Watch below, in four parts…..the interview Ian did for his voice over role of Peet the Sockman with Chris Wall and Andrew Peterson.
Voicing Peet is a unique and fun experience for Ian and it was enjoyable to hear him talk of it.
Fans will also be pleased to know, he’ll be back voicing Peet for season two of The Wingfeather Saga!
Season one of The Wingfeather Saga concludes this Friday, March 10, 2023, with a finale watch party of all 6 episodes. Watch on the Angel App!
Thank you to Mark Brennan at Exit6FilmFest.com for this new interview with Henry Ian Cusick. Ian discusses acting, directing, his indie film ‘dress’ which marked his directorial debut and the current coronavirus lock down the US and world is experiencing right now. Read the article in it’s entirety below:
Henry Ian Cusick, star of Lost, The 100 and MacGyver, talks to us about making his short film dress, lessons learned both as an actor and a director during the process, and the challenges between directing short film and television series.
Nowhere is completely safe in the middle of a pandemic, but if you had to think of preferred places for this period of isolation, Hawaii might make the list. And if there’s one man that knows about isolation in Hawaii, it’s Lost star Henry Ian Cusick.
When Boris Johnson announced the UK lockdown, it didn’t take long for references to Cusick’s Lost character Desmond Hume to surface as a comparison for how people might spend their own time in isolation. It’s a reference that must have reached Cusick quickly.
“I’ve seen a few memes and few things on Twitter about it. It’s been fun. It’s funny how quick you do get into a routine and it does involve working out. I never would workout as much as I do now, but every morning I do because it’s something to kill time. My family keep urging me to do a reenactment in the house of the whole quarantine episode during the opening of series 2. Maybe I’ll get round to it.”
Despite my encouragement, we must wait in hope that it will be the next home video to take Twitter by storm. However, when it was coronavirus taking the world by storm, eventually taking hold in the US, Cusick was in Atlanta filming the latest series of MacGyver. How quickly did they realise something was very wrong?
“We went back to work in January of 2020 after a big break. I was hearing a lot about Wuhan at the time. There’s a big Chinese community here in Hawaii and there was a Chinese New Year, so I’d been hearing about it. Then as things progressed we had the big spectrum of opinions on set. They ranged from ‘Ah, it’s nothing, forget about it’, to ‘Whoa, just don’t touch me,’ and “Why is that person coughing and not wearing a mask?’ I just thought ‘There’s no way we’re going to finish the season’.
“Then we got a phone call halfway through Episode 20 saying, ‘we’re going to shut down’. We just sort of downed tools and left. I think Grey’s Anatomy was the first one I read that shut down. We all followed very quickly after that. The rumour is we’ll go back and finish the season when we can get the all-clear.”
In the meantime, Cusick has safely reunited with his family on his home island Hawaii, which is the location for the short film that has prompted for our chat – his directorial debut dress.
It’s a poetic and emotional tale of Ben and his two sons as they struggle to cope with the death of his wife Maile. In searching for an appropriate way to grieve, Ben creates drama, confusion and a whole new way of remembering Mom.
“I was just so keen to direct something, having spent time writing pilots, and I had this idea while my wife was away. I was in the kitchen and I could hear the kids coming home and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if I was just standing here cleaning up the kitchen wearing a dress?’.
“Then I thought ‘why would I be wearing a dress and how would it affect them?’ Then it went on, ‘What are the taboos of wearing a dress?’ I can wear a sarong, that’s okay, but I’m not allowed to wear a dress. Why is that? It just snowballed from there.
“I approached my friend Angela Laprete, who was one of the producers on Lost and I said, ‘I have this idea for a film. I’m just going to shoot it at home with me and my kids. It will cost nothing, shoot on a couple of 5D cameras, will you help me out?’ She said, ‘Yes’. Then a month later there’s 35-40 crew in my house, two Red cameras, and we were shooting dress! It was phenomenal.”
Much of the team that Cusick and producer Angela Laprete were able to pull together, including DOP Don King and stunt coordinator Brian L. Keaulana, were also Lost alumni (even the films composer Michael Giacchino). The project also gave a chance for some crew to work a level above where they might normally, an additional incentive when many, if not all, gave their time for free.
One striking sequence early in the film beautifully captured is a funeral at sea. Seeing a scene of such grief play out against a backdrop of what is something of a literal paradise, is a powerful contrast.
“I’ve always been aware that Hawaii, it is sort of paradise. I was aware of doing this beautiful ceremony at sea, which is very common here. Funerals are usually beautiful things because you’re in the sea and it’s usually a sunny day and everyone jumps in the water. That is kind of inherent here in Hawaii.
“Of course, the day we did the funeral scene, it was quite cloudy! I boosted the colours in post, but it was a cold, wet day. We were there all day and it was pretty windy. Usually, Lanikai is completely flat. It’s one of the flattest parts of the island.
Speaking of colour-correction, it was post-production where Cusick learned the most. It was a process that took over a month while staying with friend and editor Mitchell Sinoway.
“Post-production, for me, that was definitely the biggest learning curve. I had to redo my sound because it wasn’t good enough. I found the editing really tricky. Getting one part of the scene right meant another would lag, and just having to balance it all out to make it all work continuously was really quite challenging.
