SciFiAndTvTalk

Lie To Me's Shawn Ryan Talks About Season Two

Kelli Williams (as Dr. Gillian Foster) and Tim Roth (as Dr. Cal Lightman) in Lie to Me. Photo by Adam Taylor and copyright of Fox.

IN Beat the Devil, the spring premiere of Lie to Me, Cal Lightman plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a brilliant, charming psychology graduate student whom Lightman identifies as a psychopath. When nobody believes him, he sets out to prove the doubters wrong and catch the psychopath before he kills again. Complicating matters is Lightman's former mentor, a renowned psychologist who, also fooled by the charismatic young man, is protecting him for personal and professional reasons. Meanwhile, Loker and Torres travel to a small town to look into a UFO sighting. Lie to Me returns on Monday, June 7th @ 8:oo p.m. EST/PST.

Last Wednesday, series executive producer Shawn Ryan spoke with myself along with other journalists on a conference call about the latter half of the show's second season. The following is an edited version of our call. Enjoy!

Shawn, could you philosophize a little bit on the role of lying on drama.  It seems like lying usually is the best thing for drama.  It worked wonders for The Shield, which was, essentially, always about the lies that the main character was acting on and so forth.  Is it an important part of drama, and is it kind of weird to be doing a show where one of the people can tell when you’re lying?

SHAWN RYAN - Yes, I would say that lying goes hand-in-hand with secrets, and secrets are often times the key to drama. That was something we talked about a great deal on The Shield, which was about who knew what, who didn’t know that, and who was keeping secrets from who. In this case, to have a show that’s about secrets as well as lies and is really, really fun.  The initial instinct is, well, Jeez, if you’ve got a guy who can just tell when people are lying, doesn’t that make it simple?  But what we’ve tried to do on the show - and this was something that Sam Baum, who created the show, initiated right from the beginning - is that a lot of times it’s not enough to just know that someone is lying. You need to know why they’re lying, what they’re hiding, what’s the motivation behind their actions. That, often times, is what leads us to a full hour of television. I think I saw an ad for a movie within the last couple years where everyone had to tell the truth and I thought to myself, "Well, that’s going to be a tough one to tell." It’s much more fun when you can have your characters deceive other people, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad.

What was your reaction when they said you’re going to have new episodes during the summer?  What did you think of that?

SR - My first reaction was grateful that they were picking us up for a back nine, because we were told at the same time, OK, we want nine more episodes but because our schedule is looking pretty full right now, we’re going to save them until summer. It’s mixed feelings because traditionally, in the past, that’s been a burn-off spot, but when I was told that they were pairing us up with The Good Guys, which I knew was an important element in their schedule, and they had been talking for a while about really making a true commitment to year-round programming, I chose to look at the glass half full and say, well I guess they want us to be pioneers for them in that regard and see if we can get an audience there.

Also, it was a very tough time slot that we were in on Mondays at 9 p.m. in the fall. We had Dancing with the Stars along with Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory and Monday Night Football and we were holding our own and doing OK in the ratings. But now we have a chance to hopefully attract some audience attention and get some eyeballs that maybe were tuning into other things during the fall. So I’m definitely looking at it as an opportunity more than a punishment.

I’m wondering with this back nine, were you able to map out a road towards any sort of a season finale cliffhanger that we’re going to get this summer?

SR - Yes, is the short answer. A lot of episodes are standalone so I wouldn’t say that we crafted a nine-story serialized arc, but we did get to plan for some things, and it did allow us to look at the episodes after we finished them all and to decide in concert with the network and the studio what would be the best way to air them. And we think we’ve got some really strong last couple episodes that will launch the show into the third season fall schedule.

There's an episode coming up where Cal (Tim Roth) check himself into a psych ward; what can you tease us about that?

SR - That is true, and it's during our very special Shield reunion episode where I brought back six of our actors from The Shield and had them co-star in it. I don’t have the schedule in front of me but I have a feeling that’s like the fourth of fifth episode to air. It’s called Pied Piper, so if anyone else on the call has a schedule, they might be able to tell you the specific date (August 16th). I know it’s in the middle of the run. Yes, for a good reason, Cal has his motivations, but he does check himself into a psych ward and maybe fits in a little too well.

