Season three of Syfy’s Being Human was loaded with twists and turns, and season four will be just as strong according to Sam Witwer. Witwer, along with his fellow Being Human cast members Meaghan Rath, Sam Huntington, & Kristen Hager, talked about the upcoming season of the supernatural series while at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con and although he couldn’t give away any secrets, he did say big risks will be taken and he loves the direction the writers have taken his character, Aidan.
Sam Witwer Being Human Interview
We heard we’re going to get some interesting flashbacks this season.
Sam Witwer: “Yes, sort of. In a way, we’re going to get just as many flashbacks but in another way not at all. Is that confusing? We’re going to see some faces that frankly the audience won’t be able to predict, certain actors that I’ve missed working with very much.”
Mark Pellegrino is coming back?
Sam Witwer: “He’s always back, that guy. I was running around with him last night, and we’re very much looking forward to the specific stuff they’re going to ask us to do this season. Fun, really fun.”
Haven’t you shot any of that yet?
Sam Witwer: “No, we haven’t. But it’s coming up.”
What can you tell us about what’s happening this upcoming season?
Sam Witwer: “Well, the great thing is when we started the show in season one, it was very defined turf for each actor. They had Sam Huntington and Meaghan Rath, two screwballs, and they were like, ‘Let them be screwballs, let them be big and funny and all that stuff, and then Witwer’s just going to anchor it dramatically.’ And then as the series went on, we get to sort of flip-flop a little bit.
Now that we’re in season four, the writers are more interested in sending me on dates with people like Deanna Russo. And they want to put Meaghan, Sammy, and Kristen [Hager] in life-threatening situations, which I find to be delightful because Aidan, I think, has become in a different way than Huntington’s character a suddenly funny who the audience laughs at but he doesn’t think he’s funny. He doesn’t know that. He would be very shocked to know how an audience reacts to his life. And so, those things were really fun to play. It’s a good time. I like that.”
How much is improv and how much do you stay with the script?
Sam Witwer: “Plenty. […]We do quite a bit. As long as the meaning is the same to what the writers intended, we get away with it. For example, I remember last year, me and Meaghan just in scenes that we have, we just started improv’ing. The scene would be going fine and then we’d just completely go off the rails.
For example, I don’t know if you remember Meaghan Rath’s character really starts sexually harassing Aidan. And in this season, we just kept rolling with that. And Anna Fricke’s reaction when she saw the dailies, she was like, ‘Great, keep doing that.’ It had nothing to do with the script, but it was just funny, weird things that would happen in these scenes and she wanted more of that. That’s where these writers’ heads are at. They write wonderful, beautiful stuff, and then they want to see if they get a little bit extra.”
How many takes do you normally get?
Sam Witwer: “Not a lot, my friend. I remember our British counterparts when we started talking about, ‘Oh they have the biggest budget in the world.’ No true. If you don’t get it in two or three takes, you don’t get it. That’s how it is. A lot of times, for example, I remember doing the 1930s stuff in season two, and half of the takes that you see of my character with the pencil-thin mustache on, I had one take which is a very uncomfortable position for an actor to be in when he’s creating a new version of a character. But that’s just simply the reality of making the show.
We have too much to shoot, so you need the actors to be on their toes. You need the crew to be on their toes. We have a pretty sharp machine. Sharp machine? It’s like a machine called ‘the knife.’ It’s a well-oiled machine over there as far as its efficiency, but we’re not necessarily given the most time to do any number of things, so we just hope we get something worth putting on TV in two or three takes.”
How would you describe season four’s Aidan and whether he’s going to take a lead role in the vampire hierarchy?
Sam Witwer: “It’s a big thing this year because he fell off the wagon big time in season two. Season three, he went through a drying-out process because they buried him. Season four, he still hasn’t gone back to the real deal because he’s doing the bag blood. The difference is he’s doing it more. He’s kind of like, ‘No, it’s methadone. It’s fine; it’s fine.’ That’s definitely going to influence his judgment.
I think in this season, particularly, we will tackle that issue and perhaps solve it once and for all, which side he is on. Because what I really liked was that in one of the early scripts, we identified that all the vampires are still dead. The ones that died of the virus are still dead. They need to rebuild. There’s still a power vacuum, so of course people are looking for a dead Aidan, and he’s like, ‘Screw you, I want nothing to do with it,’ so other people are doing that.
And it’s fun to see Aidan go, ‘I don’t want anything to do with that, screw you guys. But here’s what we did in the ’40s that worked really well and you might want to try this. Don’t do this. That’s a mistake. Make sure you’ve got good coverage out.’ He throws little pieces of advice out which says he’s still invested over there. He pretends not to be.”
With season three you said you thought the series was in a really good groove. Are you maintaining that or are you even taking it a step further?
Sam Witwer: “There are some risks being taken this season that will either work or they won’t work, basically. In terms of my character, I very much approved of what they are doing – big time. There’s no setup that needs to be done with my character this year. It’s all been done in the third season.
It’s like Kenny [Connor Price] is out there somewhere, and he’s in the middle of a relationship with Kat, but don’t tell her he killed her ex-boyfriend. There’s this chick that looks a lot like his wife from the 1700s. The setup’s been done, now we just get to have character scenes. So, that’s cool. You know what I mean? I really like that. I don’t like to scramble to make plot points. That’s already been done.”
What you guys are doing is establishing your own identities separate from the BBC series.
Sam Witwer: “Funny enough, I got a really nice letter from Toby Whithouse stating that yes we had done that, but he felt that we were very true to the heart of what he felt his show was about. That was nice. I was happy to receive that letter and humbled considering I’m a huge fan of his show, all the way through, all of it.”
