INSIDE THIS ISSUE 21 MOURNING BECOMES HER 54 TASTING WORMTONGUE As Elektra, Jennifer Garner loves dueling with Bad guy Brad Dourif adds delicious evil to Daredevil Middle-Earth 26 WILD THING 58 COMES THE MESSIAH Laughing all the way, Victoria Pratt gets feral Ruling over all, Alec Newman fathers the on Mutant X Children of Dune 30 MAKING DREAMCATCHER 63 AT MUTANT WAR Feel cold chills when Stephen King's alien On the X2 set, Marvel's movie heroes face new invaders arrive challenges
36 GOODBYE TO ALL THAT 70 THANK GOD I'M A FAN BOY Lani Tupu considers his life & times out on Buffy's Tom Lenk doesn't understand all the the Farscape in-jokes 40 SCORPIUS, RYGEL & ME 74 HOLLYWOOD ADVENTURES Director Andrew Prowse truly charted For Edward Albert, acting is just the family fantastic television business
46 PETER JACKSON SPEAKS 81 MANNIX IN SCI-FI LAND The filmmaker has no life other than Lord of TV detective Mike Connors had a touch of the Rings genre action NEXT ISSUE ON SALE APRIL 8 guys and have the possibility to see them. For President/Publisher the moment this is all, because my complaining NORMAN JACOBS will not affect in any way how broadcasters in Italy decide to air certain programs instead of Executive Vice President RITA EISENSTEIN others. I'll just have to bleed myself dead to find the money to buy all the DVDs. Ciao to all! Executive Art Director Doris Mascherin W.R. MOHALLEY Italy Mail simply can't be forwarded. Other fans & Editor DAVID MCDONNELL advertisers may contact readers whose letters are SIGNS OF THE TIMES printed here. To avoid this, mark your letter Art Director "Please Withhold My Address." Otherwise, we ...As an autograph collector, I can surely sym- HEINER FEIL
retain the option to print it. pathize with Page E. Lewis in #307. I differ Managing Editor Write: STARLOG COMMLOG I ask for auto- from her, though, in that an ALLAN DART Park South 475 Avenue graphed photo when I send a fan letter—which 7th Floor Contributing Editors I hope they like—and I send it by registered New York, NY 10016 ANTHONY TIMPONE mail. With the exception of Terry Farrell—from MICHAEL CINGOLD or e-mail: [email protected] whom I have autographed pix from her DS9 and TOM WEAVER IAN SPELLING Becker stints the only other freebie that I have — JOE NAZZARO THE VIEW FROM ITALY from anyone resembling a Star Trek star is from
...I wanted to drop you a note. After reading Natalia Nogulich (Admiral Nechayev). The Consultant KERRY O'QUINN Commlog for years now, I decided that it was problem isn't only with Trek actors, however: about time to write to you. My name is Doris Joanna Cassidy once sent me a free signed Associate Art Directors DINSDALE and I'm an Aussie living in Italy. On and off, photo. Now she's charging $20 a pop. JOHN DMITRIY OSTROVSKIY I've been following STARLOG for ohh... about James Clink 15 years. A couple of years ago, I finally sub- Glendora, CA Financial Director DEB IRWIN scribed so as not to lose any issues. Executive Assistants: Dee Erwine, You Americans are so Phillip cenessle, Nicholas Holden. Correspondents: (West Coast) Kyle lucky with all these SF Counts, Pat Jankiewicz, Kim Howard programs. I just shudder Johnson, Rhonda Krafchin, Bob Miller, Marc Shapiro, Bill Warren, Dan at the thought of what we Yakir; (NYC) Dan Dickholtz, Mike get here in Italy. Of course, McAvennie, Maureen McTigue, Keith we've seen Star Trek and The Olexa; (Boston) Will Murray; (Phoenix) Bill Florence; (Orlando) Bill Wilson; Next Generation. Deep Space (Canada) Peter Bloch-Hansen, Mark Nine is finally in reruns and Phillips; (England) Anne Gay, Stan Nicholls; (Booklog) Penny Kenny, Voyager is showing its fourth Jean-Marc Lofflcier, Michael Wolff; season. Who knows ;/—and (Toons) Kevin Brockschmidt, Alain "Big Bad Bubba" chaperon, Mike when—we'll see Enterprise? Fisher, Tom Holtkamp, Bob Muleady, Babylon 5 Season One aired Jason Yungbluth; (Photos) Donn Not- many years ago and then last tage, Lisa orris, Jo Beth Taylor, Glenn & Scott Welner. year we saw Years Four and Special Thanks to: Ben Affleck, Five. Who knows what the Edward Albert, Trevor Albert, Shawn Ashmore, Charles Barile, Kym Barrett, powers that be did with Sea- Michael Broidy, Jeff Chiaravanont, sons Two and Three? And Aisling Clancy, Karen Clifton, Terrl conners, Mike Connors, Bill Corso, Farscape: Forget it. I doubt Brian Cox, Carol Cundleff, Brad Dou-
we'll ever see it. Earth Final rif, Guy Dyas, Jason Flemyng, Jennifer Conflict: lust Season One Garner, Jennifer Garnick, Alex Gor- don, Howard Green, Andy Heidel, and then. ..nothing. I read in Kelly Hu, Jon Hutman, Hugh Jackman, STARLOG about all these Peter Jackson, Mark Steven Johnson, Lawrence & Mark Kasdan, Lana Kim, fantastic SF series and movies and wonder if us CORRECTIONS: Leah Krantzler, Tom Lenk, Jackie Italian SF lovers will ever be as blessed as you A computer gremlin eviscerated—and ren- Lopez, Mike Nelson, Alec Newman, dered unreadable—the two photo credits on last Albert L. Ortega, Owen Paterson, Tom Phillips, Paul Picemi, Victoria Pratt, issue 's Contents Page. They should have read: Andrew Prowse, James Dale Robin- Photo: Courtesy Blanc Communications Corp. son, Teryl Rothery, Newton Thomas sigel, Bryan singer, Carol spier, Emily Pig, And Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Spitale, Patrick Stewart, Lisa Stone, Tweety, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Pepe he Pew, Lani Tupu, Jeff Walker, Hugo Weaving, Shane west, Peta Wilson. Road Runner, Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, Cover Images: Daredevil & X-Men Speedy Gonzales & Tasmanian Devil Charac- Characters: Trademark & copyright Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights ters & Art: Trademark & Copyright 1978, 2003 2003 Reserved; Daredevil Movie: Trade- Warner Bros. Inc. Barney Rubble, Captain mark & ©2003 20th Century Fox & Caveman & Speed Buggy Characters & Art: Regency Enterprises; X-Men Movie: Trademark & ©2003 20th Century Fox; Hanna-Barbera Produc- Copyright 1978, 2003 Two Towers: ©2002 New Line Produc- tions Inc. tions; The Matrix Reloaded: ©2003 Warner Bros. & Village Roadshow; Additionally, aformerT>&ve&ev\\ comic book Children of Dune: ©2003 USA Net- writer's name was misspelled in Liner Notes works. Information: last issue. He's really Roger McKenzie (not For Advertising (212) 689-2830. FAX (212) 889-7933 MacKenzie). Advertising Director: Rita Eisenstein A caption in our WIZBANG: COMICS Classified Ads: Phillip Genessie West Coast Ads: The Faust Co., 24050 HEROES #2 on page 29 misnamed the late Madison St. #101, Torrance, CA 90505 Wally Wood's publication. It was actually (310) 373-9604. FAX (310) 373-8760. international Licensing Rep: Robert called Witzend. J. Abramson & Associates, Inc., 720 post Road, Scarsdale, NY 10583.
4 STARLOG/tyn/ 2003 www.starIog.com 1 ^ 4
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• * *., * l] J; 'Aii ^i, i' i I is a visionary ten minute short film powered by cutting edge CG-animation and is one of nine mind-bending stories from "The Animatrix". I & f m
f If j i li It will premiere with the release off "Dreamcatcher" in movie theaters everywhere.
VILLAGE ROADSHOW PICTURES QUOTE OF THE MONTH Paramount liaison to STARLOG. It's the "Evil is so much more interesting than official, authoritative and really long (736 good, don't you think?" pages) guide to the series. Ruditis also —Dr. Harleen Quinn, Birds of Prey penned a recent Enterprise novel, Shock- wave (he, $19.95). STUPID MOVIE DECISION April and May bring a two-part tale by OF THE MONTH J.G. Hertzler (who played DS9's Klingon Paramount: Maybe five days before General Martok) and Jeff Lang, The Left The Two Towers wasn't the best time to Hand ofDestiny #1 & #2 (pb, $6.99 each). release even a pretty good entry in the fad- No Surrender, the Star Trek: S.C.E. ing Star Trek film series. Wouldn't Octo- Omnibus Book 4 (pb, $6.99) collects e- ber or early November have been more book tales of the Starfleet Corps of Engi- strategic dates to unleash Nemesis! neers—including "Past Life," a story by former STARLOG editor-writer Robert TRIPLE REALITY STUPID Greenberger—in actual, rather than elec- TV DECISION tronic, print. OF THE MONTH Carrie 2, Slaughterhouse Five and Big Trou- Our friends at Newmarket Press are A second consecutive nod to Fox, ABC & ble in Little China. He also worked in TV as publishing two more screenplays of note the WB for cancelling recent genre shows a writer and producer {The Untouchables, in April: Gods and Monsters: The Anno- and then treating audiences to the replace- Peyton Place, 12 O'clock High) and scripted tated Script by Bill Condon (foreword by
ments: the alternate "realities" of Joe Mil- the 1979 Salem 's Lot mini-series and the first Clive Barker, intro by Sir Ian McKellen) lionaire, The Bachelorette, Celebrity Mole: "V" regular series episode ("Liberation and Dreamcatcher: The Shooting Script Hawaii, High School Reunion and The Sur- Day"). by William Goldman and Lawrence Kas- real Life. And, yeah, we know almost all of John Mantley (January) The veteran TV dan (with an intro by them & Stephen them are hits. Sigh. producer of Gunsmoke, How the West Was King). These two volumes are both Won and MacGyver, who was most signifi- $18.95 in tpb; Dreamcatcher is also avail- STUPID STARLOC cant to SF fans for his tours of duty produc- able for $26.95 in he. In May, Newmarket DECISION ing The Wild Wild West and the second unleashes X-Men 2: The Illustrated Story OF THE MONTH season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. & Screenplay (intro by director Bryan That title? What the devil is a WIZ- He scripted the 1957 SF movie The 27th Singer, $19.95, tpb; $40 deluxe he, which BANG anyhow? Well, other than an Day based on his own novel and "Behold, includes gatefolds). Allied nickname for certain types of Eck!" for The Outer Limits. (STARLOG explosions during the trench warfare of #39) WWI, but you knew that. FILM FANTASY BOOKS OF NOTE CALENDAR Verne has a sort-of-new book out: THE LAST FAREWELLS Jules Release dates are extremely subject fiction universe salutes The Mighty Orinoco (Wesleyan Uni- The science sadly to change. these amazing talents who died recently. versity Press, he, $29.95). Translated by March: Willard (remake, 3/14), Royce D. Applegate (January) The Stanford Luce, it's the first English edi- ; Dreamcatcher (3/21), Agent Cody this Verne tale. story's bearded character actor who played Chief tion of 1898 The Banks (3/21), Piglet's Big Movie of a searching for his lost Crocker in the first season seaQuest DSV. about young man (3/21), The Core (3/28). He was also seen in Splash, The Rookie, O dad on Venezuela's then-uncharted April: Bulletproof Monk (4/16), Cow- Brother, Where Art Thou, Quantum Leap and Orinoco River. boy Bebop: The Movie. Pocket is fielding a half-dozen Twin Peaks. He portrayed Confederate Gen- Books May: X2 (5/2), The Matrix Reloaded eral in Gettysburg and intriguing Star Trek books. This month James Kemper (5/15), Finding Nemo (5/30). reprised the role in its prequel (now in the- there's Surak's Soul (pb, $6.99) by J.M. June: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven aters), Generals. Dillard an Enterprise novel focusing on Gods & (STARLOG #207) — Seas (6/2), Rugrats Meet the Wild Trek: Compan- Paul Monash (January) The veteran film T'Pol—and Star Voyager Thornberrys (6/13), The Hulk (6/20). producer of Carrie (1976) and The Rage: ion (tpb, $27.95) by Paul Ruditis, a former
CLASSICS TO GO! University of Nebraska Press is doing a great public service to the science fiction universe by republishing classic novels (many out of print) in trade paperback form (prices vary from $12 to $18.95). Special introductions by SF pros (Robert Silverberg, Jack Williamson, Ben Bova, David Brin, John Varley) and explanatory matter grace these wonderful Bison Books editions. Besides those pictured (and more H.G.Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs volumes), the line-up includes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Poison Belt, When Worlds Collide by Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer, A. Merritt's The Moon Pool and The Skylark of Space by E.E. "Doc" Smith. For more info on this fabulous effort, see the website (www.nebraskapress.unl.edu). Art: Thomas Floyd Art: Boris Artzybasheff Art: R.W. Boeche
6 STARLOG/ApnV 2003 Y THE SOUND OF SCI-FI™ RECORDS Est 1954
From our good friends at Decca Now available for the first time is The best music from the 1 st sea- Records comes the hit UPN series star- the wonderful music from the son of the incredible sci-fi series Featuring marvelous vocals by ring Scott Bacula. Enhanced portion Scott [Jonathan Archer) Bakula, includes cast bios and Russell Watson's long-running acclaimed TV series starring Richard Dean A star series music video of the main title song, starring Adrian Paul. This CD Includes David Arnold's of the new UPN TV "Where My Heart Will Take Me." includes several Celtic favorites. main title! 1 ENTERPRISE! I -
Cassette Quan. Price Each Total Price Send cash, check or more/ order to: Starlog 475 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016 Fax (212) 889-7933
Name Address ostage: US - $3.00 per order Postage and Shipping Cjy Canada $3.00 per unit Phcne# Foreign - $5.00 per unit Total Amount Due VsaMastercard* Exp. ease allow 4-8 weeks lor delivery • Foreign orders send US funds only. on't want to cut magazine? Write order on any plain piece of paper. You can fax: 212-889-7933 or e-mail: [email protected] GENRE TV release of Timeline from April 16 to an undeter- Fox is moving forward with another futuris- mined summer or fall premiere. That's truly tic show. The network will air NYPD 2069 time traveling. from Paramount Television and creator-pro- That Lone Ranger TV movie/unsold pilot ducer Steven Bochco. In this case, Bochco is finally airs on the WB February 26. The relocating the kind of cop show he's noted for Gilmore Girls' Chad Michael Murray is the (Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue) to another time. iedialog Ranger, with Nathaniel (American Outlaws) The pilot script's by Nick Weston & Matt Olm- Arcand as Tonto. stead, who executive produce with Bochco. By DAVID MCDONNELL Fox seems intent on booking a new super- REMAKES & SEQUELS woman to replace the one (Dark Angel) they Studios USA is certainly exploiting its old prematurely killed. One untitled project teams executive producers Universal Television heritage. Theatrical fea- Jon (Roswell) Feldman (who's scripting) and Rob (Dragonheart) ture versions are in post-production for The Hulk and in development Cohen (who's directing the pilot). Its heroine has special powers to for Knight Rider and The Six Million Dollar Man. Night Gallery is in alter or affect events for better good-deed-doing (a la It's a Wonder- the works as a USA Network TV movie, as is a new Quantum Leap ful Life, Groundhog Day, Mr. Destiny and Touched By an Angel). series (with a female leaper) and a Battlestar Galactica mini-series Voyager veteran Bryan Fuller is scripting the other untitled pilot, to for SCI FI. Now add to this list—all for airing on USA—new TV be directed by Malcolm in the Middle's Todd Holland, in which our versions of Kojak (telefilms with Ving Rhames in the late Telly heroine talks to the animals (a la Dr. Dolittle, Animal Man, Ant-Man, Savalas' role), McCloud (with, amazingly, comedienne Brett Butler Aquaman, Tarzan). replacing Dennis Weaver) and Baretta (obviously not with the jailed Meanwhile, the WB's Tarzan in Manhattan pilot—officially now Robert Blake reprising his role). With all these '70s, '80s and '90s known as Tarzan & Jane—will actually focus a good bit on Jane. series being resurrected, can Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Buck She's a NYPD detective. Well, of course. Rogers, Marcus Welby M.D., McMillan & Wife and Quincy M.E. be WB execs are visiting Wonderland. They've recruited comics and far behind? TV writer Scott Lobdell (a former STARLOG contributor) to start That potential syndicated spin-off Stargate: Atlantis is a no-go Chasing Alice. This potential series pilot follows a female Scotland show. Yard detective to New York City as she looks for her missing sister The Frankenstein tale gets retold yet again in modern dress with and encounters numerous eccentrics echoing all the Lewis Carroll Evil Never Dies. Thomas Gibson and Katherine (Roswell) Heigl star. originals. Uli Edel is directing the TV movie scripted by Max Enscoe & Annie The WB also has a sitcom pilot, The Spaces, scripted by Dan de Young in Melbourne for a summer bow on TBS.
