 hours a day. Just the pressures of it and the amount of work, you’re not sitting on the sidelines of these shows. You’re always on. So when you know there’s a finish line, it gives a chance to really give it your fastest and your strongest effort where I think that when it stretches out, there’s a chance for people to get overwhelmed.”
Do you and Sean Bean’s character Martin have a past history on the show?
Ali Larter: “Do we have past history? Have we made love? Yet to be known… I know, but it’s a fun relationship and when you take people that are very different in the way that they approach life, you’re going to get friction. Crystal likes to follow the rules and Martin goes by instinct. For me, it’s just been so thrilling to work with Sean Bean. He’s just an extraordinary actor. To put him in a role like this is like gold. So to watch him each day create these different personas that he takes on through the hair, through the glasses, through the body language has been really interesting.”
Do we see Crystal take on undercover roles?
Ali Larter: “Yes, she goes undercover but she more kind of ties it all together. She doesn’t have legends that she’s been living for a year. They will probably peek out later on. It was really important for this first season…our showrunners changed and David Wilcox came on about a month before we started shooting, so he was in this and Josh Pate who also wrote a lot of the episodes has been a fantastic writer, they were just on. They were running on instinct.
They were writing these incredibly intricate, woven stories which are so amazing to see. But what I hope is that when we go into another season, I’m going to be handed the scripts and have a better idea of the things that I can weave in rather than getting the scripts sometimes an hour before.”
Will the various legends give the show a chance to reinvent itself?
Ali Larter: “Absolutely. I don’t want to speak for Sean but I think that was his draw to the show was the chance to get to play all these different characters. It really keeps you on your toes. For me, one of the exciting things is that I’m a mom. I have a three and a half year old little boy. I cook dinner three nights a week. I’m still doing the dishes. I have that life, and then when I go to work, I get to play this woman who’s chosen her career above all else. She wants to help people, she wants to work for her government. She works for her country and she’s willing to put her life in danger in order to save others. And that to me is a very thrilling, empowering role because my life isn’t mine anymore now that I’m a mom. I have to make different choices now so it’s fun to play a character that has chosen her work over all else.”
What kind of journey is she on this season?
Ali Larter: “One of the things I feel like you have to do as an actor is that as much as one of the goals of this show is to get into that emotional underbelly, is that you have to keep asking the writers to write the backstory. You have to keep asking them to fill in those relationships because so much of the time is spent with the showrunners and the studio making sure that the story works. ‘Make sure the story works, make sure the story works.’ I feel like my work as an actor is to continue to inspire them and encourage them to write those interesting relationships, what happens to them when they’re alone, how they break.
So we bring in the relationship with my father towards the end of the season and I was really excited about that because just even being in the same room with him shifts. You feel different, so I think seeing Crystal revert a little bit is interesting. That’s kind of a crack in her veneer. And then you also see how she’s someone who really believes in following the rules. Her father’s in the Navy, she believes in that. As it goes on, she’s really realized that the inner workings of the government, large corporations, that there’s so much sneaking that she may have to bend some of her morals to be able to get to the truth.”
Do you see a little bit of Niki from Heroes in her?
Ali Larter: “She’s not that vulnerable. Niki was so vulnerable. She was so broken, so much more innocent in a way. Crystal’s not that innocent. She’s seen it and she’s done it. She’s much rougher around the edges but, again, holding onto her femininity was really important to me. I didn’t want to just be in a black suit with my hair in a pony tail every day with no makeup on. That, to me, is just not the character that I want to watch. I want to watch the woman that gets herself out there and then finds her peace and her relief through holding onto that.”
Who on the team does she love working with, and who is the craziest on the team?
Ali Larter: “Right, well definitely Martin. That’s where the conflict lies because she’s always cleaning up his messes. He does what he thinks he has to do, but by doing that people get hurt and that’s just not acceptable to her ever. Steve Harris is incredible on the show. He brings such a gravitas and he’s Crystal’s boss. So to really see him and she respects him but she also really feels it with Martin. She’s not sure that he’s all there, that the toll of the work hasn’t really impacted his ability to make rational decisions. She just doesn’t feel she should be in the field at all times.”