Will the potential romance between Cal and Gillian (Kelli Williams) be explored further during the back nine? And the same question for Loker (Brendan Hines) and Torres (Monica Raymund).

SR - What I would say on the Cal/Gillian front is that the relationship deepens and gets explored, but there is a character that comes in between them, played by Melissa George, for a few episodes. And we certainly leave – we have a back nine but it’s actually 12 episodes that we still have to air, that we’ve made, so in those 12 summer episodes, we’re going to learn a lot more about Cal and Gillian and how they came together. We’ve got an episode that shows in flashback how they first met and what they mean to each other, so I don’t necessarily want to label it “romance,” but their relationship deepens in a way that I think the audience will find satisfying. As for the Loker/Torres relationship, we definitely get some advancement on that front.

Do you enjoy playing with the audience with these kinds of relationships?  Do you enjoy bringing the characters close and then ripping them apart again?

SR - Well, I don’t want to make it seem like I’m some bemused God up in the skies toying with the audience, but we like thinking about what these characters would actually do in these situations if they were to occur. Certainly in the Torres/Loker case, you’ve got two attractive people working in close quarters, dealing with each other a lot. They have different styles and they get on each other’s nerves, but there’s also an attraction there. On the Cal/Gillian front, there’s just a really, really deep bond, and we were very interested in finding out where that came from. That’s something that was written from the beginning of the series but I also think it’s just something that naturally plays between Kelli Williams and Tim Roth. They really like each other a lot in real life and have a lot of respect for each other, and there’s something on-screen that plays. As a writer, when you see that playing in the editing room, it’s a great inspiration for stories going forward. It’s less to do with sort of playing with the audience, dangling it out and pulling it back, more than just trying to be realistic to the situations.

Working with Tim Roth, I would think he has a very distinctive face, a very distinctive style and a very distinctive set of acting skills.  I’m wondering, are there paths that you have gone down, things that you can do, that you can say we’re doing this because of him, because you think he can handle this, because he can pull this off, because he looks this way, that maybe if you had another actor in this role, maybe you couldn’t do.  What is it specifically about Tim?

SR - Yes. Tim is a real live wire, very, very smart actor, a very instinctual actor, and someone who really likes to be challenged on a scene-by-scene basis. I would say that his instincts fall in line with an audience. He doesn’t like to play just straight ahead procedural scenes. He likes to find a different new angle in the scenes, which is a real challenge to write, but it’s very satisfying once you meet that challenge.

So Tim is someone who has a range that not a lot of other actors have so it’s an unspoken contest in the writers’ room. What kind of fun situation can we put Tim into, whether it’s role playing, whether it’s acting more outraged than he really is, whether it’s going to be spy in a certain scene trying to detect something while flying under someone’s radar, or as was previously mentioned, checking himself into a mental ward to get access to someone there but knowing exactly the right buttons to push with the doctor to get himself admitted. Those are the kinds of things that are our challenge. One thing I’ve found in all the shows I’ve worked on is the better you know your actors in real life, the better you’re able to write for them. So one of the keys to writing for Tim is just spending a lot of time with him, on-set, just hanging out, having meals, talking to him, getting that voice in your head, which is interesting because obviously I’m an American and obviously he’s English and so my natural speech rhythms are not the same as his, so that was a challenge for a lot of the writers to write him authentically British.  But I think we managed to do that and we also had a ringer British guy on staff that helped with that.

Cal can be kind of a jerk a lot of the time. He’s abrasive and arrogant, and yet we still like him somehow. How do you walk that line between having somebody who’s actually quite irritating on a day-to-day basis, and yet we’re still in his corner.