(Greg the Bunny) Milano. It concerns a teen born in an outer space colony. CINEMACIC Also being piloted by the WB is Shadow Walkers ("Veritas tracks Shrek will come alive in a special 3-D film attraction at the Uni- Prey?'), in which a family of archaeologists (parents & teen kids) versal Studios Parks—the inaptly titled Shrek 4-D. It features quest after mysterious, mythical creatures. The script's by Dan Angel the voices of the movie's Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron & Billy Brown, the writers behind Night Visions (who were also Diaz and John Lithgow and 15 minutes of new footage created by involved in one of the Battlestar Galactica revival attempts). PDI (Pacific Data Images). By the way, Shrek is also starring in a UPN is now engineering Weapon new comic book mini-series, written by X (apparently no relation to the Marvel Mark Evanier. It debuts next month from comic), scripted by Silvio (The Chronicle) Dark Horse. Horta. This pilot is about a government Voices new to Shrek 2 are Antonio technician empowered with super-talents Banderas, Rupert Everett, Jennifer by implanted computer chips. (AbFah) Saunders and Julie Andrews (as Another UPN project, Juggernaut, is Princess Fiona's queenly Mom). an SF entry teaming Robert Halmi's Hall- mark Entertainment and producer Lindy SCI-FI PEOPLE De Koven. Scott Nimerfro's scripting the Jerry Goldsmith is scoring Timeline. pilot, to be directed by Nick Willing. It James Newton Howard composed the chronicles the exploits of a United score for Dreamcatcher. Nations-assembled team of heroes who David Thewlis—from the Island of battle alien invaders—sort of Force 10 Doctor Moreau remake and Timeline— from Navarone goes to war on Indepen- will get hairy at Hogwarts in Harry Potter dence Day. and the Prisoner ofAzkahan. He's Profes- And UPN is also working up a Mr. Ed sor Lupin. pilot, reviving the outrageous sitcom fan- Meanwhile, in Gotham City, the latest tasy which starred Alan Young 40 years Dark Knight project is a new Batman film ago. The aim is to create a talking horse to be directed by Chris (Insomnia) Nolan. with a hip, urban attitude. And for this, they cancelled Deadly Games and Haunt- THE WRITE STUFF ed, much less Legend, Special Unit 2, The long-awaited fifth Harry Potter Roswell and Seven Days! book by J.K. Rowling will finally be published June 21 —simultaneously in UPDATES the U.S., Great Britain, Canada and Aus- Barry Sonnenfeld has dropped out of tralia. It's Harry Potter and the Order of directing Lemony Snicket's An Who was that Masked Man? We wanted to the Phoenix. Unfortunate Series of Accidents amid tell him that he looked too young to be. ..The Technothriller writer David Hagberg That's Michael Murray as budget concerns from cost-conscious Lone Ranger. Chad is novelizing Terminator 3: Rise of the the masked Luke Hartman and Nathaniel Paramount that have also seen producer Machines for summer publication. It'll Arcand as Tonto. Their exploits can be seen Scott Rudin exit the project. appear simultaneously, too—in hardcov- February 26 on theWB. Paramount has fast-forwarded the er and paperback.
8 STARLOG/Vn7 2003 STARGATE SG-1 New sixth season shows premiere Fridays on SCI FI (new time slot, 9 p.m.). 3/7: "Memento." Can the team find a fabled Star- gate? 3/14: "Prophecy." Uh-oh. Jonas (Corin Nemec) can now foretell the future. 3/21: Sea- son finale "Full Circle." Will Anubis capture ANDROMEDA Aeryn Sun's baby? Lani Tupu discusses the the eye of Ra? Renewed for a seventh season. I^Jienewed for a fourth syndicated season. series' fate on page 36, while director Andrew Prowse reminisces on page 40. TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL CBS is ending the show this season with a ANGEL FIREFLY two-hour series finale in May. The show's Airs in a new time slot (Wednesdays, 9 Despite attempts by Joss Whedon, no other 200th episode airs in February. The saga p.m.) on the WB. Alyson Hannigan—who network has yet picked up this series dis- may continue in subsequent seasons in TV is now engaged to wed Alexis (Wesley) carded by Fox. There are three (not four or movie form. Denisof—will guest star as Willow in the five) complete, unaired episodes. So, sadly, "Orpheus" episode. show's over. Move along. TRACKER SCI FI is now airing episodes (Fridays, 10 BIRDS OF PREY KING OF THE HILL p.m.; moves to 8 p.m. 3/28). 3/7: "Breach." Cancelled by the WB in November with last Airs Sundays (7:30 p.m.) on Fox. Renewed Cole must rescue a captured alien—or else the shows reportedly to air in December. for the 2003-4 season. government will have evidence of extraterres-
Nonetheless, more new episodes premiered in trial life. 3/14: "Double Down." Cole is January and the two really final ones debut in MUTANT X framed for murder. 3/21: "Native Son." An a special showing 2/19. 8 p.m.: "Feat of Clay." Renewed for a third syndicated season. Vic- aged Indian teams with Cole to track his Shudder before longtime Batman foe Clayface toria Pratt laughs about life as Shalimar grandson's alien killer. (Kirk Baltz). 9 p.m.: "Devil's Eyes." Harleen Fox on page 26. Quinn (Mia Sara) uses evil hypnotic powers. TREMORS That's it, then. Show's over, move along. ODYSSEY 5 Spin-off TV series premieres 3/28 on SCI FI Cancelled by Showtime. Sony TV is, natu- with two back-to-back episodes. BUFFY rally, shopping it to other outlets that might Airs Tuesdays on UPN. This may be its last pick it up (SCI FI?). THE TWILIGHT ZONE season. Discussions are ongoing about a Anthology airs Wednesdays on UPN. 2/19: continuation of the series (with or without THE SIMPSONS "It's Still a Good Life," sequel to the TZ Sarah Michelle Gellar) or a possible spin-off. Airs Sundays on Fox. Renewed for two classic "It's a Good Life." Bill Mumy & Cloris Tom Lenk chats about life as fan boy Andrew more seasons (2003-4, 2004-5). Jerry Leachman reprise their roles as specially- on page 70. Lewis & Jennifer Garner will do guest voices. powered son and his beleaguered mom. Lil- iana Mumy (Bill's actress daughter seen in THE DEAD ZONE SMALLVILLE The Santa Clause 2) plays his character New second season episodes debut Sundays Airs Tuesdays on the WB. Ex-Superman Anthony's daughter Audrey. Ira Steven Behr on USA. 2/16: "Scars." Johnny must Christopher Reeve guest stars as Dr. scripted, Allan Kroeker directed. Also 2/19: A weigh the secret sins of Stillson's opponent Swann (in what may become a recurring role) remake of another TZ classic ("The Monsters against the politician's own possible dark in "Rosetta" airing 2/25. He advises Clark Are Due on Maple Street"), recasting the sto- futures. 2/23: "Misbegotten." Johnny is "kid- Kent on matters concerning the planet Kryp- ryline with terrorism concerns. Now simply
napped" by a trio of women and persuaded to ton. "Monsters on Maple Street," it stars Andrew investigate a haunted house mystery. McCarthy. Erin Maher & Kay Reindl scripted, ENTERPRISE Debbie Allen directed. Wednesdays on UPN. Jeffrey Combs Airs Note: Airdates can shift his reprises Andorian antagonist in without notice. Series "Cease Fire." are only listed for which STARLOG has FARSCAPE new info. Cancelled by SCI FI. The final new fourth season episodes premiere this month on Fridays (new time slot, 8 p.m.). 3/7: "We're So The Teen of Steel of a Screwed Trilogy: Part II: 'Hot to Katrazi.' " If new generation, Tom Scorpius is being tortured, why are they trying Welling, welcomes to save him? 3/14: "We're So Screwed Trilo- that Superman of all " gy: Part III: 'La Bomba.' Stark (Paul God- seasons, heroic dard) is back—or is he? 3/21: Series finale Christopher Reeve, "Bad Timing." It's all over, but what about to Smallville.
Photo: Ken Regan/Copyright 2003 The WB
STARLOG: The Science Fiction universe is published monthly by starloc CROUP, INC., 475 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. STARLOC and The Science Fiction Uni- verse are registered trademarks of STARLOC GROUP, INC. (ISSN 0191-4626) (Canadian GST number: R-124704826) This is issue Number 309, April 2003. Content is © Copy- right 2003 by STARLOG GROUP, INC. All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction in part or in whole—including the reprinting or posting of articles and graphics on any Internet or computer site—without the publishers' written permission is strictly forbidden. STARLOG accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photos or other materials, but if submittals are accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope, they'll be considered and, if necessary, returned. Please do not call the edi- torial office re: this material. Freelancer phone calls will not be accepted. STARLOC does not publish fiction. Fiction submissions are not accepted and will be discarded without reply. Products advertised are not necessarily endorsed by STARLOG, and views expressed in editorial copy are not necessarily those of STARLOG. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offices. Subscription rates: $49.97 one year (12 issues) delivered in U.S. only. Canadian and foreign subscriptions $59.57 in U.S. funds only. New subscriptions send directly to STARLOG, 475 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. Notification of change of address or renewals send to STARLOG Subscription Dept., P.O. Box 430, Mt. Morris, IL 61054-0430. POSTMASTER: Send change of address to STARLOG Subscription Dept., P.O. Box 430 Mt Morris IL 61054-0430. Printed In U.S.A.
www.starlog.com STARLOG/A/jn/ 2003 9 BLOOD Vivendi tit VIOLENCE universal
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THINGS ARE QUIET OUT THE SUN'LL COME OUT... THERE! ino Video lives up to its "The Best in World Too quiet. It sounds like a line from a g Cinema"C slogan on February 18 by unveil- movie (or, more accurately, 1001 ing a stunning and probably definitive restora-
movies!), but it also describes the current tion of Fritz Lang's silent milestone SF epic home video scene genre-wise. Which isn't \J V U I Metropolis. Three years of work went into this necessarily a bad thing for DVDiehards, who presentation, which is a patchwork of footage doubtless have trouble keeping up with the By TOM WEAVER from positive prints, dupe negatives and camera monthly barrage of $20, $50 and even $100 originals. Using digital technology, all 1,257 must-have releases. So, with full confidence that scenes were cleaned of scratches, tears and uneven some very special presentations (The Two Towers, the contrasts. This new restoration is also significantly longer second Harry Potter, Die Another Day, etc.) are shaping up than any previous theatrical or video release (shots have been while we briefly hibernate, let's look deep into the proverbial half- recovered, intertitles added or retranslated, the film's narrative empty/half-full glass and shine the spotlight on what neat stuff we plot restructured), making it as close as we '11 ever see to the Ger- do find. man 1927 premiere version. Well, first of all, for the fans who are able to buy everything that For fans for whom a quarter-million dollar restoration is not comes along and have some leftover bucks burning holes in their enough, there's also an impressive roster of special features, pockets, the video game industry is still creating movie-related beginning with a new documentary on the history and making of product that in many cases is beating the movies themselves to Metropolis and a featurette on the digital restoration. Plus a home video release. For example, EA Games' The Lord of the gallery of photos and posters, cast-crew bios and a 5.1 Surround Rings: The Two Towers has integrated bits and pieces from the Sound track of the recent re-record of composer Gottfried Hup- movie—including cut scenes—as well as actor and filmmaker pertz's original score. This event of events for connoisseurs of interviews. Harry Potter and the Chamber ofSecrets, also from EA vintage SF cinema comes to VHS at a bargain price of $24.95 and Games, features no such extras—according to advance reports to DVD as a Special Edition (featuring the aforementioned bonus but is ideal for the movie's young fans. Stitch: Experiment 626 is a material) for just $29.95. prequel to the already-on-DVD Lilo & Stitch, for the must-have- Funny: The far-flung future events of Metropolis take place in everything folks. a year (2026) just 23 "Auld Lang Syne"s ahead of us. Funnier: The must-have-everything crowd may also want to check out a The far-flung future events of 1984 take place in a world now blizzard of vintage Disney releases from the Mouse House. We almost two decades behind us! It's the John Hurt-Richard Burton alerted you in issue #307 to the Flubber films and Island at the Top version of George Orwell's novel that's headed for DVD from of the World, but squeezed out by space limitations were other titles MGM/UA ($19.98). like the slapstick The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes with Kurt Rus- Another vision of the future is out on DVD from Blue Under- sell and Gus with Edward Asner and Don Knotts ($19.99 each ground: The 1979 Canadian version of The Shape of Things to from Buena Vista). Distinctly non-genre but nevertheless delec- Come ($24.99), kinda-sorta based on the H.G. Wells novel, and tably Disney-esque are the additional same-price releases The starring Jack Palance, Carol Lynley, John Ireland and Barry Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit with Dean Jones and Kurt Russell, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again with Tim Conway and Don Knotts and The Moon-Spinners with Hayley Mills and Pola Negri. Then from Anchor Bay there's Disney's Napoleon and Samantha, featuring Jodie Foster in her pre-teen film debut—and just $19.98! Speaking of space limitations, that must have been what pre- vented us last issue from listing the distributor of the new Red Dwarf DVD sets. Yeah, "space limitations," that's what it was! BBC Video are the folks responsible.
Legendary superheroes collide as Daredevil faces Spider-Man in an all-out fight for justice in the aptly but not too imaginatively
titled Daredevil vs. Spider-Man (Buena Vista, $19.99). The origins of the visually impaired crimefighter Daredevil are included in this animated comic book adaptation, along with a Daredevil-Spidey team-up in which they take on their mutual nemesis, the Kingpin. Unless you were in a Berlin theater watching Metrop But that's not all the contention in the cartoon world: Once 1927, you've never seen the Fritz Lang classic in quite as again they're trying to figure out Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Hard complete a shape. This restored version unspools on bot to believe that it has been 15 years since the initial release of this VHS and DVD. groundbreaking mix of live action and animation; and just as hard
to believe is all the work that has gone into the lavish deluxe two- titled "Behind the Ears"), a look at a scene with and without ani- disc DVD (also from Buena Vista). Disc One features a full-frame mation and much more. The DVD (with all this bonus material) is version of the film, the Roger Rabbit shorts "Tummy Trouble," $29.99; a new VHS version (featuring "Tummy Trouble" as its sole "Roller Coaster Rabbit" and "Trail Mix-Up" and the "Making of extra) is 10 bucks less. feature "Who Made Roger Rabbit." Disc Two is comprised of a Also on the TVD (TV on DVD) drawing boards at Fox: The widescreen version of the film, audio commentary with director first season of King of the Hill and 28 episodes (first and second Robert Zemeckis and fellow filmmakers, the deleted "Pig Head" season) of Family Guy. The latter's creator, Seth MacFarlane, will sequence, another in-depth look at the movie's making (this one offer commentary on eight episodes.
12 STARLOG/4pn7 2003 _
THE LEGENDARY STAR OF Get lost in space with the Futurama HUNDREDS OF FILMS INCLUDING... crew now that the saga's first season is on DVD. UNDOINGS
STAR WARS: EPISODE II
CHRISTOPHER LEE
Only 500 copies of this Limited Edition Lithograph Poster exist and each copy is autographed by Mr. Lee. Order yours NOW! $75-99 + $6.00 shipping. Sales limited to U.S. only.
Morse in a story of survivors of Earth's destruction now facing further perils in domed cities on the Moon. Tales of tomorrow were a regular part of the weekly diet of far-out fantasy on the original TV series The Twilight Zone, which Image brought to DVD in 43 $25 vol- umes—and which they're now repackaging into five nice, compact nine-disc sets for just $99.99 each. Think of the hundreds of dollars you need not have spent! Think of the many inches (feet?) of DVD shelf space you could have saved! Better yet.. .don't think about it!
The year 2063 is the setting for Fireball XL-5, the British-made Gerry Anderson puppet series of the '60s. The dashing Colonel Steve Zodiac is the commander of the tit- ular space vehicle, manned by a steadfast crew and in search of adventure in (and out) of our solar system. The whole series comes to DVD courtesy of A&E at a reasonable $99.95. Finally, bringing to a temporary close this look at tomorrows both ahead of and behind us, check out Futurama Volume L, a three-disc collection of all 13 first season episodes of Matt Groening's animated series (Fox, $39.98). These are hilarious tales of a pizza boy frozen in time (Fry) and then defrosted in the future, who joins a one-eyed inhuman spaceship captain (Leela) and a roguish robot (Bender) in improbable escapades. There are audio commentaries for every episode in this boxed set, as well as animatics, the script and storyboards for "Space Pilot 3000," a featurette, deleted scenes and an interactive still gallery. POSTER SIZE: IS" x 34"
ITlease indicate the quantity being ordered CHRISTOPHER LEE LITHOGRAPH DVDS IN BRIEF (Fox, $14.98): Hey, Verne! James Ma- Price: $75.99 + $6.00 Shipping invisible Invaders/Journey to the Sev- son, Pat Boone and company hike to our Method of Payment: Cash Check Money Order I enth Planet (MGM/UA, price TBA): planet's core in one of the '50s' all-time Discover Master Card Visa I A double-dose of alien-bustin' John great fantasy adventures. With Herrmann
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Angel (Fox, $59.98): All Season One $19.99): Director Bert I. Gordon's giant If you don't want to cut out coupon, we will accept written orders Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery. episodes of Joss Whedon's Buffy the grasshoppers attack Chicago in a like- Vampire Slayer spin-off are spinning in a you've-never-seen-it-before, right-off- DVD player near you. the-negative transfer. Audio commentary
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Fox, by Gordon's actress-daughter Susan (not Street $19.98): Young widow Gene Tierney's that she's in it!).