“I remember when I finished filming, one of the crew said to me, ‘Okay, you filmed it, now you’ve got to edit it’. I think he was throwing down the gauntlet in a way, ‘Now we’ll see if you can direct’. That’s when you can make or break a film, when you’re in the editing process. Even with an episode of anything, that’s when magic can happen and when you can change the whole storytelling dynamic.”
Going back to more familiar territory, having worked with numerous directors in the past, how did he find directing himself?
“The pressure from me on myself as an actor, I really enjoyed that. I knew exactly what I wanted for myself, so I didn’t have to spend too much time looking at what I did. I started off looking at the monitor and then it just took too long. My actors head would say, ‘I don’t like the way I did that.’ So I had to stop doing that. I had to trust my DP and my cameraman. I would give myself one maybe two takes and move on.
“Usually, when you’re working on film and TV, you’re going to want to warm up two to maybe three takes. By the third take, you’re usually getting it right. Not in this case. I would rather spend the time on the other actors.
It was having the opportunity to direct other actors for the first time where Cusick felt really at home, with many of the cast first-time actors themselves. The experience also taught him a lot about himself as an actor and how easy (or otherwise) he may have been to direct in the past.
“That’s one of the things that directing has helped me a lot with, because for a little while I would say I couldn’t be directed [laughs]. A guest director coming in to direct me in a TV series would have found it very difficult because I was set in my ways and I knew best. It taught me a lot to listen and respect other people’s views because they’re only trying to help.
“But you have that thing of having to hand over trust to a director. It’s very hard to do that in episodic TV where somebody is coming in and you have to just say, ‘Well, I don’t know who you are. I’m just going to trust you. You just put the camera there and I will do what I do, don’t give me any notes’ [laughs]. So working with actors, I really enjoyed that, and I really felt I could help them. Especially actors who had never acted before.”
Working with actors from behind the camera wasn’t the only experience that helped him progress as a director. The nature of short filmmaking, the quick decisions needed when time, funding and circumstances are working against you, helped when it came to keeping his head directing episodes of The 100.
“Yes, it had been something that I had seen in other directors, how they lead. I’ve seen directors kick things over and start shouting and swearing when things go wrong. I’ve seen other directors just improvise and say, ‘Fine we’ll do it this way’. I’ve always admired people who can do that when the shit hits the fan.
“There’s a poem, ‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you. But make allowance for their doubting too’. That is just like a great opening line for any director. That did help me a lot, not only as a director but in life.”
I offer that it must be difficult to parachute into a running series as a guest director, when the cast and crew are very much already in the groove of what they’re doing.
“Absolutely. That is very difficult. The director has to win the trust of the crew. Not only the actors but the crew because that’s important. If you lose the trust of the crew, the crew will just ride over you. It’s a machine and I’ve seen directors just get snowballed. They’re still thinking of the last setup and we’re moving onto the next one. It’s a fine balancing act. Keeping the crew happy, keeping the actors happy, getting your vision across.
“Since I’ve directed, I’m a lot more open to that now. I’m listening and I’m thinking, ‘I’m on your side now’. Before I used to be only on the actors side [laughs]. Now I’m listening to the director and asking, ‘What’s your vision? What do you want? Okay, I’m going to help you out as much as I can.’ I’m now trying to be the actor that I would like to direct.”
Looking back at dress now, and the beginning of his journey as a director, what advice would he go back and give himself, or indeed another other filmmaker about to produce their first film?
“Well, I was very fortunate with dress. I had a lot of crew, a lot of help, but one thing I did do was rehearse. I got all the actors to come over to my house. We rehearsed every single scene before we shot it. I knew exactly what I was doing. That I would definitely do again. That saved me a lot of time on the day.
“I think I would have liked to learn more about the camera, and about the shots that I wanted to get. My DP did a great job and I love what he did, but I think we could have gone a little bit cooler, a little bit more experimental. I think when making a short, you can have fun, you can take chances, which you can’t do when doing television.”
“If I were to do another short, I would be a lot more experimental, a lot more avant-garde. Try things that you just to know you wouldn’t be allowed to do in the real world. You might as well go for it.”
You can watch dress online here.
You can follow Henry Ian Cusick on Twitter: @HICusick
Article by Mark Brennan for Exit6FilmFest.com
MacGyver has changed – again.
In its fourth season, the new version of MacGyver made some major cast changes. With George Eads’s Jack Dalton character’s exit, the show was ripe to be rethought, and that’s exactly what the creators of the show did.
One of those changes was the addition of Henry Ian Cusick as new character Russ Taylor. Cusick explains, “We’ve made quite a bit of changes and a new character, called Russ Taylor. And the remit of him, he’s Oxford educated, ex MI-6, a scoundrel, and trying to atone for his past. He joins the Phoenix and Mac’s team, trying to do good now in the world.
“We find out what he used to do, and how he came about to be the person he is. And trying to better himself, I suppose.”