Kevin Durand from ‘The Strain’ at Comic-Con. (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)
Both Kevin Durand and Jonathan Hyde would be incredibly happy if FX renewed The Strain, based on the book series by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, for a few more seasons. Both actors are having a terrific time working on the series and at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con, they said working with del Toro and the rest of The Strain cast has been a great experience.
Durand (‘Vasiliy Fet’) and Hyde (‘Eldritch Palmer’), who were teamed up for press interviews at Comic-Con, also discussed their characters and the horror genre in general.
The Strain airs on FX on Sunday nights at 10pm ET/PT.
Kevin Duran and Jonathan Hyde The Strain Interview
Guillermo del Toro’s talented as well as being a nice guy. Can you talk about working with him?
Jonathan Hyde: “It’s sort of a marriage made in heaven. You get to laugh and cry and look terrific, all at the same time.”
Kevin Durand: “It’s pretty incredible to be led by someone who has such a set of skills. And on top of that is that charisma and enthusiasm, that just leaks all the way through the entire production. Everybody shows up to work and we’re all so excited to get to help tell the story.
He makes horror seem so beautiful. There’s a deep beauty behind the blood.”
Jonathan Hyde: “He sets the tone, for sure.”
What are you allowed to say about your character’s journey over the course of this first season?
Kevin Durand: “I think if you’ve watched even just from the second episode you see that he’s a meticulous, powerful soldier of sorts. He has a special set of skills and perhaps he will apply this set of skills in that kind of obsessive, meticulous kind of manner that he has in approaching rat killing towards killing larger blood-sucking vermin in the future.”
Jonathan Hyde
Did you do any research before taking on The Strain?
Jonathan Hyde: “I read a bit about the Hearsts and I was interested that I think it was 1908 they were seriously contemplating buying Mexico. That’s only a question of scale…a person who’s that powerful, who has that amount of cash. So, yeah, the idea that somebody could pretty much destroy humanity in pursuit of immortality is just a bit more of an effort, perhaps, than buying a whole country. But that sort of research I found quite interesting. Corporate power is probably the prime power in the world today, more powerful than governments, so that is interesting.”
Kevin Durand: “The script, the books, the graphic novels – so much is laid out for us. You just get to filter it through our beings and try and live up to the challenge.”
Jonathan Hyde: “And by no means are the books being rigorously followed. So much of what’s in the books is in the series, but there are departures that I think are very, very curious. Very interesting.”
Were either of you horror fans before this?
Kevin Durand: “I’ve been a really big fan of the genre for a long time. I’ve worked in a lot of sci-fi and horror over the years. And to be a huge fan of Guillermo’s and see these amazing worlds, these universes that he creates is just… To be a fan of the genre and to get to work with him, who, to me does it like nobody else, is pretty exciting.”
Jonathan Hyde: “I like apocalyptic stuff. Now that I’m thinking about it there’s a writer called John Brunner who’s written The Sheep Look Up and Stand on Zanzibar – these are major, terrific world issues that are absolutely brilliant. So, yeah, I’m a fan too of the genre.”
Grant Bowler as Joshua Nolan in ‘Defiance’ (Photo by: Ben Mark Holzberg/Syfy)
Grant Bowler says it’s important to remember that the world they’ve created in Defiance is a very dangerous world, and integral to that was the creation in season two of new cities for Bowler’s character and others on the Syfy series to explore. “It helps us see that these are now isolated city states. This is like ancient Greece. They’re not countries. It’s like Athens and Sparta, they exist at the same time but they’re independent of each other and that’s key. We also start to see the danger in the spaces in between,” explained Bowler while doing interviews at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con.
Bowler also discussed his character’s romantic life, his strong moral code, and working with Stephanie Leonidas in this interview from the Con.
Season two of Defiance continues on Syfy on Thursday nights at 8pm ET/PT.
Grant Bowler Defiance Interview
What do you like about Nolan?
Grant Bowler: “I like pretty much everything about my character because I manipulate my character to be all the things I really like to do. Look, I love his pragmatism, I love his moral curious, in a sense. What I mean by that is he has the courage not to settle morally for one viewpoint. Nolan believes with all of his heart that the greatest evil that exists in the world is certainty.