SR - I think, ultimately, honesty can be the ultimate pain killer. Oftentimes, while being a jerk, Cal is also being honest and that’s something that we can appreciate because a lot of us feel we don’t get enough honesty in our lives, and feel like people are hiding things in disguise and things from us. There’s a scene in an upcoming episode that’s, once again, in this highly-touted Pied Piper episode, I believe, where he makes a very strong accusation towards someone, the actor Benito Martinez in this case, and coming on very strong and very much like a jerk because he has an instinct that Benito is hiding something. And then Cal learns pretty quickly that he’s not hiding something and immediately reverts to a very apologetic state, which is a pretty comedic scene, I think. Cal has self-awareness of when he’s being a jerk, and will acknowledge it, and then in this case, apologize for it.  I think that buys you some interesting behavior if you know that A) his motives are pure, he’s trying to get to the bottom of these various mysteries that he’s assigned to, B) he ultimately wants the right thing by people, and C) a lot of times his jerkiness is because he’s interacting with an outside world that is not being honest.  Now is that to say that he still doesn’t occasionally act like a jerk?  He can, but those major things, I think, buy a lot back from the audience.

Jason Dohring is going to be guest starring in an upcoming episode as a psychopathic grad student; can you talk a little bit about him and his character and also some of the other upcoming guest-stars that you have for the rest of the season?

SR - OK, I’m going to have to go off memory so you’ll have to be a little patient with me, but that character is evolved in story where Cal Lightman believes, through his research and through his instinct, that he may be a very, very bad person. And yet, the other people in his life feel like he’s reaching, like there may be an ulterior motive for Lightman’s feelings, and he may be off base. So it becomes an episode about Cal trying to prove his theory, either right or wrong, and obtaining a great nemesis in the process. That’s about all I’d want to say about that character in that episode.

In terms of other guest-stars in the season, I know I’m going to space on some names, but we have in that very same episode, Howard Hesseman as a teacher who’s gotten himself into a jam because he claims to have seen a UFO. He’s a teacher in the school and the school certainly doesn’t want a crazy, delusional person teaching their children. The firm is employed to try to figure out if he’s telling the truth about this.

I mentioned that we have Melissa George for a few episodes and she did great for us. Jennifer Beals is back for a couple more episodes before I hijack her to my new Fox show. Max Martini, who was a series regular for us on The Unit, plays a recurring role as someone who, in the same way that Melissa George comes in between Cal and Gillian, on Cal’s side, Max Martini plays someone who comes a little bit between Cal and Gillian on Gillian’s side. And he’s in three or four episodes, I believe.

I think we did a pretty good job guest casting the show.  Enver Gjokaj, who was on Dollhouse, also has a really, really great guest performance, in an episode about an Iraq war soldier who comes back and is having some mental problems from that experience that threatens his family, and Cal takes it upon himself to try to solve these problems. Those are the ones that are off the top of my head, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple of big ones. But that’s one of the fun things to do on this show that I didn’t always get to do on The Shield or The Unit was to really bring in a guest star and just give them some really meaty, fun stuff to do in just one episode.

Since you’ve steered Season 2 of Lie to Me, and then you’re going off to your other projects, how does it feel to pass the show off to somebody else?  Is there any kind of parental feeling that you might have about that?

SR - Yes. When I came in, Sam Baum who created the show, asked me to join up and try to help with some internal leaks on the ship and get the ship righted, and I feel that I, with a lot of help, did my part in doing that. At the time, I had some things in development but nothing was a go, and as you all know, it’s very difficult to get something on the air. After we started working on the show, I was unlucky enough to get two shows on the air.  The show Terriers for FX that’s going to premiere in the fall that we’ve been making episodes for, and then just recently my pilot, Ride Along, got picked up, first the pilot and then the series.

So it became obvious in the last couple months that it was going to be too much work for me and I really do care a lot about Lie to Me and its future and its success. I realized that it would be better if I went to the studio and said I can’t finish this but let’s work out a transition together. We had developed what I thought was a very good team and a team that really picked up a lot of slack for me when I was in Chicago making my pilot. They proved to me that they were ready to accept a lot more responsibility. So there are a few writers from last year that are staying on and taking over the reins of the show. I really have complete faith in them. I’m in the position that I’m in now because Kevin Reilly and Peter Liguori… had a lot of faith in me to make The Shield when I had no experience to indicate that really I was capable of it.