Cusick’s previous work tended to be somewhat heavier fare, so he is thoroughly enjoying the lighter tone of MacGyver. He says, “I have to tell you, I’m actually having a blast. I’ve not had this much fun in a role for a long time. I usually play, not usually, but I have recently played a lot of characters who have this angst, trying to save mankind, save the world.
“On The 100 and The Passage, even on Lost, to a certain degree, it is all, life or death, and we are in MacGyver, but the thing about MacGyver is it’s a family show, so you have a lot of fun. There’s a lot of comedy in it. Some of it’s big and broad. And yet it has some great moments.
“We have a new writer. A bit of a partner to Peter Lenkov [who] runs the show and the writing team. Terry Matalas joined us middle of season four. So the writing, I believe, is very different. The look of the show is very different.
“But it’s just really refreshing, to me as an actor, it’s so refreshing to come to work every day, to have fun, to tell jokes. And to have a sort of dramedy. But it’s still just very refreshing for me. I’m having a great time.”
Moving from heavy drama to a more lighthearted show can be a tough transition, not only in the performance of it, but also to get the chance to move within the industry. Cusick notes, “Once you go down a certain path, you think people see you as something. From going from Lost to, perhaps the Scandal not so much, but certainly The 100, which I was on for five seasons. And then I jumped on to The Passage.
“So they were all very villainous, high stakes, angst ridden scientists. It’s just such a new, and breath of fresh air for me. Getting all those cobwebs of all that old stuff that I’ve done before. Russ Taylor, he’s larger than life. For me, it’s certainly a bigger character than I’ve ever played, in terms of performance. And he’s got a vitality, and energy, and optimism.
“And, yes, we have those moments of saving the world, and saving people’s lives, and being Phoenix, and Mac, MacGyver, doing his Mac moments. But I have to say, it’s just so much fun. So do I prefer it? I don’t know whether I prefer it, but it’s certainly a welcome change for me.
I don’t think I’ve done comedy since I did a movie back in Scotland called Not Another Happy Ending, with Karen Gillan, and that was probably the last comedic thing I’d done. Which was quite awhile ago. So it was a welcome change.”
Actors choose the roles they will play for a variety of reasons, and sometimes, it’s less a matter of choosing and more a matter of being chosen. Cusick explains, “The opportunity arose. It was The Passage, which was on Fox, wasn’t renewed. Which when we found, we got the news, we were pretty stunned, because we felt it was a really good show. We’d only done 10 episodes.
“We’d just grazed the beginning of this epic book. And I thought this is going to be a job that goes for at least five seasons. So when that didn’t go, and I found myself with no work. And then out of the blue, they said, “Would you be interested in MacGyver?” And I looked at the show, and I thought, ‘That looks like fun.’
And I’m so glad that I said yes to it. It was an offer, and I jumped on it. And I’m so delighted. I find that role kind of chose me in a way. It just was happenstance. I was in the right place at the right time, and it turned up.”
As an actor who has performed in theater, film, and television, Cusick is comfortable in all three, but he has developed a preference.
He says, “Yes, of course, there’s a difference between theater and television. I started off in theater, most actors in Britain do. That’s your bread and butter. So you learn your craft on the stage. You go on stage, you do the whole play. You get that high off the audience. And then it’s hard work. You do eight shows, even 10 shows a week.
“So what do you perform in TV? I’m a lot more relaxed, having done a lot of TV now. I’m a lot more relaxed on a TV set. Even having done theater for a long time, I remember at the half hour call I would still feel those butterflies. And it was always, you’d wake up in the morning, and your day revolved around doing the play.
“With film and TV, I’m here in Atlanta shooting. And of course the reason I’m here shooting in Atlanta is because I’m working on MacGyver. So you’re always thinking about the show. I’m pretty much working every day. But it’s a gentler pace. You can do pick ups. You forget your lines, it’s okay, you get another shot at it.
“Voice levels, you don’t need to scream to the back of the audience, as you would in theater. So there are obviously techniques that you use in both, differently. But ultimately it’s still acting. Of course, you’re aware, they’ll say to you it’s a wide shot, as opposed to a close up, you might alter your performance a little bit.
“But these are things that most actors, they pick up as they go along. I think I’ve been doing it long enough now, so I understand the difference in things. I haven’t done theater for a long, long time. And every time I see it, I think, ‘I’d love to do that again.’ But really for one night only. I wouldn’t really want to do a very long run.
“I think if you start off in theater, the excitement, even just as you’re taking your seat, I’m thinking, ‘What are we in for?’ It could be a great play, or it’s just invigorating. And, ‘Ah, man. I remember that. I remember the feeling. I remember the buzz those actors would be having off stage. And we did a great show. And the camaraderie, and the togetherness, in the trenches together.’ And you yearn for that.
“But then you’re reminded. You go, ‘Hang on. I remember that being a lot of work. Not very much money. And doing it night and night again.’ And there were some nights there was no audience. It’s such a hit and miss.
“I much prefer film and TV, certainly television. That’s where I spend most of my time now. It’s a medium that I’m very comfortable in. It’s different from film in the sense that we work very fast. Usually, for example, on MacGyver we’ll do two takes, and we move on.
