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By
Sundi
Interview with Simon Barry and Rachel
Nichols of "Continuum" on Syfy 4/2/14
NBC UNIVERSAL
Moderator: Gary Morgenstein
April 2, 2014
12:00 pm CT
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by
and welcome to the SYFY Conference Call, Continuum. I would
now like to turn the conference over to Gary Morgenstein,
please go ahead sir.
Gary Morgenstein: Welcome everyone, Continuum, SYFY’s
popular series returns for Season Three this Friday, April 4
at 10 PM ET at the Talk. We have star Rachel Nichols and
executive producer/creator Simon Barry. Jennifer, could you
please put forward the first call?
Operator: Our first question comes from the line of Jamie
Ruby with ScifiVision.com. Please proceed with your
question.
Jamie Ruby: Hey. So can you talk about, you can both talk
about this, but about Luvia being in like the pilot, or not
the pilot, the first episode with Kiera?
Rachel Nichols: Simon do you care to - do you have a
preference who starts or...
Simon Barry: You mean the fact that Luvia, Garza and Kiera
are working together in the first episode?
Jamie Ruby: Yes, yes. That’s what I was trying to get out
before I screwed up.
Simon Barry: Well, you know, we know that we were sort of
tied to Luvia haven been captured by the freelancers in
Season 2 and when we decided to have Kiera go back chasing
Alec in time there was a decision made about when she would
go back and what was the configuration of the show at that
point in time and we kind of realized, well, we’re sending
Kiera back roughly a week and what’s the situation a week
earlier? And we sort of went back to our previous episodes
and just realized, well, this is just after Garza had been
taken and so we saw an opportunity there to take advantage
of that, really, and also put Kiera in a situation where she
could replay events of her escape and have them turn out
differently which I think was important for that first
episode, this first episode, because, you know, when you do
time travel you need touchstones of storytelling and I think
that the idea that within the episode itself we could see
that happen in the context of Kiera and Garza so we saw that
something bad happened to Garza and then after Kiera had
time traveled she could prevent that.
I think it was just a good example of the stakes of time
travel and a mini example of ultimately what Alec was doing
in the bigger picture and how sort of the domino effect of
making changes plays out.
I think for Rachel it was, for Kiera, it was just a great
opportunity for two characters who rarely get to be on
screen together to be on screen together.
Rachel Nichols: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. I
mean, for me it was when I read that I was really excited
about it. I was really excited about the idea of this weird
kind of potential, we’re certainly not on the same side but
maybe we’re not total enemies anymore kind of friendship to
form and my relationship with Garza really is interwoven
throughout the season and it is - it does take a lot of
twists and turns. It was something really, really fun to
shoot as well. Luvia and I would have a great time together
and I like when we get to have that opportunity for
uncertainty in a relationship which we do quite frequently
but this is the first time aside from the few times I had an
alliance-ish with Kellog. This was the first time where I
was given the opportunity to sort of be in a situation where
I have to build the trust of someone like a Garza for a
short period of time and then to see how that unravels
through the rest of the season, the payoff is pretty great.
Jamie Ruby: Really great scenes. And then as a follow-up, I
was curious I guess Simon this is more for you. Obviously we
see that they can pull people out of time, the freelancers,
so even if they’ve possibly been dead is there a chance that
anybody else we’re going to see come back because it looked
like, and I don’t know for sure, maybe I’m just hoping but
it looked like Travis was in that one tank at one point when
they showed like a really quick glimpse.
Simon Barry: Well, you know, if you...
Rachel Nichols: Simon, how are you going to answer this one?
Simon Barry: If you’re tracking the show and you know that
Kiera has gone back to a point prior to - you know, she’s
chased Alec back to a point prior to Emily’s death, which is
what we reveal in this first episode then you can
extrapolate from that that a lot of the characters who might
have died in the Season 2 finale, those events just simply
haven’t happened in this timeline therefore people who might
have died may not be dead yet or their death may just be
delayed or things might just play out in the same way.
I think for the fans it’s going to be fun to see if time
self corrects itself or not.
Jamie Ruby: Okay, great. Thanks so much both of you.
Simon Barry: You’re welcome Jamie.
Rachel Nichols: Thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Robin
Burks with FanGirlConfessions.com.
Simon Barry: Hi Robin.
Robin Burks: Hi, thank you for talking to us today! It’s
nice to talk with you again.
Simon Barry: Oh, my pleasure.
Rachel Nichols: Hello.
Robin Burks: If you could describe this season what would
you say that it’s about, like what is the overall theme?
Simon Barry: I think the overall theme...
Rachel Nichols: I want to start with that one!
Simon Barry: Yes, go! Go Rachel.
Rachel Nichols: I want to start with this one because I have
my own - I am very proud of myself because I assess the
season - it’s when we started doing press and Simon can
speak to the theme of the whole show but for me the theme
for Kiera this season really for the greater good and in
Season 1 it was very much about getting home, getting home,
getting home, I have to get home. Season 2 it was still
about getting home but it was about taking responsibility
and knowing that my actions or Liber8 the actions or Alec’s
actions in the present day was going to affect the future
that I come from.
Season 2 was about taking responsibility for that and
acknowledging the changes that we put in effect from little
actions and from big actions and then season three is very
much about the idea of Kiera’s coming to realize that the
future that she came from, although yes her husband and her
son are in it, is not a very good future. It’s not a very
happy future. The world is not a great place where she comes
from and Season 3 is, like I said, for the greater good for
Kiera, it’s about understanding that if she were to try to
maintain the future that she came from just to get back to
her husband and son rather than try to effect change to make
the future that she came from a better place should she ever
get back, to help basically all of humanity.
If she choose just to save two people that’s quite a selfish
move on her part so I think Season 3 for Kiera, for me, has
been very much about the idea that although I love my
husband and I miss my son and I would like to get back to
them, the better thing to do was to stay in this time and to
try to change things to make the future that I come from not
exist at the risk of sacrificing my husband and son for the
greater good.
Simon Barry: I disagree with Rachel completely! No, I’m
kidding. No, she’s absolutely right. I think that that’s one
very specific way of looking at it. We’re trying to take the
idea of sacrifice which is think is exactly what Rachel is
talking about, is to make the hard decisions but we’re sort
of trying to take sacrifice and strip it down to its more
personal fix and I think this season what we’re trying to do
with all of our characters is look at sacrifice as a theme
and play out various permutations of sacrifice in a way that
essentially works on a personal level, on a very intimate,
character intimate, level but also plays out on the scale of
the stakes of the show which as Rachel just eloquently put
is really about, you know, looking forward and making
decisions that have more to do with altruistic as opposed to
selfish and I think, you know, the way that plays - it’s
easy to say that but the complexities of those decisions,
because there are personal stakes and larger sort of global
stakes, makes them less than simple when you exercise them.
They can be quite complicated and, of course, they involve
the relationships that you already have and so things like
betrayal and sacrifice are definitely big themes that we’re
working with this season.
Robin Burks: Oh wow, that’s great. My follow-up; this season
seemed to have a lot more time travel in it. Do you ever get
confused trying to remember all the details and how do you
manage to keep everything straight?
Simon Barry: Rachel you go first.
Rachel Nichols: Yeah...
Simon Barry: We just had this conversation.
Rachel Nichols: Yes we did. I had a very funny conversation,
Alec asks me a question in the third episode and I’m with
what we call - there’s Alec, there’s regular Alec and then
there’s scar Alec, the one who traveled travel back in time
to save Emily and I’m with regular Alec and he asks me a
question, did you know X, Y and Z and in the moment as
Rachel playing Kiera I’m thinking in my head, okay, this
Alec doesn’t know that I know that the answer to that
question is yes. But the other Alec knows that I know the
exact question is - the answer to that question is yes. And
the other me... I mean, I had to go through this process of
which Alec knows and how to cover best this lie that I’m
about to tell in a split second and I just started laughing
in the middle of the take and I went, okay, let me start
again, let me get this straight in my head because it’s one
of the more fun parts of my job and sometimes it’s one of
the more boggling parts of my job to remember what I know in
which timeline and what everybody else knows and then I can
always call Simon if I have a question because he has to
know everything.
Simon Barry: It’s true. We realized that we didn’t want to
get into a jam with multiple timelines in a way that would,
A, just complicate the show and, B, be confusing to the
audience. So, if - for those who, you know, have watched the
first episode we went to great lengths, I think, to
establish for this season kind of a general structure that
would not allow the science of time travel and the
consequences of time travel sort of mathematically, if you
will, to interfere with a lot of the storytelling.
And we didn’t shy away from it, we just tried to resolve it
in short order so that we could say, hey, we are adhering to
rules of time travel that are based in what we set up and
we’re trying to be true to those rules that we set up from
Day 1. At the same time, you never want that to bog down the
storytelling of the show or the entertainment value. And,
you know, we love it internal, the writers and I are
probably more excited sometimes about these complications
than we should be and we have to temper our nerd-gasms of
the possibilities and sort of bring it back down to earth a
lot of times.
So I think we were successful in sort of saying, hey, this
is a big subject, time travel, there’s so many spiraling
scenarios that come out of it but what we wanted to do was
really kind of bear down on one storyline that kept
everything in context in a way that I think opens the door
to the time travel universe but keeps it contained that we
can tell a focused story.
And, you know, I say that and a lot of people will come back
and say, oh, but it’s so much more complicated than that and
the truth is, we try to make sure that the things that are
important are front and center and that the audience knows
that. But we always try to acknowledge that there are, you
know, it’s a big world, time travel, when you break it down
and it’s a mythology that has been practiced many times.
So we try to honor all of those things and at the same time
be true to ourselves and be as concise as we can be.
Robin Burks: I love time travel so I’m really looking
forward to seeing this season. Thank you.
Simon Barry: You’re very welcome. Thank you.
Rachel Nichols: Thank you very much.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Tim
Holquinn with ScreenFad. Please proceed with your question.
Tim Holquinn: Hi Rachel, hi Simon. Thanks for taking the
time today.
Rachel Nichols: Hello, good morning.
Simon Barry: Yeah, my pleasure.
Tim Holquinn: I have a question for each of you. I’ll start
with Rachel. I spoke with Victor about Season 3 a couple of
weeks ago and while he offered...
Rachel Nichols: Who?
Tim Holquinn: Victor Webster.
Rachel Nichols: I’m just kidding, I’m totally kidding! I’m
totally kidding. I’m sorry, I’m totally kidding.
Tim Holquinn: That’s okay. Well he offered us no details
about the new season predictably but he did say that
Continuum’s world turned into a very, very dark place for
Carlos. Since Quinn Archers Dark Places video is going to
feature multiple stars from the show, I’m wondering if you
can reveal whether it will include the cast via show clips
or will they be appearing in an original context not
involving scene snidbits from whatever episode the song’s
featured in?
Rachel Nichols: That’s actually a question for Simon because
I don’t know what I’m allowed to say here.
Simon Barry: Well, we’re not going to say who’s going to
appear in Quinn’s video but we - I can tell you that the
characters, the actors from the show, that are in the video
will be in the video itself as new content. We won’t be
using clips from the show.
Rachel Nichols: Okay, good. I didn’t know that either Simon.
Tim Holquinn: And congratulations Rachel on the Kickstarter
Campaign almost doubling its pledge goal so far.
Rachel Nichols: Thank you. Thank you! That’s a testament to
Quinn’s music and her voice and the fans of the show and the
fans of her music and (Jackie Gould) who’s coming into
direct who started this whole thing in motion so she’s sort
of the beginning of this after she met (Juliette) she was
wanting to be involved and wanting to direct the video and
it’s good.
