SCIFI AND TV TALK: Q & A with Continuum's Simon Barry, Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster
by Steve Eramo
01/22/2013
In the year 2077, it is not world governments but big and powerful corporations that control the globe. Not everyone is, however, pleased with the type of influence that the “Corporate Congress” exerts on most peoples’ lives. One group, Liber8, decides to take matters into their own hands and makes a bold move against those in charge.
Although she is unable to stop the terrorists from carrying out their plans to destroy parts of the city, Continuum’s Vancouver CPS (City Protective Services) Protector Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) and a team of officers manage to apprehend Liber8’s leader, Edouard Kagame (Tony Amendola) and several of his key followers.
The group is subsequently tried in a court of law and sentenced to death, but on the day of execution, they carry out a plan that sends them as well as Kiera back in time to Vancouver 2012. The members of Liber8 hope to use their knowledge of the future to alter it and stop corporations from seizing power. With help from a young techie genius named Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen) and Vancouver Police Detective Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster), Kiera risks her life to stop Liber8 from succeeding in changing history while at the same time tries to find a way back to her own time.
Prior to the premiere of Continuum in the States, series creator and executive producer Simon Barry along with Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster spoke with myself as well as other journalists about the series. The following is an edited version of that conference call. Enjoy!
... Q: Because of the time travel aspect, what Carlos knows about technology differs from what Kiera knows, and from what Alec knows. Is it hard to keep track of what you're supposed to know and what your characters do know?
Rachel Nichols: "For me, I’m lucky because Kiera is from the year 2077, so as far as all the future stuff is concerned, she knows what it does, when to use it, and that she has to hide it from everybody.
I do love the scenes where I get the opportunity to be a huge dork, like the Bluetooth scene where I think I'm wearing the coolest thing ever and Carlos basically tells me that I'm a nerd.
There’s an episode, I think it’s episode six, where it becomes obvious that Kiera has never seen a horse before in real life. For those kinds of things, I need Simon to remind me, “You’ve never seen this before,” or, “This is new, or this is your only concept of this thing in the future.” I definitely rely on Simon for everyday 2012 stuff that my character has never experienced before in 2077.
As far as the futuristic tools, that’s sort of the nice, close knit relationship Kiera has with Alec, because he’s the creator of that technology. It is fun, though, to have those moments where I play a fish out of water, and, again, provided that I have Simon as my guide, I'm fine."
Simon Barry: "It’s definitely tricky to track a lot of this stuff, but the great thing is that Victor, Rachel, and Erik will always sort of check in and say, “You know, is this...” Sometimes, they’re ahead of me. They’ll go, “Wait a minute. My character shouldn’t know about this because of where he or she is coming from or what their perspective is.” I love that they are so invested in their characters’ understanding of where they are and what they’re doing."
Victor Webster: "That’s one of the great things about the show. There’s such an open line of communication and it’s like a family where we can bring anything up at any time, whether it sounds ridiculous or whatever the discussion is. We bring everything to the table and Simon’s always has a very intellectual answer and gives us something to think about. It’s really good for us to be able to process all that information and have that sounding board..."
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE EPISODE TRAILER FOR CONTINUUM'S 'WASTING TIME' AIRING MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2013 AT 8/7C ON SYFY
No comments:
Post a Comment