Defiance is back with aliens, action, and a massive war at hand. Set in 2046 on an Earth like you’ve never seen before, the plants and animals we know are extinct and new species are here to take their place.
Get to know cast members - Grant Bowler, Jaime Murray, and Julie Benz as they reveal more about the sci-fi TV hit!
(Transcripts courtesy of Syfy)
[About the show]
Picking up from a shocking finale when Irisa is abducted and Nolan is revived from the dead, the search continues. But a missing daughter is just one of Nolan’s problems, when Earth Republic takes over Defiance. New friends and foes emerge and guest star Linda Hamilton (The Terminator)’s particularly horrifying performance as Rafe’s estranged wife is a spectacle you can’t miss.
Jaime Murray as Stahma Tarr
Qn: Can you tell me more about your character, Stahma?
Jaime Murray: She is a really interesting character for me to play because she comes from a culture with such a strict class system. It’s a very patriarchal society, we are looking at issues that we have had historically; gender repression and female oppression. I think it’s a complex world and Stahma is particularly complex. I think it was really great to have the whole of the first season to present this fantastical world which now hopefully you understand and now you understand it, it’s going to mean something to you when we tip it on its head.
It’s going to mean something to you when you realise that Stahma is looking around her and realising that she is in a brand new world and the constraints of the society she has come from, they don’t particularly serve her very well. They have kept her in a gilded cage and it’s all she knew and she is part of the problem.
Qn: It must be great for you because there are so many different sides to the character.
JM: Well, the thing that has been really fun about this character is although I play an alien and as an actor some of the moments where I’ve lost myself most as an artist acting is when I look at the other person in the scene with me and I really focus on what they’re doing and then I allow my own impulses to come up; it’s a method of acting called meisner. I use that a lot but with this character I would have these impulses but they were human impulses; so it was like “Let’s put that one away, let’s put that normal impulse away. What is really weird? How about if I smile as I am doing that or I tenderly stroke the person as I am saying that or I nod as I am saying no.” Whatever it is because why would these aliens have the same neuro-highways or emotional responses, impulses as human being? For me, it’s really given me a freedom, its enabled me to look at a dancing background.
I studied method acting at the drama centre in England which is known as trauma centre and I came out of there totally traumatised and thought I’d never use that work and in this job I am actually going back to that tool box, dusting it off and using things like my study of animals. I often think of snakes or crocodiles or a cat with Stahma because why would she move like a human woman? So, it has been really interesting creatively for me, I have had maybe more freedom than some of the other actors and I embraced it.
Qn: Would you say you were going to be one of the main villains in the second series?
JM: Well, I don’t know if I could say that, I am very protective of my character. I don’t see her as a villain but I’ll leave that up to you guys to decide whether she is or not because the thing is she has a whole different set of moral standards to humans. She’s not human, she’s a Castithan and you may see a similarity between her and Datak although they are very different. They have different aspirations, they have different emotional responses, they have a different concept of honour, and they have different forces driving them.
Qn: What’s going to change in the second season?
JM: Oh, she’s is still going to be all of those things! She wears a lot of masks and she still wears the masks in the second season and that will probably always be a part of her because she always had to do that in order to survive and get what she needed. She was never able to be straightforward about what she needed so she always had to sideways, she always had to wear a mask but I think that to be fair, we all wear masks. I’m wearing a mask right now. We all have armour and we wear it at different times depending on if we are in the workplace or whatever but most of us have somebody or family or people we are able to remove the mask with and she never removed the mask, even with Datak. There were times when it slipped in the first season and in the second season the mask will come off at times and you’ll maybe see more of her; it doesn’t mean she doesn’t put it back on but it’s quite fun to see it slip and to see her being quite terrifying.
Qn: The hair and make-up process, is it laborious, is it long, and is it annoying?
JM: Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. The actual process, I rather like it in the morning. I come in, I get to see Colin who is my make-up artist who has become a great friend and we listen to music, drink tea or coffee and he makes me up. Between hair and make-up (Ryan and Colin) it takes about two hours which actually isn’t that long; it sounds like a long time if you never been in a make-up chair but often it takes a normal human actress about that long. One of the wonderful things about it is I can come in absolutely dreadful and you’d never know at the end of that process because really I am completely painted. I am painted like a geisha, like a clown; I don’t know if it reads that way with the lighting on set but I am snow white so I can hide behind that.
Sometimes it’s a bit tough if I am in the first scene of the day and the last scene because other actors can go off and do whatever they want whereas I am sat like a painted china doll, I can’t go anywhere or do anything, I am glued into the wig and I am just left there looking ghoulish. The costumes are pretty elaborate too, sometimes if were breaking for lunch everyone will run off because they’re hungry and I can’t even go to the loo on my own. It takes three people to un-lease me; unhook me and all those sorts of things.
Qn: If you had to pitch this show to a female audience that doesn’t like or watch sci-fi, what would say to entice them?