“Our cast is great, because they’re all so good. They all know their lines. It’s not an easy script. It’s very wordy, with a lot of MacGyver babble. And they deliver it fast, two takes and we’re moving on, because we’ve got a lot to shoot.
“So you’ve really got to come and hit a home run every time you’re out there. But I like that energy. I like that pressure.”
An added pressure for Cusick is coming into a cast after they’ve already had three seasons together. And, although it was nerve-racking, Cusick found it to be a much easier transition that he had anticipated. He says, “I hadn’t experienced this for awhile, because I did The 100 for five seasons, I joined The Passage right at the beginning, so we were all new cast together.
“But coming into a show for season four, you’re coming into somebody else’s house. You don’t know the rules. And really is like going back to the first day at school.
“And I will tell you, I was very nervous. Of course, you’re trying to be as cool as you can. Plus it was a very wordy, very big script, I came into. And I remember going, ‘Wow. I don’t how it’s going to be. I’m going to be nervous. I don’t remember being this nervous before.’
“But I have to say that the cast Lucas, Phil, Tris, Meredith, Justin, they were all the most welcoming. And our show runner, executive directing show runner, David [Stratton], they were all very welcoming. Peter Lenkov. They were all super friendly, and just after one scene I was like, ‘Okay, great. We’re good. I know what I’m doing.’
“I settled in very quickly, I felt. And also because there weren’t many, not a huge cast. There’s only five other actors besides myself, fixed cast. So it’s very easy to [fit in], when it’s a smaller cast, and I’m used to a bigger cast. It’s been great.”
Cusick is hoping that long time fans of the show will embrace the changes and his character, “I can honestly say I’m having a great time, and I’m just hoping people enjoy season four as much as they enjoyed season three. I know there’s going to be time with the old character, and the show change.
“I haven’t really seen any of it, season four, but they say the lighting, the way it looks, it’s a little bit darker. The storylines have maybe gone a little bit darker.
“But I hope the fans stick with it, and enjoy this new reboot.”
Inteview by Melissa Byers, Emmy.com.news
Be sure to tune in to MacGyver, Friday nights on CBS 8/7c
Henry Ian Cusick on MacGyver Debut: “I’ve Never Had More Fun With a Role”
By Matt Webb Mitovich / February 5 2020
Mac is back this Friday, and he’s acquired a new frenemy, played by Lost alum Henry Ian Cusick.
This Friday at 8/7c, the Peruvian-born Scot joins CBS’ MacGyver for Season 4 as Russ Taylor, an MI6 agent-turned-private military contractor who recruits former members of the shuttered Phoenix Foundation to hunt down a bioweapon that a mysterious organization plans to deploy in a devastating attack on a major U.S. city.
If it sounds a bit harrowing, rest assured that Cusick is here (and quite thrilled) to lighten things up, as he details in this TVLine Q&A.
TVLINE | Off the top of your head, give me three adjectives to describe Russ Taylor.
Millionaire… MI6… scoundrel. I think because we [prior to the interview] were discussing Scandal, that’s why I said scoundrel. But there is some truth to that!
TVLINE | Under what sort of circumstances do we first meet him?
Russ Taylor has been following MacGyver, and MacGyver catches onto this and says, “Why are you following me?” Russ Taylor has a reputation — he used to be an arms dealer and do lots of terrible things – so Mac says, “Why would I want to work with you?” Russ says that he has had an epiphany and “changed his ways,” that he wants to be one of the good guys now. Mac’s suspicious, but then they go on a little adventure together. But what’s really cool is that because he recruits Mac, Mac then has to recruit his team.
TVLINE | He’s got to “get the band back together.”
Exactly, and it’s always fun to see where “the band” has gone and what sort of jobs they’re now doing using their talents. But then you learn about Russ and what his true motives are, and why he really asked Mac to help him.
TVLINE | As Mac introduces him to the other team members, does Russ share any specific dynamics with any of them?
Well, Matilda [“Matty”] is crucial to the running of Phoenix, and yet here is Russ Taylor, who bought Phoenix. Only one of them is needed, but one owns the whole thing, so they’re sort of loggerheads pretty much through the whole season, which is quite fun. The thing about Russ is even though he’s a skillful manipulator and he can read people very well, and he’s also ex-military, so he’s quite lethal. I have had more fun playing this character than I have had with anything in television.
TVLINE | From the scenes I’ve seen, it looks like you’re having a blast.
He is quite ridiculous, in a way, and it’s a very free environment to work in. When I first turned up for my first scene, Justin Hires (who plays Bozer) just started improvising, and I just looked at him and joined in. I mean, not hugely, but we’d do a few takes and then sort of mess around with a few lines.
TVLINE | You were like, “Ohhhhh, so that’s what we’re doing.”
Yeah, there’s a little banter, a playfulness about the performances. And Justin is very funny, he’s a comedian actor. I took his lead and I’m having a lot of fun bouncing off him. We play the complete opposite of characters, but we have a lot of fun with him teasing me about my accent.
TVLINE | It’s great you get to use your real accent, because we once spoke about how I missed it in the original Scandal pilot.
Right. Right. Yeah, this time, I’m playing myself, my accent, but it’s a bit more cleaned up. It’s pretty much what you hear now, but it may be a little more cleaned up.