Anybody who follows me on Twitter or who knows me
personally, (Juliette)’s my best friend in the entire world
so what (Jackie)’s done has been phenomenal and amazing and
very inspiring so we’re all very much looking forward to it
so the success of the campaign, it blew us all away and I
can’t thank everybody enough. I was at Comic-Con this past
weekend in Seattle and so many people were so proud to come
up to me and just say, I donated to the Kickstarter Campaign
or I got a signed DVD in the Kickstarter Campaign and it’s
just one of those things that I get almost choked up every
time someone tells me how excited they were to donate
because it means a lot to me and it means the world to my
best friend. So thank you, I really appreciate that.
Tim Holquinn: Yeah, its super cool and I’m sure your fans
are there to support you however you need.
Rachel Nichols: I have awesome fans, I’m not going to lie.
Simon Barry: Yeah, she does.
Tim Holquinn: And Simon, I understand that Carlos and Betty
wound up at Julian Randol’s farm in the Season 2 finale due
to viewers votes. Of the two outcomes that fans could have
voted on back then, where you leaning for one over the other
and is that the one that aired?
Simon Barry: Yeah, I actually - I was with the fans on that
one. I was very happy that they chose the ending that had
been T’d up and the one that we used. The alternate ending
to that scene was essentially Betty deciding that she
couldn’t let - she had to redeem herself by essentially
turning Carlos in and making sure he didn’t walk away from
the situation.
So - which was definitely my second choice. So, yeah, it
worked out in a way that I thought was satisfying and it was
a fun experiment to engage the fans in that way.
Tim Holquinn: Great, okay. Well, I have more questions, I’ll
get back in line. Thanks!
Rachel Nichols: Ah, thank you.
Simon Barry: Okay.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Sundi
Rose with TVMegaSite.net. Please proceed with your question.
Sundi Rose: My first question is kind of for you both that
time travel is kind of an esoteric kind of theme, I was
wondering if it’s like the new vampire? You know, we went
through a hundred million shows with vampires and werewolves
and now we’re starting to see this thematically - time
travel moving back and forth and I just was wondering is
there potential there, do you see it more and where do you
think that this - is this the new thing, is pop culture
ready to just get on board or what do you think?
Simon Barry: Wow, that’s quite the question. I don’t know,
Rachel, do you have an opinion about this while I think of
my answer?
Rachel Nichols: Are you going to send me into it? Yeah. You
know it’s actually something that I haven’t really thought
of before. I find that time travel is an extremely
interesting sort of genre to choose to base a story on and
it’s also a very difficult one because you have to - when
you’re establishing a show whether it’s our show or a
different show that involves time travel you have to
establish rules for time travel and then you have to adhere
to them because, you know, the fans are the first ones to
say, no, that doesn’t make sense. You were allowed to time
travel this way in this time and then you went to this
timeline and that doesn’t make sense because this should
be... So it’s very, very complex.
So I think it takes a very smart story writing, very smart
planning and a very smart set of rules to make it work. So,
it may bode very well if time travel is the new vampire
because it’s a sort of highly intelligent genre to be able
to keep track of it and to keep honest with it and for
everybody that watches it to stay extremely involved because
it is complex.
So, I think it’s quite a cool idea that something so complex
has become the new vampire because then it just - it speaks
well to the sci-fi genre in general. Just the intelligence
of the viewers and the fans and how involved they are and
like to be and will continue to be even if you’re making a
show that’s extremely, extremely complicated.
Simon Barry: Yeah, I agree with Rachel.
Sundi Rose: No, I’m saying it does take a smarter fan,
right, to sort of follow along and kind of keep track as far
as continuity goes and all that so...
Rachel Nichols: Yeah and...
Simon Barry: Yeah, it’s complicated.
Rachel Nichols: Yeah, it’s always complicated and I’m sure
Simon can say more about it.
Simon Barry: Well, I think one of the things that maybe they
have in common is there’s a certain romanticism attached to
time travel and with vampires I guess one of the same
qualities is that there’s this, you know, whether it’s
eternal life or eternal pain or unrequited love a lot of
these vampire stories tend to romanticism the situation and
I think with time travel there’s a built-in romanticism
because when you think about the ability to go back and
change things that conjures all kinds of, I think, romantic
notions of how we can manipulate our own lives and
manipulate the world around us.
I think, you know, obviously with vampires and things like
that it’s much more straightforward, it’s much more
character based and with time travel you really do need a
mythology to hold it all together. You need rules and you
need a history that you can build on so that the stakes of
time travel have context.
And I don’t know if that’s something that necessarily will
spread or not, I hope it does. I mean, I think there’s lots
of opportunities in time travel that even Continuum doesn’t
get to exploit but I know that when you look at stories like
the Terminator series of movies and the TV show and even
Back to the Future or even H.G. Wells, when it works well it
usually involves the personal journey and the personal
stakes of time travel and that usually involves
relationships and love and things like that.
So, you know, they’re not so far apart but one is definitely
a lot more - requires a little bit more math which was never
my strong suit.
Sundi Rose: Right, definitely. Right, and I just have one
more quick one for Rachel about your character and folks
really seem to connect to her and relate to her and that is
wonderful that they can but how do you sort of play her
because she’s making a lot of really morally ambiguous
choices and throughout things and so how do you keep her
kind of grounded in a place where people love her and can
connect to her choices and understand her choices?
Rachel Nichols: I think, you know, Kiera and I and it now
being Season 3 we’re one in the same. I’ve learned from her,
she’s learned from me. I think what Kiera does best and the
show does best is show that in Season 1 for Kiera when she’s
in 2077 and her world is very black and white. There are
good guys and there are bad guys and she’s a good guy,
Liber8 are the bad guys and as she comes back to the present
day and she begins living in the present day her idea of
what is good and bad, she has to - it starts to change.
