SciFiAndTvTalk

Riverworld's Peter Wingfield - Not So Mr. Nice Guy

Peter Wingfield as Richard Burton in Riverworld. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

Peter Wingfield is just itching for a fight today, but, in fact, he is not the only one. It is a warm and sunny Friday in Vancouver, British Columbia, and one of the last days of filming on the Syfy Channel miniseries Riverworld (Sunday, April 18th from 7-11:oo p.m. EST). Inside the warehouse studio, a two-level platform with stairs has been erected in front of a huge green screen. This is where Wingfield, who pays Sir Richard Burton, and the show's leading man, Tahmoh Penikett (Matt Ellman), have spent the better part of the day shooting a fight that took quite a bit of time to prepare for.

"Last Sunday was the first time that Tahmoh and I actually looked at this fight," says Wingfield during a break in filming. "There are several fights in our story and the stunt guys as well as Tahmoh have been really busy all the way through. The stunt choreographer had gone off and created this fight with his guys, and then last Sunday, Tahmoh and I spent two hours at the gym working through what the fight would look like. This week we've tried to find time during lunch breaks and such to, not practice it physically, but just sort of talk through the shape of the fight.

"Now here we are on set-today and because of the constraints of the location, we have to change bits of the fight. So things that we learnt, we've now got to wipe those from our minds and stick something else in there instead. We're also dealing with time constraints, so we're shortening the fight, which is comprised of 60 or 70 moves, in one of the parts.

Burton (Wingfield) plots his next move. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"This is a big throwdown, knockdown, smackdown conflict, and that makes sense given that it's the end of our characers' journey and their final conflict. We have a quick exchange at the start of the story, then we have the journey, and now we get to this point and this fight is absolutely personal. My character surprises Matt, and he could have simply knocked him out and killed him, but doesn't. Burton chooses to get into a fistfight, the reason being that he wants to cause Matt pain, and he wants to see it, too. Burton wants to relish the physical contact and the suffering. It's all rather dark and ugly," says the actor with a smile, "but it's also a really good, really cool, intense story."

In Riverworld, Sir Richard Burton is among the countless human beings who, following their deaths, have been reborn on the riverbank of a mysterious new world. Intent on reaching this great river's headwaters and destroying this place, Burton hijacks a riverboat being captained by Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens (Mark Deklin). Clemens and his passengers, including an American war correspondent, Matt Ellman, and a 12th century Samurai warrior named Tomoe (Jeananne Goossen), have been searching for Matt's missing fiancée Jessie (Laura Vandervoort). Carrying on with their search, they must now also deal with this unwanted adversary and any other dangers that await them along the way. Like a few of his fellow Riverworld actors, Wingfield's character is, in fact, based on a real-life individual.

"In-between putting a couple of audition scenes on tape for Riverworld and receiving a call to meet with the director, Stuart Gillard, I was sent the script," he recalls. "I read it and did some research on Victorian explorer Richard Francis Burton, who was quite an extraordinary guy. He spoke 25 languages and, with dialects, was probably fluent in 40. Burton was also an explorer and visited several countries. He went on a pilgrimage to Mecca disguised as a Muslim from Afghanistan. This was at a time when if they had known that an infidel was in the holiest of holies, they would have cut him up into little pieces and eaten him.

Vivienne (Meg Roe) has a rather unsettling exchange with Burton (Wingfield). Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"Burton translated The Kama Sutra as well as One Thousand and One Nights, what we know now as The Arabian Knights. He seemed to be interested in so many different things. Burton was an explorer in the most general of senses, but not just of the physical lands but the emotion and cultural landscapes as well. He was a poet, too. However, the thing that struck me was the sense of danger about this guy. He was a James Bond-type character, not only going undercover, but dangerously undercover.