So I feel like it’s a situation where there are a couple of writers, Alex Cary and David Graziano on the show, who certainly have more experience that I had when I started The Shield, who I think have a really great grasp of the show, who have a lot of fantastic ideas for Season 3. They went and pitched the network on how they saw Season 3 and it was an impressive enough meeting that I think it had an impact on the show getting picked up for a third season. I’ve been trying to help them, sort of grandfatherly-advice style along the way. They drop in my office two or three times each week and update me on what’s going on with the transition and what’s going on with staffing and hiring and ask me some questions and I give them some advice, some of which they take and other of which they ignore. It’s really nice to see guys I like who I think are really talented writers getting this opportunity. I think they’re going to do a really, really great job.

As noted above, photo by Adam Taylor and copyright of Fox Television, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Lie To Me ' s Mekhi Phifer - Reynolds ' Rap

[caption id="attachment_3466" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mekhi Phifer as FBI Agent Ben Reynolds in Lie To Me. Photo copyright of Fox Television"][/caption] In the season one Lie to Me episode Blinded, FBI Agent Ben Reynolds enlists the help of Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth and his team to help in the hunt for a serial rapist. This marked the debut of Mekhi Phifer as Reynolds, who by the end of the episode is made a member of Lightman's team. Perhaps best recognized for his starring role on ER, which garnered him two NAACP Image Award nominations, Phifer is also known for his many successful feature films. He began his acting career in Spike Lee's Clockers and then went on to star in such movies as 8 Mile opposite Eminem, O opposite Josh Hartnett and Julia Stiles and Soul Food with Vanessa Williams. The actor's other TV credits include The Tuskegee Airmen, Subway Stories: Takes from the Underground, Brian's Song and Carmen: A Hip Hopera. Additionally, he earned a third NAACP nomination for the film A Lesson Before Dying. At the end of September, I joined several other journalists on a conference call with Mehki Phifer. The following is an edited version of our Q & A. Enjoy! What are the similarities and differences between your role on Lie To Me and your character of Dr. Gregory Pratt on ER, which you were so good in? MEKHI PHIFER - Thanks, I really appreciate that. The only similarity is that they're pretty strong characters. They have different backgrounds and things of that nature, and, while both men save lives, they do it in different ways. Obviously, being able to, for example, carry a badge along with a gun and having gone undercover adds more layers to my character in Lie to Me and makes him different from Greg Pratt. So I'm having a lot of fun unveiling all those layers. As the season goes on are we going to find out a lot more about your character and get more into the personal side of things? MP - Yes, definitely. Shawn Ryan [series executive producer] and the rest of us really want to delve into this character and see what makes him tick. Can you tell us a little bit about how you first become involved in the series and your audition process for the role of Ben Reynolds. MP - Fortunately, they [the show's producers] knew my work and loved it, so I didn't have to audition. This job was an offer to come do the last two episodes of the first season and see how it all worked out, including how we gelled as a cast, and it worked out great. So once hiatus came I was officially asked to join the cast for season two. What were some of the acting challenges you found first stepping into the role, and how have you seen your character grow and develop so far in year two? MP - It's always hard, especially those last two episodes I did for season one because my character wasn't at all scoped out yet. Starting out, you kind of have to make it up as you go along, so you're sort of walking on egg shells when it comes to character choices that you're making because those choices affect the next episode and the one after that and so forth. I just knew that I wanted to portray someone who could go in many different directions, so I tried to bring a three-dimensional side to Ben. In season two, we have a little bit more clarity on the way we want things to go. You will get to see into Ben's past as an FBI agent and even him doing undercover work and how that affected his professional as well as personal life and what he's had to deal with because of that. I wanted to talk a little bit about your production company; as an actor, how important do you think it is to have a role behind the camera as well as in front of it? MP - I guess it's personal preference. Me, personally, I like to be able to tell the stories that I want to tell and do the things I want do to. It takes a little bit more work, but that's what the production side is. You're still going to have to sell [the idea] to someone who's going to give you the money and things like that. However, it does give you a bit more control to tell the story that you want to tell as opposed to just reading a script that somebody else wrote and saying, "Yes, please, can you hire me for this job." It allows you to be a bit more hands-on and closer to the heart. What influence do you ultimately hope to have or leave in Hollywood? MP - The point for us actors, just from the creative side, is to entertain and affect people. It's always the best compliment when people come up to you and say that they were affected by your film or performance on a TV series or whatever. I don't know yet what my ultimate legacy is that I want to leave. I'm still a fairly young man and hopefully I have a lot more to do. You character on Lie to Me is kind of like the "cops and robbers" type while everyone else is more scientific. Can you talk about