HAVEN - TV.COM: Q&A with Haven's Eric Balfour and Emily Rose
By Louis Peitzman
August 5, 2011
SyFy’s Haven has done some serious growing up lately. Now in its second season, the Stephen King-inspired series continues to expand on its mythology and overarching mysteries. We caught up with series stars Emily Rose (Audrey Parker) and Eric Balfour (Duke Crocker), who both offered in-depth insight into the show, their characters, and what's to come in Season 2...
... Q: What first attracted you to the character of Duke? Especially in the beginning, when he was a little more of a... jerk.
Eric Balfour: "It was fun. Bottom line, he was a fun guy. He was this sort of swashbuckling modern-day pirate, and he got to say whatever he felt like and do whatever he felt like. And he was a bit of an antagonist, and I love characters like that. Not that I’m comparing in any way, shape, or form, because he’s way better than me, but you think about Jeremy Piven on Entourage. What’s great about Ari Gold is that he’s kind of a dick. But when he has moments of sincerity, you really embrace them, because you almost don’t expect them. And that’s what’s fun about this guy. He doesn’t want to do the right thing. He doesn’t want to help these people with these troubles and all this stuff, but at the end of the day, he sort of can’t help his own good nature, a little bit, as hard as he fights against it. So it’s fun..."
... Q: What can you tell me about the two Audreys?
Emily Rose: "I think the really great thing about playing this kind of storyline was—a lot of times, as an actor, and I’ve said this in other interviews, you have this history, this base you work off of. This is my character, this is what I know about my character. And then when the rug gets sort of pulled out from underneath you, you have this whole world of questions, and that’s what you play.
What was interesting playing across from Kathleen Munroe—she’s fantastic, that one. She’s an award-winning Canadian actress. The Audrey that she portrayed when she came in, when I looked at her, I was like, “Oh, my gosh. This is who Audrey was in the first couple of episodes.” When I looked at her, she goes on the logic side of things, and this is by-the-book, and this is procedure, and this is the FBI, and I can solve this. I hadn’t really noticed what an arc Audrey had made, what a journey she had made, until I saw the old Audrey standing right in front of me. When she was like, “What about this?” and asking some of the same questions I did, and me being able to be like, “Yes, I know where you’re coming from. I understand.” There was this real sort of reality to what we were playing. I was able to say, 'I share your memories. I share your experience of this character...'"