"Riverworld is based on the books by Philip Jose Farmer, which use the idea that Burton, along with the rest of humanity, has been reborn again on this other planet. When I read the script it had this interesting Sci-Fi flavor and an alien-created world, but the concept allowed you to bring in these various characters from human history, which seemed like a neat idea. So for instance, we have Mark Twain, or Samuel Clemens, and the Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro [Bruce Ramsey]. I really liked that because it means you can bring in anybody, and you can also kill them off and then decide to bring them back again. How perfect is that for TV?"

Burton (Wingfield) decides to take the upper hand. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

Having done all this research, there was only so much of it that the actor could apply to his portrayal of Burton. "The thing is, there are several different [research] sources that are not identical," explains Wingfield. "You've got the real person, then the character in the novels, and finally Burton in this miniseries. While they're related to each other, they are not the same. The novels aren't about the real Richard Burton. They are taking the idea from the historical facts of his life and how he might have lived in this fantasy world. Meanwhile, the miniseries is not a literal translation of the novels, but rather a reinvention of them. So there are some things that you can take with you, and others that are not the same.

"Ultimately, the story that I have signed up for and that I'm telling is of Richard Burton on the miniseries," continues the actor. "All the information that is significant is in the script of this four-hour TV movie. So there's a lot of juggling going on. I've taken inspiration from a number of different places, but the facts that I have to work with are just those in the script. And to me what is, I think, the most powerful and demanding of these facts is the darkness of my character. Burton is a scary guy. He's a really dark and violent man, and yet he is also tremendously witty as well as charming and sexy. I mean, he has love scenes with the two major female characters in the story, and they're both very different and tell you a great deal about the character.

"I've always felt that love scenes, just like fight scenes or a dance, reveal aspects of a character. Very verbal or very intellectual characters have some sense of control over what they're saying and what they reveal to you when they're speaking. However, when you watch them doing something physical, particularly something where they have to some extent lost control, such as a love scene or a fight, they reveal different things about themselves.

Burton (Wingfield) and Allegra (Romina D'Ugo). Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"One of the great joys about playing Burton is that there are two dissimilar stories involving the two women with whom he has liaisons, and I was quite interested in just the visual imagery of that. One of them is a very verbal scene, and the other is completely without words. I spoke at length with our director about this, because we wanted to be telling very different sides of Burton's story. And that's been both the challenge and the thrill of playing him, those extremes that are within him. He has a high level of culture and education, but then there's a brutality and connection with an almost animal-like quality and rage inside him. It's been quite a trip for me [acting-wise]. I've tried to make him the most complex character that I've ever played because, again, I feel the Richard Burton who genuinely lived was an extremely complicated individual."

Although this is Burton's first encounter with Matt Ellman and vice versa, Wingfield's character seems determined to get rid of him. Why? "I didn't realize when I began this project how simple the heart of this story is," he muses. "It's a love triangle. When it all comes down to the final showdown, it's a woman who has very different sides of herself fueled or expressed by Burton and Matt. However, both men recognize something in each other. Yes, they have a conflict because of this woman, but they also see the world almost the same and yet slightly differently.

"It's that slight difference that has taken Burton and Matt in opposite emotional and spiritual directions. From the outset, Burton has been described as a bad guy, but having read the script I thought, 'In what world is he the bad guy?' There is a part of Burton who wants to see the world the way Matt sees it, and there's also clearly a part of Matt that wants to see the world the way Burton does.

Determined to be the victor in his "final conflict," Burton (Wingfield) prepares to strike. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"So once they're in absolute conflict with each other, there is a sense of recognition insofar as the equality of both these warriors. Here are these two adversaries who are worthy of the fight, and that has very much developed throughout the filming of Riverworld. I didn't see that initially. However, as we've gotten towards the end of shooting I could see that that was where it was going. I looked back at the story we told during the filming and realized it was there all the time."

Wingfield recently guest-starred on the TV series Human Target and Caprica, and can be seen in the upcoming Syfy Channel Saturday Night Movie Stonehenge Apocalypse. Prior to shooting Riverworld, he played a multi-episode arc on 24 as well as reprised his role of Dan Clifford back in his native UK in the TV medical drama Holby City. The actor also appeared as Dr. John Watson in the first season finale of the hit Syfy Channel series Sanctuary.