There’s a metamorphosis there and slowly but surely she
starts asking herself questions that she never would have
asked herself in 2077 but she’s seeing what the world is
like today and she’s comparing it to her future and slowly
but surely as Season 1 and Season 2 roll out, although yes
she’s desperate to get home to her son and her husband, she
starts to understand Liber8 in a way that I think nobody
ever thought she would but she kind of starts to understand
them at the same rate that people watching the show start to
understand them because in 2077 in the beginning they are
bad, she is good, it’s very black and white.
So her moral compass changes or almost as much or at the
same time as the audience is learning about Liber8 and Kiera
comes to the realization that although she may not support
Liber8’s tactic maybe their endgame makes sense, maybe their
goal makes sense because starting their grassroots campaign
65 years in the past may bring about a future 2077, a far
better future than where she came from.
So, she’s got a learning curve and I’m proud of her, I’m
proud of the writing for letting her gradually figure that
out and gradually roll out with the questions about her
future and was it such a good place and what was corrupt and
what wasn’t and who the good guys are and who the bad guys
are. So she does have to take that journey and she does make
some - she makes some decisions that Kiera from 2077 would
never have believed she would make and I think that speaks
to her changing as a person and adapting to this new world
and understanding that maybe there’s a better world to be
made through sort of open-mindedness and a lot of those
(seeds) are very much laid out in Season 3.
Sundi Rose: I really like that she’s coming around to things
at the same time as the audience, that’s probably the thing,
the connection, I think. So that’s really interesting. Those
were my questions, thank you.
Rachel Nichols: Yeah, thank you. Oh, awesome, well thank
you.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Kevin
Bachelder with TuningIntoSciFi.com. Please proceed with your
question.
Kevin Bachelder: Hey gang, thanks very much for doing
another one of these calls, the previous ones have been
great. Thank you.
Rachel Nichols: Oh we love these, come on I’m sitting on my
sofa, it's awesome. I’m so excited.
Kevin Bachelder: Separate questions for each of you,
naturally ladies first. Rachel, you were talking a little
bit about this in some previous questions but talking about
different character relationships, certainly the one with
Garza that kind of threw us off here at the beginning of
Season 3 but I’m curious to hear your thoughts a little bit
about the Kiera, Kellog relationship which has kind of been
all over the map certainly in the first couple of seasons.
Rachel Nichols: Yeah.
Kevin Bachelder: I mean, do you have a thought on where that
might be going or how you approach playing it because on any
given day you seem to either be aligned with him or very
much disdainful towards him?
Rachel Nichols: I think the scenes between Kiera and Kellog
are - she goes into them very much knowing that, yeah, if
she goes in letting Kellog think he’s charming her she’ll
probably get what she wants but she goes in giving him a
pretty hard time. She also might get what she wants as well.
Kellog is a very interesting Liber8 member because he’s the
one who in Season 1 when everybody was trying to get back in
time he said, no, I’m not going! I’m not interested. I’m
going to stay here. I want these meats, these cheeses, I
love it, he can play the future, the stock market, he can
become a rich man, he doesn’t want to go back and everybody
wants to go back.
And I think there was something intriguing in that and then
at the end of Season 2 Kellog, you know, approaches Kiera
before she’s going to see Alec in the (antimatter) lab where
he’s like, no, I’m going with you. He changed his mind and
he’s going to go back.
So they do this back and forth, they do this dance like he
is essentially a conduit in many ways between Liber8 and
Kiera and that’s a vicarious position to be in but sometimes
for Kiera there’s no option there and he’s kind of the
go-between and he knows it.
I - there’s always the question of did they or didn’t they
and I love it when the fans are speculating about what
really happened that night on the boat. I have my own ideas,
everybody else has their own ideas, I usually try to keep
them to myself but the Kiera, Kellog, relationship, I think,
will continue to grow and to become complex and I really
hope in this weird way that at one point Kellog really needs
Kiera and she actually really wants to help him but I don’t
know if that’s happening yet. So you’ll have to ask Simon
about that.
Simon Barry: I’ll never tell.
Rachel Nichols: I know.
Kevin Bachelder: Very good. I also - just on a quick side
note, just got a kick, just saw the Season 2 DVD bonus
features and as a fellow New Englander it was great to see
you wearing your Patriots jacket.
Rachel Nichols: Oh, well thank you. I’m a - yeah, I’m a big
Pat fan, I’ve always been a Pat’s fan. I’m not a
fair-weather Pats fan, I was a fan when they were the worst
in the league for about ten years so when they started
getting good I was thrilled. So now that I live in Vancouver
fulltime, I’m a Pats fan but I have an agreement that once
the Pats are out for the season I cheer for the Seahawks. So
last year worked out great for me.
Kevin Bachelder: Very good. Excellent, thank you. Simon, a
question for you. Back on the first media call that we did,
you talked about how one of the important things that you
had worked with the writers with, certainly when you folks
got started, was that you knew where the show would end and
I’m curious now that you’re a couple of seasons in and the
natural flow of the show, certain actors really become
important, certain ideas come in that weren’t there before,
I’m wondering how much that may or may not have changed?
Simon Barry: Well, you know, plotting out the seasons of TV
is kind of like planning a road trip from one city to
another, you know where you’re going to end your journey and
you hope that you make it there but the roads that you take
to get there can be varied and you can surprise yourself
along the way. And I’d probably use that analogy for
Continuum. We’ve really had a great, even in Season 3,
surprises that are, I guess, part of the natural process of
trying to fill that road trip, if you will, with as many
side adventures as possible and sometimes those small things
that you never imagined would be small become larger detours
and so while we’ve never really deviated from where we’re
heading the surprises are constant when it comes to how the
show evolves and the stories that we start to tell within
that journey. So it’s very rewarding to know that we can
have the clarity of direction work that we know where we
want the show to go and we know sort of the big moments in
the season that I want to see play out and at the same time
be open enough to explore storylines, character
developments, relationships that you can’t conceive of that,
all of those, details in the first season, that’s just
impossible to have that much clarity of detail I think.