So, he’s determined to remain uncertain and I kind of love that. I really, really do love that. He’s, at heart, a romantic and an idealist, even though he’d die before he’d admit that, too. He’s a wonderful character to play. He’s very funny, very irreverent, but also things really matter to him. He’s prepared to make enormous calls on the spot.
In an immoral world, the immoral man is king. I don’t know. He seems to have a very clear code of morality, but it’s based again on pragmatism. It’s based on what works. I think to bore Nolan into giving you a punch in the head is to talk in metaphors. He doesn’t like metaphors, he doesn’t like allegory, he doesn’t like any of that. He wants to know where he stands at all times.”
Who is your favorite actor to interact with on Defiance?
Grant Bowler: “Steph [Leonidas]. I mean, we’re incredibly blessed. We’ve got a wonderful cast. When I signed on we hadn’t cast everybody and when I signed on [Kevin Murphy] hadn’t written the script yet. But we had an agreement – and you hope.
I was so in love with the character and so in love with Kevin’s vision of what he wanted to make, and Scott Stewart. The three of us were pretty much it – and Michael Nankin in an empty studio in Canada with nothing. And what happened was this cast signed on that was really strong. I thought was a phenomenal cast anywhere on any network in America. It was a phenomenal cast; we got so lucky.
It’s great fun working with all of them. I love working with all of them for different reasons. Steph…there’s just something there from the first day. We have a scene that comes up in the second season that’s very, very hard on us. It was a tough thing to shoot and when Kevin brought it to us and we brought it in the read-through, we read it in the read-through flat, and then we refused to read it again.
They were all after us. The director wanted to rehearse it and we refused. Then Michael Nankin, who is our executive producer, said, ‘We really need you to rehearse it.’ We said, ‘No, we’re not. We won’t rehearse it.’ And we just do that…we bond together and we knew that on that one we should never speak those words until we had to speak those words. When you get to work with somebody and you have that innate understanding of each other, it’s very rare. The last time I had that relationship with another actor…I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve had it a few times, but it’s rare and it’s too be treasured. So, that one’s a special one.”
How will Nolan’s relationship with Amanda move forward?
Grant Bowler: “It’s a bit of a push-me/pull-you. It’s a bit of a Doctor Doolittle relationship, that one. In this season she’s really the driver of the relationship. She’s also the one who chickens out. I think when it comes to 99% of the things that stand in front of Nolan, he will be the protagonist. But when it comes to women in romantic situations, he’s hopeless. I think he doesn’t know how to say no, and if they decide they’re in a relationship with Nolan, then they’re in a relationship. He just wants to know what time he should be there and what he shouldn’t be wearing.
So, I think Amanda’s very much dictating the pace at this stage. I think as time goes on, that may change. But I also think there’s now some ground to be covered. I think he got a little burned in season two.”
Can you relate to him at all?
Grant Bowler: “I relate to my character on a million different levels, but they are always an extremist – if you know what I mean. Good characters are extremists. Hopefully good drama is you’re telling the most exciting moments of a person’s life, not the buttering the toast moment or the waiting for the bus moment. I’ve seen that on TV, you know, waiting for the bus for 25 minutes and the bus was late. So, yeah, I always identify with him in extremist. I don’t always agree with what he does. I don’t always agree with what goes on with him, but when you play a character you can always understand him.”
Do you play the game?
Grant Bowler: “Yeah, I’ve lost a lot of hours on the game. I’ve lost a lot of hours on a lot of games. I’m an avid gamer.”
Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ action adventure MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (Photo by Jasin Boland)
The big question when it comes to Mad Max: Fury Road is whether the new addition to the franchise will be worth the wait. Mad Max: Fury Road opens in theaters on May 15, 2015, a good 30 years after the release of the third film of the franchise, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Circumstances beyond their control caused writer/director George Miller and Warner Bros Pictures to delay the film, however based on the reaction to the first trailer released, Mad Max fans are feeling very hopeful that Fury Road will revive the franchise and will live up to its predecessors.