"That was a great character," says Wingfield. "In Sanctuary, John Watson was supposedly a real person who had inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write Sherlock Holmes on the stipulation that he would also write the detective a sidekick and call him John Watson.

Burton channels his not-so-nice side when threatening Hal (Matt McCaull). Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

"So he was a brilliant man from Victorian times and Watson and Dr. Helen Magnus [Amanda Tapping] had a history together in that they were part of a group called "The Five." In this episode,  the four surviving members reconvene and we learn that through his brilliance and ingenuity, Watson has kept himself alive by creating a machine that could fight off aging.

"It was such a fun part to do. I'd known Amanda Tapping from Stargate SG-1 years ago, but I hadn't worked with Chris Heyerdahl [John Druitt] before and it turned out to be a real pleasure. There are some actors who you just connect with and it works, and Chris and I had a relationship where we immediately trusted one another and could play with the scenes - not just get through the lines, but mess with them and change the intention. So they would always remain alive, interesting and fun.

"There was this one really powerful scene that we were shooting. It must have been two in the morning and the end of what had been a very long day. And I remember it with great affection because once we finished, the crew, who had probably done a 17- or 18-hour day, were all totally focused and concentrating on this scene. Over the next few days, one after the other said how great it was to have been a part of shooting it. That doesn't happen very often."

Allegra (Romina D'Ugo) and Burton (Wingfield) appear surprised by someone's unexpected arrival. Photo by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel.

While working on Riverworld, Wingfield had the chance to spend some time with his young son. Of all the roles he has had, the actor considers this one to be his most important. "Fatherhood is the only thing of significance I've ever done in my life," he says. "It's the real thing, and all the rest is just mucking about.

"I love being a father and it's tough in this business to be a solid fixture in your child's life. I have a fabulous wife, though, and whenever he's able to, my son comes to visit me if I'm away filming. He's had his Spring break while I've been doing Riverworld, so he was up here in Vancouver for a week, which he absolutely adored. We still have family here - his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins - and he spent a couple of days here on-set hanging out with me along with the rest of the cast and crew on a paddlewheel steamboat. His favorite department is props because he gets to see all the guns and swords. He especially enjoys hanging out when we do the special effects, like blowing stuff up and setting fire to things. It's tough to impress nine-year-old boys, but if you can blow stuff up they're usually interested," notes the actor with a smile.

Steve Eramo

As noted above, all photos by James Dittiger and copyright of the Syfy Channel, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Sanctuary's Martin Wood - Season Of Change

Martin Wood (front left) on the Sanctuary set. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

Having honed his craft directing such Sci-Fi TV shows as Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Andromeda, Jeremiah and Earth: Final Conflict along with helping produce both Stargate series, Martin Wood has brought all those years of experience to his role as an executive producer as well as writer and director on Sanctuary. Debuting last fall on The Syfy Channel, Sanctuary began on the Internet as the story of Dr. Helen Magnus, who operates a worldwide network of facilities, or Sanctuaries, that were established to provide shelter for, and in some cases imprison, creatures called Abnormals. The series returned this past October for its second season, and while its overall premise remains the same this year, it has further grown and developed, as Wood explains.

"When we came back this year and talked about where we wanted to go with the second season, we all knew that we now had an idea of what this show could be," recalls the director. "The direction that Damian Kindler [series creator/executive producer], Amanda Tapping [who stars as Dr. Helen Magnus and also serves as an executive producer] and I wanted to go in was to make Sanctuary bigger and better. And everyone here took that to heart and ran with it, which I think is great.

"We went through a whole range of different things as far as how we were going to start the season and what we were going to do. That included looking at a bunch of audience reactions to season one, because we wanted to react to what the viewers felt. As a result, we decided, 'We have to shake things up a little bit.' You know my philosophy on major characters; I always feel that they have to be expendable because the only thing that keeps a TV show alive is if its characters are in real jeopardy. If not, every time one of them gets into a dire situation, you know they're going to come out OK on the other end.