the push and pull between the characters and what that friction is like? MP - You're right, Tim Roth's character and all the other guys at The Lightman Group are a bunch of scientists who may want to do something that's beyond the limits of the law if you will. My character is kind of the liason between them and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We do bump heads a lot because I don't necessarily understand, at least right now, how much their methods really do help solve cases. As the series goes on, he'll come to better understand that. Ben Reynolds has his own methods and it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but ultimately both sides come together for the betterment of these cases. In terms of your breadth of work, you seem to be drawn to drama more than comedy - is that correct, and if so, why do you think that is? MP - I can do comedy but it's a certain type. I'm not a physical comedy guy or slapstick. That's not my style. Even when I was on Curb Your Enthusiasm I wasn't playing this over-the-top crazy character. I was playing it kind of straight, but it was funny because the situation was funny, do you know what I mean? That's how I portrayed him. I like dramas because you can laugh and joke and still be serious and real. I like the realism of the genre. You did such a great job in The Shield, which was such an edgy show. Are we going to see the same thing in Lie to Me? Is it going to be a little edgier and darker this year? MP - Yes, I think so. It's already kind of going there. The networks are different so they have a different approach. Obviously, The Shield was on the FX Network, so they had a bit more leeway as far as the dialogue was concerned, as well as with the content and what they showed viewers, which is a great thing. But on Lie to Me we will push it to the limit as far as Fox will let us go, that's for damn sure. What sticks out most in your mind about our first day on the Lie to Me set and shooting your first episode? MP - The first day, in particular, is always one of those weird days because you're thrown into your trailer, given your wardrobe, haven't really been on the set, etc. Fortunately I had been watching Lie to Me, so when I walked onto the set for the first time it was like, "Wow, this is what I've been watching on TV." You're also meeting people for the first time. I had never met Tim Roth before, even though I've always loved his work. It was the same thing with the rest of the cast, and to come on and have everyone welcome you with open arms and really be there for each other was definitely a breath of fresh air. It was the same thing on ER. We had a great camaraderie and that's more or less what I was concerned about more than anything else. It's a great group of people here and we're having a lot of fun. What did you enjoy most about working on ER and playing the character of Gregg Pratt? MP - I was able to be here [in Los Angeles] and be close to home and my kids every night and all that kind of stuff. Again, though, it was the people. The cast and crew on that show hung out together, we travelled together and did so much together. I always like having that sort of rapport with the people I work with because life is too short not to. What would you say makes a career in this industry rewarding for you so far? MP - What makes a career rewarding is being able to do good work and know that people respect and appreciate your work. As an artist and a creative person you always want to receive the accolades of others who are watching you or you wouldn't be doing it, do you know what I'm saying? No one wants to do this if people say, "Man, you stink." Actors want to do well and, to me, that's the basis of having a stellar career, earning peoples' respect. When your name comes up and people go, "Oh, yeah, he's a good actor, and I loved him in this or I loved him in that." It's a good feeling to have people appreciate you. You're on a show that has a multi-cultural cast just like ER. Can you talk about the importance of having a multi-cultural cast and what that brings to television? MP - I just think it opens up the viewership. The beauty of watching a good television program or a good movie is that, yes, you may have a multi-cultural cast, but those roles could go to anyone - they could be played by persons of any color, you know? To show the world that we have more in common then we have different from each other is, to me, the ultimate goal. It helps reinforce in peoples' minds that thought that we're all the same. Yes, there are going to be cultural differences, but for the most part we are all the same as human beings. Was the character of Ben Reynolds written with you in mind? MP - Yes, I think so. I know that they wanted to introduce a character who could go toe-to-toe with Tim Roth's character and be a sort of on-site lawman with a badge and a gun to deal with crisis situations right there without having to outsource or try to find an agent who was willing to work with The Lightman Group. As a Black man in Hollywood who is specifically doing drama, can you talk about the challenges of that. Do you feel there are challenges in finding work, having been fortunate with ER and now Lie to Me? MP - It was tough, just like anything else. I've been in the industry for 15 years and throughout that time I've mainly done dramas, but I've always tried to portray each character differently and make them three-dimensional. Lie to Me came up as a testament to my work in the past. Again, I didn't have to audition for it; the producers and director had seen my work as well as heard about my work ethic and asked me to come on. So in order to really be respected in this town, you have to have a foundation of good work. Without that, you have a shell of a career out here, rather than the meat and bones of it all. As noted above, photo is copyright of Fox Television, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Defying Gravity ' s Paula Garces - Act Of Faith

