TV Interviews: Falling Skies – Season 3 Interviews with the Noah Wyle, Drew Roy, Doug Jones and Remi Aubuchon
by Matt Sernaker, Managing Editor
Falling Skies returns for its third season tonight on TNT!
The stakes have been raised as a new alien race enters the war against the Espheni, and we learn that humanity might just have an ally. To help get ready for the upcoming premiere, ComicsOnline was recently invited to Zoic Studios to join in for roundtable interviews with the cast and crew.
DR: I feel like it is such a huge accomplishment to be in the third season. One of the exciting things about the show is that the storylines are always changing, which is due to the fact that the writers have done an excellent job. We have transitioned certain writers in and out, and even though they have a storyline that they are shooting for, these different ideas help keep it (the story) alive and always moving.
NW: I think in the first season we had a good concept, but we didn’t really know how to execute it and we learned a lot from watching those episodes. We learned the show works better at night, having some shadow and mystery, and that these characters are more compelling when they are wet, dirty, and miserable. We learned which relationships had some pop and some gravitas to them, and we build to some momentum to them in the second season where we got to explore these characters a little further. In the third season, we keep building on our own momentum. It is the strongest season to date. It is certainly the broadest in terms of the story telling. We all opened up the narrative considerably. We brought in some new players, and have a lot of new talent on the writing staff. We keep refining it to a greater and greater degree as we go along.
DR: The third season is so solid that I have more peace about this season than I did about the second season. Getting past the second season is a huge milestone, where as the third hopefully leads into the fourth.
When the season begins, we learn that Tom Mason has accepted a new position as President of The New United States. Wyle talks about the impact this new title has on his character:
NW: We took a lot of big risks creatively coming back in the third season (there is a seven month time jump). When we last saw Tom, he was pretty adamant that didn’t want to assume more responsibility, and that Charleston didn’t have anything left to offer the 2nd Mass. We were on our way out of town when suddenly these alien pods landed. We find that Tom is now the President, Anne is now pregnant, he (points to Drew Roy) has an eye worm…there are all sorts of big story lines going on right off the bat. I was a little nervous about asking audiences to wrap their minds around so much, so quickly. The way that I justified it was that this alliance with the Volm (the new alien race) has been very successful for them, and you can’t argue with results. If the people need to feel that there is a President in order to feel a sense of normalcy and calm, then Tom is willing to play that part.
Remi Aubuchon (Executive Producer) gave some hints about the new “Mega Mecs”, and the new alien allies, The Volm:
RA: The (original) Mecs were deployed because they thought that the human threat didn’t mean that much. They are were not as sophisticated as the new Mega Mecs. When we start to be a problem for the Espheni, the Overlords, all of a sudden they have to go open up their box with the new Mega Mecs, which they were probably savings for the Volm or some other threat.
In regards to the aliens, we certainly we will learn more. One of the advantages of having Mr. Volm here (Doug Jones), is that he almost an encyclopedic knowledge of the Espheni. Who they are, tactics for fighting time, and what really makes them crazy, etc. We will learn through Cochise more about the Espheni and the Volm in our interaction. The trick in a show like this is how much you expose, and how much you let out of the mythology. It is a delicate and hard balance to figure out. One of the advantages that we had was Steven Speilberg’s first rule to us was that we only learn about the aliens through what the 2nd Mass experiences. We never cut to another scene where we see the Espheni planning the destruction of the human. It gives us a great advantage because the beginning of the show in the first season was that all we saw was monsters, as we assume that they are the bad guys. All of a sudden, we learn there are even bigger bad guys. We keep unfolding it like that as the 2nd Mass starts to learn more.
Doug Jones, best known for his creature work as Abe Sapien (Hellboy), and the Silver Surfer (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer), joins the series as Cochise, the leader of the Volm. Jones discusses the process for getting suited up for this role, versus his theatrical work:
DJ: I have been playing characters like this for a couple of decades now, and the process for Cochise is only a couple of hours, as opposed to the five hours for some of the movie roles that I have done. I do have to be in tip top shape for a skinny guy, because I am putting on this muscle suit and there is some weight to it. I huff and puff walking from my trailer to the set, and then I have to be a strong warrior from another planet.
Since Jones is known for his creature roles, he briefly commented on how he gets the “best of both worlds” in terms of anonymity off screen:
DJ: When we do things like today’s press event, or Comic-Con when it is announced that I am there and who I am, I get to play celebrity that day. If I go to a Starbucks I get to be nobody, which is great.
Jones also discussed the new dynamics that Cochise brings to war against the Espheni:
DJ: You’ll be seeing me throughout the season. I might be in peril at some point and you will have to wait and see if I get out of that peril okay. Basically, being a leader of my people (The Volm) that comes to help the humans with technology and knowhow, a lot of exposition comes from informing them about the Espheni. Tom Mason’s character and mine (Cochise) confer with eachother. What happens is not only is it a business exchange, but it also a cultural and human exchange. I learn a lot about the humans. We think that we are among the super powers of the universe, and we are here to help these little earthlings stop the bad Espheni. The season will unfold with a lot of learning on my part. I take in these humans and we haven’t encountered a species like this before. That is the whole human process that I love; when this otherworldly creature can experience it as well. You will find more as the season unfold, and you will see more personality come out of my alien character. He might be more than informative “Spock-like” characters, and they might have a soul as well.
Check out our other interviews with the cast and crew from Falling Skies at WonderCon 2013:
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