Emilie Ullerup (as Ashley Magnus) and Martin Wood. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

"We decided to take the Ashley [Emilie Ullerup] character and 'Sci-Fi' kill her, meaning she could come back in other episodes and different incarnations. After all, we have a 158-year-old Magnus, so her daughter could possibly come back. There are a number of things we could have done in terms of introducing jeopardy into our story; this is the way we wanted to go and Emilie embraced it with both hands. She was outstanding," praises Wood. "In the first two episodes, she utters one word, 'Mom.' That's it. The rest of her acting is done with just her face, which is tough, but Emile did it beautifully. I told her at the end of shooting the second episode [End of Nights, Part 2] that it was some of the hardest acting she had ever done on the show and she did a terrific job."

At the end of Sanctuary's first season, Dr. Magnus' chief rival, the Cabal, manages to turn Ashley against her mother and everything Magnus stands for. In the two-part second season opener, End of Nights, Ashley and five other individuals are transformed into super Abnomals and used in a campaign to bring down the entire Sanctuary network. Wood was given the monumental task of directing this story, which, among other things, has a fast-moving action sequence featuring new series regular Agam Darshi who plays con artist Kate Freelander.

"I thought, 'If we're going to open things up, let's really open it up,'" says Wood. "I said to Damian, 'We need to have a car chase,' so in the script he wrote the words Magnus chases Kate. Then we decided that Henry [Ryan Robbins] needed to be there, too. OK, Magnus and Henry chase Kate, but in two separate cars, and Magnus had to drive something hot. So I asked Damian if we could use his BMW and he said, 'Sure.'

Martin Wood (back to camera) with Amanda Tapping (Helen Magnus) and Robin Dunne (Will Zimmerman). Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

"The idea was that if it was a sunny day we could have the top down on the car and Magnus with her hair blowing in the wind and driving this convertible. Then we found a place where we could actually shoot the scene, and without Damian knowing it, I set up this type of camera called the Ultimate Arm, which is a Mercedes SUV with a giant crane hanging off the side of it. You can stuff six people into this thing, and as the director I get to sit in the back sideways, because there's a little hatchback in the rear. We travel twice as fast as the cars in the scene in order to beat them and get in front of and beside them. By doing it this way, we could have Amanda driving Damian's car, Ryan Robbins driving a car, and Agam Darshi driving a car as well.

"So we were able to drive beside them like that, but when we got into the hot and heavy stuff, Amanda said to me, 'I'm going to keep driving.' She's used to driving a sports car anyway, so that's what we did. We were shooting for about six hours and halfway through the day, Damian came out to see how things were going. The first words out of his mouth were, 'My car!' as he watched Amanda winding around a corner. And he had just put on his good tires, too," chuckles the director. "Damian had no idea it was going to be a minute-and-a-half chase sequence, so that was fun to do."

Although it has been known since season one that Magnus' Sanctuary organization is a global one, it was felt in year two that this fact needed to be visually reinforced to the audience. Wood and his fellow executive producers also wanted to give Abnormals a greater onscreen presence this time around. "One of the things we decided to do in season two was put more Abnormals into everything we did," says Wood. "So, for example, in the season opener there was the fight with the big giant Abnormal. We had a huge stunt guy dressed in a green suit. He was only half the size of the Abnormal you see on the screen, but we still had more stunt guys jumping on top of him during that scene. It was pretty cool.

Martin Wood running through an action sequence with Robin Dunne. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

"We also showed our Sanctuaries in London and Tokyo. We had talked about them before, but now we were actually in them. There's that great scene with the nine monitors and Magnus talking to nine different Sanctuary heads, including Medusa in Japan, who you see after the Tokyo Sanctuary is attacked. There's also the actual attack, where Ashley and two other super Abnormals drop through the skylight. I had talked with Lee Wilson [visual effects supervisor] about doing that practically. We went through all the machinations of what the set would look like and all that, and he said to me, 'You know what, just let me do it [using VFX].' Lee then took it and just ran away with it, and it was so amazing. It really was a remarkable visual effect for something done completely through a computer, and the entire process took about two weeks, too.