At the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con, Miller conducted a Q&A with fans as well as took part in a press conference. Here’s what he had to say about Mad Max: Fury Road, his cast, the story, and the delay:
On the actual time frame between Fury Road and Beyond Thunderdome:
George Miller: “I keep asking the question and I’ve got it down to between 45 and 50 years from next Wednesday, or the next Wednesday from the day that you watch the movie.”
On how it feels to revisit this world:
George Miller: “What happens, if you work on something it does stay around in the back of your mind somewhere. We’ve all got that place that we’ve had from childhood, and I like to call Mad Max and the characters in the films imaginary friends. It’s a very, very compelling world to work in with because it’s allegorical. That’s why the Westerns were basically what cinema grew up on, from the silent era on. They were very accessible, elemental stories, and that’s the attraction of working in this post-apocalyptic, Mad Max world.
Getting back into it, it felt familiar in many ways, and very, very strange. So much has changed. The technology has changed. You can do a lot more. You can keep everyone safe. When you see the movie, you’ll see a lot of the actors doing the actual stunts. It probably would have been criminal to do that in the old days, but now you can keep them safe with harnesses and things like that. It was just interesting to go back there after all these years. I’m thankful that I’ve been able to do it.”
On his view of what a post-apocalyptic world would now look like:
George Miller: “One of the things that’s quite interesting is that many of the same issues apply. In many ways, we are doomed to repeat history. With information, things change. Mad Max 2, for instance, was basically based on oil wars. Back in the early ‘70s there were sudden restrictions; cars got smaller and people went to war over oil and we call it gasoline in Mad Max. We’ve arguably been fighting oil wars ever since. Now, in some places in the world, there are water wars. In my own country, there are no wars but there is a huge dispute over water. There’s a financial crisis that we’re all worried about. All of those things are in the news. Even 45 or 50 years in the future we’re in a medieval construct, in terms of how people behave towards each other.
The other big thing I wanted to do was to tell a story with very little dialogue. It’s a world in which people say very little. I wanted to have one extended chase, in which you discover the backstories of the characters on the way. All those things come together. A post-apocalyptic world allows you to make it very, very elemental. I like to call them ‘Westerns on Wheels’. For the same reasons why the Westerns had that very essential quality, you can find that in Mad Max: Fury Road.”
On what version of Mad Max Tom Hardy is playing:
George Miller: “Yes and no. Yes, of course, it’s based on the same character that Mel [Gibson] played. He’s the lone warrior in the wasteland, basically disengaged from the rest of the world. But, naturally, Tom brings his Tom Hardy-ness to it. He brings another quality and the character is different, to some degree, because the story is different. So, it’s a yes and no answer. Yes, it’s different, but no, he’s essentially grown out of the same material.”
On Charlize Theron’s character, Furiosa:
George Miller: “Without trying to give away too much story, I can say that she plays the Imperator Furiosa. She’s the boss of a War Rig, in which the people flee across the Wasteland. I can’t really think of another character in cinema quite like her. I’m sure that other people might find connections, but just the way the character was conceived and how Charlize took it on and transformed herself and played it, she did it with such authority. There have been great female action characters, but there’s just been nothing quite like this. If I say too much more, I’ll give away too much story. We’re coming out next May. We haven’t finished the film yet.”
On what Nicholas Hoult brought to the film:
George Miller: “He’s just a wonderful guy who’s incredibly mature for someone so young. I have a son not quite his age, but almost. I thought he was mature, but Nicholas has been working since he was nine and he’s one of those really centered actors. This film doesn’t have many speaking roles, but I tested with really complicated scenes. I’d seen his work, but I was just struck by his abilities. He’s one of those actors who insists on doing his own stunts. He’s very methodical and very clear and very safe, but he can really get in there. He plays a character called Nux who’s a War Boy. He gets caught up in the story, with Max and Furiosa and the others. He’s just got a lot to give and a lot to contribute to cinema and acting. He’s got so much going on.”