TVLINE | Tease best you can Russ’ true motive, because it sounds like we’re getting into some sort of National Treasure/Indiana Jones/Da Vinci Code type of adventure.
This season is more serialized if not less procedural, so we have one archenemy running all the way through it, and the archenemy is Codex. Russ Taylor has a long history with Codex, and that’s one of the reasons he signed Mac up to his team, to get to Codex. We also have a lot of great guest stars coming in — I was very impressed with the people that they bring into the show — and there’s a different tone to it. Even though it’s still fun family drama, it’s a bit darker from previous seasons. I’ve seen clips while doing ADR, and some of it looks really glossy and shiny…. It’s looking really good, I think.
TVLINE | What is something that you, as an actor, have gotten to do for the first time in this role?
What have I not done before…? I was hoisted up through a glass ceiling, which we just did that the other day. [Laughs] I didn’t actually go through it, but it looks like I do. I’m also getting to do a little more fighting, a little more punching, a little bit more gun stuff…. But overall what I’m getting to do is comedy, which I’ve not done on TV before. I feel very light in the show, and I mean that in a sense of having fun. Everything I’ve done before has always been really earnest and….
TVLINE | Russ is more of a dashing rogue.
Yeah, I have to say it’s very freeing as an actor to play this character, very freeing, because basically I can really do anything, and they’ll just say, “Take it down, Ian, you’re going to big,” which is very rare for me because I always play small.
SciFi Vision
Published: Monday, 21 January 2019
Tonight the second episode of the new series The Passage airs on FOX. The series follows the secret government facility, Project NOAH, that has found a dangerous virus that scientists think could lead to the cure to every disease, including the outbreak of the Avian flu that is spreading. However, when test subjects turn into monsters, they believe their only chance of success is to give the vaccine to someone younger.
Federal Agent Brad Wolgast (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) is tasked with bringing in young orphan Amy Bellafonte (Saniyya Sidney), but changes his mind and decides to protect her instead.
In tonight’s episode, more backstory is revealed about Dr. Jonas Lear, played by Henry Ian Cusick, who discovered the virus. The story delves into why he and Tim Fanning (Jamie McShane), patient zero, went into the Bolivian jungle in the first place.
Cusick recently talked to SciFi Vision about his work on the series, his character’s backstory, and more. He even teased about what is to come on The 100.
SCIFI VISION: Were you familiar with the book series before becoming involved? Did you read it when you got the role?
HENRY IAN CUSICK: No. When I got the role, I was a guest star in this show, with the possibility that I might be recurring. There was never – well I don’t know what the writers had thought, but anyway, I was only going to do this one episode.
So, I hadn’t read the book, but as soon as there was talk of a possibility of coming back as a regular, I read the book. And, you know, I wish I had read the book earlier.
Okay, but you did read the book after. That was going to be my next question. [laughs]
[laughs] Yeah, you know, I said to someone earlier that there’s a great line in the book where Amy Bellafonte talks about her first time seeing Lear, and he’s described as this wild eyed, long haired, great scientist.
Had I read the book, I would have opted to play that a little bit more in the beginning when I first met her. But still, there’s opportunity for me to go down that route, I hope. You’ll just have to watch the other episodes.
Other than the script then, since you hadn’t read the book at that point, was there anywhere else that you pulled inspiration from while creating the character?
You mean just for the pilot?
For the character in general, I guess. I’m not sure how long it was in between filming it.
So, here’s how it was. We shot the pilot, and then there was a break, I believe, and then we got a pickup for the pilot. Then we went in August, I don’t know, around that time, to shoot the rest of it.
I had read the book by then, but even in the book – I don’t know if you’ve read the book, but there isn’t very much for me to go on. There’re bits and pieces. Obviously my relationship with Fanning – in book three, that goes into some depth with Fanning and Lear. But what the writers have very cleverly done, is there’re so many blanks in there, that they’ve kind of filled them in in ways that you’ll find out, especially in my relationship with my wife, Elizabeth (Jennifer Ferrin), and they changed things slightly.
You know, in the book, she’s dying. In our version, she has Alzheimer’s, and I go [to Bolivia] to search for a cure for her.
So, they’ve changed things slightly, but I think in many ways they’ve certainly made Lear a lot richer than anything that was in the book.
But I did use the book as inspiration, as a plot, as markers, to say, you know, “Okay, Tim and I were best friends at Harvard; Elizabeth was part of the group.” You know, things like that.
I know you’ve played scientists before, but did you do any research or talk to any real scientists or anything like that to prepare for the role?
I just went with source material and with the script.
I had a lot of friends in the medical profession. I would ask them certain things, but I didn’t, you know, go to see any microbiologists. I just sort of went with the story and my gut.
When you did decided to take on the role, what was it specifically that stood out to you about the story or character?
What drew me to it, initially, I think, was a scene I was doing in the pilot. I was staring at Fanning, and it struck me quite hard, like, “what an awful predicament.” Here’s my best friend that I took to Bolivia, and here’s what I’ve done with him, and this is what I’m still doing with him. You’ll find out later on how exactly that happened, but here I am, experimenting on my best friend.