"That's something else that happens with our show. We end up getting so little time to do feature-film-like effects. You hear some people saying, 'But it doesn't look like it does in the movies,' but it sometimes takes up to a year to do movie VFX. That's why these sorts of things aren't done very often on TV, because of the time involved. Sometimes I'll be sitting with our visual effects guys, who will show me things on the computer, and my only reaction is, 'Oh, my God, that's so cool. OH, MY GOD, THAT'S SO COOL!' And I'll keep amplifying that response until everyone in the office is hearing me. They never hear me say, 'Oh, that doesn't look that great.' We're fortunate to have some really good [VFX] artists working on Sanctuary. I love the fact that in our first two episodes alone this year we have half the number of visual effects as we had in all of season one. That's one of the ways we ramped up the show this year."

In End of Nights, Wood enjoyed the opportunity to direct some complex fight sequences, including one where John Druitt (Christopher Heyerdahl) battles Ashley and two other super Abnormals. "Damian said, 'I'd like to do a sword fight,' and I said, 'OK.' So we set it up as a serious sword fight with Chris using two swords, and that came from our fight coordinator, Rob Hayter, and our stunt coordinator, Marshall Virtue," notes the director. "It was one of those things where you get into the shooting of it and think, 'This is either going to be the coolest fight we've ever done, or the most unbelievable one.'

Setting the stage for the big fight sequence. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

Chris Heyerdahl (John Druitt, dressed in black, back to camera) in "action-mode" with Martin Wood right beside him. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

Martin Wood (right) checking out the shot. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

"Chris Heyerdahl came in and started rehearsing, and on the day leading up to the sword fight, whenever he had a break, he'd walk over to the side of the set, grab the practice swords and fight. He had the [stunt] guys there the whole time so he could practice, so when the time came to shoot the fight, it was mostly Chris doing it. Mike [Desabrais, stunt player] and the two stunt doubles were there for a couple of shots for when it got really violent, but otherwise all the activity you see on the screen is Chris. When we cut it together and I watched the scene for the first time I was like, 'This is definitely worth it.' It was very convincing and unlike any fight I'd ever shot before."

In the final moments of End of Nights, Ashley regains control of herself from the Cabal just long enough to save her mother's life, but in order to do so, she must sacrifice herself. Not surprisingly, it was an incredibly moving moment for all involved. "Damian, Amanda and I massaged that scene in so many ways," says Wood. "We sat down and looked at all the different scenarios for how Magnus could come across Ashley and how she couldn't shoot her. Amanda then came up with the sequence of events, and then I said, 'Well, Magnus has to put her gun down at some point.' And that's how that whole scene came together - the three of us sitting in Damian's office and deciding how we wanted to play it out.

"Then during the actual shooting of the scene, Amanda collapsed on the floor like she was supposed to, and I was standing behind the cameraman, who I kept pulling further and further back. It was so hard to watch Amanda cry like that. She was so distraught [in the scene] and the entire crew was waiting for me to yell, 'Cut!' Amanda was also looking at me as if to say, 'Why aren't you saying, 'Cut!' But I just kept pulling the cameraman back and having him continue to shoot way longer than is comfortable in a situation like that. I really felt, though, that that's what was needed at the end of this episode where Magnus is saying goodbye to her daughter under the most heinous of situations. It was very emotional and we don't shy away from that on our show. We allow that to happen as opposed to keeping it light."

Green screen work on the Sanctuary set. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

Following Sanctuary's season opener, Wood directed episode four, Hero, in which a very ordinary man is unexpectedly thrust into a very extraordinary, and life-threatening, predicament. "This story shows us that, yes, human beings can 'fly,'" says Wood. "It's an amusing romp as well as a standalone story and a chance for our characters to take a bit of a breather from all that's been happening to them.