JM: I think the wonderful thing about the sci-fi genre is that the themes are so big, that they’re almost epic Shakespearean themes; life and death, good and evil, you have real moral choices to make. In this fantastical world which knows no bounds that can be as outrageous and weird as we want to make it. Also, it is a soap opera and social commentary and even if you were not into the sci-fi genre I think that there are really relatable themes which we are able to examine from another angle; a new angle.
Grant Bowler as Joshua Nolan
Qn: Can you tell me more about your character, Nolan?
Grant Bowler:
My character would steal all those dictaphones off the table (laughs),
he’d find a way! At the end of season one we leave him waking up from
the dead and he is literally resurrected which is an interesting
metaphor and one I am glad we haven’t laboured too much. The Nolan we
find at the beginning of season two is looking for his little girl and
he’s not going to let anything stop him.
So, the two things I
love most in that episode from my perspective: 1) We get to see some of
the greater world which I really like and the more often we get to do
that, the happier I am because I think the audience loves the idea of
this terraformed Earth. This transformed planet and the more we show
that completely hybrid universe that exists outside the town of
Defiance, the more we add to the sense of the precariousness of the
existence of this town which I think serves us very, very well. The
second thing is that he is off the leash. When we meet Nolan and Irisa,
he’s trying to, in the first episode, he’s trying very hard to make up
for a little sexual escapade he got up to right before we came in on
scene one and she’s not having it because he’s apparently done that kind
of thing before. All this part of the show I have to act, being Amish.
So we never quite get him off the leash and what I love the most about
the beginning of season two is that in episode one he has no rules, he
has no lawkeepers badge, he has no obligations to anyone.
Qn:
Speaking as a father who has a daughter, do you bring some of your real
relationship with your daughter into your character and Irisa?
GB:
You’re going it get me misty now and I don’t know why – Nolan is having
a feeling! Yeah, I do, I do and the strangest thing is I actually,
acting’s a tricky thing, I actually think somewhere Steph is another kid
of mine. It’s terrible, if somebody has said something to Steph I turn
around and go “What?!” and I’m like stop it; she’s 29, she can look
after herself. That goes on and you know, before I had children I didn’t
understand the love of a parent for a child and you can’t!
I
guess before you lose your parents or you lose loved ones; you can’t
understand what that grief is like. You can imagine it or approximate it
but you don’t understand it and I think the love of a father for his
daughter is a very specific thing and that love affair that goes on. I
mean, I remember mine, Edie, you know on my lap at 4 going “Daddy, when
we get married” and I go “We’re going to have to fix that sooner or
later, but yes?” but you have that love affair right? Each opposite
gender, child and parent does. I think that the relationship with Irisa
has been immensely fuelled by my relationship with my own daughter and
funnily enough it has been made even more powerful for me.
Qn: You seem very involved in Defiance, are you interested to be involved in any other aspect other than acting?
GB: Maybe
but that would be up to my bosses mate whether they trust me or not.
We’ll see, we’ll see about that. I don’t know about writing them, I
think that’s a dangerous mix. There was a television show I did Blue
Heelers and John Wood used to write episodes, he was the lead and I
remember John coming in one day and saying to me “Mate, I’ve written
this great episode for you!” and I thought “Aw, thanks John!” because I
hadn’t had a decent run in months, right? I was like “Oh thank god,
thank you so much! What’s the episode?” and he said “Well, you’re going
to love it! Tom, my character, falls in love with a country western
singer, etc.” and then he never mentioned me again! (Laughs) So, I think
there’s a bit of a worry with actors writing. I think maybe the blue
print is better done by others but as to other aspects to production;
maybe down the track. I’d like to put my hand up for it.
Qn: I know that you like to play video games and being in a science fiction show, are you a fan of science fiction?
GB:
Yeah, well I always was but I was very picky, very picky with my
sci-fi. Like, I’m a huge Star Wars fan, I was a huge originals Star Trek
fan too; not so much all of the new gens and voyager and everything
else but Captain Kirk on that on slope-y rock throwing the papier-mâché
boulder at that weird looking, really slow looking alien; if that bloke
was any faster, it would have got him! The lizard man, do you remember
the lizard man? Huge fan of the original Star Trek but my favourites are
Star Wars, Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Qn: In the second season you have a new strong male character, how is that relationship going to be with Nolan?
GB: I’m
loving that! I’ve got to admit, you’re talking about the addition of
Jim Murray as Pottinger? Jim has been a fantastic addition for us. It’s
really great for me to; when he came in I was a bit worried I’ve got to
admit, like he is a big strapping lad. He’s about 6ft – he could almost
be Australian – he’s a good looking boy, you know, he’s got the blue
eyes and I looked at him and thought “Here we go, what’s the story?” But
Jim is such a great actor that we found this great dynamic that works
where they are very different animals and the interplay between the two
of them is so much fun. He brings a kind of flavour if you like,
particularly for my guy I think that wasn’t in the show before. I’m
loving him, I mean; I just want him to stay forever.
