USA Network’s Colony starring Sarah Wayne Callies (Prison Break, The Walking Dead) and Josh Holloway (Lost) earned a second season renewal after the sci-fi action drama pulled in big ratings for the 10 episode first season. The series features Holloway and Callies as parents living in an occupied Los Angeles who take dramatically different approaches to finding their missing son. Callies’ Katie joins the rebellion while Holloway’s Will collaborates with the occupying force in order to work from within to discover the possible location of his missing son. Teamed up at the San Diego Comic Con, Holloway and Callies discussed what’s in store for the second season and why the sci-fi genre is an important means of delivering themes that resonate with audiences.
Sarah Wayne Callies and Josh Holloway Interview:
Does this mean in season two you will be separated? What does it mean for viewers?
Josh Holloway: “Not necessarily. I mean obviously we start that way because we scatter to the wind. All the characters went poof.”
Sarah Wayne Callies: “Empty house.”
Josh Holloway: “Empty house. So we definitely begin there but we don’t stay there. The show moves and things happen. We…how much can we say? (Laughing) We can’t really say that much.”
Sarah Wayne Callies: “We will work together at some point whether it’s in flashbacks or flashforwards or the present.”
You’ll make up eventually?
Josh Holloway: “Well, I feel like this couple started with true love and a true sense of family. That is paramount for them, so I have faith that they will endure this but it’s not going to be easy. They’re not very happy right now. But, they have a lot to deal with just trying to reunite the family and you solve one problem and another problem arises. So, we kind of have to deal with our relationship as we deal with the current tragedies and things that are happening with our own family and outside of our family. The world really expands this season.
I love Ryan (Condal) and Carlton (Cuse) for this. They made shit hit the fan and everyone went different ways. These storylines open up different parts of the world that they laid out in season one and you start to see the different corners. What is on the Santa Monica side? What does that block look like? What is it like outside the wall? How much more sci-fi element are they bringing in? All of that is increasing so you’ll get a lot of answers and a lot more questions.”
Will we get to see the invaders?
Josh Holloway: “Yes, and that’s about all we can say. It’s going to expand in that way.”
You’re both fighting for your family in different ways. What do you think about each other’s arcs in season one? What do you enjoy the most about each other’s characters?
Sarah Wayne Callies: “I see a lot that has to do with the cost. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the French Resistance during the Second World War and the collaboration, and I think that what Ryan and Carlton have come to as the truth of the situation is that it costs you either way. It costs you to collaborate because there’s that thing inside you that starts to (hurt). I think there’s a kind of self-hatred and a disgust. I know that you struggled with that even off-screen. When you get involved with something that even for the best of reasons takes human life and costs people, there’s a horror I think realizing what you are capable of.
These are people trying to keep a marriage together but they’re also kind of crumbling from within. They don’t have the luxury, really, of separating. We have children and we live in an occupation, we can’t requisition another house.”
Josh Holloway: “We can’t go, ‘I’ll talk to you later.'”
Sarah Wayne Callies: “There’s no therapy.”
Josh Holloway: “You can’t pop in for a little coaching. You have to handle it.”
Sarah Wayne Callies: “You make it work. And, it keeps piling.”
Josh Holloway: “That’s the thing, it keeps piling. It’s evolving and something gets good, something gets worse.”
How did you prepare for this crazy world of the series?
Josh Holloway: “Well, we live in one. Look at us globally.”
Sarah Wayne Callies: “Watch the news. This is the whole reason I wanted to do the show because I think science fiction has an opportunity to examine a current culture in a way that’s palatable. I’ve said this before but the first season of Battlestar Galactica was the most intelligent conversation on the US Patriot Act I saw anywhere to this day. Our show is getting darker because our global politics are getting darker and our domestic politics are getting darker. We have an opportunity to shoot a show not only about the genesis of resistance but the genesis of dictatorship, and we’re shooting it during a very charged election. We’re going to come on the air within weeks of the inauguration; that’s an incredible privilege. And, it’s a lot of our preparation.”
Josh Holloway: “And we’re shooting all over Los Angeles and the locations we find for the ‘occupied’ state of things is not far off. They don’t have to dress it up that much. It’s kind of scary.”
Sarah Wayne Callies: “We’ve got a lot of people living in a lot of shit.”
Josh Holloway: “A lot of people right here living in shit. You’re like, ‘This is not far.’ A shift in global politics, a shift in the economy, and then…”
Sarah Wayne Callies: “This season we’re looking not only into the occupation itself but we’re looking into the psychology of it and our daughter being brainwashed, and what does it mean to turn to a young generation. You look at like the Hitler youth, right? So, you can co-opt an entire generation’s ideology without a gun. You can do it with entertainment. You can do it with books, you can do it with propaganda. So, that’s a war on another front. It’s a war that neither one of us saw coming.”
Josh Holloway: “And as an occupation progresses, so does their surveillance of you.”
Watch the full Josh Holloway and Sarah Wayne Callies interview:
