Paula Malcomson interview (Caprica countdown)

Paula Malcomson is one of the Caprica actors who talked to L.A. Times for their Caprica countdown series of interviews. She discussed her character, Amanda Graystone, Amanda's relationship with her daughter Zoe, female characters on Battlestar Galactica and her experiences working on Deadwood among other things.

Who is Amanda Graystone?
She's a plastic surgeon who's married to a tycoon, if you will. She has her own hard-working, busy career, and I think she's well respected in her field. We don't focus a lot on her inner workings as we start on this journey with these people, then this tragedy happens and she sort of rips herself out of her career and separates herself from her work. While her husband goes into his work more deeply, she fires herself.

Emotionally?
Emotionally, she's in a tough place. She's dealing with the death of her daughter in the public eye. She's sort of a celebrity in this world that they live in; her husband's sort of the Bill Gates of their time. We find her dealing with all of this tragedy and terrorism and maybe implications that her duaghter... well, she's going down this road to find out what her daughter's involvement is and it's pointing towards the fact that her daughter has been complicit in this terrorist attack. She's sort of discovering how little she's known about her. Anything that she's know about herself and her life and her world is all in question now.

How was her relationship with her daughter?

Her daughter's a very precocious young woman. It had been a challenging time. You see the day before the bombing, that there's a big fight between them. She's sort of pushing her to the edge. She's a very smart kid; she challenges their ethics... she challenges them at all levels. She's an incredibly smart kid, and we get to see how incredibly smart she is later. Amanda has no idea what genius her kid has, but we see that the last thing before the bombing is they have this fight, and she slaps her. And that's how it's left. She doesn't get to say goodbye in some sentimental way and has all these feelings of guilt and remorse and is trying to work through some of that stuff.

Do you think that viewers will be surprised at how Amanda develops as the season progresses?
Yeah. I certainly was. ... As this character formed, it took a lot of turns that I didn't expect. You can take a lot of that with a pinch of salt in the beginning because things just sort of organically occur as part of the process. But as they see the character grow, it informs how they write for you.

I think that, if we're dividing the show into two halves of the season, at first we're seeing Amanda as more reactive in just dealing with the circumstances that she's in. Then as we move forward, in around Episodes 8, maybe 10, she becomes a lot more of an active figure in the series, with an agenda. Things heat up a lot in terms of what she's doing. Don't want to give it all away, but she becomes a force to be reckoned with.

Since playing Trixie on "Deadwood" and other smaller roles on things like "Lost" and "Law & Order," what drew you to this role?
The script of the pilot was a great script and it was a great character. The creative team comes with quite a pedigree, and I'd heard all sorts of wonderful things about "Battlestar," so I just wanted to work with them. After I'd done "Deadwood," it took me a while to figure out what I would do after playing Trixie because that was an incredible roller coaster. A real role of a lifetime. I wanted to find something I felt was very different from her and would afford me the opportunity that I got with working with [Deadwood creator] Dave Milch in terms of a writing team and in terms of real, grown-up, challenging acting. That was what I was interested in doing. It was a heavy-duty script, and I was interested in playing in a real relationship in a marriage as well. Not an idea of a television version. And certainly working with Eric Stoltz... we both work very similarly. Keep reading

Caprica pilot seen by 1,5 million people before the premiere

Airlock Alpha talked to SyFy president Dave Howe about the decision to release the Caprica pilot on DVD so early and to stream it on their site, as well as about how this might impact the premiere numbers. You can read the whole article here.

Since releasing the entire pilot episode online several weeks back (and months after first releasing it on DVD), more than 1.5 million people have watched the "Caprica" pilot through the Internet or on DVD, according to trade publication Multichannel News. The episode has been offered through Syfy.com, Hulu, and other places. (...)

"The more people that we encourage to watch that pilot and come in for the series, the better off we'll be," Howe said at the time. In deciding whether or not to offer "Caprica" early to the masses, Howe said he and the bosses "talked about it endlessly."

"It's the risk we took in releasing it on DVD first, and the risk we take in streaming it," he said. "In this climate, with the audience we have, it's the right thing to do. We have this amazing techno-savvy audience that isn't going to always watch linear TV like a linear audience."

Those who watched the pilot already still might want to tune in, Howe teased. There will be some new features included in Friday's airing as well as a "supertease" of the rest of the season.

Interviews with Jane Espenson and David Eick

Io9.com has a couple of interviews up with Jane Espenson and David Eick here.

Espenson talked about the central conflict on the show being not between humans and robots but between different groups of humans, while Eick talked about the beginnings of the show.

According to Espenson, the "other" in Caprica is other groups of humans, instead of the Cylons which barely exist at this point. You have twelve colonies, with diverse ethnic groups, all in conflict with each other. And that doesn't even include the monotheists, who are a minority in all the different colonies. The show's being very careful to make clear that not all monotheists are evil terrorists, adds Espenson. The whole stew of conflict, with each group believing it has the right answer to all of society's woes, brings a society that's at peace closer to the brink of war and disaster. And those elements — a peacetime society where different groups of humans are fighting over cultural and religious differences — allow Caprica to tell very different stories than Battlestar Galactica. It's still just as allegorical as BSG, however, and it still has something to say about the times we're living in.

Eick told us that Caprica started out as Remi Aubuchon's pitch for a totally unrelated show about robots, and then Syfy suggested turning it into a BSG prequel. And that opened up all sorts of ways to explore the same questions as BSG, only from the opposite side — instead of a show about machines who are becoming human, you have a show about a human girl who becomes a machine. Either way, you're getting to ask some questions about what humanity really is, says Eick.

Alessandra Torresani about the five faces of Zoe

Alessandra Torresani talked to SCI FI Wire about the character(s) she is playing on Caprica. The complete article is here.

"I've done a scene where I play three characters in one," Torresani said. "Season 1.5, the second half, third episode into it. Besides just that, I get to play five completely different characters, which is not like any female 16-year-old show character that I've ever seen before in my life."

Zoe O: "Zoe 0 is the original Zoe, who's the daughter of Amanda and Daniel Graystone," Torresani said in an interview this week in Pasadena, Calif., at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. "She's the rebellious girl that's trying to find the Soldiers of the One and is trying to find the One True God on Gemenon."

V World Zoe: "She creates the avatar, which lives in the virtual world. The avatar is the childlike version of herself, but when original Zoe's in the V club, she's this wild, crazy [girl], has tons of sex, drugs, does all this but now is trying to clean up her act and clean up the V world. Does that kind of make sense to you?"

Cylon Zoe: Daniel Graystone figures out how to put his daughter's memories into the very first Cylon. The show will portray the machine both as a robot (depicted with visual effects) and as Torresani herself (representing the character's inner personality, which only the audience sees).

Zoe 4 and 5: Torresani is keeping the remaining two Zoes a secret. "It's going to get really interesting, really interesting," she said.

Torresani shared a little bit about her process for portraying the different versions of the character. "The avatar, it's like a rebirth of a child," Torresani said. "She's a newborn. She's touching things for the first time. She's standing for the first time. She's talking for the first time. It's this innocence that is very bizarre to see come out of a 16-year-old's body and mouth. I completely erase everything and just pretend that I'm this newborn child. You have to, but it's very, very hard when you're playing the Cylon as well and playing another character."

Alessandra Torresani promotes Caprica at the BAFTA/LA Awards Season Tea Party

Alessandra Torresani attended the BAFTA/LA 16th Annual Awards Season Tea Party to promote Caprica on Saturday (Jan. 16).

The event was held at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

To see all the pictures, visit Just Jared Jr.

Caprica premieres in only four days, on Friday, January 22 at 9/8c on SyFy.

New interview with Bear McCreary (Caprica countdown)

Bear McCreary is one of the people involved in Caprica who were interviewed by L.A. Times this past week. You can read the full interview here.