On whether he considered bringing back Mel Gibson:
George Miller: “Back in the early part of the decade, Mel Gibson was cast in the movie. We were about to shoot and then 9/11 happened and that caused a whole lot of issues, not the least of which was a decline in the American dollar and we lost a significant amount of our budget. At the same time, we had to move on Happy Feet. I thought, ‘Okay, we’ll do Happy Feet and take four years for that.’ So we did that and then by the time we came out of that, it just went on and on.
It’s not a story about an old Mad Max. It’s a story about a younger Mad Max, so I had to find a new Mad Max. Luckily, Tom Hardy came along. And then we were about to shoot in Australia where they shot the first ones and we had record rains, and what was flat red desert became a flower bed. The salt lakes in the center of Australia where we were going to shoot had pelicans and frogs in them. So, we waited and Warner Brothers – to their credit – said, ‘Let’s wait and see if it dries up again.’ It hasn’t dried up yet, which is great for the land but not for Mad Max. That’s how we ended up in Namibia.”
On whether there will be any characters or descendants of characters from the previous films:
George Miller: “No, but the one thing that I did do was that, in the first Mad Max, there was an actor called Hugh Keays-Byrne who played Toecutter. He died at the very end of the movie. He was the bad guy. In this film, he played the Immortan Joe who’s the warlord. The whole movie he wears a mask on the lower part of his face. The notion is that those people who saw the early one all that time ago might recognize Hugh, 30 years later. I’ve always loved him as an actor and as a person, and it was great to have him in there. But, that was the only one.”
On the story and why he returned to make another Mad Max movie:
George Miller: “I didn’t want to do another Mad Max movie because I’d done three and I do have a lot of stories that I want to tell. But the story came to me over 12 years ago and I kept on pushing it away. I always find that those stories that keep on playing in your mind are the ones that you should pay attention to. So, this story emerged and I made a deal with myself that I was going to do it with storyboards and not write a screenplay, specifically. I wanted to have the visuals come first.”
On the visual approach to Mad Max: Fury Road:
George Miller: “First of all, it’s a chase. It’s very hard when people are chasing across the wasteland to write that in words. It’s much easier to do it as pictures. Because it’s almost a continuous chase, you have to connect one shot to the other, so the obvious way to do it was as a storyboard and then put words in later. So, I worked with five really good storyboard artists. We just sat in a big room and instead of writing it down, we’d say, ‘Okay, this guy throws what we call a thunder stick at another car and there’s an explosion.’ You can write that, but exactly where the thunder stick is, where the car is, and what the explosion looks like, it’s very hard to get those dimensions, so we’d draw it. We ended up with about 3,500 panels. It almost becomes equivalent to the number of shots in the movie.”
On returning to location shooting after doing a few animated movies:
George Miller: “Animation is much more thoughtful. Shooting movies is much like sport. Making animation is a bit like writing about sport. In the middle of a football game, I would imagine that you don’t have much time to think. It’s the same thing with going out and shooting. There’s also an exhilaration to it. It’s a bit of a military exercise, logistically. It’s tough, particularly out there in the middle of a desert, on the west coast of Africa. It’s pretty spare out there.
We also wanted to do this film old school. It’s not a big CG movie. There is CG in it, but every stunt you see is real, involving real people, and often involving members of the cast. That was a big logistical exercise that brings a certain degree of anxiety with it. We had a wonderful rigging crew, stunt crew and camera crew, and we had no serious injuries at all. Every day safety was the utmost, but there is a certain tension about that. I wouldn’t say that it was a pleasant thing to be out there wrecking cars, but when we’d see the footage and review it, each day, it was worth being out there. It was better than being a green-screen movie. This movie is very real world, very palpable, and very visceral, and that’s what we were going for.”
On the possibility of more Mad Max movies:
George Miller: “In order to tell this story, we came up with two others. We’ve written a screenplay of one and a novelization of another, but it’s a very rough novel. When you watch this movie, and you’re watching what happens over three or four days in these people’s lives, you have to form everything that you see in the movie – not only the characters, but everything they touch and see – with deep backstory. So, we wrote bibles. We asked about who Furiosa is and we actually had to tell her story. We did that with every character. Out of that, because of the delays, we just kept working on them while we were working on other things. So, we ended up having two other very, very highly developed stories.”