[caption id="attachment_3279" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Paula Garces as Paula Morales on Defying Gravity. Photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC"][/caption] If you have to go to work, it helps if you like your job, and that is definitely true of Defying Gravity's Paula Garces. It is only the middle of what looks to be a long day on the show's Vancouver set, but the actess is still full of energy and eager to talk about her involvement in the series. Her character of Paula Morales is part of an international team of eight astronauts who, after five years of intense training, set off in 2052 on a six-year journey to explore our solar system onboard the spaceship Antares. Besides her duties as mission payload specialist, Paula is also transmitting daily status reports back to school classrooms on Earth. It goes without saying that she wears a lot of proverbial hats, and Morales could not wait to try on every single one of them. "My character is obviously of Latin descent, although we haven't specified exactly from where," notes the actress, who is back in her trailer after a quick visit to make-up in preparation for her next scene. "Paula is also a scientist and a pilot as well as extremely religious and conservative, so she's constantly having to deal with conflicts between her faith and science as well as religion. On top of that, Paula is experiencing the various difficulties that I think anyone in real life would be faced with if they were travelling in space and separated from their family and friends for an extended period of time. She's in charge of a space classroom as well, and when you lump all that together, Paula can occasionally be a little bit off-putting because she's quite misunderstood by those around her. "So she needs to be a number of different people at the same time. Paula has to be bubbly and smart along with cute and charming so that the kids back on Earth will listen and actually learn something from her. At the same time, she has some dark issues to deal with and, again, is conflicted, which sometimes ticks off the people she works with. So it's been really interesting to see her develop, and I've been very lucky as far as the writing. The show's producers/writers have given me a great storyline that I can wrap myself around and lose myself in. It's a lot to do, but I love it and I hope I'm doing a good job. "This part is full of layers and, again, I'm thrilled with the fact that my character is not only a scientist and astronaut, but also someone of faith. At the beginning I was wondering how that would work, but in researching the role I discovered that several astronauts are religious, specifically Catholic, and have even taken communion up in space and things of that nature. There is so much I can play with as Paula, including the fact that she's petite and cute and sometimes doesn't get taken very seriously. Yes, there are still stereotypes that she has to fight against, even in the not-so-distant future. It only goes to show that everything changes, and yet some things remain the same." [caption id="attachment_3280" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Paula Morales holding "virtual class" with her students back on Earth. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC"][/caption] Like most acting opportunities, Garces was sent the pilot script for Defying Gravity by her manager, and as soon as she began reading it, she became enamored of the Paula Morales character. "That can sometimes be the kiss of death for an actor," she says. "We get sent so many scripts, a lot of which aren't very good. So when a good script does come along, you fall in love with it, but you don't want to deal with the heartbreak in case things don't work out. "I actually flew to Toronto to audition for the role with Michael Edelstein [series executive producer] and David Straiton, who directed our first episode. I was very nervous, but David read with me and said, 'Don't worry, you're totally rocking it.' As soon as I heard that, it kind of gave me the confidence that I think the role needed. I also feel that was something that James Parriott [series creator/executive producer] needed to subsequently see from me in-person, too, because prior to this they had just watched a tape of my work. Once that saw that confidence, though, I think that's what made them decide, 'OK, maybe we should give Paula Garces a shot at this role.' So I really have to thank David for saying what he did to me during my audition, which is not typical. You usually don't know that early on whether or not they like you. Sometimes I think I'm totally awesome during an audition, but I guess I stink because I don't get the job," jokes the actress. "Other times, I think I blew it and I get hired. It's a crazy business, but in this case I'm delighted that things worked out the way they