English seaside cottage is haunted by the Stargate (Artisan, $19.98): This time City State Zip ghost of ship captain Rex Harrison in this the stone gateway leads to an "Ultimate first-rate fantasy (with Bernard Herr- Edition" that comes packed with two Your Signature mann score). This Special Edition "Making of featurettes and commentary Total enclosed: $ includes film experts' commentary. with director Roland Emmerich and pro- Starlog Group 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY Journey to the Center of the Earth ducer Dean Devlin. 10016 You can fax: 212-889-7933 or e-mail: [email protected]
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The Devil and Deep Space by Susan R. The Omega Expedition by Brian Stableford in every plot twist. New readers, though, Matthews (Roc, pb, 416 pp, $6.99) (Tor, he, 544 pp, $27.95) are strongly advised to begin with the first Matthews opens the new novel in her This concludes the series that began with book. Judiciary series with Fleet Ship Inquisitor Inherit the Earth. Multi-billionaire Adam —Penny Kenny Andrej Kosciusko having escaped the politi- Zimmerman awakens from suspended ani- cal machinations of the previous installment. mation in the 35th century, accompanied by Holder of Lightning: The Cloudmages #1 But Kosciusko's mass murderer Christine Caine and Madoc by S.L. Farrell (DAW, he, 576 pp, $23.95) hardly allowed to Tamlin—a convicted criminal and self-pro- The magelights have returned to the land rest on his laurels. fessed servant of "The Secret Masters of the of Talamh an Ghlas, and the rival clans race That's because World." to gather the clochs—the spellstones that har- an accident in It's Tamlin who first sus- ness the power of the space leaves sev- pects that this new universe lights. But the spell- eral members of he has awakened to is far THE stone of all spellstones, the all-powerful from benign. Factionalism the La'mh Sha'bha'la, Bench dead. The has broken out among the 0I116GR has fallen into the hands Judiciary, in sud- modern descendants of the of Jenna Aoire, making den need of a human race and the XPEDITI0I1 it her destiny to reshape scapegoat, turns advanced machine intelli- her world.
its eyes to Kos- gences which rule the plan- There's something
ciusko, who must ets. And the galaxy is being Perils of Pauline-ish decide if his loyal- threatened by an all-encom- about Holder of Light-
ties lie with his passing threat known as the I ning. From the moment family or his crew. Afterlife. Tamlin and his Jenna finds the spell- The universe revived companions soon stone, she's thrust into
that Matthews has fashioned in these books is learn that they're at the cen- one impossible situa- occasionally unattractive, bordering at times ter of a search for a solution tion after another—the on a dreary dystopia. But she does manage to to the conflict, with little in majority of them "kill
make it work from novel to novel, adroitly the way of clues as to who or be killed" scenarios. keeping her society from grinding itself to their real enemies are. BRIfin STABLEFORD This would be farcical, powder under the heel of its own rigid twi- Unlike most series fic- but Farrell imbues each
light complexion. tion, it's not necessary to read the previous scene with emotion. And Jenna is someone As per the other Judiciary entries, her entries in order to follow this book. There's readers will like, so when her heart is broken,
main safety hatch is the character of enough retrospective material to bring the theirs will crack a bit, too. Kosciusko—an individual whose dark sur- new reader up to speed, and the result is a —Penny Kenny roundings serve to make him far more human novel that's slow to start. But once you get than these stories initially implied. into The Omega Expedition, the story Children of the Shaman by Jessica —Michael Wolff becomes irresistible. Rydill (Roc, pb, 368 pp, $6.50) —Michael Wolff Someone—or something—is killing Turning the Storm by Naomi Kritzer the railroad workers of Gard Ademar. (Bantam Spectra, pb, 384 pp, $6.99) Between Darkness and Light: A Sholan Enter Yuda ben Mordechai, a shaman of Musician-turned-rebel general Eliana Alliance Novel by Lisanne Norman great power and an absentee father. Yuda's adds "spy" to her resume in Turning the (DAW, pb, 752 pp, $6.99) appearance in Gard Ademar—with his Storm, Kritzer's sequel to Fires of the Norman has come a long way from daughter Annat and son Malchik—brings Faithful. Turning Point's "girl meets alien catboy" events to a crisis point. Now, the newly Disguised as a boy, Eliana travels to the storyline. Over the course of her Sholan reunited family must undertake a mystical heart of the empire to learn how magefire series, she has examined time, faith and journey that will either forever unite or
can be defeated. It's not the spies and trai- familial bonds. In Between Darkness and destroy them. tors that make her job diffi- Light, the seventh book, Nor- Rydill has cleverly stitched together a cult, but the pull of old man stretches those bonds to hodgepodge of cultures, religions and his- loyalties and love. the breaking point. torical eras to create a different world. And New readers will have Kusac, who has seeming- while Children of the Shaman is a thor- difficulty acclimating them- ly turned traitor to the oughly enjoyable reading experience selves to the novel because Alliance, abandons his mates save for the absolutely unnecessary love key points aren't clearly Carrie and Kaid. In reality, triangle—it's merely a surface novel. explained. That said, even however, he's desperately try- Rydill has yet to tap the true potential of fans might be disappointed ing to save his son. Mean- this fantastic world. with Turning. The build- while, races tinker with —Penny Kenny ups lead to relatively small evolutionary development, payoffs, major scenes are and a god uses Kusac for his The Maquisarde by Louise Marley (Ace, underwritten and the ten- own ends. To top things off, a he, 400 pp, $23.95)
sion is undercut by the rela- civil war erupts. As she did with The Terrorists of Irustan, tive ease with which things There's a Babylon 5 feel Marley shows that fighting against oppres- happen. This Storm lacks to Between Darkness and sion is possible, but that warriors should be power. Light, and fans of well-writ- prepared to pay heavily. In The Maquisarde, —Penny Kenny ten space opera will luxuriate most of the world is under the heel of Gener-
14 STARLOG/Apn7 2003 ! —
al Glass and the monolithic multinational |TWO DECADES known as InCo. Against InCo are a handful of nations struggling to maintain sovereignty and a mysterious organization known as the EXPLOSI Chain. ESIJERTAIIVMEIVT Ebriel Serique is a flutist who loses her husband and child through an act of senseless
violence. James Bull is a captain in InCo's Security Corps. Circumstances bring these iminmmi two together, putting them between InCo and the Chain. Where they end up in the battle depends upon chance, the presence of vital if ittiii evidence and, most importantly, their own II Bay a hearts.
Marley holds on to reality with an iron fist. She never sugarcoats a fight, and her charac- ters quite often risk more than other fictional protagonists are required to go through. Their struggles are real, and there's never any com- promise in the suffering they face. The beauty
of this is that if or when a victory occurs, it's
all the more precious. • v[ ... —Michael Wolff
Hecate's Glory by Karen Michalson (Tor, he, 480 pp, $27.95) Dying from the wild magic of the North Country, held at swordpoint by his onetime friend, Llewelyn—priest of Hecate and votary of evil—continues the story of his life begun in Enemy Glory. Picking up from the destruction of Emperor Roguehan's military camp and his own return to the monastery, Llewelyn BATTLEFIELD® EARTH relives his escape back into the wider 2D™ ANNIVERSARY EDITION world, his meeting with an ensorcelled bard and his winning of a fabled elfin king- A towering masterwork of science fiction dom. Llewelyn might say he serves evil adventure and one of the best-selling science fiction and, in truth, he's no saint—but he remains novels of all time, L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth opens a truly likable and, oddly enough, decent with breathtaking scope on an Earth dominated for a person. Michalson's study of the darkness thousand years by an alien invader—and man is and light in every soul has created a power- ful and memorable character. an endangered species. —Penny Kenny From the handful of surviving humans a courageous
Dragon and Thief: A Dragonback Adventure leader emerges—Jonnie Goodboy Tyler—who challenges by Timothy Zahn (Tor, he, 288 pp, $24.95) the invincible might of the alien empire in an exciting battle When 14-year-old Jack Morgan explores a of epic scale, danger and intrigue, with the fate of Earth and downed spaceship, he never expects to find a www.starlog.com 1 Alias ass-kicking expertise to the Marvel Universe. Sai any- thing at WEBLOG www.onIine-shrine.com/ This lists websites for SF, fan- garner tasy & animation creators and their creations. Website oper- CHILDREN OF DUNE ators may add their sites to this WEBSITE list by sending relevant informa- SCI FI isn't Dune with Frank tion via e-mail only to Herbert's SF-fantasy saga. This allan.dart @ starloggroup.com new mini-series combines two of the author's novels: Children of INSPECTOR GADGET 2 Dune and Dune Messiah. The WEB PAGE spice is right at Inspect the unexpected as French www.scifi.com/dune Stewart goes Gadget in this direct-to-video sequel. The ALLISON MACK PAGE defective cybercop springs into Smallville's school reporter has a action at Mack attack every time she www.gogogadget2.com smells a good story. What she doesn't know is that her high MANNIX PAGE school crush is the Boy of Steel. \ Where Hugo, we go at are tunneling their way into your gy, staging Revolutions in their PAGE www.nuli.net TV sets. Burt Gummer and the battle for reality. Zion is found at He's no Angel, but this actor is Graboids are Back to Perfection www.whatisthematrix.com the Host with the most. The JENNIFER GARNER SITE at green-skinned lounge singer hits Catch her if you can, Daredevil! www.stampede-entertainment TIMELINE WEBSITE the high notes at As Elektra, Garner brings her .com /tremors Michael Crichton's bestseller www.andyhallett.com CONVENTIONS MARCH Questions about cons? Please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the address listed for the con. Do NOT call STARLOG. Note: Listed guests may not always appear and cons may be cancelled without any notice. Conventioneers: Send all pertinent info no later than four months prior to the event to CREATION STARLOG Con Calendar, 475 Park Avenue South, 7th Fir, NY, NY 10016 or e-mail [email protected] You must provide a phone number and February 28-March 2 (if possible) an e-mail address. STARLOG makes no guarantees, due to space limitations, that your con will be listed. This is a free service; to ensure a Doubletree Hotel Bellevue listing—not here, but elsewhere—contact Phillip Genessie (212-689-2830 x200) for classified ad rales & advertise there. Seattle, WA Creation 1010 North Central, Suite 400 Pasadena, CA Marriott Denver Tech Center Creation Glendale, CA 91202 Creation Denver, CO See earlier address (818) 409-0960 See earlier address Star! and Guests: Wes Craven, Don Coscarclli, Sean Cun- www.creationent.com Guests: David Prowse, Peter Mayhew, Kenny (303)-757-5850 ningham, Brian Yuzna, KNB, Brinke Stevens, Guests: Leslie Parrish, Nicholas Worth; Kate Baker & Jeremy Bulloch (all days); Ethan [email protected] Jonathan Brock, Tony Timponc; Bruce Campbell Mulgrew, Roxann Dawson & Robert Duncan Phillips, Robert Picardo, Tim Russ, Jennifer (Saturday only) McNeill (Saturday only); Marc Alaimo, Jeffrey Lien & Robert Beltran (Friday only); William BUFFY VULKON Combs, Casey Biggs, James Marsters, Andy Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Carrie Fisher, James April 25-27 VULKON George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Hallett & James Leary (Sunday only) Doohan, Holiday Inn Independence May 30-.!une 1 Nichols, Grace Lee Whitney, Armin Shimerman Cleveland, Oil Tampa Airport Hilton Westshore 34 &c Warwick Davis (Saturday only); Michael Vulkon Tampa, FL AGGIECON Marina Sirtis, Billy Dee Williams, James Dorn, P.O. Box 297122 Vulkon March 20-23 Marsters, Andy Hallett, Juliet Landau, James Pembroke Pines, FL 33029-7122 See earlier address Texas A&M University Leary & Nicholas Brendon (Sunday only) (954)441-8735 Guests: Mira Furlan, Teryl Rothory; Michael College Station, TX www.vulkon.com Dorn (Saturday only); John Billingsloy (Sunday) MSC Cepheid Variable Guests: James Marsters, Andy Hallett, James Texas A&M University Leary, Robin Atkin Downes Student Program Office, Box J- CREATION College Station, TX 77844 April 5-6 CREATION http://aggiecon.tamu.edu Portland, OR mm June 14-15 Guests: Virginia Hey, Ruth Thompson Creation FANCORIA'S WEEKEND Piano Tech Center See earlier address OF HORRORS Piano, TX GRAND SLAM May 24-25 Creation See earlier address March 28-30 STARFEST Kurbank Airport Hotel Guests: Kate Mulgrew Pasadena Center April 25-27 Bin-bank, CA 16 STARLOG/Apn'Z 2003 Quite simply, this is the best photo of our FUTURE pal, beloved Trek star [Walter Koenig, that we've ever seen (much less published). Kudos to photog Donn Nottage. Spending some time away from Enterprise's Sick Bay, John Billingsley showed up in High Crimes and White Oleander in 2002. Next up: a role in the Denzel Washington thriller Out of Time. Genre favorite Jeffrey Combs is so happy he Jeri Ryan is still in could just school at Boston hug himself. Public.The former The crazy Seven of Nine also guy goes appears in Down West (as in With Love, an Herbert) upcoming romantic once again comedy starring in Beyond Ewan McGregor and I Re-Animator. Renee Zellweger. Majel Barrett continues having fun on the Star Trek convention circuit, honoring the SF legacy of her late husband, Gene Roddenberry. If you saw William Windom in his 1970s one-man stage show as Thurber (portraying writer-artist James), "then you've seen me at the top of my game," he tells STARLOG. What a great character actor—and great character—Windom is. Barrett & Windom Photos: Jo Beth Taylor www.starlog.com ! ! TUE BIGGEST CH/WqE TO TT4E X-FILES IF IT w TMSORRY,SlR,NEnWER HALF 15 HAD GOMEON FOR /MOTHER SEASON. TALL ENOUGH TO RID -Ty/o hoofs a hijSnt, five hij^Ts \_ 'iMe rule oleqrty FEDERATION week, two weeks. ..we're states fl»«t"fte q rent SPELLING BEE 5 or.nq h«ve to b^ or Say, the wor4 the DVDs to see the wUle before que/ aif4er thinc( Talk qbouf beihej he spells it, of corned J he's Jlis I' DATA LOSES. 18 STAKLOG/April 2003 www.starlog.com . t #11003 #11002 Ultimate Spiderman Issue #15 iciMiiSpectacular SpiderMan #200 #1 1004 Amazing Spiderman Issue #38 ITCH-M r, .^ shipping a handling „ SUB- ITEM* DESCRIPTION PRICEn r Name USA -5535. 0THEB QUAN. TOTAL Address 10955 - Amazing Fantasy #15 $16.95 $5.95 S11 $18 10963 - Peter Parker/Spiderman $16.95 $5.95 $11 $18 City .State .Zip. 10957- Spiderman $16.95 $5.95 $11 $18 Phone Universe #5 11002 - Ultimate Spiderman #15 $16.95 $5.95 $11 $18 VISA . 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CTTifl *^g!t A Publicly Traded Company -CCGI- (OTC) Wall Scrolls are printed full-color on satin-like material. 27" x 38" You can fax: 212-889-7933 or e-mail: [email protected] — guy in their right mind would not where Colin Farrell had to bite my lip, and he Anypass on the opportunity to see Jennifer got so into it that he just started gnawing on Garner naked. For a while last sum- me. For the next week, my lip was way out to mer, Jennifer Garner's husband, actor Scott here and all black. That was a new experi- Foley, wasn 't in his right mind. ence, because we don't bite lips on Alias." "My husband is not a fan of my doing this Going from Alias to Daredevil appeared kind of movie," chuckles Garner, who takes to be a natural step for Garner, but the actress her Alias act to the big screen in the guise of had some reservations. She realized that the Daredevil's deadly assassin Elektra film could also become her first step down Natchios. "When I was making Daredevil, the deadend Hollywood road of typecasting, seeing me naked was quite a sight. There was but Garner's growing obsession with her nothing sexy about it for him. I thought I physicality led her to say yes to this project looked pretty cool covered with all these nonetheless. "I definitely had moments ugly bumps and bruises, but he was horri- before I took this movie where I thought, fied." 'This is so what is expected. I shouldn't do it. " Garner—currently kicking butt in the sec- I should go for something totally opposite,' ond season of ABC's Alias and preparing for Garner admits. "But, ultimately, Daredevil her first starring role in the comedy feature was what I wanted to do, and I knew I would 13 Going on 30—is enthusiastic about have the most fun making this movie. Daredevil. She's more than willing to talk up "When you learn something new, you the rough-and-tumble nature of her part and become obsessed and want to know more the extreme physical toll that playing Elektra about it, and that's how I was about fighting took on her and her luckless co-stars. last year," she continues. "Alias just opened "I took a divot out of Ben Affleck's nose up a whole new world for me that I never during the playground fight sequence," she would have guessed that I had an aptitude laughs. "I kicked him in the head once. But Jennifer Garner enjoys talking about her much less a passion—for. Originally, I want- then Ben got even by bashing my knuckles Daredevil experience and all the effort she ed to do William Shakespeare and Henrik open with his cane. There was also this scene put into the exhausting role. Ibsen [plays]. It never occurred to me to turn 22 STARLOG/4pn7 2003 son. I loved that about Elektra. I feel that, in a way, she's softer than the character I play on Alias. In the beginning, though, I thought I would be playing somebody much harder." Night Moves Despite the fighting skills she has culti- vated on Alias, Garner found herself facing new martial arts challenges in Daredevil. "I feel like Alias was my basic training for Daredevil? she notes. "I don't think I could have launched myself right into Daredevil without having the background of fighting every few days on Alias. But I definitely had to bump it up a notch on Daredevil" And one of the biggest bumps was the formidable task of mastering the three- pronged fighting swords called sais. While a ballet kick into a roundhouse. I was so this character," she remarks. "I saw her as still working on Alias, Garner would take shocked and thrilled with this new thing that being very dark. In fact, dark may not be a every extra moment to meet with sais spe- I discovered that I wanted to take the next strong enough description. She starts out in cialist Don Lee. The training regimen often step by playing Elektra in Daredevil." kind of a charcoal place and just goes, by carried over to Garner's home and Sunday However, Garner says that it was more degrees, to black. Elektra is a dark, dark morning sessions. "Don would come over than the mere physicality of her Daredevil character. But what I was surprised by was and we would work out in the backyard," she alter-ego that attracted her to Elektra, the how much romance is involved in this char- recalls. "Scott would look out the window on cold-blooded killer/hot-blooded lover creat- acter. With Matt Murdock [Affleck], this is Sunday mornings and see what was going on ed 20 years ago by Daredevil comics writer- the first time she's letting her guard down, and say, 'This is not good.' But I loved the artist Frank Miller. "I saw a great duality in finding happiness and trusting another per- idea of learning something from scratch. — Alias Photo: Scott Garfield/Copyright 2002 ABC, Inc. Counterbalancing Alias' action this year is the romantic development between Sydney and Vaughn. Every morning, before I would go to work on fight on the playground, Ben and I rehearsed don't see them as similar characters at all," Alias, I would be out in the backyard doing for six weeks, nonstop. We would work all she says. "Similar things have happened in thrusts, slashes and figure-eights with the night until 6 a.m., sleep until noon, practice their lives. They both lost their mothers and sais. Eventually, I became comfortable with the fighting for that scene for three hours and they both use their bodies physically, but them." then go downtown and work on other scenes that's where the similarities end. Sydney Garner's fighting background—com- all night. It was like we were fighting each fights because she has to. Elektra is blood- bined with Affleck's general athleticism other every hour of every day. But by work- thirsty, vengeful and much more violent. In a didn't make Daredevil's action sequences ing with one fighting partner all through the fight between Elektra and Sydney, Elektra any easier, though. "The fighting coordina- movie—rather than changing partners every would win. Sydney doesn't want to kill any- tors were horrified at how bad Ben and I few days like I do on Alias—we formed a one. She kills because she has to. Elektra is were," she confesses. "They were real real bond. Ben could toss me up in the air just an all-around uglier, dirtier and grittier demanding of us, and it was a bit intimidat- right now and I would trust that he would fighter. And that was an easy role for me to ing because they were speaking Chinese and catch me." play." we were hearing all this through a translator. Fighting Farrell, who plays the hired Turning her attention to Alias, Garner But Ben and I worked very hard. For the assassin Bullseye, was a whole other story. sketches out some things to look for in "Colin was crazy like a loon," Garner grins. upcoming episodes. "The big thing is the Not afraid of "But he also seemed to have a natural apti- relationship between Sydney and Vaughn being typecast tude for fighting. When I was fighting Ben, it [Michael Vartan]," she says. "They're not as a tough was more a matter of taking care of each going to break up. Sydney's in love and we're female fighter, other. We had rehearsed and rehearsed and going to play that out. I think they've waited Garner used too long to get together to have this be just an her time on fought and fought. But when Colin showed Daredevil to up, he was just ready to kill me. He was on-again/off-again relationship. But there's improve her totally into his character. Killing