Take Five: Naren Shankar on Syfy's "The Expanse"
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Take Five: Naren Shankar on Syfy's "The Expanse" 12.14.2015 Over the past three decades, engineer turned writer Naren Shankar has explored the vast reaches of space plenty with Star Trek, Farscape and The Outer Limits. After taking a lengthy CSI tinged sojourn, Shankar is back in the sci-fi fold with Syfy's The Expanse, premiering tonight at 10/9c. In the midst of finishing up visual FX on the finale, Brief talked with Shankar about Syfy's new slate, the adaptation process, and of course, Star Wars. What's the week before premiere like? It's in the hands of our great partners at Syfy to get the word out like they've been doing. We made the best thing that we possibly could. We love it and we're really proud of it and we can't wait for people to see it. Now it's time to sit back and hope people come. We think they're going to love it if they do. Were you a fan of James SA Corey's source material, or did you get into it when the show happened? I got into it when the show started to happen. I had kind of drifted away from science fiction over the years. I did a great deal of it early in my career, from Star Trek to the Outer Limits and Farscape, and I absolutely loved it. But I ended up doing CSI for a really long time. After CSI I started feeling the pull of the genre, so my agent started sending sci-fi/fantasy shows, and when this one hit my desk, the thing that struck me immediately was that the pilot had been written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, who wrote Children of Men, which is a movie I absolutely love. When I read the pilot, it had an interesting tone, a gritty feel, and it was just different. As you're getting back into the genre, Syfy is doing the same thing, recommitted to big, bold sci-fi storytelling. Have you noticed that? Very much so. I can't really speak to the stuff before Expanse but if you look at the slate they've got coming up, I mean: Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke. It's one of the absolute touchstones of the genre that's never really been done. Coming back with a show like Expanse, which has depth, complexity and a very rich world, and a big long, arching geopolitical story like Battlestar Galactica that's allegorical in nature, it's clear Syfy is going back to where they hit their peak artistically. Which to me was Galactica. They're making a statement. How difficult is it to adapt a sprawling space opera for TV? We're trying not to say space opera. We like epic space drama. When they brought me aboard, I was told that both authors were going to be part of the writing staff in the room. My initial response to that was, "Do you think that's really a good idea?" You never know. Because sometimes authors get precious with their work. But Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham, who, as you know, are collectively James SA Corey, came into the process cognizant of the fact that an adaptation for television was not going to be the same as their book. Having those guys around every step of the way has allowed us to stay very faithful to the spirit of the works, to open them up in ways that they didn't anticipate, and to make the necessary changes when you make an adaptation. What's also great is when we get to a point in the story where we want to make a departure, if it's going to affect something three books down the line, Ty and Daniel will point that out and we'll back away from it. Or if we need something that illuminates some little bit of history or oddity of this universe, they're around to say, "Hey, why don't we try this?" The adaptation process has been terrific. What was the first sci-fi entity that you loved growing up? As a kid, I absolutely adored Star Trek: The Original Series. It's part of the reason I wanted to be an engineer. I did end up being an engineer for a while, and then decided to become a writer. But that was the pull; I absolutely loved all those shows: Star Trek, and then as you get older, Star Wars, and it went from there. What are your thoughts on Force Awakens? I hope it's really good. I don't have a lot of nostalgia in me, and I feel like sometimes it's best not to back up and look in the rearview mirror too much. There's a certain amount of trepidation, but J.J. is a wonderfully imaginative filmmaker. I'm sure it's going to be fun. Now it's time for my most important question: where can I buy Thomas Jane's hat? I'm going to get back to you on that. As we were picking the hat, there were 7 or 8 of them, we had a whole hat picking day and it was a real point of concern because there was a lot of trepidation about it. People were split on should we go with the hat, should we not go with the hat. Even the authors weren't sure, and Thomas wasn't sure. We finally put it on his head and he looked great in it. We actually gave the hat itself a story that gets revealed over the course of the first season. It's nicely tied into the character. I'll have to find out what model of fedora he ended up choosing. The hat-picking day is a DVD featurette for sure. It was awesome. Five executive producers were there, we had network executives who were weighing in on the specifics of the hat, the color, the size of the brim, and whether or not there was a feather in it. It was the most important part of the pilot. When we were talking about it, "Well he has it in the book, people love it." Terry McDonough, who directed episodes 1 and 2, goes, "In the book it's only there when you read it. On TV you have to look at it all the time." It's a very good point. I'm excited to watch more of this epic space drama! Well said. The Expanse's pilot is available online now, and its two-night premiere launches Monday and Tuesday on Syfy at 10/9c..