"Damian wrote a Stargate SG-1 episode called The Other Guys, and it was the first story of his that I directed. It was a great deal of fun, so he did the same kind of thing with Hero.  It's like Sanctuary's The Other Guys. Chris Gauthier from Eureka guest-stars in it, and his character [of Walter, "The Adjuster"] is one that we would like to bring back in the third season.

On-location with Martin Wood. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

"We've done a lot more 3-D creatures as well in season two, and Hero has one in it called a Coleanthropus, and it looks great. The first time you get to see it in all its glory is in-between two garbage bins. Then it stands up and you're like, 'Yikes!' There's a huge fight with it during the climax of this episode that's neat."

The director had been slated to shoot the episode Pavor Nocturnus, but the schedule subsequently changed and Brenton Spencer, another name very familiar to Stargate and Sanctuary fans, directed it instead. "When we finished the episode, we looked at it and said, 'It doesn't quite end the way we wanted it to,'" says Wood. "So we rewrote the final two scenes to give the story a bit more of a twist and I then shot those. Brenton did a fantastic job of directing what is a really, really dark story that includes a scene where Magnus gets physically abused.

"My next episode was number eight, Next Tuesday, which is this year's Requiem [referring to a season one story], and it's Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne [Dr. Will Zimmerman] in the borehole of an oil rig in a crashed helicopter. They spent five days with me in a pool of water that was 72 feet across and 20 feet deep. Everything was done with Amanda and Robin, no stunt people, and it was quite incredible. I wanted to see one morning how long I could tread water without holding on to anything - I went four-and-a-half hours directing from a treading water position. And Amanda and Robin were in and out of the helicopter, in the water, underwater, you name it. It was a very hard shoot for them, but it turned out to be a beautiful episode."

Martin Wood directing Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne in "Next Tuesday." Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

Something nasty is lurking behind the door...Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

Behind-the-scenes shot from "Next Tuesday." Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

Wood's final directing credit for season two of Sanctuary is the show's two-part season finale, Kali, and it might surprise some viewers to learn that the episode has a Bollywood dance sequence in the second half that feature Robin Dunne. "It's very much part of the story and it comes off perfectly," says Wood. "I think episode 13 is probably the best show we've shot so far. And we actually did some filming in Japan for episode 12 as well. We were invited over there for a quick press conference and were going to be in Tokyo for a little over 72 hours. I looked at Damian and said, 'Let's shoot something while we're there,' and he said, 'Sure.'

Singer, songwriter, artist and industrial designer Tatsuya Ishii, Robin Dunne and Amanda Tapping shooting in Tokyo. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Martin Wood.

On-location in Tokyo with Robin Dunne and Damian Kindler - who have been up for 74 hours. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Martin Wood.

"We'd been flying for 11 hours and after arriving in Tokyo we went on a little tour of the city and thought, 'OK, we can shoot something here, and we can shoot something there.' We even arranged to use a celebrity from there, Tatsuya Ishii; he's a pop star as well as a Renaissance man, a beautiful sculptor and just a really cool guy. We wanted him to play the head of the Tokyo Sanctuary.

Martin Wood, the director, as the cameraman ("I was the only one who knew how to use the RED camera"). Photo courtesy of and copyright of Martin Wood.

Damian Kindler, Martin Wood, Robin Dunne and Amanda Tapping in the pouring rain! Photo courtesy of and copyright of Martin Wood.

Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne shooting in Shabuya. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Martin Wood.

"Damian wrote two scenes, and when we got to the filming location there was a soundman along with a camerman, but the cameraman didn't know how to operate the RED camera [ultra high-definition camera] that we use. So it kind of fell to me to say, 'OK, I'll do the shooting.' Damian was sort of wrangling things from a production assistant standpoint, so we filmed the scenes and just had a ball."

More shooting in Shabuya with Martin Wood. Photo courtesy of and copyright of Martin Wood.