me was his much more to explore. They've got to learn to martial arts goal for the day. We would finish our fight balance the trust in their relationship with the abilities. scenes and I would be all out of breath and fact that they've both been trained to lie. " he would be like, 'That was fun, wasn't it?' "For all the characters that worked for Equally important to her Daredevil stint SD-6, the doors have been blown wide open was the sequence in which Matt and Elektra now that Sydney is a CIA agent rather than a feel the first pangs of love in a rainy down- double agent. Marcus [Carl Lumbly] has all pour over a Hell's Kitchen skyline. "I loved the idea of that being as simple as two peo- ple connecting and falling in love," Garner comments. "Both Elektra and Matt seem to have that natural instinct to run, and both are, in that scene, attempting to convince each other not to run but to stay and to let their feelings for each other happen. "That scene just made sense to me," she adds. "Elektra recognizes this handicapped person who has accomplished so much and who matches her emotional handicap. It made sense to me that she would fall in love with him." Day Jobs Although Elektra and Sydney Bristow seem to be cut from the same cloth, Garner insists that her comic book assassin has very little in common with her Alias agent. "I 24 STARLOG/April 2003 Catch Me If You 1 Can gave Garner the opportunity to play a lighter, Garner 1 1 less action- shows that 1 oriented part. she has m 13 Going on 30 recovered will be her first from the I starring role bumps and i 1 in a comedy. bruises of t her Daredevil 1 m stunts. this genius stuff to play, and Marshall [Kevin Going on 30 and, if all else fails, I'm still wanted this, and I know that sounds ridicu- Weisman] can become more involved in the going back to a wonderful place where I'm lous," she says. "I was happy five years ago missions since he's working for the CIA. still learning. I'm not wishing for Alias to go when I was able to give up being a hostess And, of course, Sloane [Ron Rifkin] is back away anytime soon." and actually make a living as an actress. I felt and Sloane is bad." Nor, she reiterates, is she worried about like I was successful then. I really never Garner's movie career is definitely poised being tied to roles like Elektra. "Hey, thought about doing certain things to get to a to take off. There's talk of an Elektra film Elektra's not a bad character," Garner argues. certain point. I've always just been along for franchise (which Garner says she's up for) "She's Daredevil's equal, and she's as smart the ride and loving what I do. and she likes the potential of a comedy and self-reliant as he is. She's incredibly "I never considered acting as a profession career. Her upcoming 13 Going on 30 is sim- empowering for women and, yes, she's pret- a possibility," lennifer Garner offers. "But, at ilar to Big, and has her transforming into a ty damned sexy. Maybe I should worry about the same time, I couldn't get enough of it 30-year-old with a 13-year-old mind. But the being typecast more than I am. But I like and, when I was growing up, I always looked actress—despite acknowledging the grind of doing this and I'm always learning. I can do for a way to be on stage. I did a lot of stuff series television—isn't anxious to leave the fighting and the other stuff, but I'm not for free until my mother finally said, Alias behind. "It's boring to talk about how really a true martial artist. Maybe in time, if 'Jennifer, go to New York. Why don't you hard I work on Alias!' she says. "But the I keep at it, I might just become one." face it, this is what you love.' I said, 'But it's thing that makes a movie like Daredevil so Gamer is pleased with where her career not something that normal people do.' She much fun is that I love my day job. I can take has taken her, but she was happy well before said.'Go'... risks in something like Daredevil or 13 stardom appeared on the horizon. "I never "And it turned out to be good advice." ^ www.starlog.com STARLOG/Apn'/ 2003 25 — — Victoria Pratt gets wild & crazy for more superhero action as Mutant X's £\ WW feral fatale Fflx HCi By PETER BLOCH- the set of Mutant X, the crew go a bit crazy, under the control of someone works quietly, some showing signs else, and I try to kill everybody." She laughs. Onof exhaustion. It's nearly halfway "That's so cool! Usually, I'm fighting stunt- through the final week of shooting men, but here I'm fighting all our guys. And on the syndicated series' second I got to do the whole thing in this beautiful season, and as producer Jonathan Hackett gown and sky-high heels. It was really wild, directs, the cast rehearses an emotional scene but at the same time, they let me be a lady. about Shalimar Fox's troubled childhood. Not too much of a lady, but just enough. Victoria Pratt, who plays the feral mutant, "Ripley [from the ALIEN movies] wasn't delivers her lines. Her castmates react, two very ladylike, but in my eyes, she was still cameras covering their faces in close-up. A beautiful—and very sexy. I think that's few modifications, a few takes and Hackett because I was looking for something to iden- calls for the lunch break. tify with myself. I get letters from young Showing no fatigue at all, Pratt briskly girls, 10-year-olds, who love Shalimar and leads the way to the cavernous "Sanctuary" like to play Shalimar. That's neat, because I set's living room area to talk. But first, set- used to feel the same way about Lindsay tling into an elegant armchair, she laughs, Wagner. I still have images from The Bionic long and deeply. The first thing that strikes Woman with me, and I'm sure I've shaped people about Pratt is that she laughs. A lot. "I part of who I am from that. I used to run laugh like a drunken truck driver," she com- track and field. I would have an image—like ments. "It's not in my nature to be serious." a snapshot in my head—of the Bionic At the suggestion that her character is a Woman. There was something in that char- balance between a femme fatale and the acter that I was striving to bring out in "good girl" type, the actress chuckles. "I myself. When women write to me and say, think that not only applies to Shalimar, but to 'Your character has inspired me to work out me as a person," Pratt remarks. "For years, or to do certain things,' it's an incredible I've been involved in athletics, and maybe compliment, an amazing feeling. All you can I've pushed the boundaries a bit—of what hope, being part of the media, is that you'll people think of as traditional beauty, or tra- impact someone in a positive way." ditional femininity. And I think your con- Pratt then breaks into a wicked grin. "By cepts of beauty change as you change. I the same token, with the exposure come the don't lift weights anymore, but I do kickbox- different magazines FHM, Stuff, Oxygen ing. I've always seen strong, athletic women and whatnot—and you pick up a male fan- as beautiful. That's what I want to bring to base. On the one hand, I have women saying, Shalimar. Many times, female characters 'Thanks for being so strong,' and on the especially when they're strong, take-charge other hand, I have guys going, 'Hey! I like ones—are written as hard and unfeminine, the way you look in your underwear,' " Pratt and I didn't want that for Shalimar. Even laughs. "Wow! I mean one thing to women when I get to be wild and crazy, I want there and a completely other thing to men. So to still be a femininity and sexiness to her. It strange." won't appeal to everyone, but I'm sure it will appeal to some, and many people are going Wild Thing to love it. The blond, dark-eyed Pratt chuckles "Ultimately, I have to be happy with it again, not at all uncomfortable discussing myself," she continues. "I'm not going to be her considerable sex appeal. "Those photo happy stomping around and acting butch, shoots are long days, and I'm running and I'm not going to be happy being the around in my underwear with lots of bright wispy little woman. For me, it has always lights and strange people. It's not like it's been a blending of the two. In an episode that foreign to this business, though. It's all part we just finished shooting, I lose my mind. I of the thing. It's flattering." 26 STARLOG/4pn7 2003 family, too. There was a scene where Victor [Webster as Brennan] and I had this little kissing thing. We were in bed together and I just looked at Victor and said, 'How am I going to kiss you?' While they were doing all the lighting and everything, it was freez- ing, so we were under the covers and we were each reading, like this old married cou- ple. He had a trade magazine and I had a newspaper. I looked over at him and said, T feel like I've been married to you for 10 years,' " Pratt cracks up again, throws back her head and hugs herself. "It's always going to be weird. I'm sure it would be even weird- er if two of us were to get hooked up on camera." Natural History It seems like a good time to shift topics. Pratt nods, grins and then proceeds to talk very fast. "At the end of Season One, all our powers were sort of amped up," she explains. "I think they wanted to play up my character's feral nature a bit more this year, so we're seeing Shalimar become more unpredictable and wilder, which is fun. Shalimar gets a little crazy, especially toward this season's end. There's an episode, 'Whose Woods These Are,' where I go into the forest to find this feral who has been turned, and they really explore some of the feral side of my nature in that. I catch this Is Mutant X sexier this season? Pratt sleep in a little cave in the wall. I'm flattered, virus that makes my mutation just go out of grins, then pauses to consider. "I think they though, that they did take some of my ideas control. I turn into this wild beast and take it tried to make the show more accessible to on that. I thought, 'How would a cat, a feral, out on Brennan and the team. I got to go the real world," she opines. "Last year, we sleep?' Cats like to look down on things from wild. It was ever so fun." lived in a hyper-stylized environment. There above it all. So they put my bed up in the The changes Pratt has been referring to was no furniture. There was nothing to pick wall and filled it with furs and these crazy stem largely from the pen of Peter Mohan, up, no paper. That was a really bold and fabrics and had me crawl in there. I can't who served as the second season's supervis- interesting choice, but very hard to live in even sleep in it, let alone have a friend in ing producer (STARLOG #305). Pratt's and, I think, very hard for people to associate there. Shalimar's not getting lucky at home." stratospheric energy level notches even high- with. I mean, you watch Friends, and the The actress lets loose with another laugh. er as she praises the series' new show runner. kitchen is full of groceries and clutter. We "It's obviously something we have to go out "I think it was the first script that he wrote," didn't live in the Sanctuary. This year, the for, you know? 'Shalimar, don't take your she recalls. "I was reading it at the airport, Sanctuary looks much more lived in. love to town.' They do play the Brennan- waiting. Then I got on the plane and thought, "It's the same with our wardrobe. We Shalimar thing a bit more. It's funny, but as 'Should I call him?' I thought, 'No,' but then, wore these fantastic, crazy coats and these the characters on the show we're a family, you know, people only hear when they've stylized outfits that looked great, but I don't and as people in real life we've become a done something crappy: 'This wasn't good think the rest of the world could see them- selves wearing that. This year, we're in jeans, funky boots and sexy little tank tops. So that might be sexier to people, because they can see themselves in those clothes. The writing is sexier, too, because we're relating to each other as people. Last year, it was very comic book, in my opinion. We've changed writers and it has added such a human element. Whenever you make something more human, you make it sexier. I enjoy a lot of elements much more this year. I like the sex- iness of it." Mutant X brings together, under an older father figure (John Shea as Adam), four very active, attractive young people; yet there never seems to be any romantic or sexual heat igniting among them. "You know, we laugh about that all the time. All these people The show's other sexy living together in the Sanctuary and none of heroine is Emma (Lauren us are gettin' down?" Pratt smirks. "We look Lee Smith). She's not as at our [set] bedrooms, and our beds are these wild as Shalimar, but she is an empath. tiny little things. I don't even have a bed. I www.starlog.com STARLOG/4pn7 2003 27 "Today's scene was quite intense. I got to to help me out. Another time, I bruised my explore emotions I usually don't—like hurt, hand, which is pretty hard to do. I was run- Suffering bumps anger and vulnerability—all in one episode. ning through a door and one half of it was and bruises is all It was an interesting show for me. I got to do locked, so it didn't really move when I threw part of the job, acting where I wasn't getting punched," she myself into it. I cracked my knee on that says Pratt, but laughs again. "Acting with no bruises." same door. But I'm in good shape and I work usually Shalimar But bruises aren't a sore subject with this out all the time. For the show, I usually don't is the one action-adventuress. "My job is very physical. ask my body to do anything that I don't dishing out I signed on for that, and I fully expect to get already do normally. I kickbox almost every punishment. the bumps and bruises and the cuts and nicks day, so when I do a fight scene, it's nothing Young, powerful needing guidance, Mutant X / team is lu to embrai mentor lik Adam (John Shea). enough. That wasn't good enough.' So I and scratches. I'm lucky that I've never been that I haven't done on a bag before. I'm pret- called him from the plane and said, 'Peter, I badly injured, hit by a stuntman or some- ty injury-free, though I have a few badges of just want you to know that I love the script.' thing like that, which is great, because I put honor. More often than not, when I read the new my life in their hands so often. Although I "I could draw you a little map," Pratt scripts, I feel like calling Peter and thanking did a jump off a roof where I didn't land very beams. "When I take my shower in the morn- him. He lets us relate to each other. well. That hurt," she giggles. ing and look in the mirror, I see bruises all "In the first season, the stories were about "I was out of commission for a bit, just in over my body." More laughter. "I look crazy our guest stars and not about us. This year, terms of having to bring in my stunt double naked." More guffawing. "It's just wrong! I the stories involve us and let us talk to each "I have my witchy woman, though. Victor other like friends talk to each other. We get to goes to her, too. I call her that only because tease each other and get mad at each other. she has this weird healing power about her. We're not always just talking about the They'll drive me there and I'll walk out and* 'Mission.' We're also talking about how the do a fight scene that day. It's just amazing." mission applies to us. Our characters are more interesting now. Sometimes in a scene, Cat walk I'll feel choked up, because there's an emo- On weekends, Pratt routinely commutes tion that wasn't there last year. Peter has a between Toronto and her home in Los really funny sense of humor as well, and he's Angeles (which she shares with director hus- a little twisted. I like that. He also didn't have band T.J. Scott). In a few days, she'll be jet- any lead time. He was thrown into the pot ting home for the series' three-month shoot- and they were cracking the whip the whole ing hiatus. "The border crossing is much time." more time-consuming now," she observes, For Pratt, one of the co-stars of Cleopatra "and they check your luggage more often. It 2525 (which she discussed in STARLOG eats up the day. When I'm going home for #273 & #285), her evolving role on Mutant X the weekend, I don't have much time to play has meant new challenges. "When you're on with. It's hard being away from my family a series, the challenges change all the time," and friends. Sometimes it feels like life is she notes. "The differences between Season happening without me, and that's not a good Two and Three will be that we get to see thing. I want to re-connect with my life, see Shalimar evolve further. The biggest difficul- my friends and family. One of my girl friends ty on any series is trying to continually find had a baby and another one is pregnant. So a excitement in your character. And working in lot is happening without me being there." an ensemble cast, the show isn't always Despite her heavy schedule, the tall, about you. Sometimes I'll come in and dynamic Pratt is looking forward not to rest- there's a three-page scene and I'll say two ing but to a whole new round of activity. lines. It's like, 'How do I feel part of that?' "When you work straight for nine-and-a-half But you know what? You are, so you better months," she suggests, "it's hard to fathom feel it. It's your challenge as an actor to make doing anything else. After a few margaritas, yourself always present, to give as much of lying by the pool gets old pretty fast for me. yourself to the story that you aren't the star I have a workout room here in Toronto of as the one that you are. because the hours are so crazy, but in LA I 28 STARLOG/4pn7 2003 www.starlog.com have the luxury of time. I go to a kickboxing worthy of a tasting. We try not to have too too. I bartended to put myself through school gym there that I adore and a karate studio I many people because we would just be too and loved it. I loved that as much as I love like. I enjoy doing stuff that I can't really do drunk to figure anything out. But we have acting. I'm a very social person. I like the here in Toronto. It's so beautiful there. I'll pool parties and barbeques. thought of going back on weekends, hopping get up in the morning and just walk. I'll walk "Also, we're working on opening up a bar behind the bar and making people drinks." all day. in LA, so much of this hiatus will be spent on Pratt's ambitions are not all social and "I've got a great circle of friends in LA, doing research," Pratt says. "We have a entrepreneurial, however. "I took this great and they're all Canadian. We have these bunch of partners and they're all Canadian comedy class on my last hiatus," she reveals. wine-tasting parties. Admittance is that actors. It'll be a little Canadian haven there. "I loved it, loved it, loved it! I'm dying to go everybody must bring one bottle of wine We're thinking of calling it 'the Beaver back there again and learn some more. I'm " Lounge!' Pratt throws her head back and looking forward to taking more classes. I kicks her feet a little, laughing uproariously. want to do some comedy. I think it's closer to "It was my idea," she admits. "A Canadian my nature. I'll do the action, though, as long would not walk by the Beaver Lounge and as people still want to see me running not say, 'Hey, that's us!' Of course, we around, but I don't want to back myself into wouldn't exclude Americans, even though a corner where that's all I'm good for. I have LA is the second largest Canadian city. We a couple of movie things in the pot, but I want Americans to come to our little lounge, don't like to talk about them until they go. I'm superstitious that way." She does expect to be back with Mutant X for a third year, but for now, it's the show's second season that concerns her. "Toronto is really beautiful in the summertime. We were lucky. They took us out of the studio a lot this season. It felt like recess or summer camp. * Shalimar's sexual heat It didn't feel like work—almost a feeling sparks her animal of family that sticks in my mind. Good instincts. "We're seeing times, good memories," Victoria Pratt [her] become more un- ictable, which is fun." smiles. "You can't hope for anything more." While Pratt is an inspiration to women, guys do gawk at her character's provocative outfits. "I mean one thing to women and a completely other thing to men." sary. As the disease spreads—through disgust- ing organisms called Shit Weasels—the four friends come to terms with their powers and their lives as the virus inexorably makes its way toward a reservoir, where it will contaminate Boston and then the rest of the world's water supply. Besides Freeman, the eclectic Dream- catcher cast includes Thomas (Deep Blue Sea) Jane as Dr. Henry Devlin, Jason Lee as Joe "Beaver" Clarendon, Tom (Red Planet) Sizemore as Owen Underhill, Damian Lewis as Gary "Jonesy" Jones, Timothy Olyphant as Pete Moore and Donnie Wahlberg as Douglas "Duddits" Cavell. The film's special effects come courtesy of Industrial Light & Magic and Steve Johnson's Edge FX. Production began in January 2002, with six "What this movie represents to me is a join- going around that King—who is reportedly weeks of outdoor location lensing in the snowy ing of two sides of my filmmaking personality," enthusiastically behind this adaptation of his woods of Prince George in northern British says Kasdan during a break in shooting. "What work—may visit the shoot tonight. Makeup Columbia, and finished up with 11 weeks of you have here is the guy who could write supervisor Bill Corso is particularly excited stage and location filming in Vancouver. Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes about King showing up, and excitedly remarks, "That's right, Shit Weasel is the official ter- Back and Return of the Jedi, and the guy who "I would like nothing better than to make him minology," Hutman laughs as he winds his way would go off and make Grand Canyon, The Big up as an alien virus victim and put him in this through the barn set in between takes. "We're Chill and Body Heat. Dreamcatcher combines scene." walking through a barn teeming with virus- a real story with special effects, so I felt it was infected humanity. The barn has started to the perfect launching pad for me to finally do Man Hunts become infected with the virus. This doesn't both things at once." Dreamcatcher—co-scripted by Kasdan and look like much now, but in the movie there will King's novels have never been an easy William Goldman (who previously adapted be an invisible cut, and you'll see all kinds of adapting chore, largely because the source King's Misery and Hearts in Atlantis)—tells destruction." material is typically mammoth in scope. the tale of four young boys—Beaver, Pete, Hutman, whose credits include What Turning Dreamcatcher—which is 879 pages Jonesy and Henry—who defend a mentally dis- Women Want, The Horse Whisperer and TV's long—into a filmable script was no less daunt- abled boy, Duddits, from the cruel attacks of The West Wing, hints at the grand things that ing a task, but Kasdan found that "condensing others. Their good deeds are rewarded when will be on display in the memory warehouse the book was rather easy. It's just a matter of they learn that they have acquired special pow- showdown between Jonesy and Mr. Gray. As finding the essence and turning it into a movie. ers, which allow them to hear other people's for other highlights, Hutman only offers a brief And the essence here was ordinary characters thoughts, find missing items and envision description. "Mr. Gray is in the cabin and his in extraordinary circumstances." strange images. head explodes. Jonesy then breathes in the Associate producer (and brother) Mark Some 25 years later, the four friends are virus. We manifest the virus on the skin, which Kasdan is more specific. "I feel that the spirit of making their annual trek to the backwoods of shows [that the person is] infected. Some of the the movie is very close to the book," he notes. Maine to hunt and catch up on each other's infected people start growing Shit Weasels. It's "People who haven't read the book in a while lives when their trip unexpectedly takes a turn unclear what causes that." may have to rack their brains to see where it has into terror. It seems that the residents of the Although Dreamcatcher has been so wide- [been changed]. This movie will be different in nearby town of Goslin are suffering from a ly read that keeping secrets about the film close, structural ways. In the novel, the resolu- strange virus-like disease, which may be alien seems kind of silly, there are surprises in store tion of Mr. Gray takes place in a kind of hospi- in origin (thanks to a spaceship crashing in the for fans of the novel. "We're going along with tal of the mind, the kind of dream world that area). the benevolent look of Mr. Gray that King cre- King is so good at creating. To have the [film's] The military soon takes over, under the ated, but as for the evil version. ..you'll just story resolve itself exactly like the book didn't command of the unstable Curtis, with orders to have to wait and see. And yes, you will get to seem like the best of ideas, and so a more exter- clean up this mess by whatever means neces- see a Shit Weasel." nal [conception] of the ending was introduced. Also, the long chases SNOWY. The 85-day down the interstate were a huge Dreamcatcher shoot was a long and stretch of storytelling in the book, wintry road that began in the cold and those have been radically con- country of British Columbia. densed in the movie." Production designer Jon Hutman acknowledges that "in the book, the flashbacks are detailed and exten- sively drawn. In terms of what we see in the movie, they're specific little glimpses. The reality is that if we had filmed King's book, we would have had a 10-hour mini-series. There just wasn't time in a two-hour movie to tell all that. So while this will be an abridged version of Dreamcatcher, it will be totally faithful to the book." Freeman moves slowly and delib- erately out of his chair and returns to the crowded barn set. There's buzz 32 STAKLOG/April 2003 It's now a little past midnight, and Kasdan is putting Freeman through his final motions. Given the late hour, biting cold and surreal nature of the shot, the scene is taking on a truly nightmarish quality, with flickering lights, omi- nous shadows and agonizing victims suffering and surrounding Freeman in his contamination mm suit. Kasdan is finally satisfied and dismisses Freeman, who is whisked out of the barn and off into the dark and snowy night. FRIGID. Visual FX producer Jackie Lopez under- Morgan Freeman stands that Dreamcatcher "is not Armageddon, as a villain? Yup. The actor is both but there's surprisingly a lot going on." She insane and evil points out that the most obvious visual inter- as a cold- vention involves the creatures, the spaceship blooded military and the effects of the virus on the human vic- man instructing tims. There's also a pregnant dog, which has Tom Sizemore. "something horrible happen to it." What that horrible thing is, Lopez won't divulge, but she King," he confesses, "but I've liked many of the does reveal that the effect combines CGI and movies that have been made from his books, puppets. No real pregnant dogs were actually like Carrie, The Dead Zone and The Shining. harmed during shooting. She then teases that When I read Dreamcatcher, I felt we had a con- one sequence with military troops and the crea- nection. He writes about fear, and I feel like tures borders on envelope-pushing, and if it I've been writing about fear on a realistic level. works, "It could be really cool." I also think that his monsters reflect the same Most of Lopez's Dreamcatcher duties kinds of fears that have been in my movies. So require working hand in hand with the physical there was definitely a connection." FX people. "Much of what we're doing is phys- Seeing this as their chance to do the special ical effects combined with CGI," she says. FX genre movie that Lawrence had wanted to "This movie is very reality-based, so what we do for a long time, the two brothers inquired can 't be is over-the-top fantastic. It must all fit about the book and discovered that Castle Rock into Larry's style, which has an almost docu- had the right of first refusal. Lawrence—whose mentary look to it. You'll know that it's not real son Jake wrote and directed his first film, Zero because there are creatures involved, but we're Effect, for Castle Rock—made his pitch, and a hoping that it looks very real. We're trying to do deal was struck. everything we can practically, because Larry "By that time, William Goldman was wants to see it and he wants his actors to already writing a first draft," Mark relates. respond to it. We want to make all this stuff as "Goldman did the hard spade work of begin- terrifying as possible for the people to react to. KAvV This is tee's second In this movie, doing it in post is sort of a last picture with the Dreamcatcher resort." director. He also appeared in the Lopez's visual FX arsenal is pretty much Kasdan comedy Mumford. state-of-the-art, so the real challenge of Dreamcatcher lies in trying to capture the thing really overwhelming. But when Larry proper tone. "This isn't one of those super- told me that he didn't want to go too horror- aliens, explosions, bang-'em-up kind of movie with the makeup, that he wanted to keep movies," she states. "This is about the relation- everything gritty and realistic, I knew the ship of these four boys. Yes, there's Mr. Gray to Creepshow stuff wasn't going to work." contend with, but the concept of that character Corso—a King veteran who also worked on is esoteric; it's a creature, but it's also in your the Stand and Shining mini-series—spent three mind. Our big challenge is using the visual months researching the best way to show the effects to pull that off without simply trying to effects of the virus on human flesh. After a wow the audience. I like to think of this movie trial-and-error period, Corso happened on the as being a great deal like The Shining with ideal method. "We found that if you heat up creatures in it." puff paint, it expands and creates a bizarre kind And those creatures are what Lopez is of swelling," he reveals. "So we did that, added expending most of her energy on. "The big dif- some moist and fuzzy elements to it and—com- ficulty is making them as unobtrusive as possi- bined with the red color—came up with some- ble. We're going with the attitude of: 'What thing that's disgusting and totally alien, but not would be the most horrifying thing a creature too extreme." could do?' Yet we're trying not to overdo it by keeping it in the dark and in the shadows." icy Evenings Edge FX's Corso is a big fan of Kasdan's Dreamcatcher' & odyssey from book to work, but when he sat down to read the movie began in 2001. Mark Kasdan recalls, Dreamcatcher script, a rather unsettling vision "Larry became aware of Dreamcatcher. The came to mind. "All I could picture was Kevin book had already been published [in 2001], so Kline running through the woods, being chased it was a little late by Hollywood standards. He by a Shit Weasel," Corso laughs as he sits down had read the first blurbs about the book and was in a now-empty meal tent in front of that most immediately interested. We both got copies and valuable of on-set commodities, a space heater. read it." "When I read the script, I found that the whole Lawrence Kasdan knew that Dreamcatcher virus aspect read a lot like Creepshow, some- was a terrific story. "I haven't read that much www.starlog.com STARLOG/April 2003 33 FROSTBITE.'; ning to condense and pare away elements that ; e 'all -the shots of the didn't work cinematically. His instincts were Weasels? Maybe it's terrific when it came to eliminating things that f&st top cold for them to didn't look like a movie." come out". Lighta torch Goldman turned in his first draft and then and see them in met at length with Lawrence. During those Drpamcatchbr, conversations, Goldman would continually respond to the director's suggestions by saying, "There are no Shit Weasels," which was the screenwriter's way of explaining that in this kind of movie, there are no hard and fast exter- nal rules that must be followed. Mark remembers that his brother instantly found the hook in Dreamcatcher—a hook that doesn't center on the aliens and the novel's more disgusting parts. "Larry had the idea that the thread would be between the four main characters and Duddits. Because he had exam- ined groups of friends in many of his other films, he felt that side of it was something he casting process went mostly trouble-free, could have had too much blue sky and sunlight. could do and do well." except for one important role. "The big ques- But none of those things happened. The only Goldman went away and did a second draft, tion was who would play Curtis," Mark says. real injury we had was when the script girl which was much closer to Lawrence's vision. "From the moment Larry thought of Morgan slipped and broke her ankle." Lawrence then did a final pass-polish on his Freeman, it was a done deal in his mind. But own and the screenplay was complete. The there was some concern, because the Colonel is Warm Mornings somebody who goes off the Late night has now turned to early morning. tracks. Morgan has such a Director Kasdan is filming the necessary cover- strong audience identification age of the virus victims, studiously getting as a good guy that when he did pans, close-ups, medium shots, long shots and Hard Rain, the ending had to all points in between. During another break in be reshot because test audi- the action, Kasdan remarks, "I'm really excited ences had a hard time relating about this. I've written movies that have had to him as totally evil. But we big special effects, but I never got to make one." knew that Morgan could play He also candidly comments that entering this role believably, and so we the FX world as a director has led to some went with our instincts." moments of doubt. "There was no trepidation The 85-day shoot began before [I started filming], because I had never in Prince Edward, British done blue screen before. But when we got back Columbia, where the Dream- to Vancouver and all these blue-screen prob- catcher crew filmed exterior lems arose.. .now I have trepidation. It's just scenes in chilly outdoor loca- awful. I've come into this picture at a time tions. The scenes involved when effects have become much easier to do, the town of Goslin—primar- but I'm concerned that people are being asked ily the barn and general to accept a reality that's not a reality, and I store—and many of the don't like that. I want the standard of this story's grimmer elements. movie to be totally real. I've eliminated all "The decision was made kinds of angles and shots—anything that peo- early on to confront King's ple have seen before. This is being treated as a imagery," Mark says. "The real story with real creatures." idea of an alien parasite is Kasdan concedes that Dreamcatcher, at its pretty heady stuff, and we center, is much like the movies he has directed decided not to turn away in the past. "So many of my movies have been from it. The big question about circles of friends and so, coincidentally, was: 'How do we treat it?' have many of King's books," Lawrence Kasdan ARCTIC We felt that to get the split- observes. "That's certainly this movie's theme. I Sizemore second or two we needed What's different, though, is that right in the does matter. As to see, we would have to middle of these young men dealing with and re- Captain Underhill, stare at some pretty ugly examining their lives, they have to put that the actor has a things." aside to stop an alien invasion. For me, it's a change of heart Lawrence felt that metaphor for encroaching evil. You've got that affects the alien invasion. shooting the exteriors first these friends who are frustrated with their lives, was essential if they were and then you have a very real alien invasion. to get the snow, and look- Those are the kinds of things I like to see." ing back at that time, he Our snowy stay in Langley ends around 3 considers the production a.m. The van is on the other side of the ice- "very lucky. We were slicked road. It's a long, slippery shuffle. Just only one day over during as the van comes into view, outlined in black those first six weeks. We and falling snow, a figure appears. In the world could have been fouled of Stephen King, it could be anything. But in up in so many ways. We the real world, it's the head of the wardrobe could have had no snow department... or too much snow. We Asking for the warm coat back. www.starIog.com U < CLASSIC SPIDER-MAN/DAREDEVIL LITHOGRAPH Jose Villarrubia! By John Romita Sr. with colorist paper and drew SPIDER-MAN: John Romita first put pencil to ROMITA LEGACY #17! LITHoS back in Daredevil #16 and S| 9"ed Spider-Man by John Romita Sr. that Stan The Thici. tn His rendition was so "Amazing", Marvel s Man" Lee asked John to take over - Spider-Man! siqnature series The Amazing Stock! Printed on 801b. Gallerie Art Silke edition masterpiece will be an amazing you missed out This before, don't miss out anJnl to your collection! C95860 Limited Edition! Unsigned $24 99 MSRP. at S24.94 MSRP C94070 SIGNED BY JOHN ROMITA SR. AND JOSE VILLARRUBIA. ^SO MSRP. C95861 AVAILABLE SIG NED^y? Edition! $49.99 fiT ^ Send cash, check or money order to; STARLOG GROUP Method of payment: 475 PARK AVENUE SOUTH Cash Check Money Order NEW YORK, NY 10016 Discover Master Card Visa You can fax: 212-889-7933 or e-mail: [email protected] Account Number Card Expiration Date_ _ (mo/yr) Name As It App ears Un Card Street City State Zip Signature Description Qty. 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Not only was his wily, villain-turned-hero Bialar Crais killed off in spectacular fashion, but now Tupu has lost a second job in the Outer Territories—as the voice of the towering, inulti-armed Pilot—courtesy of a demon far worse than anything an SF writer could con- jure up: cancellation. "It has been kind of a shock to every- body," says Tupu, who learned of the grim news from a fan during a Las Vegas SF con- vention. "However, that's the nature of the business we're in. Sometimes it just works out that way. Being in television, you have to fight for the next season. We've had to lobby for every season all along. It wasn 't a given. Even though some of us had contracts that were going on for some years, it was still an option. It would have been great to have gone on, though, because everyone was real- ly thinking seriously that Season Five was going to happen." In its four seasons, Farscape attained a high level of critical acclaim and popularity among genre fans. It won three Saturn awards (given by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films) and earned an Emmy nomination for costuming. The series spawned ongoing conventions, books, websites and that badge of SF immortality: action figures. Praised for its innovative approach to storytelling, Farscape often pushed the boundaries of SF television, and gained notoriety for its off- beat and unpredictable style. "What set it apart was its freshness," notes Tupu. "It was moody, dark. It wasn't as clean as Star Trek. It had a really dramat- ic through-line all the way. I remember [executive producer] David Kemper saying in an article or a talk once, 'We're not rein- venting the wheel. We're just putting a com- pletely different spin on some storylines that have come through before, following in the tradition of the genre.' And shooting in Australia—without the kind of pressure of fans in America—freed us to keep on doing what we were doing. Which turned out to be pretty good. I think Farscape had a really Australian quality to it. We were pretty Killed off in heroic fashion, Bialar Crais (Lani Tupu) exited Farscape before SCI Fl cancelled the popular program. By RHONDA KRAFCHIN 36 STARLOG/4/;n7 2003 Happy with his Farscape memories, Tupu celebrates the series with fans atSF conventions. Atlanta [for convention appearances]. It's really, really extraordinary. I'm just amazed. "When I was in Orlando, a couple of ladies came into a comic book store that I was doing a signing at, and they had photos of troops in Afghanistan holding up little placards, 'Save Farscape.' Then there was the weekend where it was International Save Farscape Day. There has been mobilization in New York in Central Park and on the beach in Australia. I'm just stunned that fans around the world have supported us and fol- lowed it through all the way. There have been other drama shows that have closed in Australia and who cares? They're gone. [In the future], I think that Farscape will be seen as a landmark series, one that influenced shows to come for the next 10 or 20 years." His time on Farscape has left Tupu with where you're typecast—and that's the diffi- many fond memories: watching actors with culty. Making the transition [to film] is a enormous alien heads trying to eat their really big thing for an actor. So, luckily, lunches, being part of a crew that seemed to Farscape has kind of elevated me to a posi- grow larger and larger over the years and tion where some people know my work in shooting his final moment as Crais, in which America. The next step is to utilize that to get my next project. That's where I am now." Ironically, the one place Tupu's recogni- tion factor hasn't gone up is his hometown. Despite being an Australian production, Farscape was barely promoted there, which means that the local film and television pro- duction companies are less likely to have heard of the cast's successful work. "It's really hard," Tupu admits. "Most of the cast- ing people know that I've been working on the show, but it's the directors and producers Ruthless and ambitious, Crais' who have no idea. So what do you do? You vulnerability separated him from go from the five percent of working actors to other stereotypical SF villains. poor. It's demoralizing, the 95 percent His eventual emergence as a because you want your local directors and hero was an unexpected twist. producers to know who the hell you are, but if they haven't seen you on television, they have no idea." What bothers Tupu most of all about the lack of support from Australia's Channel Nine was Farscape's inability to get past the genre label and be recognized as a home- grown, quality product. The final straw came during the 2000 Olympics, when host-coun- try Australia was engulfed in a wave of nationalism. Farscape had been on hiatus, and when Channel Nine decided to resurrect the series, they scheduled it opposite the Games' opening ceremonies. Says Tupu bitterly, "You had a world- class dramatic series that was being made in Australia—the most expensive of any television show—and while the country was promoting its own athletes on TV, Farscape was being squashed and not supported. It's unfortunate that it was like that." Early Exits Tupu seems resigned to moving on, but fans' efforts to bring back Farscape haven't gone unnoticed. "I think it's just outstand- ing," says Tupu. "This has been an eye-open- er in a really unique experience. I've never seen such international mobilization for a show. The fans have put money into so- called guest funds, to help bring us over to 38 STARLOG/4pn7 2003 — the Peacekeeper gives the command "Starburst" and ignites one of Farscape's most powerful exits. The actor recalls with a laugh the lensing of one particular scene, which had Crais and Jool (Tammy Macintosh) assembling a crea- ture called a Boolite, who has been blown to pieces and brought to them in a heaping mass. "Tammy and I just looked at each other during the take," says Tupu of the bit where an eyeball becomes airborne and lands in Crais' lap. "She caught a twinkle in my get to that heart, you've got to go right from eye and I caught a twinkle in hers and we just the beginning and go right against that. The did a double take on the whole thing and audience [doesn't have any] idea when it's screamed. I went to [director] Tony Tilse coming. Then, suddenly, you can just hear after that scene—he was cracking up—and the first strains of it, and when it comes in..." told him, 'Tony, I was just fooling around.' Tupu lets out a gasp, then smiles with But the damn bugger left it in!" delight. "It's magic. And you can only do Tupu learned that the take would be in the that because you've done a great flurry of final print when he returned to the studio to activity beforehand. Likewise, with acting, re-record his dialogue. This was a common with a character on a long-running show, to practice for the Farscape cast. "All the work get to that heart, you have to push it as far as that you see on screen—we had to go in you can emotionally. And then you just sink again and do the same performance," into it... the calmness. Therein lies the heart Tupu sighs. "Because we were working of the character." on creaking sets, in conditions where But film and television often shoot out of rain was falling on a tin roof, we sequence, which can make finding that heart couldn't hear each other. About 30 rather challenging. "That's the art and craft percent [of our dialogue] might have of acting," he says. "You're sometimes called been usable, but 70 percent had to be to do the last scene first, and your job as an redone." actor is to make sure that you graph the char- acter emotionally. You also have a physical Hearty Farewells graph in the story that might go over 10 years Farscape's four seasons gave or 24 hours. Then, you have to go back and Tupu the opportunity to invest a look at all the scenes and make sure that you great deal into his character—so detail what the intention is in every one; you much, that in later years, he could have to know the emotional intensity and play tiny nuances and the audience what level it's at. After that, you just hope to would get them. That made his hell that when it's all cut together that it's work all the more satisfying. "The going to work, and that's where the director nicest thing about being an actor steps in. Because the director has already [on Farscape] was being able to created his own kind of graph—where you play scenes in a really quiet need to be." way, not pushing it at all," he In between jobs, Tupu hits the convention says. "I could be really subtle in circuit, where he and fans can celebrate their the scenes because [the audi- Farscape memories and fondness for the ence]—over the years—grew show. "I remember the first day that I went up with these characters. So on set at Fox Studios," he recalls. "The stu- the less Crais spoke, the more dios were huge. Andrew Prowse was the first he inferred. It allowed me to director I worked with. On day one, I knew it just try and do my stuff real- was going to be a thrill. They had set up this ly quietly. If you're able to do camera rig to go from the ceiling all the way that as an actor, it's a great down. There was a cameraman on this huge pleasure. You don't have to crane, which [was going to] swoop down, push anything. I could just and that's when I would say, 'Fire!' I Crais' death came too sit there quietly and let the thought, 'Wow. This is cool. This is going to soon for Tupu, who audience make up their be amazing.' And it was." was eager to further minds about it." Back in Sydney, most of the Farscape explore the fallen To illustrate his point, sets and puppets have been stored away Peacekeeper before Tupu turns to what he consid- perhaps for another "I feel happy with closing the book on day. the character. ers "a wonderful piece of what I've left behind," says Lani Tupu. "If it music," George Gershwin's stops right here, then I'm really happy with "Rhapsody in Blue." "Now, that. I'll just go to the next job, the next part, the heart of that piece is a won- and make sure that I produce something derful melody right in the mid- completely different. I always like to be dif- dle of it," he remarks. "And to ferent in my roles." STARLOG/4/;n7 2003 39 FARSCAPE DIRECTOR any Farscape viewer will tell you, Asalways expect the unexpected. Major characters appear and disappear with- out warning, enemies suddenly become allies and reality has a disconcerting way of getting tUmed inside 0Ut ByRv JOEIDF NAZZAROMA77APO on a regular basis If there's one rule that governs the way things were done on the series (which ends its first run this month), it's this: There are no rules. That same credo certainly pertains to the directors on Farscape. While many SF shows try to create a house style for their visuals, conformity was avoided on the Sydney soundstages where the series shot. "One of the things about the way the show developed— [in terms of] using Australian directors—is that they're probably unlike most other television directors in the world," notes Andrew Prowse, who helmed the show's pilot and quickly became one of Farscape's main directors. "We don't have a "These guys do features and these guys do TV attitude. Many of our episodes are little movies, and the directors appropriate the episodes in that movie way—finding things to hang the episode on, finding the style to shoot in. "You can probably look at a few minutes of any one of our episodes and tell whether it's a Tony Tilse episode or a Rowan Woods episode or Ian Watson's or maybe one of mine. We had four or five auteurs making lit- tle movies, and we encouraged them to go for it as hard as they could—just push the envelope and good things will come out the other end. If you hold back, you don't get good work and you don't get commitment, and my directors are committed. Rowan kept www.starlog.com "Can you start on Monday? "That was the question producers David Kemper and Rockne O'Bannon posed to Prowse, who helmed Farscape's unusual first episode. !1G THE UnCHHRTED INDREW PROWSE TESTED THE BOUNDARIES OF OUTER SPACE. turning down bad features to continue mak- second half of the season. It's a phenomenal Simcoe] and Jool [Tammy Macintosh] again, ing Farscape. The show encouraged that sort David Kemper and Justin Monjo idea. and we're building toward Aeryn [Claudia of loyalty." Conceptually, it's going in a different direc- Black] and the bad guys coming back, so it Because every episode had an ambitious tion. We've done a number of self-contained was a very deliberate policy of doing it. but tight schedule, a director would some- episodes this year, probably more than we Episode #401 is small in many ways; it's a times film at one location for a block of did last season, where we had more of a little, contained two-hander, or four-han- shows, or borrow a camera and capture a reliance on an ongoing story. der—however you want to look at it. It has shot while another director worked. "The "With this season, in some ways, we two main characters, but logistically it was other good thing is that, after three years, our headed back to where we were in Season huge'' directors all got on together," claims Prowse. One, which was going to a new place or Although Prowse is now dividing his time "We compete like crazy, as directors will do. meeting a new creature, villain or character. between directing and producing, he actually but we've worked out ways of dealing with It's probably most like #322 ["Dog With Two began his career as an editor. "That came each other so that we're not offended by the Bones"], that editorial-in-Crichton's-head about when I was at university," he explains. intrusion. We walked onto each other's sets, kind of episode, which are very challenging "I was doing a history degree, but I was we looked at the cuts and we talked. I've but great fun to do. With those, we're not just always fascinated by film. I really wanted to never actually been in a position like this, telling a story, we're telling an internal story know how it worked, and it seemed to me where a group of directors gets on so well." as well. We're also laying out the intellectual that the best way you could understand film Prowse's job was even more difficult after framework and basic premise for the end of was to actually put it together. A friend of he became a producer on the series, because the season." mine had a small post-production company, he had to limit the amount of time he spent For casual viewers who may need a quick and I went to work for him for a year, never behind the camera. "In Season Two, I direct- update before it all ends, Farscape's fourth imagining it would keep going, but I got ed six episodes and tried to keep a handle on season began with Crichton (Ben Browder) sucked in. So I was an editor for 10 years, the visual effects and post-production, too, trying to survive aboard a dying Leviathan. and cut a few features and some bits and and I nearly fell into a heap. I think I did In "Crichton Kicks," his hermit-like exis- pieces, and then I started second-unit direct- three in the third season. I like being on the tence is interrupted by the arrival of the alien ing just to do pick-ups for the shows I was floor and making those decisions and work- Sikozu (Raelee Hill) and a band of Grudek editing, and it kept going from there. ing with actors." mercenaries hoping to harvest the "People also hired me as a kind of Leviathan's neural tissue. "What we wanted 'plumber,' to fix up disasters. So I did a bit of The Plumber to do was resolve the [previous season's] directing and patching up stories that didn't Farscape returned in January with 11 questions," says Prowse, "but also make the work. By then, I had a family and young kids new episodes, the final ones to air on SCI FI. show accessible by reintroducing our charac- and needed a regular income, so I started "We built the season in two halves," says ters slowly. So we start with our hero in directing television because features were Prowse, "which I don't think we've really space, who now has this big scruffy beard few and far between. I still think that editing done before, so that added some pressure. It and doesn't even look like a hero until well is a fantastic background for directing, put more pressure on the stories, because you into the episode. We also introduce a brand- because you learn about structure, edit have to build an arc, but instead of building new character, so we've got them together, scripts and chop out meaningless lines of an arc during the entire season, we divided it and then the bad guys come in and eventual- dialogue. You read the script and you know in two, which made it even more difficult. ly Chiana [Gigi Edgley] and Rygel return. In what's going to end up in the cut. On the We created a pretty spectacular run into the the next episode, we meet D'Argo [Anthony other hand, I'm constantly surprised when I STARLOG/4/?n7 2003 41 In the Prowse-directed "Rhapsody in Blue," a Delvian sect deceives the Farscape crew into traveling to their planet, where Zhaan has a memorable meeting with their leader. Rygel and other Henson creations caused logistical problems. "How do you hide those puppeteers?" Prowse asks. A mixture of makeup, puppets and green- screen FX, Farscape was never, ever a straightforward shoot for Prowse or any other director. shoot something else and use it, so there's a off a long-running show and I was really random factor about the whole thing that tired. I think they thought I was cool because keeps it interesting." I didn't suck up to them, and then suddenly I got a call saying, 'Can you start on Mon- The Mad Scientist day?' I went in on Monday, and they said, " After directing such diverse features as 'OK, you're directing the premiere.' The Time Guardian, Driving Force and From the start of filming on episode one, Demonstone, and helming such TV fare as the production team wanted Farscape to Wildside, Big Sky, Heartbreak High and have a very different look from other genre Ultraman: Towards the Future, Prowse land- fare. "We tried to make it a bit more fluid ed a job on a new series called Farscape that than most other SF shows," says Prowse. was gearing up for production in Australia. "Rock had been very impressed by Wild- "My agent sent me along to meet two mad side—which was shot with numerous cam- Promoted to producer on Farscape, Americans who had this crazy idea that they eras constantly moving around, a little like Prowse had to cut back on his were going to make this weird and wonder- NYPD Blue—and he thought, 'Wouldn't it be directorial duties. His head was occupied ful SF show, and they were David Kemper cool to have a SF show that used those tech- with other matters. and Rockne O'Bannon. I went and met them niques?' Obviously, you can photograph live and thought they were lovely guys, but I did action any way you like, but when you start we tried to do different things with each of not have a hope in hell of getting this show doing it with green screen and all the other them. We have crazy episodes, we have seri- up the way they were talking about it. But we technology that SF has, it gets harder. So I ous ones, so not having a house style was got along well, and I suppose in retrospect, I don't know if there was [one particular] style probably a good thing." was kind of skeptical, and didn't give a shit to Farscape. If you look at the individual That may be true, but there were still a whether I got the job or not. I had just come episodes, the concepts are very different, and good number of logistical problems to deal "Picture If You Will" a SF series that constantly pushed the envelope. That was Prowse's goal on every episode he directed as he dispatched Chiana, Crichton, Zhaan and the rest of the Farscape team in and out of adventure. 42 STARLOG/Apn'/ 2003 Selected Photos: Brian McKenzie "We also had to sort out the CG compo- nents—how we would design and integrate them and [that whole] process. Four years later, we were finally getting better at inte- grating them, and we knew how to use them. One of the things that we've done, which I think we've done well, is we've thrown them away [when they aren't necessary]. Even if it's a big CG shot, we just used it as part of the storytelling." As Prowse recalls, by the time Farscape got to "DNA Mad Scientist" midway through Season One, the cast and crew were It's a Farscape celebration. May old acquaintances be forgotten? beginning to realize how they could success- Not likely. "Dog With Two Bones" served as Season Three's fully push the envelope. "What we were able cliffhanger. It put Crichton on a wild emotional journey—and into to do in that episode was create a big anima- a wormhole. tronic character on stilts and other bizarre with in those early episodes, including the ass, wiggling it around up there, how do you things that had plenty of 'yick.' The [Jim ongoing challenge of shooting human and hide those puppeteers? That enormously Henson] Creature Shop took a great risk with puppet characters in the same environment, affects how you go about shooting some- that character, because we weren't sure if he "Rygel is a good example," Prowse remarks, thing. So there were many problems to solve, could walk, or even stand. He was a leading "If you're shooting a puppet that takes five and most of them were addressed in the first character who was animatronic, and we had operators, and one of them has a hand up its episode. not done that before. "Up until then," Prowse adds, "the kind of stories we had been doing were more adventure things, but this one was really dark, Gothic and freaky. There had been glimmers before that—the one that Rowan Woods did ["Thank God It's Friday, Again"], and Tony Tilse's 'PK Tech Girl' —and they showed where we could go. But once we hit 'DNA Mad Scientist,' the pressure was on to move a bit further into uncharted territory and to push things a bit more." Prowse moved into that territory as well: From his work on the multi-episode sagas "Look At the Princess" and "Liars, Guns and Money" to "Revenging Angel," which com- bined live-action with animated sequences. "That one was scary!" he recalls of the latter episode. "My expectations were that it would be a total failure, that the fans were going to say, 'These guys have demonstrated them- STARLOG/ApnZ 2003 43 "The other challenge of that episode was creating Crichton's emotional journey," Prowse recalls, "because we're actually in his head. You could argue that the whole thing takes place in a very short period of time. It could take place in a few seconds, before he realizes that Moya is going down the wormhole. It has those options of inter- pretation. To some extent, you get out of that episode what you want, because while the story is reasonably straightforward, it's the way that the story is told that's the beauty of it. If you asked the old woman what she was doing, she would say that she was just enabling Crichton to see the truth, and what you're seeing is what's there in front of you to see." Having worked so hard on the third sea- son's final episode, it seemed inevitable that Kemper and Prowse would collaborate on "Crichton Kicks," which opened Season Four. "I love Ben's performance, as the Crichton who doesn't care whether he lives selves to be morons!' I was worried all or dies," praises Prowse. "We all know he's through the cut, because I was putting it kidding himself, because of course he cares. together without the cartoon sound effects, He's absolutely passionate about wormholes the music and all that stuff. If you look at the because he's trying to forget Aeryn. That atti- slapstick routines—like D'Argo treading on tude is unbelievably charming, and it was a the rake and getting his foot caught in the great way to go somewhere where we could bear trap—without any music or effects, you start again. wonder, 'Does this work?' I had also looked "I also thought that Chiana coming back at it about 400 times, and when you've made with lots of attitude was a great plus, and so many little adjustments to its rhythm and our season-enders, you begin to wonder, gave her somewhere new to go this season. added a frame here or there, you start to lose 'What the hell can they do this time?' People The Grudeks were just wonderful—I love it perspective. were amazed by what we actually did. It's a when Ben calls them Klingons—and the CG "It wasn't until I saw the final mix and terrifically powerful episode. The perfor- dog was pretty spectacular. What I liked heard the music for the first time that I mances by Ben and Claudia, especially the most, though, was the final sequence going thought it worked. When it got to the part scene where they say goodbye to each other, up and down inside the neural cluster. I spent where D'Argo goes down the walkway and are phenomenal. Just being on the set, the a lot of time and effort filling that space and drops through the trapdoor, I laughed and hairs on the back of my neck were going up the movement within that space—which had rolled about. It was a laughter of relief more watching them. When you feel that happen, never really been used before—and I think it than anything else. That episode was certain- you know you've got something. looks really good." ly outside my comfort zone as a director. I As Farscape heads into its had never worked with animation before, and final days on SCI FI, Prowse is while I've always thought I have a reason- pleased with the way the series able grasp of comedy, I had never tried that evolved. "There's a maturity kind of slapstick. It's enormously satisfying about what we're doing now to pull off something that stretches you." that wasn't there even in Season Three," he insists. "The The Risk Taker more episodes we make, the Farscape's directors faced more than just more confident we become technical challenges, though. The emotional \ about what we're able to make, weight of certain scripts and storylines pre- because we know what risks sented its - own share of problems. In the third fai mi we can take and how to take season cliffhanger "Dog With Two Bones," them. We've made episodes Crichton must make some tough decisions, like 'Dog With Two Bones,' including whether or not to let Aeryn go, and which was risky, and we made eventually finds himself alone after Moya is the cartoon episode, which sucked into a wormhole. "There were end- everybody told us not to less debates about that episode," says because it was way too diffi- Prowse, "and I think it was probably the cult. closest we've ever come to killing each other. "We still enjoy what we're David [Kemper] had a lot of trouble with it, doing, and we found new ways so there were plenty of discussions and con- to challenge ourselves, which ferences and meetings and attempts. is ultimately the danger of each "This was a major emotional point for season," Andrew Prowse de- Crichton, and it followed episode 21, which clares. "Everybody—from the had the huge action climax—with the blow- designers and the cast to the ing up of the command carrier—so we had to Finding something new was directors and writers—has to figure out where we were going at the sea- every Farscape director's kick themselves and say, 'I've son's end. Plus, we keep trying to top the challenge, but Prowse got to find something new!' believes the show matured previous season's finale, but if you look at And so far, we've succeeded."^- with every risk taken. 44 STARLOG/Apn'Z 2003 www.starlog.com . 1 .tea- 1 H'A WW- IMS MILLENNIUM CELEBRA THE VOYAGE! MNT! Wm Explore science fiction, the mythology of the New Millennium, in the pages of wm Sr4fiCAI£ stMog. , sc-i itsmegalaxys Cft/lsicphe, best Sci-pi movie 8 JV magazine and the original'for 25 f|lp< years. 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Money Order Send cash, check or money order to: VISA Discover City State Zip STARLOG GROUP, INC. 475 PARK AVENUE SOUTH Master Card NEW YORK, NY 10016 Visa Signature You can fax: 212-889-7933 or e-mail: [email protected] Total enclosed: $_ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO CUT OUT COUPON, WE WILL ACCEPT Account No. WRITTEN ORDERS. Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery. don't have a life," fantasy filmmak- these pictures. So no one is speaking to er Peter Jackson announces with a my agent. It's really quiet, and I'm chuckle. "I don't have a life." stuck now in New Zealand, a long way One would assume that after the away from everyone else. I'm in the Jackson-directed The Fellowship of the dark cutting room. So it's a very sim- Ring garnered 13 Academy Award ple life, a sort of intense 'Go and work nominations and grossed nearly $900 hard' kind of life." million worldwide, and after The Two Not that Jackson is complaining. Towers lorded over the box office in The Oscar nominations were partic- America and abroad—and appears ularly gratifying. "I felt very, very likely to match its predecessor's Oscar pleased to have made a fantasy tally—that studios would be crashing film that achieved that, because through Jackson's door, begging him fantasy is a genre that I like and it to work with them, offering him the isn't usually treated with any kind of carte blanche enjoyed only by degree of seriousness," he says. "I the likes of Steven Spielberg. But think that people just sort of believe that's not the case for the man behind that it's for children, a fairy-tale the Lord of the Rings trilogy. type of thing. So 1 was happy that "Literally, my life is just working the genre received (hat sort of on these films," he says. "You know, I attention." don't really have a career beyond these films. I'm not even being offered Time of Men movies from that point-of-view The Two Towers is already on because I think that people—studios its waj to outgrowing the first and producers—know I'm busy on film. The story picks right — — — Branching off from the Fellowship, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) embark on their own journey and Gollum. A mostly silent member in Fellowship meet of the Ring, Legolas (Orlando Bloom) up where Fellowship left off: Frodo (Elijah has more to say in The Two Towers. book," the writer-producer-director ex- Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) venture forth plains. "I like the mixture of the epic and to Mordor, and along the way meet Gollum intimate, which I think is one of the reasons (Andy Serkis). Meanwhile, Aragorn (Viggo why people enjoy the books. They ultimate- Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and ly like them because of the characters and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) encounter new the relationships between the characters, but allies (Miranda Otto as Eowyn, Bernard Hill there's an amazingly vast tableau. We did as Theoden and Karl Urban as Eomer) and certain things, had certain sorts of rules, if enemies (Brad Dourif as Wormtongue) as you like, when we were cutting [the film]. In they lift their swords and fire their arrows the battle of Helm's Deep, for example, alongside the Rohirrim. Then there are there literally aren't two or three shots that Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin go by without seeing one of our main leads. (Billy Boyd), who receive a grand tour of We were very careful when we edited that Fangorn Forest on the branches of Treebeard battle together that we weren't on anony- (voice of Rhys-Davies). Finally, Gandalf Li mous kinds of people for too long. We knew (Sir Ian McKellen), Galadriel (Cate that if we were showing a close-up of some- Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Arwen which is effectively what happened [in one fighting, it had to be a close-up of one of (Liv Tyler), Saruman (Christopher Lee) and Fellowship]—the middle chapter has to be our leads. We had so much footage of guys Sauron all make their presences felt. the complicating one in which the forces fighting, with multiple cameras on them. We The Two Towers is of a piece with against them apply the pressure and close in had all sorts of choices to make, and it was Fellowship, but also markedly different. It on them. It has to become more difficult. It [our goal] to make sure that the battle was assumes that the audience knows the charac- has to become hard and you have to get your seen as much as possible through the eyes of ters and understands their predicaments, and protagonists, your heroes, to a point of our lead characters." is as much—perhaps even more of—a war despair, because you're essentially setting Choices also had to be made about what film as a fantasy or drama. "I'm not the up what's going to be the final chapter additional characters to weave into the saga. world's expert on trilogies, but I would think which, in theory, is the triumphant sort of Jackson left Tom Bombadil out of Fellow- that the second chapter of a trilogy is the plot-climactic installment. So I think that a ship, and some suggested that for Two complicating one," Jackson suggests. "It's middle chapter should always sort of follow Towers, he forget about Treebeard and the naturally going to be darker because it sort that structure." Ents, a walking, talking species of trees. of has to be. If the first chapter sets your Jackson's challenge on The Two Towers, "One of the problems with Tolkien is that heroes out on their quest, establishes who then, was to strike the right balance between there are so many damn characters," Jackson they are, establishes what the quest is and spectacle and human drama. "That's one of laughs. "The first film was a nightmare why it's important, and they hit the road the things that J.R.R. Tolkien did well in the when we sot to the Council of Elrond. We S TARLOG/4pril 2003 — — suddenly realized that halfway "We told Andy when we through the movie, we were going were auditioning him, 'Listen, if to introduce five or six completely you get this role, you realize that new main characters into the story. no one is ever going to see you.' That defies every convention that And he said, 'Sure, I understand movies naturally follow. It wasn't that.' But we wanted an actor so bad this time around, though. In who would actually own and a sense, it was one of the joys of control Gollum. We wanted the film, because I don't think someone who would make deci- people would be particularly inter- sions on behalf of the character, ested in another movie with exact- which is what actors fundamen- ly the same characters carrying on tally do. It's what Elijah does. all the way through. I mean, we When we're doing scenes in the have our principals, but The Two movie, Elijah is thinking, 'What Towers moves into the world of would Frodo do here? What can human beings, so we meet a new I bring to this scene? I'm Frodo group of characters. and I have to make the decision "It's interesting, because in the as to how he would respond, third movie [The Return of the how he would react, what he King], there aren't that many new would physically do, how he people. Denethor [John Noble] would move.' We wanted some- who's the father of Boromir [Sean one to do that on the CG charac- Bean] and Faramir [David ter's behalf, and so we cast Wenham]—is really just about the Andy. only one. The third installment "The way we generally shot basically keeps all the characters things—and we did things a that we've met and takes them variety of different ways—but through to the climax. But all the new faces Sean that it was obvious to us that he had to most of what you see in the movie is basi- in The Two Towers are very strong and add a be as good an actor as they are. We couldn't cally the three of them filmed together on different dimension to the film. I believe that suddenly have those two performing scenes set," Jackson reveals. "So there was Andy, they're one of the main reasons why the with someone who couldn't act as well as wearing a skintight leotard, and Elijah and sequel doesn't feel like a rehash of the first them—and this guy wasn't even a someone. Sean, and we would shoot a scene with the film. They actually give it a new quality.'" "Gollum was just some pixels," he adds, three of them and do several takes until we "and that was our problem, or our fear, if got the performance that we liked. And Faces of Collum you like. We thought, 'OK, Gollum can be Andy would be there acting just as he would Arguably the most memorable of the generated by the effects guys and we're be if he was going to appear on screen. He new characters is Gollum. Previous STAR- going to have x number of Gollum shots in was acting as Gollum. He was doing the LOG interview subjects—most notably the film, but what are the chances that the voice and was on all fours and doing all the Wood and Astin—have discussed the ins and Gollum that emerges from the CG depart- moving and physical stuff. But he was also, outs of how Jackson, special FX maestro ment is going to be an actor who can hold more importantly, using his skill as an actor Richard Taylor, Weta and the Rings crew his own with these other two guys?' It was to make all the decisions. He was deciding, made the decrepit Hobbit into a viable char- not that promising, really, and so we decid- 'How long should I pause before I respond? acter. Now, it's Jackson's turn. "Gollum is ed way at the beginning that we should cast How fast should I say my lines? What the bastard son of Jar Jar Binks and Dobby," an actor to be Gollum, and that the actor should I do physically? Do I recoil back Jackson jokes. "They had an illicit relation- would not appear on camera. from Frodo at this point?' ship that we don't know about, and they "We were working with him as an actor spawned Gollum. No, let me talk a bit about on all these things, and then we would hand Gollum, because I think that Andy has just those scenes to the animation department i\ then animate top done an amazing job. Gollum was always •1/1/1 v"l and they would Gollum on going to be CG because of his physicality, of Andy. So we had a version of all these and we wanted him to be thin and kind of scenes, where you see the computer-gener- emaciated with big eyes and all of that. But ated Gollum and behind him—because he's the problem with Gollum was that he had to skinny—you see Andy in the leotard. And scenes Elijah the just exactly matched act. He's in so many with and ft \s\s*J v computer guys Ores are everywhere in the Rings sequel. Grishnakh (Stephen Ure) emerges as one of the more memorable and monstrous- creatures. "'i www.start6g.coni what Andy did and then painted he had to manipulate the rubber [him] out so Andy was gone." to produce a performance Gone, but not forgotten. [which was Oscar-nominated]. Jackson believes that anyone who Essentially, because we have encounters Serkis—or at least sees copied Andy so much, we have a picture of the British actor—will [created something like] pixilat- realize that he's the source of all ed prosthetics, where Andy is things Gollum. "You can see that driving this pixilated skin. And we sort of took Andy's face," the end result of Andy's contri- Jackson says. "Every human face bution is no different from what is different, and we were very Hurt did, or from what an actor much aware of that when we under prosthetics would do." videotaped Andy doing all of the dialogue, all of the expressions, Roots of Ents all of the emotion in his eyes. Anyone eager to learn more When he was teary-eyed, he was about the magic behind Gollum an actor doing the role. But we will need to look no further than were also very much aware that the upcoming DVD releases of [Andy and Gollum's] faces are of The Two Towers. New Line a different shape, size and propor- Home Entertainment will follow tion. So we had to design our the pattern they set with computer Gollum to have Andy's Fellowship: first releasing the basic muscle and bone structure. theatrical cut with a few extras, The character's [face may have] a and then issuing a Collector's different proportion, but it's Edition with an extended ver- essentially Andy. sion of the film and several discs "When you meet Andy, you'll of goodies. recognize Gollum. It's like Andy Jackson smiles broadly is Gollum's bastard human cou- when it's suggested that the sin. There are similarities, and extended Fellowship—with its they're on purpose, because we gift-giving sequence and many had to make sure that whenever slower, more personal moments Andy pulled an expression or a cut back in—is vastly better face, we could duplicate that with than the theatrical release. reasonable precision on our com- "Many people like it," he says. puter model. So we made the two "Many people have said that of them look like each other to [they prefer it]." some degree, which allowed the So what's on tap for the animators to do all of Andy's little longer version of The Two muscle nuances and twitches and Towers! "I haven't finished it expressions." yet, but I've been working on So convincing is Gollum that a it," he replies. "There are some debate is raging over whether good things, and I think that it's Serkis, the special FX department going to follow a pattern similar or both deserve an Oscar nomina- to what we did with Fellowship. tion. "I think Andy will get one," Jackson Many of the scenes that we cut out [of Two says. "And this is [an example of how] ' xs y LAs i t V Is. Towers] were basically character develop- rapidly technology is moving ahead in the ment and dialogue scenes. There's not much industry. This is a new area, but I do believe in the way of action. Going back to your LS C4/3 U i £st> 3 \J - is L/ that Andy's contribution and involvement in point, you can [sometimes] add more slow- the character and performance of Gollum is er-paced scenes to a film and somehow it I ksls l as relevant as the performance of the seems to run better—even though it's half- Elephant Man by John Hurt. Hurt was be- an-hour longer. It's kind of a paradox. \As I is^u neath rubber that didn't look like him, and "But let me answer about the scenes [that 5(1 STARLOG/tyr/7 200 < will be edited back into The Two Towers], just to give you an idea. We shot some great stuff with Merry, Pippin and Treebeard. We're anticipating about another 160 com- puter shots just for the DVD, and there are already 800 in the film. That's because many of the scenes that we trimmed have cither Gollum or Treebeard in them. So it's not quite as simple as saying, 'Oh, let's just put some of the cuts back in.' It demands a huge amount of work, which is fine, and the studio is happy for us to do that. There's whimsical stuff with Treebeard that 1 like a lot. where he's reciting poetry and it's appallingly bad. There are scenes with Merry and Pippin drinking Ent draught. If you've read the book, you'll know that Ent draught actually makes them a little taller. So, being Hobbits, they quite like the idea ' ' / j j : . j. J uy I § y that this sort of magical fluid makes them bigger. We shot that stuff, but it slowed the pace and wasn't relevant to the film's momentum, so we cut it. There are actually a couple of Gollum scenes that we're doing for the DVD. And you'll see the rope [pro- vided by Galadriel in the gift-giving scene from the extended version of Fellowship]. We have some climbing down with the rope." One scene that will not appear in the extended edition of The Two Towers is the much-discussed Gollum origin sequence, in which the audience discovers how Smeagol's obsession with the One Ring transformed him into Gollum. "That's going to be in the third film," Jackson reveals. "People have seen stills of that. One of the problems with New Line is that they don't Jackson is caught off-guard when asked we were watching it at home on DVD, I really have much of a clue about what's in which version of Fellowship he would watch would probably watch the extended cut film one, two or three, and so they release if he were going to view it with a STARLOG because the DVD functions, I think, on two stills [from all three films] to magazines. reader. "If you had never seen it before?" he levels. If you aren't familiar with the books I've seen stills of the boat floating [and wonders. "Well, probably, I mean, it would and not really a fan, [the longer version] Serkis as Smeagol in the boat]. But that's depend. If we were watching it in the the- probably gives you more background infor- going to be a scene in the third film." ater, I would say watch the theatrical, but if mation about the characters, which helps Unlike in Fellowship, Noting that stills of this Frodo's story isn't Smeagol (Andy Serkis) the focus of the scene were prematurely second film. Aragorn released, Jackson is now the trilogy's explains that Gollum's heroic leader. origin is revealed in Www.starloa.com STARLOG/4/)/v7 2003 51 . clarify things. On the other hand, if you are UVMl IK UULt a fan, then you probably like seeing the extra VniV/lTTlAn footage, because it's more stuff that you haven't seen before." Return of Kings In 1996, to celebrate our 20th anni- Earlier, Jackson joked that he has no life versary, we reprinted STARLOG #1 beyond the Rings films, and that will contin- in a 10,000 limited edition with a ue to be the case for the foreseeable future. special chromium-metallic cover. He did attend Two Towers premieres in sev- This unique eral countries, and also journeyed back to his printing was native New Zealand for a well-deserved thought sold break. Next up is completing the Two Towers out. But we Special Edition DVD, filming several weeks have found a of pick-up shots and new scenes for The few hundred Return of the King, and then racing to ready copies hid- Return of the King for theatrical release den in our December 17. And although he's contem- themes, though no one knows how true any warehouse plating other projects—including his long- or all of it will ring by late 2003. and can cherished King Kong remake and a smaller "It obviously really starts with Tolkien, offer them film in the spirit of his Heavenly Creatures because we shot these films two or three on a first- (to be written by Rings co-scribe Philippa years ago," Jackson says. "We had no idea come basis. Boyens)—it's Return of the King that cur- what was going to happen [so far as 9/11]. rently demands most of Jackson's attention. You know, Tolkien wrote these books Each cover of this Special The trilogy capper, the director promises, between 1937 and 1949, and he wrote them STARLOG #1 is embossed will be both uplifting and heartbreaking. in a decade of incredible world turmoil. I "I guess it's more optimistic," he re- think that it just tells you that the world has with its edition own marks. "I mean The Two Towers, by its not changed so much today, and what's sad, number. Printed on heavy nature, has to be the one where the pressure what's pessimistic but possibly true, is that in is applied and things go wrong and close in. 50 and years' time, there's coated body stock, this 100 probably And so the third film obviously has a resolu- going to be more of the same. valuable issue will be tion and a triumphant, sort of Biblical-size "Tolkien's themes are based, to some mailed in plastic. climactic action. But it also has incredible degree, on human weakness. He didn't have sadness. It has incredible sadness. I cry in much faith in the human race, and that's why RELIVE THE EXCITING BIRTH three or four different places in the third he regards the Elves as being the ideal race, film. It's my favorite of the three, and it's the while men are weak and flawed. Tolkien's OF THE MAGAZINE THAT HAS most emotional of the three. Frodo and Sam themes are about enslavement and the need BEEN FIRST IN SCIENCE are just extraordinary in the third film. and the want of others to take away your FICTION FOR 25 YEARS! They're just so brave." freedom, rights and individuality. And this Upon its release in 2001, Fellowship enslavement isn't just [an element of] war. Originally $75, Now Only $50 tapped a vein opened by the events of 9/1 1 It's in factories and the machines that take Audiences were struck by the story's good- away your ability to control your own life. r Special Limited-Edition Printing of vs.-evil elements and the idea that a princi- The problem is that there are themes that I STARLOG #1 pled few working in tandem could fend off think are about inherent human weaknesses. With Chromium-Metallic Cover! $50 each Please indicate quantity being ordered: larger numbers seeking to cause harm. The "Are there going to be wars and are peo- Postage and Handling are FREE. New York State resi- Two Towers was equally timely, exploring ple's free rights going to be taken away by dents add 8 1/4% sales tax. themes of warfare and brotherhood. War and others in 50 years' time? In 1 00 years' time?" Canadian residents add 10% sales tax. PLEASE NOTE: Customs requires purchaser's daytime peace, destiny, comeuppance and just Peter Jackson asks. "They probably are. It's phone number on all FOREIGN orders. rewards are among Return of the King's probably just going to keep on going." -^p Method of Payment: Credit cards may be used. Fax orders to 212-889-7933. Cash QCheck -Money Order jDiscover fjwill be "more MasterCard QVisa optimistic," Jackson promises. "It's ree. Account No. Card Expiration Dale: __/_ (Mo./Yr.) Your Daytime Phone #:( )_ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO CUT OUT COUPON, WE WILL ACCEPT WRITTEN ORDERS. Print Name As It Appears On Your Card I Street City State Zip Your Signature Send cash, check or money order to: Total enclosed: $ STARLOG GROUP, INC. Please allow 4 to 8 weeks 475 PARK AVENUE SOUTH for delivery. NEW YORK. NY 10016 5 wwvv.starlog.coni DAREDEVIL DEATH OF ELEKTRA UTHOCR Drawn by artist Frank Miller! The epic litho featuring the Death of Elektra! One of the most tragic stories from the Frank Miller's incredible Daredevil run! And Dynamic Forces is presenting this marvelous high quality 80 LB. Gallery stock lithograph to tie in with Marvel's release of the Frank Miller: Visionaires Trade Paperback! Don't miss out, as supplies will be limited! $19.95 MSRP C92960SG t-MAN V$ DAREDEVIL LITHOGRAPH The first ever artistic collaboration between Joe Quesada and Alex Ross is presented here in a limited edition !) Cut Out Coupon, We Will Accept Written On Lithograph by Dynamic Forces! Quesada provides the Shipping dynamic pencils depicting Spidey and DD locked in Continental!;US: {excluding P0 Boxes! 