I finally have a bit of a breather and some time to get back to posting Sci-Fi Blasts From The Past. Again, these are interviews that previously appeared in print only and never on-line. Today, the awesome Emmett Skilton, whose recent credits include James Patterson's Murder is Forever, Legends, Millennial Jenny, Shortland Street and the upcoming TV series The Wilds, chats about playing Axl Johnson in The Almighty JohnsonsEnjoy!
The birth of a child, school graduations, weddings, anniversaries – these are among the life events most of us experience and that remain forever in our hearts as well as minds. Some people might also consider the first day of a new job to be one such event. Actor Emmett Skilton chuckles when asked about his first day of filming on the New Zealand fantasy dramedy TV series The Almighty Johnsons, which, funnily enough, was the ideal icebreaker for what was to follow.
“The very first scene I shot for The Almighty Johnsons was actually for the second episode [This is Where Duty Starts], and it’s where my character of Axl is encouraged by one of his three older brothers, Anders [Dean O’Gorman], to go out, score a chick and have sex with her,” recalls Skilton. “Anders has chosen this young woman named Karla [Rachel Blampied] for him, and because she could be the one who Axl is destined to be with, he should just go for it.
“Anders and Karla both encourage my character to take her into the bedroom, and the first scene I shot is where a completely naked Axl runs out of his bedroom and into the living room where he tells his three brothers and their grandfather that he thinks he’s killed this girl by having sex with her. On the day we filmed this, I had only met half of the show’s cast and only just met the crew. Then on days two and three, we shot scenes where the brothers along with their grandfather are naked in a forest and getting struck by thunderbolts. Let’s be honest, from then on, we all quickly became very good friends.”
Coincidentally, when we first meet Axl Johnson in The Almighty Johnsons’ series opener It’s a Kind of a Birthday Present, he, too, is preparing to celebrate an important life event – his 21st birthday. After a pre-birthday bash, during which a beautiful young woman tries to stab Axl to death, his brothers and grandfather take him into the forest where they reveal a family secret. They are, in fact, all human reincarnations of Norse gods, with Axl being the most powerful of all gods, Odin. While his homeland is no stranger to making television shows, Skilton immediately recognized this one as being something special.
“In New Zealand we don’t often make a lot of shows with a fantasy or science fiction element, especially not in this way, but The Almighty Johnsons is grounded in reality,” explains the actor. “It’s grounded in what we live and breathe every single day in New Zealand, and they [the show’s creators] just decided to put in the fantasy aspect and heighten different [storytelling] elements as well as situations that happened. So when I read the first script, it was something very new to me and that I hadn’t encountered before in New Zealand. I think that’s what gave our story a great deal of heart right off the bat when we started shooting the first season.
“Something else that stood out for me while we were making this show – and I think the audience can see it onscreen as well – is that there’s a genuine brotherhood with this family. That was something really important for all of us to convey. Through thick and thin and the good and the bad, family is still family, and the strongest part about this show is that no matter what, these are brothers and they will stand by one another. The Almighty Johnsons was originally designed to be pitched to a male audience between the ages of 18 and 36. It subsequently found a much wider audience, but in terms of it being relatable to New Zealand males who don’t often watch TV, this was a unique show. The cast was so focused on making sure that the onscreen family was solid, and not only did that make our work all the more fun, but we ended up becoming a behind-the-scenes family as well.”
Although initially dubious of his family’s claim that they are all gods, Axl is convinced that his siblings Anders, Mike (Tim Balme) and Ty (Jared Turner) and their grandfather Olaf (Ben Barrington) are telling the truth after he undergoes an initiation ceremony complete with lightning strikes from the sky. However, rather than immediately gaining godlike powers, Axl discovers that he has now inherited a quest to find the human incarnation of Odin’s true love, the Goddess Frigg. If he dies before doing this, then his entire family dies along with him, and there are a group of earthbound goddesses scheming to achieve the latter. In between all the godlike action, adventure and hijinks, Axl is just trying to live his life and do what he believes is right.
“The importance of the story we’re telling is that there is a choice to be made as each of us grows [up] of whether to turn left or right with the decisions we make,” says Skilton. “Axl starts out getting different influences from so many people around him to make decisions leading him to the left or the right, which would completely change his future. I think the best way to describe my character’s journey is that he ultimately took the bull by the horns and made his own choices.
“So Axl’s growth in the show comes as a result of him listening to himself rather than allowing others to tell him what to do, which is part of what we call in New Zealand ‘manning up,’ and looking at your own future and deciding what is best for you. In the process of him doing that, some people came and went in Axl’s life over the show’s three seasons, but his journey, which I think each of us experiences in our life, is a personal one that you’ve got to do for yourself if you want to learn anything out of it. You’ll see in our final episode that Axl has taken responsibility and he makes it to that unwritten goal to grasp the leadership role and guide his family in the right direction.”
Like his The Almighty Johnsons alter ego, the talented and affable Skilton has held tight onto the proverbial reins as well as to his own convictions in pursuit of his acting career, and such passion and dedication is certainly paying off.
“For me so far, I think what has made this job rewarding is that everything I’ve gotten, I’ve really, really wanted,” he says. “I’ve made goals for myself, whether written or unwritten, and slowly I’m achieving every single one of them. Not only am I, I guess, ‘making it’ in the film industry, as most people would say, but I’m also really succeeding in what I’ve always wanted to do and living up to that desire I’ve got in me. So I’m winning for myself as well as others,” enthuses the actor.
Steve Eramo
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