So it’s a great balance I think for us. I hope the audience
feels the same way but we are always encouraged by, I guess,
the foundation of characters that we’ve created and the
various storylines that we can mind those for sometimes more
than we thought, sometimes less but everything - as long as
it feels like it’s all part of a larger journey, I have no
problem with slightly deviating from the freeway or the
interstate and going on some side roads for a little bit
because those are the roads that usually provide the most
memorable moments on the trip.
Kevin Bachelder: Excellent, well thank you both, I
appreciate it very much.
Rachel Nichols: Absolutely, thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Ernie
Estrella with Buzzfocus.com. Please proceed with your
question.
Ernie Estrella: Morning. I wanted to first ask Simon, every
season there seems to be other characters that emerge from
the background and into the front of the stage. Could you
maybe talk about maybe some of the characters that you
wanted to explore this season and give a new spotlight?
Simon Barry: Yeah, we have an overabundance of great actors
on the show and for a show that is as dense as Continuum is
in terms of the stories that you try to tell and the number
of threads that we’re trying to service, it’s always a
challenge for us to pick a single one and sort of bring it
into the spotlight. This year I think I can safely say that
we’re sort of getting back into our core group of characters
and exploring a little bit more of what I think makes the
show tick from a character point of view. Also, with Kiera
always, there’s always opportunities with Kiera to show a
new side of her, to show a new experience that will show a
side of her that we haven’t seen before and we’re kind of
taking that back with almost all of our, I would say, our
central characters whether they be from Liber8 or whether
they be, you know, the police department.
There are side stories that involve Dillon, that involves
Betty, that involve Travis, that involve Sonya, it’s - for
me we really sort of looked inward this season in terms of
pulling stories out that we felt would allow the series, not
the series, the season to coalesce at the end in a way that
you felt like you had gotten all of the information that you
needed to earn the moment that we’re planning for the end of
the season. And so for us it was really an opportunity to
take what is already a great resource, which is our amazing
central cast and take a deeper look at them.
Ernie Estrella: Great, and then for Rachel, Season 2 you got
to really explore a lot of the emotions that have been
building within Kiera and been able to exercise that out and
really see more of that in Season 3 or do we feel like we’ve
kind of gone beyond that and now it’s much more focused and
more, I guess, cast driven Kiera?
Rachel Nichols: You know, that’s an interesting question
and, yeah, I mean, Season 2 the first episode that comes to
mind is the Episode 5 in Continuum where she said goodbye to
my son which is probably the hardest thing that I ever had
to shoot and I don’t even have a son, I don’t even have a
child, I couldn’t imagine how excruciating that would be if
it was actually a real life scenario.
There are always parts of Kiera that will be emotional and
torn and she’s a bit of a bird with a broken wing having
been transported back 65 years in time and there will never,
I don’t believe, no matter how many seasons they go, they
don’t believe there will ever come a time where she becomes
all business, no emotion, terminator style unless Liber8
takes over her brain again.
But I think this season brings on kind of a new
emotionality, there is the idea of sacrifice which Simon
talked about and then an answer to another question and I
call it for the greater good, the idea that Kiera wants to
make a better future than the one that she came from and in
doing that it may cost her a lot, it may cost her everything
that she actually knows from 2077.
Her relationship with Alec this season is also something
that creates a new emotionality given, you know, and I’m not
speaking out of turn, there are two Alec Sadlers in the
first episode of Season 3 and they come to be two very
different Alec Sadlers and yet for Kiera they’re both Alec
Sadler and they’re both this sort of genius kid brother that
she’s had for three seasons and that relationship between
Kiera and Alec who travels back to save Emily and Kiera and
Alec who didn’t travel back to save Emily is very
complicated and that’s a real emotional strain on her this
season.
There is the idea that, you know, her relationship with
Carlos becomes very strained as well and in many ways,
Season 3 is very, very lonely for Kiera because she’s kind
of gone rogue, she’s lost a couple of friends, who knows if
she can trust freelancers or not and she’s very much sort of
a lone wolf and is something that we’ve seen before but
emotionally I think there’s been an opportunity for Kiera to
stretch in every season and for Rachel to stretch and for
Kiera to learn; it’s something that I think is very
important to the show and even yesterday shooting a scene
I’m not even saying goodbye to a character, I’m saying, I’m
counting on it and I can’t help welling up.
I say thank you to Carlos in one scene and I can’t help
welling up. This season definitely took its toll on a lot of
Kiera’s relationships and a lot of the emotionality that you
see this season will be derived from those situations and
the changes that are brought about in those relationships.
Ernie Estrella: Great, well I can’t wait. The first episode
was great and it even took me back to your movie, Raze which
you did with Zoe Bell so...
Rachel Nichols: Nice, I love it.
Ernie Estrella: Same wardrobe right?
Rachel Nichols: Thank you. Yeah. Thanks Ernie.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Joshua
Maloney with Niagara Frontier Publications. Please proceed
with your question.
Joshua Maloney: Thank you. Rachel, I have a couple of
questions for you and I apologize I’m late for the call so
if you’ve already answered this I’m sorry but with
everything that Kiera’s been through and you talked about
that she will continue to go through this season, where does
she find the strength to keep going and keep pressing
forward to make this a better future?
