Matt Lanter and Aimee Teegarden play an alien and a human who fall in love in high school, despite the warnings that the two races should never mix, in The CW series Star-Crossed airing on Mondays at 8pm ET/PT. The series is set in the near future and centers around a community of Atrians (an alien race that crash-landed on Earth) interned in a camp guarded by armed soldiers. The teen aliens are permitted to leave the compound to attend a human high school, setting up the interactions between humans and aliens and dividing those in support of the assimilation of aliens on Earth into society with those who would like to wipe out the race.
Joining eight of their fellow Star-Crossed cast members as well as executive producers Meredith Averill and Adele Lim, Lanter and Teegarden were on hand at the 2014 WonderCon in Anaheim to talk about the series. In addition to doing a panel/Q&A, Lanter, Teegarden, and the cast sat down for roundtable interviews to chat about what audiences can look forward to as season one draws to a close.
Matt Lanter and Aimee Teegarden Interview
During Comic-Con last year a lot of the talk was about how the show is “Romeo & Juliet but with sci-fi” but that’s really not how the show is turning out to be. Do you see it that way?
Aimee Teegarden: “Yeah. I feel like the show is really more sci-fi based. There’s obviously relationships and things that go on, but the show what makes it interesting is the sci-fi element, the discoveries, the technologies, and the stuff in this world that’s 10 years in the future and what does it look like?
Matt Lanter: “Obviously the Romeo & Juliet influence is there and there are episodes that are titled straight from the play, and of course kind of the Roman and Emery Romeo and Juliet thing and the forbidden love is all there. But, yeah, the sci-fi aspect of it is maybe even a more major player. I think it makes it fun.”
We hear it will get darker in season two? Are you looking forward to that?
Matt Lanter: “I think we’re still waiting to hear if we have a season two at this point.”
If there’s a season two, do you want it to get darker?
Matt Lanter: “I’ve not heard that but sure. Why not? I think it’s always fun. A lot of these shows that are doing so well have definitely a darker aspect to it, kind of grittiness about it. Even on The CW now, a lot of the shows that are doing well are darker type of shows. So, I personally would welcome that.”
Aimee Teegarden: “I would love it to go more into this alien mythology which I think it already even towards the end of the season, like the very last episode, it’s literally out of this world. It’s going into a lot more of why the Atrians are here and did they really crash the ship or not, and are there more Atrians out there or underground.”
Matt Lanter: “Our season, I mean the way that it ends is there’s absolutely no summing up of a series. Unfortunately if there’s not a season two, it’s so wide open. I think fans are really going to wish there was more because there’s so much more to be told. So, we’ll see.”
What’s the whole tattoo process like for you?
Matt Lanter: “It’s not too bad. It usually takes about 20 minutes or so in the chair. We went through a design phase with the tattoos and once we kind of got those solid, it’s the same every time. Now they just print a template on kind of a sticker out of a regular printer and they just kind of glue it on and peel it off. Of course they do some makeup stuff to make it look a little more real, but yeah, we’ve got it kind of down to a well-oiled machine.”
Did you have any input into what it looked like?
Matt Lanter: “Yeah, a little bit. Our makeup artist Katy Fray, she kind of designed them. We had input from producers. We went through a couple of different looks that looked really odd. A couple of the ones I just didn’t care for either. They were under our eyes – in the very first pilot it was written that the Atrians had markings under their eyes, so when they did it it was like literally [right under the lower lid] and it just looked like a football player. I thought it was really distracting so I was kind of like saying, ‘Is there any way we can change it up a little bit?’ We kind of did and I think it morphed into everyone has different stuff.”
The season finale is being described as “epic.” What makes it epic?
Aimee Teegarden: “I think because it’s pulling back and seeing the bigger picture. Like, the end of the Will Smith movie Men in Black, you’re there and all of a sudden you pull back and it’s a whole different world. I think there’s a feeling of, ‘Oh, it’s not just these little storylines going on with these characters…'”
Matt Lanter: “…there’s something major. I would agree and that’s why towards the end you see that there’s a possibility of life and death for civilization. You can’t get much bigger than that.”
You’ve been doing the live Tweeting for the shows. What’s that experience been like?
Aimee Teegarden: “It’s been amazing. I worked on another show and it was before Twitter and Instagram, before anything really became popular, and working on this show and every week having to do our live Tweets and get into it with fans, it’s been really amazing. As the show’s going and I’m seeing it for the first time, reading the fans’ reaction and them even interacting with themselves about the storyline and someone’s like, ‘Why would Romery do that?’ and the other person will be like, ‘Well, what else…?’ You’re seeing this interaction and it’s been really validating I think as an actor and as a creator.”
Matt Lanter: “Twitter is such a cool thing now. Doing the show I don’t think you can help but be a fan of the show and a fan of the characters, and you grow close to the storyline. What’s really interesting is to see that immediate reaction on what is their take on that scene? What is their take on where that could possibly go? And of course we know, but I think it’s really cool to see the speculation. It’s just really intriguing, actually.”
Watch the interview:
