HAVEN - ASSIGNMENT X: Exclusive Interview: Eric Balfour finds safety in Syfy’s HAVEN
The actor talks about playing the supernatural town's resident con man in Season Two
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN
August 12th, 2011
Based very loosely on Stephen King’s novella THE COLORADO KID, Syfy’s series HAVEN is now airing its second season Friday nights at 10 PM. The title enclave is a small town in coastal Maine where most of the residents are a bit more than human. FBI Special Agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) came to Haven in the first episode to investigate a murder, but has stayed on to look into various strange events, including the town’s ties to her own past. One of the few people Audrey meets who doesn’t seem to have some sort of supernatural ability is Eric [Balfour's] character Duke Crocker.
Los Angeles native Balfour has done a few other science-fiction/horror projects – the remake of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, VERITAS: THE QUEST, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SKYLINE and playing Jesus in SAVING GRACE – but his credits cover a whole range of genres, including work in 24, CONVICTION and WHAT WOMEN WANT. He also recently made his directorial debut with the “Duccio’s Madonna” segment of the indie anthology DO NOT DISTURB and is now in development with that film’s producer Mali Elfman on an adaptation of JESUS HATES ZOMBIES.
Speaking by phone from HAVEN’s Nova Scotia location, Balfour tells us about Duke...
... AX: It seems that everybody in HAVEN – both the series and the town – has some sort of supernatural endowment, but do we know what Duke’s is yet?
BALFOUR: "Actually, he is human. Some of the characters in the world of HAVEN have supernatural afflictions. Until recently, it was a safe zone for people with supernatural curses or afflictions or what have you. People for generations have come here in hopes of relinquishing whatever that thing was that inhabited them. Some of those curses may not necessarily be bad things – they may be things that they can’t control – but when the series started, for whatever reason, the veil of protection lifted off this town and it became, as it were, a Molotov cocktail of the supernatural.
My character grew up in the town and left for a long time. He’s sort of a modern-day pirate. He’s a smuggler and a con man and he came back to this town because it was very good at keeping its secrets. It’s a good place for him to operate out of. As the show has gone on, we’re going to see in Season Two, his motivations changed. He had an occurrence in the first season where he basically found out how he was going to die, because of one of the characters from last season’s psychic abilities to show people how they will die, and now that he knows and has this information, like any good con man, he’s trying to con his way out of his own death. So a big part of my character’s storyline this season is trying to figure out how to cheat death. Duke at this point – we don’t know of any affliction that he has, but given the rules of the world, people’s afflictions are brought on and manifest in different times in different ways. Usually, they’re brought on by some form of traumatic experience or trauma or pain and that’s what triggers it to manifest. That hasn’t happened yet to Duke, and it appears as if he doesn’t have one, but you never know in HAVEN..."
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