david j. moore talks to Noah Wyle, Will Patton, Moon Bloodgood, Maxim Knight, Drew Roy, Sarah Carter, Doug Jones and David Eick about Falling Skies at the San Diego Comic-Con International…
TNT’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi program Falling Skies is currently in its fourth and penultimate season, and as it’s been renewed for a fifth and final season (a 10-episode run), cast members Noah Wyle, Will Patton, Moon Bloodgood, Maxim Knight, Drew Roy, Sarah Carter, Doug Jones, and executive producer David Eick discuss some of the central themes of the show here as well as addressing the show’s impending conclusion.
david j. moore: The post-apocalyptic genre is very much in vogue right now for shows on T.V. What is it like for you to be involved in a show like Falling Skies that has apocalyptic themes, and to portray characters in this simulated apocalyptic world?
Noah Wyle (Tom Mason): I never thought of as being ahead of the curve in that respect, but I guess we were. Revolution came out after us.
Will Patton (Captain Dan Weaver): I love it. I prefer things sort of on the edge. You get to be physical and have high stakes. It’s not a procedural.
david j. moore: Will, you’ve played a similar character before in The Postman – General Bethlehem – and your character in Falling Skies has a similar idea that Bethlehem did on how to shape the future.
Will Patton: Well, General Bethlehem wanted power. I think Dan Weaver was thrown into a position of power, which he really did not want from the beginning. So they’re different that way. Bethlehem was power hungry. Weaver is quite the contrary – he’s just a regular guy who was thrown into very irregular circumstances and had to put on a mask really fast. I think they both wear masks, but for very different reasons.
Maxim Knight (Matt Mason): The Second Massachusetts is always dressing in these crazy outfits, and it’s not like we’re fighting a war in real life, but it’s easy to get into it.
Moon Bloodgood (Anne Glass): Our show is very physically grueling. Like you dream of being in the tropics. Why are post-apocalyptic shows so popular?
Sarah Carter (Maggie): It is interesting in that it is such a popular genre right now. It’s a thing to consider: There could be an end to the world. We are very fragile. What happens when our species is wiped out? It really isn’t that hard to embody that reality.
Drew Roy (Hal Mason): As an actor going into an audition, you go into a room – a small, white-walled room, and you have to imagine that whole world, and when you get that job and you’re working on it where the sets are so huge and you have to interact with everyone … I never really had trouble with that. Particularly with this show that is so family-driven. Those bonds are going to be what those are – whether it’s with aliens, dragons, or whatever’s coming at you. That’s how I approach that world.
Doug Jones (Cochise): Cochise is an alien, so he’s only in it for the kicks. (Laughing.) I play a good, kind alien who helps the humans fight the bad aliens. I have a different tactic and a different feel, and some daddy issues with my own race. It’s a reflection on family issues and the relationships that go on. Today is actually the cleanest and happiest you’ll ever see any of these people from the show. Yes, this is a very post-apocalyptic show. It’s about survival, very grunge. What do we become in times of turmoil? That’s what the show is about. What do we push to, and how do we respond to that in times of crisis?
David Eick (Executive Producer): I never think of Falling Skies as a post-apocalyptic show. I always think of it as a drama, and a family drama first. To me, post-apocalyptic is played. It’s an old trope now. There are only so many burning oil drums with the hands with the gloves with the fingers missing warming themselves over it that you can do before you’re a cliché. I don’t think that’s why the audience comes to this show. I think they’re coming to it because it’s about family. It’s always about blood that you’re willing to die for. It’s a universal theme. It’s beyond genre, it’s beyond sci-fi. You can find it in the great shows that win Emmys.
david j. moore: How is Tom going to handle his family members siding against him in the issue of Lexi’s character? [Lexi – played by Scarlett Byrne – is the daughter of Tom and Anne – played by Moon Bloodgood – in the show.]