Final touches! Photo courtesy of and copyright of Martin Wood.

With a second season of Sanctuary under their respective belts, Wood and the rest of the show's cast and crew cannot wait to start work on number three. "This year has been just spectacular," enthuses the director. "Amanda Tapping went further [as an actress] than I've ever seen her go in anything before. Robin Dunne, Ryan Robbins, Chris Heyerdahl, Agam Darshi, Robert Lawrenson, who plays a new character, Declan Macrae, and Jonathon Young, who came back a couple of times as Nikola Tesla, all really pushed themselves creatively as well and I loved that.

Sanctuary DOP (director of photography) Gord Verheul and Martin Wood. Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

"As for season three, we've talked a lot about that already and are very much looking forward to it. In the meantime, we couldn't be more pleased with the show, and the fans seem to be happy with it, too, so it's all good."

Cut and print! Photo by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions.

Steve Eramo

As noted above, all Sanctuary photos by Jeff Weddell and copyright of Sanctuary 2 Productions, and all on-location Tokyo photos courtesy of and copyright of Martin Wood, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of ANY kind. Thanks!

The Prisoner ' s Jamie Campbell Bower - Teen Angst

[caption id="attachment_4369" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Jamie Campbell Bower as Number 11-12 in The Prisoner. Photo copyright of Granada/AMC"][/caption] Imagine having a life where pretty much everything you want is within easy reach and all you have to do is ask for it. In AMC's re-imagined version of The Prisoner, Number 11-12 wakes up to that every day as a resident of The Village. The son of Number Two, the overseer of this residential "paradise," and M2, his idealistic mother, this 17-year-old is among the privileged and is being groomed to one day take over his father's duties within The Village. It sounds like the perfect situation, maybe not for 11-12, but it was one that actor Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays 11-12, could not wait to jump into. "There had been rumors of The Prisoner floating about, and then I got a phone call from my agent telling me, 'I think you should go out for this.' He's rarely wrong, so I did," recalls Bower. "I received four pages of audition sides from one of the episodes, and as I read them something really struck home with me. There was just something quite moving about the material and this idea of family and the connection between 11-12 and his father, Two, played by Ian McKellen. "So I was very excited about the project to begin with, and it was, I think, a rainy Tuesday afternoon when I went down to London's South Bank next to the Thames for my audition. Whatever I did must have worked because I received another call telling me that I got the role, which was brilliant." [caption id="attachment_4371" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="11-12 with his father, Number Two (Ian McKellen). Photo copyright of Granada/AMC"][/caption] While a life of privilege may sound enticing to some, especially a young person, it is rarely all that is cracked up to be. And as typically happens, no one seems to have asked 11-12 what he wants. "With my character, it's that classic case of, 'I don't want to be the prince any more. I want to be an ordinary person," says Bower. "But then he also thinks that one day he might inherit The Village, so like most people his age, 11-12 is definitely feeling some angst towards his father. As for his relationship with his mother, M2 [Rachael Blake], it's very distant. He loves her dearly, but he never sees her. His mother is just this entity in the house they live in, and 11-12 strives to have a much closer bond with her. "So as you might imagine, 11-12 is quite highly strung and emotionally charged. He also has this feeling that he's missing something in his life, but he doesn't know what it is. Acting-wise, maintaining that high level of intensity and emotion wasn't easy. In fact,there was one particular scene that I did with Vincent Regan [Number 909] that screws up my character in a major way. We shot it over an entire day and I had to be incredibly emotional most of that time. Again, it was tough, but it was also a challenge and one I enjoyed because it really helped me to grow as a person as well as an actor." [caption id="attachment_4372" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Not a good day in The Village for 11-12. Photo copyright of Granada/AMC"][/caption] Much to his surprise, a frustrated 11-12's eyes are opened to an entirely new set of possibilities for his future, thanks to The Village's newest resident and The Prisoner's lead character, Number Six (Jim Caviezel). "Six's arrival throws a bit of a spanner into the works of The Village," notes