Rachel Nichols: I think she finds the strength a lot in the
- when she arrived in 2012 in Season 1 she comes back 65
years in time and she - when she left 2077 it was very black
and white, there was good and there was evil. She was good,
Liber8 were evil, that’s it and as she comes back and she
starts spending time in the present day and she sees what is
offered in the present day and she begins in Season 1 and
Season 2 to learn how rough her future is, I think a lot of
her strength comes from the idea that - her sadness comes
from not getting back to her family; there’s that problem
that’s always hanging over her head but her strength comes
from the idea and the lessons that take her, you know, the
first two and the beginning part of three seasons to learn,
she has the opportunity here to make a better future for
everyone and although it may cost her significantly in
reuniting with her husband and son meaning that that may
never happen, she derives her strength, I believe, from
knowing that she can exact change and she may have to form
alliances and she may have questionable relationships with
people that she once was trying to put to death but there is
the opportunity here to enact change that will make 2077 a
much better place and I think knowing that for her at the
back of her head somewhere even when she’s completely alone
and at odds with Alec and at odds with Carlos and very
confused about who the freelancers are. I think in her
moment of darkness the idea that she can, she has the power,
while collaborating with other people to make a better world
for essentially all of humanity. I would say she derives her
strength from there.
Joshua Maloney: Right. You talk about a third season and
that’s what a lot of SYFY shows don’t get nowadays, there’s
a lot of really good SYFY shows so they’re going to have a
tough time getting a second season at this point, why do you
think most people are connecting with you and your cast
mates and your characters and these storylines as opposed to
some other shows where there’s sort of a disconnect?
Rachel Nichols: I think - well, not only because we’re on
the phone with Simon Barry am I going to say this but I
think it has a lot to do with the writing but I will tell
you why. I think that what makes our show very interesting
is, first, you have your time travel element which allows
for a very large number of stories to be told and provided
that you create a mythology of time travel for your show
when you’re writing a show and you stick to it, it’s a
suspension of disbelief. If you do it right and you follow
the rules of your own time travel mechanism then it’s easily
believable and people expect it from the beginning.
Then you go to the characters in the show. Now, we have at
the beginning, you know, you’ve got the CPS from the future,
you’ve got Liber8, you quickly learn about Alec Sadler and
then you get in the VPD from the present day and there are
so many characters that there’s a little something for
everyone, everybody that watches the show, even someone that
wants a procedural show can tune in every week and we do
solve a problem but the interesting thing is in the
beginning when you start to think, okay, Liber8’s bad, Kiera
is good and then we travel back in time and then as Kiera
starts questioning how good is her version of good and how
bad is her version of bad and she starts asking herself a
lot of moral questions about was I completely wrong in the
future, was I completely blind? Has it taken me to travel
back in time 65 years to wake up? She has these realizations
much at the same time the audience does and since they
become connected to these relationships because whether it’s
her relationship with Alec or her relationship with Carlos,
her relationship with Kellog, her relationship with Garza in
the first episode, there are all these opportunities for
sort of growth and alliances and the idea of trying to make
a better future than the one that she came from.
So, I’d like to think that there’s something, there’s one
character that every audience member can relate to and then
there are various relationships that every audience member
can relate to and keeping in with the mythology I think is a
very important part of the show as well. And so we have our
set of rules and we stick to our set of rules and then
people keep tuning in every week because they know that
they’re not going to be disappointed and, I mean, I hope I’m
right. If I’m wrong I don’t know...
Joshua Maloney: That is excellent. Thank you very much.
Operator: Our next question is a follow-up question from the
line of Jamie Ruby with ScifiVision.com. Please proceed with
your question.
Jamie Ruby: Hi again.
Rachel Nichols: Hi Jamie.
Jamie Ruby: I think you’re right Rachel to say that after
that conversation I definitely agree with that. I was going
to ask - I know you sort of started to talk about Kiera and
Carlos this season a bit but now, and this is kind of, I
guess, assuming that it doesn’t get rewritten when things
change but assuming that he is still going to know about
what’s going on with Kiera, can you talk about how that will
continue to, you know, change the relationship over the
season?
Rachel Nichols: Yeah, you know, there’s - Kiera and Carlos I
mean, it’s a very interesting relationship and in the
episode last year, I think it was Episode 8 when I said that
the line was Carlos, I’m from the future, essentially we had
that conversation.
Simon Barry: That was six.
Rachel Nichols: That was six, oh, thank you Simon. You know,
that was something where I initially thought, oh God, we’re
telling Carlos I’m from the future this quickly. Oh God,
couldn’t we save that for a little while and then I
realized, no, we can’t. Kiera needs someone in the present
day that knows her situation even if it costs her a lot to
tell him, even if he may not believe it, even though he may
struggle with it, she’s going to have to be a support system
likely getting him through - sort of getting him through it.
But it is extremely important that if she has someone on the
inside and he’s the man that she trusts and, you know, in
Season 1 I could say, well, it’s complicated or I had these
little sort of lines that I could say and I was lying to my
best friend.
Essentially, you know, between Alec and Carlos those are
Kiera’s best friends in the present day and it was an
excruciating thing for Kiera to lie to her best friend every
day being Carlos.
So she (left) him into this world, it’s obviously something
that takes him a while to deal with and he sort of says, you
know what, everything seems impossible until it’s not
impossible anymore and, all right, I’m going to get on a
ship with you because Carlos is not stupid and we couldn’t
treat him like he was stupid for three seasons not telling
him the truth.
So this season, and I know a lot of you have seen the first
episode and I’m sorry if I’m spoiling, but we go back in
time to the point before Emily was killed and there are two
Alec Sadlers and there are two Kiera Cameron’s. Well, by the
end of that episode there’s only one Kiera Cameron left so
believe it or not although you might think the hardest thing
that I would ever have to tell Carlos is that I’m from the
future...
Simon Barry: Yeah, don’t print that part though.
Rachel Nichols: What, wait, what? Now, I don’t know what I’m
allowed to say.
Simon Barry: Well, no, you can say it but I would say we -
you can say it but I think we don’t want to put it in the
blogs before Friday.