did." Although Garces' audition jitters soon became a distant memory, those butterflies in her stomach returned, albeit briefly, when filming began on Defying Gravity's opening episode. "I think we were all terrified because it's such a big show," she says. "We had to establish the ship and the outer space elements as well as our characters' training and them being astronauts and so forth. Then there were the technical elements, including getting to know the sets, dealing with green screen and the wire work, the latter of which is necessary with any scene where there is zero gravity and our characters have to 'float.' "So that was all pretty daunting simply because there was so much foundation for us to lay, and if you don't do it right away and grab your audience's attention, then they won't give the series a chance. Having said that, I think our first episode stands on its own and hooks you into our story and all its wonder, which includes hope for the future and finding answers to the unknown. [caption id="attachment_3281" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="All smiles inside the Antares' lab. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC"][/caption] "The thing is, I see this show as being less Science Fiction and more Science Fact. It deals with things that are happening now in the real world with regard to space travel and how it's likely to change or improve over the next 40 or 50 years. That's a huge undertaking because you have to keep things real. You can't be like, 'OK, we're going to magically teleport ourselves to that planet.' Everything has to be thought out and make sense. So our first story really gives you a taste of what the relationships between these people are like and what they'll be facing in their next six years together on this extraordinary mission that I believe humankind would one day want to take." When it comes to relationships, perhaps the oddest one onboard the Antares is between Paula and theoretical physicist Steve Wassenfelder (Dylan Taylor). The two formed an unexpected bond during training, specifically during medical training when a man under the influence of an unusual drug died in front of them. Since leaving Earth orbit, "Wass" has taken pot shots at Paula's religious beliefs, and at one point even accidentally injured her, but despite this there remains a connection between them. "Now that I've watched some of the footage, I find Paula and Wass to be the 'youth vote' on the ship if you will," muses Garces. "As for the actual reason why she feels connected to him, I believe it's because she finds Wass brilliant. At first he comes across as a slacker, and I think Paula sees him as a waste of talent. My character is someone who works hard and is very disciplined, so she doesn't quite get the whole slacker mentality. However, what Paula eventually comes to realize is that this is just Wass' way of dealing with the isolation of space and being on this mission, which is actually a pretty smart way of looking at things. "As these two characters have their conversations and debates, because they have quite a few debates on science and religion, Paula sees that underneath all that information and 'I don't care' attitude, Wass has a huge heart. And I think vice versa, he admires how disciplined she is. He begins to realize that maybe he should worry about Paula and try to give her certain [scientific] information that perhaps she's a little too stubborn to see because of her faith." [caption id="attachment_3282" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Moments before an unfortunate accident that nearly ended Paula's involvement in the Antares mission. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC"][/caption] Coincidentally, one of Garces' favorite Defying Gravity moments is with her and Dylan Taylor. "I love doing wire work, and there's a scene between Paula and Wass where a section of the ship loses gravity," says the actress. "As tricky as it was doing the wire work, there was a great deal of humor in that scene. I don't want to spoil it for those who might not have seen the episode yet, but one of these two characters isn't a very good astronaut when it comes to floating, but I'm not going to tell you who," she teases. "That scene was so funny and realistic, because if you stop and think about it, astronauts are human beings, right, and not robots. Once they finish whatever tasks they're supposed to do in a day when they're up there in space, they have to live their lives. So they're working out, eating, sleeping, reading, acting silly, whatever, and I think this particular scene with Paula and Wass helped bring out the human side of what could happen to someone up in space who's not accustomed to being in zero gravity. The special effects in the scene are incredible and how we shot it was really cool. It was done in a very different style and we used a