Bower. "He comes along and forthrightly and outwardly says, 'This isn't all there is' and 11-12's reaction to that is, 'Well, maybe he's right.' So his interaction with Six is one of curiosity as well as questioning and trying to understand why it is that this man is saying what he's saying. And I think 11-12 ends up believing in and trusting Six." While their onscreen personas are caught up in the turmoil of what is happening to them, The Prisoner's cast as well as crew could not have enjoyed their time together more, Bower included. "Everyone involved in this project is incredibly talented and fun," enthuses the actor. "Working with Ian McKellen is an absolute joy and a pleasure. The same is true of working with young British stars like Hayley Atwell [Lucy/4-15] and Ruth Wilson [Number 313]. We all became good mates and helped each other out, patted one another on the back when we needed it, and laughed at each other when we didn't need it," he jokes. "We spent four-and-a-half months together in South Africa. Not many people can say that, apart from those who live there, and we had a really nice time." Bower was 14 when he decided that he wanted to become an actor, and four years later made his feature film debut in director Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. "I had just turned 18 and was at boarding school in the English countryside," he says. "I was sneaking out at five o'clock in the morning through my house master's backdoor and getting into a car that was waiting for me outside the school gates to take me to set. I'd then return to school around seven at night and go back to bed. [caption id="attachment_4373" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="11-12 shares a rare moment with his mother, M2 (Rachael Blake). Photo copyright of Granada/AMC"][/caption] "I did that for about two weeks and then I made the decision that I should probably just leave school and not bum a free bed off them every night. So that's what I did, and it was an incredibly terrifying experience for me, being just 18 and working alongside people like Tim Burton as well as Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall. It was also a phenomenal opportunity and it gave me such an amazing starting point that I could never have dreamt of, so I was very, very lucky." Besides The Prisoner, Bower can also currently be seen as Caius in the latest installment of the hugely successful teenage vampire tale The Twilight Saga: New Moon. "I was in Los Angeles not too long ago and they were casting for New Moon," says the actor. "My American agent asked me if I would like to audition for it, and I said that I'd kill to audition for it. So I met with [director] Chris Weitz and then I got a call offering me the role of Caius, which I was really excited about. "Caius, along with Michael Sheen's character of Ar0, and Marcus,who is played by Chris Heyerdahl, are the leaders of an ancient Italian vampire coven known as the Volturi. We shot in Vancouver and I was there for about three weeks working with actors like Michael, Chris, Dakota Fanning [Jane], Rob Pattinson [Edward Cullen] and Kris Stewart [Bella Swan]. It was a real treasure of a role for me and another great set of actors to work with and learn from." [caption id="attachment_4374" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Change is in the air when 11-12 crosses paths with Number Six (Jim Caviezel). Photo copyright of Granada/AMC"][/caption] The actor has a lead role alongside Keira Knightley and Colin Farrell in the upcoming film London Boulevard and has guest-starred in an episode of the new British Fantasy TV series Game of Thrones. Harry Potter fans can also look forward to enjoying Bower's performance in the two-part Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. "I play Gellert Grindelwald, who's an old friend of Dumbledore's [Michael Gambon]," he says. "They have this idea that they can create a utopian wizardry world, and then there's a big fight and something awful happens," teases the actor. "So it was another fun project, and 'fun' is one of the things about this job that's important to me. I hope I can continue doing this up until the point that it isn't fun any more. That's when people become jaded and become the person that they never wanted to be. I think growing as an actor and a performer is a wonderful thing to behold, and feeling like you're learning as well. That's especially important for young actors like myself who have chosen a different path. We haven't gone to university, but, instead, have decided that acting is what we want to do, and as long as you're learning while doing it, then I think that's the main thing that will keep you happy." Steve Eramo The Prisoner concludes tonight, Tuesday, November 17th @ 8 p.m. EST/PST. As noted above, all photos copyright of Granada TV and AMC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!