Jamie Ruby: I’m afraid of whose reading. Go ahead.
Rachel Nichols: Oh yeah. Oh God, now I don’t know what to
say.
Simon Barry: No, no, no, you’re safe. You’re safe.
Rachel Nichols: Just the idea that we thought it was going
to be difficult for Carlos to stomach that she was from the
future. Well, how is Carlos going to stomach what he sees at
the end of Episode 1 that’s me getting around not saying
what happened at the end of Episode 1 that’s an even bigger
obstacle for him and that is - their relationship this
season totally is taken on that relationship because of that
circumstance and they end up - you know, we’re shooting the
finale now and they go through their ins and outs but I
think I can safely say that their relationship remains
intact although forever changed in Season 3.
Jamie Ruby: Awesome, great. Thank you so much.
Rachel Nichols: Thank you Jamie.
Simon Barry: Thank you very much.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Tim
Holquinn with (ScreenFab), please proceed with your
question.
Tim Holquinn: Hi, it’s me again.
Rachel Nichols: Hi.
Tim Holquinn: Hi, Rachel, the first question is for you
again. The last couple episodes of Season 2 really put Kiera
through the ringer physically and I know you enjoy doing the
majority of your own stunts so I’m just curious if you were
injured anytime during those final episodes of Season 2?
Rachel Nichols: I love this question. I (love doing any and
every) stunt that I can. I can’t swim underwater without
plugging my noise so if Kiera’s ever swimming underwater you
know it’s not me but, yes, I mean, there’s this (epic) fight
scene at the end of Season 2 between Kiera and Travis and
Roger Cross is one of my favorite people in the world and he
hates when I tell this story but we were shooting that huge
fight sequence at the end and we were getting ready to - we
had been shooting all day and he has this thing where he’s
grabbing my face and slamming me down on the ground. At the
beginning of the day I looked at Roger’s hand, the one that
he was slamming into the face and I thought, wow, wardrobe
really put a gigantic ring on him, I hope I don’t get dinned
with that. And then, of course, at the end of the sequence
his hand lands wrong and I just get dummied by the ring on
his hand, it’s my upper temple, I see stars for the first
time in my life. I actually get a bit of a welt which then
ends up being placed perfectly because we used it in the end
of the episode.
But, you know, I’ve never been horribly injured. I bruise
incredibly easily which is always really fun for Michael, my
almost husband, because I hate the word fiancé, he likes to
make me wear like long sleeves everywhere so he doesn’t have
to explain the reason I’m covered with bruises.
But knock on wood, luckily I’ve never been seriously injured
and I do so enjoy the physical part of the role that I
wouldn’t change any of the bruises or the little scars that
I have for anything. I think they’re all sort of badges of
honor.
Tim Holquinn: Yeah, those last couple of episodes of Season
2 were pretty tough for you it looked like?
Rachel Nichols: Yeah, they were aggressive, they were very
tough. There was lot of - you know, obviously no, I did not
get thrown into the glass cabinet, that was (Atland) one of
my amazing jump people. There are certain things I’m not
allowed to do nor would I want to, but, yeah, and I like
that we go full throttle because our stunt coordinator for
all three seasons is amazing an I love when his talent shows
up on the screen because every fight scene he choreographs
so it’s always nice when we get to actually shoot a fight
scene to its fullest and it comes out on screen and it looks
fantastic.
Tim Holquinn: I can tell you - I winced a lot when you build
after that time-travel device when the ball was rolling down
and you were falling left and right.
Rachel Nichols: Oh wow, (Roger Sugar). Isn’t that it, (Roger
Sugar), am I not supposed to say that, oh God, I’m annoyed.
Simon Barry: That’s right, yeah. That was right, that was
(Roger Sugar), Amanda
Rachel Nichols: Oh yes. You actually went there on your own,
Tim; that’s a terrible idea.
Tim Holquinn: It just looked brutal. Simon, last question
for you; now having worked with Rachel, Erik and Victor for
just about three full seasons what qualities about them
personally and professionally have surprised you the most
and surpassed your initial expectations since you got all of
that started?
Simon Barry: Oh wow, well, I guess the most obvious thing
about all three of them is how just insanely talented they
are and how really we just have to put a camera at them and
let them go. There’s really very little, I think all the
directors would agree, myself included that these are actors
who are so prepared, have done so much homework when it
comes to showing up on set. I don’t just mean things like
learning their lines, I really feel like all of the actors
on the show have thought things through to a point where the
nuance of their performance, the understanding of what
they’re doing is just - it’s just right there and we just
have to turn on the camera and catch it and that’s probably
the best thing that you could ever ask for with a
collaborative cast is that they do as much as you do in
terms of prep and showing up and being not only super
professional people but just a pleasant people too; nice,
really genuinely goodhearted, generous and respectful
personalities that, you know, make your day just that much
more of a pleasure.
So, for that reason I think of all three of them as not only
great actors but also just great people and happy, very
proud, to call all of them friends. And, you know, I think
the surprise for me, if I had to be surprised at anything
would be the depth of talent. I think that just in terms of
what we’ve asked Rachel, Victor and Erik to do, the places
that they would never have guessed the show would go when
they originally signed on and the sort of character changes
that we’ve - and the changes we’ve put them through, they’ve
really sort of just never shied away, never been anything
other than completely aggressive and embracing of these
choices and decisions and it’s just been a great
collaboration.
In that sense it’s really a team effort because when you
know you can take Erik to a place and he’ll deliver, you
write that way accordingly and the same with Rachel and the
same with Victor. We’re not shy about what we can do with
them in the writers room and that just translates on the set
and that’s great, that’s the kind of freedom, I think, any
show runner dreams of because you just want to be able to
stretch as a creative person and you want the people around
you to stretch with you and that’s certainly the case in
this show.
Tim Holquinn: Well, thank you for that insight and for
keeping the quality so high on the show overall.