You create your themes based on characters, so when something is not fully formed like "Caprica," do you just go on the script itself?
No, never. I honestly never read the script if I can avoid it because a lot will change from the time it's written to the time it's produced. Sometimes the entire tone of an episode can be reshaped in directing or editing or acting. I don't like to base my ideas off of an alternative reality. With that said, there are times where I need to know in advance certain character arcs. "Caprica" is a great example. I won't give you any spoilers, but there are certain reveals that I know are coming in the back half of the season, so I'm already planting seeds. I'm not going to mention anybody, but after things happen, you can go back to the beginning and see where, musically, I was telling you who these hidden characters are. Stuff like that is really fun.

That's awesome to think about that level of nuance. Let's talk about the two main characters: Eric Stoltz as Daniel Graystone and Esai Morales as Joseph Adama. What, musically, stood out for each of them?

Both of them are featured prominently in the pilot, so my initial original conceptual themes came from the pilot. Daniel is aristocratic and sophisticated and wealthy and very intelligent and highly educated. He's really the kind of character that we never saw on "Battlestar." So I wanted his music and generally the tone of the show itself to be more familiar. I didn't want it to have that kind of tribal raw energy that the "Battlestar" score had. So it's more western; it sounds more like a traditional chamber orchestra. You hear instruments that are not foreign to anyone. English horn and harp and piano. So it has a really calm, meditative yet familiar aspect. One of the things I wanted to say with that is that the world of Daniel Graystone is our world. It's more far-fetched in that it's advanced, but unlike "Battlestar," which is like a submarine, Caprica City is an environment that we are familiar with. So the music should be familiar.

You mentioned the Taurons ... so have you thought about the different musical themes that each culture could create?

Absolutely. And there had been times throughout "Battlestar" where we're dealing with people from different colonies and I wrote particular themes for them. But this is the first time I really tried to craft an identity for, not only Tauron, but Caprica as well. And it's something that I think we're going to explore more. Eric Stoltz is already talking to me about the episode he's directing where we get to see a little more of another colony. He's asking me what the music sounds like and I say, "I don't know. I'm not there yet." But we're gonna get there.

They also embedded a clip from a concert Bear held last year. If you haven't heard the Caprica theme performed live, here it is:

Interview with Sasha Roiz (L.A. Times' Caprica countdown)

As part of their Caprica countdown, Los Angeles Times interviewed Sasha Roiz (Twitter link), who plays Sam Adama, Joseph's mobster brother. He talked about his character, the Adama family relations and history, Tauron values and continuity with Battlestar Galactica among other things.

How's it feel to be a Tauron assassin?
Interesting question. Well it feels really great that they've imbued this character with so many dynamic elements. It's not just a cookie cutter monster; he's got so many complexities to him that it's just a joy to play him.

What's the relationship like between Joseph and Sam?
At the beginning of the series, it's relatively strained. Obviously, the circumstances of the tragedy exacerbate the difficulties that the brothers had, and the brothers have a very different opinion of the world that they live in. Joseph is someone who's been trying to assimilate into the Caprican life while Sam is steadfast in staying loyal to Tauron and the Tauron community and has absolutely no interest in assimilating into the Caprican world. So those differences sort of come to a head, especially in the aftermath of the bombing and the loss of his wife and daughter.

The Ha'la'tha seems like a "Godfather" or yakuza type of organization. Where did you get your influences?
Yeah, it is of sorts. It's very much an ethnic organization not unlike what you said; it's kind of like a mafia or Yakuza. It's very similar to the way other mobs were formed in our world, say a century ago. When Italian and Irish and Jewish immigrants came over and were ghettoized and treated as second-class citizens, they formed organizations to protect themselves and their own ways of life and enforce their own laws. The Ha'la'tha have created a community and a life and a force on Caprica, and Sam's a soldier in that organization.

Sam Adama the role model ... is this all that good for for his nephew Willie, the future Admiral William Adama?
Ha! Well, Sam thinks so and has no doubts about it. Like I said, it's a very difficult time for the family, and Joseph's focus begins to spin a little bit out of control as he starts to chase after this avatar of Tamara [Adama, his deceased daughter] and he leaves Willie behind. So this is where Sam comes in almost as a surrogate and starts to raise this young boy. Sam always feels like the kid needs more Tauron influence, and along with that is a certain pride and strength that he wants to imbue in Willie. [Keep reading]