And the moment that I was in, I just thought there was a lot of potential storyline there. Is this morally right? Should I just, you know, end his life, or do I carry on experimenting on him?
I think that was the first time I thought that this character has a lot of potential. And this was when I was doing the pilot. I had no idea that I was coming back, but I think that was the point where in my mind, I thought, this character could come back, because there’s a lot of potential between these two characters. That was the hook.
So, you knew at the beginning though the backstory between the characters; that was all revealed to you right away? That’s mostly in episode two.
In the pilot, although I hadn’t read the book, I worked with Jamie, and I said, “Jamie, tell me the book.” Jamie had read everything, because Jamie was super well prepared. At that time he told me the backstories, so yeah.
Okay. I have seen the first three, and in episode two, we find out about his wife and why this all started. Throughout the first few episodes, a few times he voices his concerns about the morality of it, but even though he’s upset about it, he doesn’t do anything to stop it. Can you talk about this inner conflict and how that’s going to continue to affect his job at Project NOAH and his relationships with the other scientists?
I think that’s a really good point, but I justified that – you see that when he starts out, his soul objective is to find a cure for his wife. So, he enlists the help of Tim Fanning. Unfortunately, Tim Fanning brings along the military, and you know, once the military are involved – and he’s not very keen on the military, but he’s caught between a rock and hard place. He thinks, “The military have so much money, and if I could just find that cure, then everything would be fine.” It’s not that way, because, you know, the military are going to weaponize anything they find.
I justified it, that rather than take a moral stand and say “This is wrong; I’m out,” he stays in there, because he thinks, “If I could just find the cure, than it will all be worth it.” So, the end sort of justifies the means. He’d rather be part of the project than be thrown out because he’s taking a political and moral stand.
You mentioned how you filmed the pilot, and that there was a break before filming the rest of the season. It sounds like whole experience took place over a long period of time. Were you flying back and forth between Vancouver and Georgia a lot for The 100? It so, was that difficult? Or was this after the fact? I’m not sure exactly what time frame you filmed this in.
You’re right; I was flying back and forth. Not many times, but I flew back a few times. [laughs] That’s a spoiler.
[laughs] Okay, I won’t put that in then.
[laughs] No you can put it in, actually, read into it what you want.
[laughs] Okay, because that’s one question people kept asking me that I’m like, “I can’t actually ask him if he’s still alive!” I’m like, “I’m not going to ask that!”[laughs]
Ask it. Go ahead and ask me; you can ask me anything.
Okay, [laughs] is Kane alive? [laughs] They wanted to know what was going to happen. I don’t think you are allowed to tell me that!
I will say this. On April the 30th, when it returns to the CW, in the very first episode, you will get pretty much everything you – well, a lot of what you need to know about what happens to Marcus Kane. It’s dealt with very early on. You don’t need to wait. So, definitely tune in and check it out.
I asked Mark-Paul this, so I’m going to ask you. This is genre TV, a science fiction vampire show, but different than what’s been on before. Obviously I’ve seen further, but for people just tuning in, can you give them a tease of why this show is different and why they should check it out?
So, I think what’s special about this show, is the size of it, the epic nature of this show, which is unlike anything else on network, I believe. We’ve seen apocalyptic shows and vampire shows, but we’ve never seen something that has so many different strings.
As you’ve seen from the pilot, you have a beautiful story between Mark-Paul and Saniyya. It’s sort of a father-daughter buddy story, and that really is the heart of the show.
And then, for example, on set I wouldn’t see Mark-Paul. I’d say, “Hey, Mark-Paul, what are you up to?” He’d say, “Oh I’m doing a father daughter movie.” “What are you doing?” He’d say, “I’m doing a vampire movie.” You know, it takes a long time for us to connect with each other, for all the strings of the stories to come together. For example with Vincent Piazza (plays Clark Richards), it took me a long time to get to know his side of the story.
So, what I like most about the show is the different strings to this epic adventure. And there’re so many other strings to it we haven’t even begun to touch upon. We’ve only [taken some from] the first book even though we did jump around a little bit, but there’s so much more story I think that will really surprise people. Also what the writers have really cleverly done, is they’ve added a lot of backstory which isn’t in the book, so you get to know a lot of my backstory. So, yeah, I would say it’s just the epic size. When you have a big ensemble cast, it’s always cool to pick the ones you really want to follow, who you like the best, the storylines. I think really there’s something for everyone.
Well, I’m definitively enjoying it so far.
Oh good, I hope you continue to enjoy it.
Thanks. I’m sure I will.
So, is there any room in the show for ad-libbing lines or are they pretty strict with the script?
You know, I’ve worked on LOST, and that was [one where] you could not deviate one jot from the script [laughs], so I know how strict scripts can be. This one we had writers on set, and it really was quite freeing in a way. We could deviate. As long as it meant the same thing as the lines, we could deviate.
And what’s lovely about having these writers, is they were open to suggestions. I think Jamie was really good at ad-libbing some things. And if they were good, they would say, “Yeah, say that.”
Even in the pilot, I think, Liz [Heldens] turned to me, and even though we got the script, she said, “Okay, this time say this” or she’d give me new lines each time.