Rachel Nichols: Thank you.
Simon Barry: Thank you very much.
Rachel Nichols: We love hearing that.
Tim Holquinn: Thank you.
Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Kevin
Bachelder with TuningIntoSciFi.com. Please proceed with your
question.
Kevin Bachelder: Separate questions for you. Rachel, kind of
a fun one for you because I know it’s a very collaborative
process that you folks have talked about as far as what, you
know, you bring to Kiera and what gets written for it. Is
there anything that you’re kind of working hard to get the
writers to do for her that she hasn’t been able to do yet?
Rachel Nichols: Oh gosh, well that’s an interesting
question. I mean, for me - and I always liken it to my
experience on Alias where I wait to get the script, I like
to be on a need-to-know basis, I get the scripts and then I
just plow through them as quickly as I can because I want to
see what happens next. I don’t what to know in advance of
the season what’s supposed to happen with Kiera, what may or
may not happen with Kiera, what they want, I’m on a
need-to-know basis and I like to keep it that way because I
like to be surprised, I like the idea of getting scripts and
not knowing what’s going to happen and then say, oh no he
isn’t, oh my gosh, I can’t believe that! Just like, just
imagining what the audience will feel when the episodes are
on the screen and they’re watching these major things
happen.
I have never suggested any storyline be written for my
character and I’ve also never been disappointed by any
storyline written for my character. I do like the idea that
we’ve been working on for three seasons now about how Kiera
becomes very aware that it may be - that the future that she
came from wasn’t that great and maybe all that sparkles is
not gold if you take her from 2077 where there’s a very
different idea of black and white, good versus evil, and as
soon as she steps back in time 65 years her belief system
slowly but surely begins to change and the fact that she’s
allowed, as a character, to change her moral code and her
belief system and her ideas of where she came from is also a
testament to the writing because it’s a brave choice to make
for her to have her world completely rocked and reassess
what’s going to happen.
But as far as going in, suggesting things, I mean the - you
know, I’ve always wanted to play like a gun-slinging baddy
but I don’t think they’re going to turn me completely evil.
I mean, I could be entirely wrong but I’ve been so satisfied
and challenged by everything that’s been given me thus far.
I’m a strong believer of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, so
I’ll just let them do their job and get it on the page and
then I’ll do my job and take it from the page to the screen
and I’m happy to just sign up for that part.
And who knows, in seasons to come maybe they’ll be something
that I want but as of right know my acting needs Rachel and
my character needs it’s Kiera are completely faceted.
Kevin Bachelder: Excellent. And then for you Simon, you were
talking about, again, going back to those Season 2 DVD
feature, you were talking about how when you were shooting
the Season 1 finale, that’s when you kind of got the idea
for how you were going to open Season 2. I’m wondering now
that you’re coming up to the end of Season 3 filming, do you
know where Season 4 is going to begin?
Simon Barry: Well I definitely know where it’s going to
begin, where it ends might be a bit of a mystery. No, the -
we tend to try and think of our seasons like chapters in the
writers room and because we have a consistency of writers
coming back again and again, there’s a - it’s hard to not
have conversations about where the next season will go and
what we are T’ing up.
And essentially we start every season the same way in the
writers room which is to sort of look back and say, what
have we accomplished, what have we earned and how - we know
some of the sort of benchmarks that we want to make in terms
of moving the story forward and we want to make sure that
we’ve done all of the work that we’ve needed to do to allow
the audience to believe that we’ve earned the right to get
to that next market.
And so this season as with all of the seasons in the room we
try to think about the end game as early as possible and
usually by midseason we are starting to think about the
following season and where that endgame takes us. So we’ve
certainly done - we’ve had a lot of conversations, very
lively conversations about where Season 4 will end.
We absolutely are tied into where it begins because we’ve
built the end of Season 3 towards that point and I know, in
this day and age, it’s always risky to do that because you
never know when your last season is going to be sometimes
but we’ve been fairly aggressive about that in the past and
we don’t really want to stop doing that until somebody calls
us and says, if that ever happens, which it will happen one
day, they’ll give us the heads up and say, oh, this is -
you’ve got two let and you should wrap it up.
That hasn’t happened yet so we’re sort of approach it as if
we are going to go on and on and on and that’s kind of a
great way to start to tell stories because then you feel
like you can take your time and, you know, I think what
Rachel has said a couple of times today is true, we feel a
great deal of, you know, we’re lucky. We feel very lucky
that we have the time to tell stories in a way that we do to
not rush through character development, to not rush through
certain story points and allow characters to grow in a much
more natural, believable way and that’s one of the great
things about TV right now is that you can do that, you can
really take advantage of that almost novel like approach to
storytelling and really think of things in terms of chapters
or even books.
And so, you know, to answer your question, we have a plan
and we definitely know where we’re going to be starting
Season 4. I think one of the big parts of the job is walking
into the room and define what you think is going to happen
with better ideas from people who have a different take on
it than you do and that’s one of the best parts of my job is
working with a really imaginative, talented group of writers
and putting them all in a position to prove me wrong or even
to one-up me as much as they can creatively and I love that.
I love that these writers do that and I love that they’re as
invested in the show as I am and want it to be as good as it
can be.
Gary Morgenstein: And I’m sorry but our time is up. Thank
you Rachel, Simon...
Rachel Nichols: Oh, thank you! Thank you guys.
Simon Barry: Thank you everyone and thank you for supporting
Continuum again every year. Thank you.
Gary Morgenstein: This is great, thank you.
Rachel Nichols: Absolutely, thank you guys so much.
Gary Morgenstein: This Friday at 10:00. Thank you everyone,
take care!
Simon Barry: Bye-bye.
Rachel Nichols: Bye.
Gary Morgenstein: Bye.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the
conference call for today, we thank you for your
participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.
Have a good day everyone.
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