bunch of tricks that I didn't even know about, so it was a great learning experience as well." The eldest of two sisters, Garces grew up in New York's Spanish Harlem and was raised by her mother, who encouraged her interest in the arts. "I had braces when I was 12, and by coincidence I met this agent at a dinner party that my mom gave," recalls the actress. "She thought I was cute and said to me, 'Come see me when you get your braces off because I think you can make some money doing TV commercials.' "A year later that same agent came to our house again and she asked me, 'Why didn't you come see me?' Later on, my mom asked me to at least make an effort to go see this woman because she was her friend, so I did and ended up getting five auditions, including one with [producer/writer/director] Martin Scorsese. Of course, I had no idea who he was, and when I got home from the audition my mom asked how it went. I told her it was OK and that I spoke with some guy whose last name sounded like Spacey. My mom called her friend to find out more, and this woman told her, 'Well, first of all, your daughter was auditioning for Martin Scorcese, who is directing a public service announcement about drugs, alcohol, teenage sex and AIDS. It's going to be shown in theaters nationwide and, oh, by the way, she got the job. Paula is super-funny, down-to-Earth and was the only one who was completely honest and kind of told him [Martin] off.' [caption id="attachment_3283" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="Having previously worked together on another series, Paula Garces and Malik Yoba (Ted Shaw) are reunited on Defying Gravity. Photo be Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC"][/caption] "My mom was like, 'Oh, my God,' and after hanging up the phone she immediately educated me on who Martin Scorsese was," laughs Garces. "He's the reason I got my SAG [Screen Actors Guild] card, and from there I was lucky enough to get work on most of the New York-based TV series including Law and Order as well as New York Undercover with Malik Yoba [Ted Shaw on Defying Gravity], Oz and The Sopranos. I got my big break when Jerry Bruckheimer cast me in Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Following that I did a soap opera [The Guiding Light] for three years, then [the feature films] Clockstoppers and Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, and I just carried on from there." On TV, the actress is perhaps best known for her performance as Officer Tina Hanlon on the crticially-acclaimed FX series The Shield. "Every single day on the The Shield was a wonderful challenge," she says. "I was only supposed to do one episode. From what I remember, the producers were auditioning very muscular women for this particular role, and here I was this tiny little thing. However, I thought, 'The easy route for a female cop would be a big, muscular, in-shape, tough looking woman. But what about the female cops out there who don't necessarily look intimidating, but who are still street-smart, know they can kick ass, and have an intuition about them that would be an asset on the streets as far as fighting crime.' "So that's how I spun it, and I think they saw in my audition that I would be good next to this big guy, Michael Jace [Officer Julian Lowe], who ended up being my partner on the show, and the dynamic worked. After that first episode, they asked me if I would continue as a recurring character, and the next season they invited me to be part of the regular cast. It was a fantastic program to work on and, of course, after they established my character, they took great pleasure in having this cute little girl run through the streets, beating up bad guys with a baton, and cuffing them," laughs Garces. "They gave me all this nasty, gritty material, and I think the show's writers enjoyed seeing the expression on my face when I'd first read the scripts. It's that quality and high standard of writing that keeps you on your toes and interested in your job. It's the same on Defying Gravity." As the actress approaches her 20th year in the business, Garces has not become at all jaded about the work, and has no intensions of falling into that trap. "I still get a thrill out of booking a job," she enthuses. "You study your lines, go into the audition room, bear your soul and hope that they like you. I don't know what it is about us actors, but we're desperate for other people to like us and reward us for just memorizing our lines. So when I get that phone call from my agent or my manager saying I got the job, it's such a high for me. It's the best phone call you can get as an actor." Steve Eramo Defying Gravity is produced by Fox Television Studios and OmniFilm Productions in association with the BBC, Canada's CTV and Germany's ProSieben. As noted above, all photos by Sergei Bachlakov or Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!