Qn: What would you like Nolan to do that he hasn’t done yet?
GB:
Fall in love. That’d be the hard thing for Nolan. He can run and gun
all day long, Nolan falling in love? Oh my God, that would put a cat
among the pigeons. You want to see him start tripping over his own
shoelaces because he’s got his heart in a steel box, right? It’s Edgar
Alen Poe, he’s got it under the floorboards, and it’s in a metal
container.
Qn: What would say to fans to expect in season 2?
GB:
I think in season one, we met Defiance, we literally came tumbling in
to this town and this world and we learnt what it is. In season two, we
kind of shatter the vase and we do it in order to find out who it is.
Season two is more personal, it’s grittier, its darker, it’s much more
intimate than season one. If people liked season one, they’re going to
go absolutely crazy for season two.
Julie Benz as Amanda Rosewater
Qn: Can you tell me more about your character, Amanda?
Julie Benz: The end of season one Amanda lost everything. She lost her job and her sister has disappeared; cut to eight months later and she is struggling with trying to redefine herself in the town of Defiance and searching for Kenya. It has not been an easy journey for her. I like to say that season one Amanda is like Snow White and in season two she is like Sucker Punch. She is just struggling and having a very hard time. The mask has come off and she is in a much darker place.
Qn: It must be exciting because in the first season you were the only one that was kind of straight-laced and this time you get to show off your flare?
JB: Like the Pollyanna of the group (laughs). Yeah, no its one of the things I love about working in genre material is the world, especially in Defiance, the world itself is so unstable that no character is playing the same thing season to season. They’re able to kind of reset the show and put everybody in different places and as an actor it allows you a lot more creativity and a lot more fun. You don’t have a stock character that’s always doing the same thing over and over again. I mean, season one Amanda, we needed her to be the Pollyanna of the town because that’s how the audience could view the town; kind of through Amanda, through her eyes. They needed to understand what Defiance stood for, what the ideals were and so in many ways Amanda was the voice of Defiance. She represented everything that Defiance stood for. Now that we have established that, how great to rip the rug out from underneath everyone and throw her into a dark tailspin and put her into some ugly situations.
Qn: Out of all the sets, which one is your favourite?
JB: Well, I mean I love the Needwant but I also love the Tarr house, I think it’s quite extraordinary. The way you see it on film too, everything being so white; it photographs beautifully. The new mayor’s office is swanky! I mean, it’d be nice if Amanda moved into that!
Qn: What has the fan reaction been to you and your character?
JB: Everybody loves the mayor! People come up to me and call me mayor now, which is kind of awesome. Next it’ll be Madame, Madame Mayor; I don’t know (laughs). A lot of fans tell me that they voted for me and I say that the election was obviously fixed. I think Amanda really was the touchstone for the show, for the audience to kind of enter into this world of Defiance. In many ways, she’s the familiar, she’s the person they can really bond with and then view all of these alien people.
Qn: Sci-fi has a big male audience but have you always liked sci-fi?
JB: Oh, of course I did! I was the generation of Star Wars (the original ones)! I mean, I remember going to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind and I think I saw it like 7 times! Remember that hand signal that they did? My brother and sister and I would walk around doing that all the time. I’m of the Spielberg generation and his exploration of whether aliens exist or not, I mean, E.T. is one of the greatest movies of all time. I remember, I think we saw it in the movie theatre, when it came out, like 4 times and I balled my eyes out every single time. I have always been fascinated with the genre; I grew up reading all of the Anne Rice novels, so anything from horror to science fiction has always appealed to me.
Qn: Is it hard to learn the alien languages, at least the line you have to say?
JB: Let’s put it this way, Amanda was supposed to be able to speak all 7 languages and then they decided after I slaughtered it that it would be great that she understood them all and she spoke English back. So, that’s kind of what I do; I don’t know how Jaime and Tony and Stephanie do it and we have some amazing guest stars come in and learn this completely foreign language and they have monologues in it; I don’t even know how they do it! I can’t do it. It’s intense. It’s a lot of work; it’s really amazing and beautiful to see because you can understand what they are saying even though you don’t know the words. For me. Amanda is just pretty much sticking to swearing in alien at this point; that’s about all I can handle.
Qn: With your sexier wardrobe, did that kick your butt to work out more?
JB: You know, I always kick my butt, like I said earlier I am 41. It definitely, you know, there’s no more potato chips, I’ve cut down on the wine; little things but I’m also proud of my curves and my body and I work hard at it but I’m healthy, I’m very healthy. I’m not a waif, you’d never describe as a waif or anorexic. I’m athletic build and I encourage people to be athletic not be skinny.
Defiance S2 premieres 20 June, every Friday at 10:50PM, on Syfy (StarHub Cable TV Channel 526)