So, I liked that a lot. I liked the freeness and the ability that we could change things, you know, when you have executives on set.
Was there anything you found particularly challenging?
I guess our time frame was pretty challenging. We were really pushed; we were up against it. For some reason it just seemed you were always – I think there was so much story, so much script, that you were always pushed for time. But challenges like that, that pretty much is common in television. Television works fast, and, you know, I enjoy a challenge anyway. People say “Challenges?” I go, “I want to be shooting, you know, in the Amazon pushing a boat across the jungle.” For me, that would be fun. Not that we did that; I was referencing another movie. [laughs] You know what I mean. The harder it is, the more fun it is for me.
Before you go, I do want to divert for a second. Because I was a huge fan of LOST, I wanted to ask you something about it, but something that was unique and hasn’t been asked, which is pretty hard to come up with. So is there something interesting you can think of that fans haven’t heard a lot about? Maybe a memory that stands out or something?
You know, when I shot LOST, I was so in it. I’ve never had a character that I wake up with in the morning – except in theater, but I’d wake up and I’d think, “I’m Desmond.” You know, I was always Desmond. It was a great gig. It brought me to Hawaii. I still live in Hawaii. It was just one of those [things]. I don’t have any particular story, but I do remember one time being on set and just thinking it just felt so right. It was just a great experience. I just wish I had enjoyed it a lot more when I was doing it. I was so in it that I didn’t really appreciate what I was in. And it’s hard to appreciate sometimes what you’re in. So this time around with The Passage I got to really be in the moment and enjoy it a lot more.
Okay, well, like I said, I’ve seen the first three, and I’ve really enjoyed it so far. I want to know what happens –
I think the show, progressively, I think it gets even so much better. I’m very proud of it. I haven’t seen everything. I’ve seen clips and ADR bits, but from the scripts, you know, it gets progressively better. So I hope you enjoy the rest of it.
I’m sure I will. Before you go, is there anything you tease about something coming up?
Which episode do I want to talk about? There’re so many good bits.
I’m going to give a shout out to Jennifer Ferrin, who plays Elizabeth. I really enjoyed working with her. She does a really great job in that role. Most of my stuff has been with Jamie and Elizabeth and I’ve really enjoyed working with those two. I think that for me is probably my favorite stuff I’ve been doing for the show.
TV Guide
By Liam Mathews
https://www.tvguide.com/news/the-passage-henry-ian-cusick-lear-fanning/
Episode 2 of The Passage, “You Owe Me a Unicorn,” filled in some of the backstory of how the shady Project Noah program came into existence. The Department of Defense-overseen program, where scientists study a virus that gives its carriers regenerative powers but also turns them into vampire-like creatures called “virals,” was the brainchild of Dr. Jonas Lear (Henry Ian Cusick) and Dr. Tim Fanning (Jamie McShane), the latter of whom became the first test subject after he was bitten by a viral in the Bolivian highlands.
Lear is morally uncomfortable with the human experimentation he does at Project Noah, but he does it anyway because he’s still trying to do what inspired him to study the virus in the first place: find a cure for his wife’s Alzheimer’s. In flashbacks, we saw Lear promise his wife Elizabeth (Jennifer Ferrin) that he would do whatever it took to heal her, even though this is not what she wanted. She just wanted him to stay with her. But instead he reached out to Fanning, an old college friend with whom Elizabeth had a falling out, because Fanning could help secure the funding Lear needed. Fanning was at first skeptical, but he committed when he found out that Elizabeth had early onset Alzheimer’s. He secured funding from the Department of Defense, which Lear didn’t like because that meant less control and a greater likelihood the virus will be used for nefarious rather than healing purposes. But in the first of his compromises, he went along with it.
Cusick says he’s playing Lear as a character who’s living in a moral gray area. “That’s always great for actors to play that gray area, and always for the audience to look in and wonder, ‘Well, what would you do? What choices would you make there?'”
Cusick says that as The Passage continues, the backstory will get filled in further. If you thought it was odd that Fanning had such a strong emotional reaction to finding out that Elizabeth was sick, especially since Elizabeth doesn’t want anything to do with him, you were picking up on something that will be explained later on. “Maybe she doesn’t like him now,” Cusick says. “Maybe there was a time when she did like him.” The relationship between the Lears and Fanning goes deeper than just being classmates and colleagues. “They have a very, very, complicated relationship,” Cusick says. “And by Episode 10 you see where they are.”
We know virals including Fanning have the power to enter people’s dreams, but we haven’t seen Lear’s dreams yet. As of now, Fanning is trying to send Lear ominous messages through other people’s dreams, telling Carter (McKinley Belcher III) to tell Lear “You already changed the world, you just have to wait and see how.” Eventually Fanning’s going to cut out the middleman. And when he does, it’s going to be intense.
Henry Ian Cusick, The Passage
The Passage airs Mondays at 9/8c on Fox.
Last week, fans got their first taste of The Passage, Fox’s ambitious attempt to adapt Justin Cronin’s sprawling trilogy about the rise of vampire-like Virals and the potential end of life as we know it.
