STACK NZ Sep #66

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Sound bites

MILLEN’S BACK IN BLACK Ari Millen tells Scott Hocking about the challenge of playing a clone in Orphan Black .

Director Brad Bird on taking a positive view of the future in Tomorrowland .

O rphan Black star Ari Millen was literally beside himself in the third season of the cult sci-fi series: that’s because in season 3 there are four of him. Millen first appeared in the cult sci-fi TV show in Season Two as Mark Rollins, but this time he not only reprises that character but plays his clone brothers Rudy – AKA Scarface – Seth and Miller. And the Canadian actor admits that playing multiple characters does get a little complicated from a performance perspective. “I have a fantastic clone double named Nick Abraham,” he explains. “We would read the scene that has two Castor clones in it, then we would talk with the director and block it. So I would be dressed as one clone, he would be dressed as the other, and we would shoot it. “The challenge was I had to

Leda sisters’ main adversaries in Season Three. Growing up in a tight knit, secret military wing, the Castor clones are a cohesive, brutal wolf pack, called upon to do the military’s worst bidding. “Coming into this season, we’re discovering that they need something from Project Leda and they have a lot more intel on Project Leda than Leda knows about them,” according to Millen. So what else can we expect to see in Season Three? “What Clone Club can really look forward to is Project Castor is really going to help Project Leda sort of tighten up and pull together and see what’s really important in the greater scheme of things. For the last two seasons we’ve been asking a lot of questions and the world is getting bigger. Now, in the third season, I think Clone Club can look forward to getting answers

“Pessimism has become the only acceptable way to view the future, and I disagree with that. I think there’s something self-fulfilling about it. If that’s what everybody collectively believes then that’s what will come to be.When I was a kid, even though there were many negative things going on, it was acceptable to view the future in a positive light. Now there’s this sort of giant cosmic shrug and I hate that. I just don’t think that we’re on the planet to do that. We hope audiences will be entertained but with luck we’ve also made something that will give them something to think about later…maybe even start to imagine a different kind of future.”

to some of those questions. More questions will be asked, and there’s going to be some really great payoff in this season. I think Clone Club is really going to love where we’re taking them.”

remember what he was doing once we switched – we would shoot it, he would step out, I’d put in an earbud, there’d be tennis balls for eyelines, and I would act to the air and we would flip and do the whole process again. Thankfully the visual effects people would put it all together and make it look real, and fool even me!” Millen’s characters, dubbed Project Castor, are Orphan Black heroine

Tomorrowland is out on September 30

Orphan Black: Series Three is out on September 2

Tatiana Maslany and her Project

There’s a definite Tarantino vibe to the structure and tone of the film; what were your first impressions? I loved it. It was clever, entertaining and unpredictable. Even though the characters were committing these heinous acts, you feel the mortality and fragility underneath. There is a discomfort in the paradox of people trying to kill people in between punchlines, but if you allow yourself to go on the ride, it can be entertaining. This style of film is not for everyone, but the absurd irreverence is the point. How did you see the character of Jack? Jack is a tragic character. He’s a romantic and an artist at heart. He’s sentimental, loves deeply, and cannot accept he has lost his wife’s love. That

was crying in some of the scenes where it might not have seemed an obvious choice.

broken bitterness causes him to turn “evil” and become the “bad guy”. It’s my job to create depth, dimension and complexity to these types of characters. Even with characters that are completely horrible, you must find the humanity underneath. Apparently there was more to Jack than what made the final cut; can you elaborate on what was left out? In the script, Jack had terminal cancer. There was also a scene where Jack forced Alice to sing a song in front of a packed bar of well wishers for her birthday. As he watches her sing Slipping Away , he remembers how much he loves her and ends up in tears. He walks away in disgust with himself. This said so much about who he was. The cancer gave a background to his actions, which explained how he came to make the choices he made. He was a dying man. The cancer was why I

Simon Pegg doesn’t immediately come to mind when talking about movie villains, yet he’s perfectly cast here. What do you think he brought to the film? I agree. He was a wonderfully interesting choice for the role. Simon has a gravitas that grounds the film. He’s incredibly charismatic and charming which makes for the perfect villain, really. If you consider Christoph Waltz or Javier Bardem, it’s so much more interesting when the villains subvert the stereotype. Simon is a highly intelligent, witty guy. Most great comedy actors are just phenomenal actors.

This Aussie actor, best known for tough guy roles in Underbelly and Bikie Wars, is one of the targets of hitman Simon Pegg in the black comedy Kill Me Three Times . Callan Mulvey

Kill Me Three Times is out on September 9

SEPTEMBER 2015

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