Noah Wyle: Great question. Anne’s maternal instinct and driving force has been to get to her daughter. Her pilgrimage to get to her has been the overreaching emotional arc for her character. Tom has a different relationship with this girl. He doesn’t really have a familiar bond with her. She was a baby – and then she was six, and it’s all been very difficult to digest, and the small fraction of a familial feeling he has towards her is what allows him to put his guard down. Not to tip the scales too much, but Lexi does something pretty definitive that becomes a mid-season arc.
david j. moore: Max, your character Matt seems to be getting closer to Captain Weaver in the show as a surrogate son. How much closer do you two get as the show will progress?
Maxim Knight: Well, there’s a really nice understanding between Weaver and Matt because he’s like my battle dad. Tom is my dad and he wants the best for me, but Weaver just wants to introduce me to the world, he wants to show me what humanity has become. I think Matt really needs that because Tom isn’t providing that.
david j. moore: Will, your character is getting closer to Max’s character Matt, and you’re showing him how the world works now. Any comment about that?
Will Patton: I think from that first moment when Weaver comes back and tells Tom what happened, Matt comes up and hugs Weaver … something is saved in Weaver at that point. There’s something that he needs to take care of that he can’t forget about that has to do with being a father or a leader of some sort.
Noah Wyle: We’ve been trying over the course of the last several years … I think our characters are diametrically opposed. Tom is a humanist, and Weaver is a militarist. We’ve done a transference where Weaver has become a lot more family-centric and Tom is a lot more brutal in his decision-making. He’s a far greater risk taker than he ever was before.
Will Patton: Yeah, I think we’ve switched a little bit.
david j. moore: Doug, you’ve played all kinds of fantastical creatures in your career. Talk a little bit about putting on the alien suit and becoming the Cochise character.
Doug Jones: This one is mercifully short in the process. Normally, when you see me in the Hellboy movies or Pan’s Labyrinth, those are five hours of applications. With this, Cochise is done in two hours. From make-up, to application, to costume, everything. That’s really good and short. Since it’s a T.V. series, they designed it that way. Since we’re going on for so long, year after year, thank heavens they got it down in two hours. What’s also important about the make-up, is that it’s done in a two-step process. One is on-set practical make-up, and then the digital after effects. The eyes are glued on up here, and they’re glued on all day. In post-production, they’ll do CG effects to make the eyes look around and have expressions. We have to work in concert with each other. They do a beautiful, subtle job of it, so it looks real.
david j. moore: You’ve all had a successful run with Falling Skies, and you’ve just been picked up for a fifth season. You’ve been given 10 episodes to wrap up the show next season. Say something about that.
David Eick: Absolutely. In fact, the irony is that we had been planning on doing 12-14 episodes without really being sure how we were going to stretch it that far. It was only an arbitrary assumption – it wasn’t something that anyone had said. Once we were told it was ten, it was like, “Oh! Awesome! It fits perfectly! That’s exactly what we want to do!” So, I’m very excited. We just finished breaking episode 5 today, and we don’t start shooting for another month or so, so we’re in really good shape … much better shape than frankly I’ve been on other sci-fi visual effects shows where you’re chasing your tail by episode three. It’s nice to plan ahead, it’s nice to be able to perfect it. At the same time, it’s nice to be able to make course corrections, and give yourself the flexibility to change things on the fly. When you’re writing out of your ass, you can’t do that. It’s sexy and glamorous to say, “We were spending the night at the office and we wrote this five minutes before we shot it,” but in the end, you’ve gotta get real lucky for that to work. I think we’re doing it the right way.
Moon Bloodgood: We need that ending. When you don’t know there’s an ending, you feel like you’re in limbo. When you know you’re in your last year, you can appreciate it more.
Noah Wyle: We’re still here, and we’ll be back for a fifth and final season. So rarely in television do you get to choose your own ending. You get to give the fans a sense of completion to the narrative that you’ve played out. Getting to wrap up these storylines and have these characters reach their natural conclusions… I think it’ll be satisfying for everybody.
Thanks to Noah Wyle, Will Patton, Moon Bloodgood, Maxim Knight, Drew Roy, Sarah Carter, Doug Jones and David Eick for taking the time for this interview.
david j. moore is a contributing writer to Fangoria, FilmFax, Lunchmeat and VideoScope Magazines. His book WORLD GONE WILD: A SURVIVOR’S GUIDE TO POST-APOCALYPTIC MOVIES was published this year.