Most of the action centered on Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Agent Brad Wolgast, who went rogue to protect young Amy Bellafonte (Saniyya Sidney) from Project NOAH, the government-backed medical team using human lab rats to test a virus that could cure all of the world’s diseases (so far, not so
This week, we find out more about the origins of NOAH, including the past relationship between Henry Ian Cusick’s Dr. Jonas Lear and infected colleague Tim Fanning (Jamie McShane), as well as what this virus could do for folks if it’s successful and why Lear ever agreed to participate in something so ghastly.
Based on what we learn of Lear in Episode 2, I feel like he might be the only noble one at Project NOAH.
Henry Ian Cusick: Wow. Interesting you say that.
He had very pure intentions to start with, and now he’s really the only one who’s actually speaking the truth about how out of hand this has become.
Yes, I think you’re right. His intentions were always to find a cure to help his wife, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. He didn’t know what to do so, he approaches his best friend, Tim Fanning, who’s become a bit of a star. The backstory is, they went to university together. They were great friends, and Lear became a microbiologist, married Liz, and they all knew each other. They were all at university together.
But she does not like him, which I love.
Well, she may have liked him at one point. So that’s kinda backstory.
The experiments at NOAH are so messed up. It’s so Tuskegee Airmen.
It is, yeah. The thing about using condemned criminals, if you gave them the choice and said, “You can either die, take the lethal injection, or you can stay on and become a Viral, which basically means you’ll be locked up in a cage for the rest of your life, you’ll be yearning for blood, you will never see daylight again, you will be experimented on,” would they take that choice? Probably not, I would imagine. The carrot is the cure. If you were a test subject that the experiments were successful on, you will be almost immortal, because you’d be immune to all these diseases.
So it’s a bit of a gamble and there must be a crisis of of conscience. “What am I doing? This can’t be right. I’ve got to save my wife.” So Lear is in turmoil most of the time. And there’s a line in the book when Amy Bellafonte first meets Lear [where he’s described as] some wild-eyed, long-haired, crazed scientist that has just been working in this basement for the past four years trying to find a cure.
That’s very different from your character’s look and from this version of the story, really.
Well, yes. Unfortunately I shouldn’t have said that to you, but when I first joined the show, I came on as a guest and I hadn’t read the book. I thought I was just one-and-done, and then it turned out that they invited me to come and be a regular on the show. I wish I had read the book, because then I would have messed my hair up and gone a bit wild eyed.
In this week’s episode, we get more of Lear’s backstory…
And there will be more later on in the show from [more] characters, including the NOAH subjects, which is one of the cool things we’ve got that I really enjoy. We get to see how they got there.
At what point do you Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Brad interact with Jonas? You guys at Project NOAH are kind of sequestered in your own storyline.
Yeah, we used to joke about that. We’d pass each other on set say, “Hey, what are you up to?” I’d say, “Oh, I’m in a vampire movie. What movie are you in?” And he’d say, “Well, I’m making a father-daughter movie.” [Laughs] So we were very separate for the greatest length of time. As you know from the books, we will all eventually come together, because that’s what the show is about. So we all do eventually. We’re forced into making decisions together.
Can you preview what that’s about?
Well, I think my first meeting with Mark-Paul, I believe, is in episode four. And it’s very fleeting. But I would say, it starts to all go down around episodes seven, eight and nine. Of course by ten, it just goes kind of bonkers.
At some point I’m imagining we’re going to deal with masses of virals?
Hmm. When you say “masses,” how many masses do you mean? This is not a spoiler.If you’ve read the books, you know that by “masses,” we mean the world.
Right. Exactly.
But in our show, we’re still only a quarter way through the first book, even though we jump around a bit. So we’re not even close to that moment yet. At Project Noah, you’ll certainly see a lot more virals that we’ve experimented on and you’ll be introduced some new ones as well.
And there’s no real coming back from this virus, right? Like Fanning and Shauna (Brianne Howey) are pretty screwed.
As a scientist, Jonas would say you never know. If we find a cure, perhaps it could reverse the process and that’s what we’re trying desperately to work on. But for the purposes of the story, you don’t really want it to come to that. Because the virals are the next stage in evolution. They are not an evil thing, they’re just better than humans. The virals see us as the virus, you know.Next year is shaping up to be a great one for fans of genre television.
They could actually be our replacement.
Yes, exactly. They would be the next stage in what takes over the Earth. There was dinosaurs for a while, and then there was mammals, and humans, and then came virals.
The fandoms will kill me if I don’t ask: Will we see you on The 100, or are you in a medically-induced coma for the entire season?
[Laughs] No, you will see me on The 100 and you will find out what happens to Kane. It’s a great show. I mean, we’ve had six great seasons. Anything that runs to six seasons, that’s a hit, I think.
Do you find it weird that you’re now on the second show in a row about the end of the world?
It’s kinda interesting …wasn’t Lost about the end of the world, potentially? I don’t know why I’m drawn to these end-of-the-world stories! I just like shows that have big, high stakes. End-of-the-world shows are fun to be in. I mean, you don’t get bigger stakes than that.
The Passage, Mondays, 9/8c, Fox