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He lurks and leers in the film as if J.R.R. Tolkien created the role especially for the veteran baddie and star of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Mississippi Burning, ALIEN: Resurrection, Blue Velvet, Dune and, of course, the Child's Play horror flicks. On the other hand... "I didn 't get the part," says Dourif, who admits that his lesser films, like Soulkeeper, Prophecy 3 and Critters 4, have "paid the bills" during the lean years. "The guy they cast was a writer from England. He decided not to do it, and then I got the part. I had auditioned for it. I was in contention for a while. But I didn't get it. I went out and did my disappointed thing. And then I got the good phone call." And so Dourif flew out to New Zealand to portray Wormtongue in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Wormtongue turns on his king, Theoden (Bernard Hill), at the behest of Saruman (Christopher Lee), the dark wizard who answers only to the darkest power of all. Sauron. Creepier still, Wormtongue lusts for Theoden's beloved and brave niece, Eowyn (Miranda Otto). "Here's a guy who, when he was young, probably felt ugly, got picked on and learned how to anticipate people's behavior," says Born to be bad, Brad Bourif sinks his teeth—and talent— into Middle-Earth's nasty 54 STARLOG/Apn'Z 2003 Dourif, attempting to explain Wormtongue's sions, because there was magic involved in extraordinary director. He's a really jolly motivations. "He's bright, lucid. He grows the scenes. We would say, 'Well, what if we soul with a nicely warped sense of humor up and has this talent for gauging behavior. try it this way?' Those moments were where and a vision. He has done horror films, too. I That's perfect for a king. What does a king I got to be the most inventive. haven't seen his early ones, but I'm going to. need? Somebody who can really figure out "The scenes with Christopher Lee were He has a wild imagination. Every once in a what people are up to, what they're going to all exposition. Those scenes are always real- while—those few times when I felt like I do, how they're going to react, what they ly hard to pull off. I enjoyed Christopher's really pleased him—he would kind of go off might be thinking. So this is the guy. This is stories immensely, but I was struggling like chuckling to himself and rubbing his hands the man you want. So Wormtongue is now all get-out to make that stuff work. I just felt together and saying, 'Renfield, evil, yes.' So involved with this royal family. He functions awkward the whole time. It was exposition. I he had a wonderful sense of humor about all on a daily basis, every single day. with this had to do it with an English accent. It was this." family, but he never belongs. He never gets just hard for me to figure out a way to make what he really needs. So he still feels ugly it real, to figure out what I was up to there. I Tongue Twisters and rejected. And then along comes just never really felt comfortable in those Dourif plays Wormtongue straight. He's a Saruman, who comes up to him and says, scenes. Thank God for ADR, because I think weasel, an oily figure on a mission. And it's 'There's this, this and this, and the end of we fixed them all in post-production. But I a mission he takes quite seriously. Dourif man is going to happen soon.' Wormtongue really struggled. could have shot over the top with his por- says, 'You're right' and makes his choice." "Chris, though, is larger-than-life," trayal, but didn't. "First of all, if I think about Faces of evil. Brad Dourif as Gri'ma Wormtongue in The Two Towers, (the voice of) Chucky in the Child's Play movies, Piter DeVries in Dune and Lon Suder in Star Trek: Voyager. Child's Play 3 Photo: Peter lovino/Copyright 1991 Universal City Studios, Inc. Forked Tongues Dourif smiles. "We're talking Dracula here. I a ham sandwich, it looks real strong," he On the set. Dourif found himself most knew who he was. He's Christopher Lee, laughs. "I just try to trust myself as far as not often in the company of one or more of man. He's probably one of the most surpris- going over the top. I have a thing inside that could possibly talk that I is enough. The : four men— Hill. Lee. Sir lan McKellen ing people you meet and knows whatever do and the films' writer-producer-director, to. He's extremely erudite and you think, 'Is focus for me is always trying to get a person, Peter Jackson. "I didn't have that much this guy for real or not?' And the thing that's a character, to be real. If people believe that with Ian," Dourif notes. "I watched Ian weird about him is that he's very much for Wormtongue is a real guy, then it's scary. So I this very fast [on- real. literally take any pointed object I sat with [screenwriters] Fran Walsh jj, work and had one He can down screen exchange with him. Gandalf and hit a bullseye with it; it doesn't matter and Philippa Boyens at the beginning of this , | Is disposes of me quickly. Bernard and I. what the object is. He's a master swordsman. shoot and we tried to figure out what this : the first time we worked together, did a He was in the Secret Service. God knows, he guy's backstory was and we came up with very dramatic scene in which he's may have won World War II! We'll never one. They consequently did some rewriting. about ready to kill me. We had fun. We know. So he'll tell you a lot of stories, and There's a scene between Wormtongue and were coming up with stuff. Of course, they're all true. And he's really understating Eowyn that we did [where Wormtongue he wasn't crawling on the ground and what he's capable of, and that's what's expresses his lustful feelings] that's not in • screaming for his life, but it was still remarkable about him. the book. That was an effort to make this guy '-fun. A lot of the other stuff wc did "And Peter's remarkable, too. Heavenly much more of a human being. was i call v about invention and illu- Creatures is a great movie. He's just an "The thing about bad guys is that bad STARLOG//W 2003 55 guys do things to people. If you're a good Dourif is a guy, then things are done to you. In a sense, seasoned pro at that's the central difference in the acting portraying bad process. It's kind of tough to have things guys. The actor happen to you when you're acting. It requires tried to show much more trust and much more luck. You the human side to the either feel it or you don't. You either get into treacherous it or you don't. Our unconscious is much Wormtongue. more of a mystery than we wish it was. You have to tease yourself to get into it. It has to happen indirectly. A bad guy goes in there and does whatever he has to do." And Dourif, of course, knows his bad guys. Not only is Chucky the killer doll (and Child's Play human alter-ego Charles Lee Ray) on the actor's resume, but there's con- victed murderer Luther Lee Boggs (The X- Files' "Beyond the Sea"), the Gemini Killer When Tolkien writes about Wormtongue, the turned evil. What was once fierce becomes of The Exorcist HI and the homicidal character comes in, has a confrontation and, pathetic and just human, and we sadly iden- Starfleet ensign, Lon Suder. Seen in Star really, the character is over with. His power tify with him in some way. That was the trick Trek: Voyager's "Meld" and the "Basics" is taken away and he's over with. Yet Tolkien of it for me. That was the trick of the whole two-parter, Suder "started off a serial killer" says little things about him all throughout the thing. That was intriguing." before evolving into a hero who sacrifices his book, to the end of the story. And it's not like Dourif didn't have previ- life to save his shipmates (topics the actor "Wormtongue is interesting because he's ous experience playing a treacherous charac- discussed in the OFFICIAL STAR TREK: a human being," observes Dourif. "We need ter in an epic big-scrccn adaptation of a cult VOYAGER Magazine #9). to feel that tragedy of somebody who has novel. SF and fantasy fans will recall David Bad guys do things to people* If you'x Feelings of ugliness Lynch's Dune, in which Dourif provided and rejection made much-needed menace as Piter De Vries. Wormtongue easy "They're very different," Dourif says of prey for Saruman's ah Dune and Rings. "One is science fiction and (Christopher Lee) * * f« the other is Middle-Earth. Middle-Earth is wicked ways. J familiar because it's mythical. The specific future stuff doesn 't have that familiarity. The problem with going into the future is that you don't have any kind of idea what the world will be. When you walk down a street in a future world, what should that street look like? If you look this way and that way, it can't just be the end of the set. You have to have an overwhelming amount of invention to make that future stuff work. And I thought I was very well-prepared when I went in for Dune. I reinvented Piter because, from the book, you don't really have an idea—from an actor's sense—who this guy is in any way, shape or form. Whereas with Wormtongue, I knew who he was from the book." r '" ,| Tongue-Lashings Dourif's performance in The Two Towers should capture the attention of producers, "The Lord of the Rings is really a mythol- directors and casting ogy," Dourif observes. "It's about a primor- agents, which will in turn dial time, a time before man, before reality. hopefully lead to more It's like being a teenager when anything is jobs. The actor cracks an possible. It's a different life than the one that evil smile when asked we lead when we're adults and reality is hard what kinds of roles he and cold and we're limited all of a sudden. would like to see come his And Wormtongue is a guy who's turned by a way. "You mean, am I now force of evil, which doesn't exist in that way gonna start to play bad in the real world. In the real world, there are guys?" he asks, building to just human beings who do horrible things. an anti-movie rant. "Any There is no evil, and it's never simple. It's time you do a movie that grey. So he's a human who has turned, and has a little heat, you get a there needs to be a real feeling about that. little heat. Heat is always That was what was most intriguing for me, welcome because then the function that Wormtongue really has. maybe I'll get more work. 56 STARLOG/Apri/ 2003 www.starlog.com — good guy, then things are done to you. I want to do a TV series now, though. I can't isn't the way it used to be. It used to be that that goes over the story and makes artistic stand movies anymore. They're boring to go when you wanted to see a movie, you looked suggestions. What the hell is going on there? see. Everything is the same to me. I'm bored. at the newspaper, read the reviews and then That's destructive. Even though it might even TV is better, much better. There are always picked a movie. You didn't pick it from tele- be a good idea, it's not the storyteller's idea. exceptions. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is an vision. It was much cheaper to advertise in It's not his bent. You lose the sense of the exception. The Lord of the Rings is an excep- papers. Now, it doesn't matter how cheaply individual's storytelling, and that's why I'm tion. you make a movie because you need an $18- bored." "People are going to see films practically 20-million budget just to put it in the theaters And that's why he appreciates the Lord of no matter what the studios do, but it's pretty and advertise it. Who's going to do that now? the Rings films. "Peter made these," Brad bad. It's not a director's medium anymore, "It's about feeling safe. That's all [stu- Dourif emphasizes. "I was there when the really. It's a corporate medium now. The dios] want to do, is feel safe," Dourif points sigh of relief came. There was a half-hour independent market has been destroyed out. "When you go into a movie, you go to [Fellowship of the Ring preview] reel that because the independent companies wanted see a story being told by one storyteller. The was being prepared, and I was there when it to do big films. So they had to have TV ads purpose of a producer is to come in, pick the came out. New Line saw it, and their ass was to support their films, because it has gotten to story and pick the storyteller. He then has to on the line, I will tell you. You could really the point where audiences won't go [to a enhance the storyteller's ability to tell the sense that. They came down to see this half- movie] unless they see an ad on TV story. It should never be a situation—like we hour and they loved it. They said, 'OK, make because a TV ad means it's a real film. That have now—where a studio has a committee your movie.' And Peter made his movie." STARLOG/Apri/ 2003 57 I IBS THIS Reigning as L, — J Paul Muad'Dib, i \ Alec Newman courts an 1 I unhappy destiny ] for his empire ; ! II I \ of sand. By IAN SPELLING Paul Atreides might have seen it coming. Alec Newman did not. "It" is the phenomenal success of Frank Herbert's Dune, the SCI FI Channel mini-series based on the author's classic SF novel. "Just because it was Dune, I think there was always going to be a certain amount of people who were attracted to that, fans of the book who wanted to see what we did or what we did compared to the [David Lynch] film," says Newman, who portrayed Atreides in Dune and returns for the sequel, Children of Dune. "But I don't think any- body really expected it to do quite so well. It broke the record fig- ures for a cable channel premiere. That record has since been smashed again by Taken, but hopefully maybe even more people will watch Children of Dune'' Dune turned out to be a pleasant surprise for most who watched it. John Harrison, in his capacities as writer and director, distilled 58 STARLOG/Apn'/ 2003 Herbert's epic work into an eminently watchable six-hour saga. He by Storaro, and the only way the first one could get made was if also relied on the award-winning talents of cinematographer Vittorio someone found a way to shoot it in the studio. It was going to be Storaro, visual FX master Ernest Farino and father-son costumer way, way too expensive and problematic to go over and shoot the designers Theodor and Jan Pistek to help realize his ambitious thing in the desert. We would probably still be there waiting for the vision. But as strong as Dune was, Newman believes that the longer light. Storaro came up with this amazing technique that gives the edition was even better. In fact, anyone planning to invest another six actor a total 360-degree environment to look at. And that worked hours in Children ofDune (which premieres March 16-18) would be great. This time we had a blue screen. So the disadvantage for the advised to rent or purchase the Frank Herbert's Dune DVD with its actor is that you're looking at a sea of blue and standing in a sand- extra half-hour plus of footage. pit. The benefit of that was that the special effects guys could go to work on the environments that you'll see in the finished piece. Dune Messiah "I have to say that the effects in Children of Dune are amazing," "I think what happened was that there was an American and a Newman adds. "They're a real knockout. There are some points European version of Dune" the Scottish stage, TV and film actor where you're really in a top-class special effects movie. Quite aside explains. "John's script for the mini-series is there in its entirety in from the fact that Storaro's 'translight' wasn't there this time, the the European version. The reason it was shorter in the States was that technology in the last two years has really come on in leaps and they had to allow for commercials. I think the European version is bounds. The effects guys were really pushed for time, but you don't 45 minutes longer, and I would have to say that the longer one is the notice it. I think they had a lot of fun." more definitive version of Dune. Some of the When last seen, Paul, the son of Duke Leto (William Hurt) and character journeys, particularly Princess Lady Jessica (Saskia Reeves), had become the leader of Arrakis and Irulan's [Julie Cox], are more thor- was still confronting his destiny as a messiah, Paul Muad'Dib. He oughly represented in the longer wed Princess Irulan in order to end the fighting between ruling hous- cut. The American edition still es, but theirs is a relationship of convenience. Paul prefers the com- makes total sense, because we pany of Chani (Barbara Kodetova), his concubine and the woman had six hours of television to who will eventually bear Paul a child. tell the whole story, but in Combining elements of both the second and third Frank Herbert the longer version, there Dune novels (Dune Messiah and Children of Dune), the Children of are a few more little intri- Dune mini-series picks up 12 years after the events of Dune. Chaos cacies. rules. The revolution Paul wrought has bred infighting and corrup- "The first Dune tion rather than freedom, and much of the disorder stems from those was brilliantly shot immediately around Paul: His sister-in-law Princess Wensicia Paul Atreides married Princess Irulan to bring peace to the two ruling houses, but he much prefers his concubine Chani (pictured). (Susan Sarandon) and his very own and very resentful sister Alia i; (Daniela Amavia). Paul soon comes to the understanding that it will be up to his children, twins Leto II (James McAvoy) and Ghanima (Jessica Brooks), to secure peace and realize their "ather's dream. Other characters who play prominent roles in e adventure include such familiar faces as Gurney Halleck P.H. Moriarty), Lady Jessica (this time portrayed by Alice Krige), Duncan Idaho (Edward Atteiton, replacing James Watson), Stilgar (now played by Steven Berkoff, suc- ceeding Uwe Ochsenknecht) and ever-evil Baron Harkonnen (Ian McNeice). "At the end of the first Dune mini-series, you got your resolution in that the enemies are defeated and Paul is on the throne," says Newman (who discussed that project in STARLOG #284). "But it's really much more complicated than that. Even though Paul is on the throne, he can't see a way around the STARLOG/4pn7 2003 59 Elevated to the leader of Arrakis inevitable Jihad that he has foreseen as spreading across the uni- and then to verse. So it's an unhappy destiny that Paul knows he must fulfill. At Emperor, Paul the beginning of Children of Dune, we find him, 12 years later, in must now deal this situation where the empire has stagnated. I liked beginning in with his ultimate that territory, and, actually, the later scenes in the original Dune destiny as a were more comfortable for me as an actor, too. In doing Children of messiah. Dune, I was so comfortable and familiar with the character that it was great to just take the story on. Paul is more mature and more of a leader now, but he can no longer see the future like he once could. He's dealing with the politics of the empire and with a sister who's now grown up. So all of that just adds to this level of maturity. And the story gets very dark. There's much backstabbing and plotting against rival families." Dune Children As noted, Children of Dune features faces old and new, both behind the scenes and in front of the camera. Newman wel- comed the familiarity of reteaming with the old faces, and was inspired by the challenge of collaborating with the new ones. "I think everyone involved with the last one was very sad to hear that John Harrison wasn't able to come back and direct Children of Dune;" Newman says. "Having said that, they managed to find a really, really talented guy in Greg Yaitanes [who directed episodes of Cleopatra 2525 and CSI: Miami]. What was a real benefit to me is that he's of the same generation that I am. I think he's in his early 30s, although he'll probably want to kill me for saying his age. He's very different. He's very stylistic and visual, and having seen, fully finished, nights one and two of Children of Dune, I believe he did a very compelling job of telling what is, in some respects, a more complicated story—a less linear story, you might say—than the first mini-series." Family strife and Although he wasn't at the helm (writing and producing only this backstabbing time), Harrison thinks highly of his Dune messiah. "Alec is just an make matters unbelievable actor," the writer-director com- more difficult ments. "I don't think anyone quite realizes "le's an for Paul. yet the depth of his abilities. He's young and Fortunately, unhappy he hasn't had that many roles. In the first Leto II is a destiny Dune, he had to play this petulant, privi- worthy heir. 1 leged prince who was basically ripped from that his home and taken to this place he didn't want to go and had to transform himself, Paul after his father's murder, first into this desert knows creature and then into the leader and messi- ah of these strange desert people. We actual- he must ly shot that backward. Alec had to be the fulfill." messiah first and then he had to revert to his 17-year-old petulant self. I was blown away when he did that. Here, in Children ofDune, he has to be the emperor of the known universe as a young man, barely in his 20s, who is beset by all kinds of conspiracies. He knows that if Chani has the children that are necessary to fix the universe, she will die. The emotional depth he brings to the role is unbelievable. Paul has another function in the Children of Dune part of the mini-series—and I look at Herbert's Messiah as night one and Children of Dune as nights two and three—which is cru- cial. When you see what Alec accomplishes, without being a spoil- er, it's just a wonder to watch." Children offered a complex experience to Newman. "So far as Chani and Irulan go," he says, "what's very important for Paul, par- ticularly in night one, is this sort of anchoring relationship with Chani. The flip side of that is the strange relations that he has with Irulan. I guess there's a comparison to be made of the fact that Paul, 60 STARLOG/A/?n7 2003 1 saying, 'This is cool. I like this. This works. I'm looking forward to seeing this.' That was a real boost for everyone, since he's our connection to Frank Herbert." Newman's connection with Dune will likely end with Children. On the other hand. . . "Who knows?" Newman wonders aloud. "Anybody who has read the books knows what happens to Paul at the end of Children of Dune. But I wouldn't put it past some SCI FI executive to alter the course of Dune fate and bring Paul back. They've already mixed two books for Children of Dune, so anything is possible. I've really enjoyed playing Paul, and what was good about coming back, as I said, was how familiar I was with the character. Everybody who came back was more familiar with their characters and able to add more depth. And I think that our knowledge of the characters and the Dune world was helpful to people who were new on the production. It was easier for people to slide into the world. So I Duncan Idaho (left) has been wouldn't be averse to revisiting Paul, but Mot even resurrected several times, I don't know how [they would do it], Paul notes Newman, so why can't because of what happens—although could Paul return if there's yet Duncan Idaho gets brought back from the have another Dune sequel? dead seven, eight or nine times. Maybe predic- people will be sick to death of me. So ted the success we'll see." of Frank Whatever the future holds for Herbert's Newman, he thinks his career will be bet- Dune. ter for having added a little Spice. "It has Newman been good," says Alec Newman, who hopes that f: lives in London and recently completed the sequel the independent British features Long surpasses Time Dead, Bright Young Things and the spicey Principles Lust. "It got me a situation numbers of achieved with a manager in Los Angeles. I need to by the be in the States, though. I'll probably first f 1 come over soon and stay for a little while, mini-series. just to make the most of the fact that my face is out there in Children of Dune. Career-wise, it certainly hasn't done me Chani and Irulan all come from the same place, if you like, the same any harm, but it hasn't turned me into an overnight movie star. And generation, and that's exactly a mirror for us actors, who two years I didn't expect that. You would be a fool to expect that. But I do ago came together to make the first mini-series. That helped us slide want to see what I can do to make the most of the opportunity." into a familiarity with each other, which I think you see on the screen. It was a real joy to come back and work with the same peo- ple again, and a joy to have a few beers with them. "I actually didn't have any scenes with Susan Sarandon, but I did grab a lot of time with her off the set," he continues. "I don't really need to say how accomplished an actress she is. It was just a real joy because there's no kind of starry bullshit with Susan. She does The three two-hour not need to do that. Susan has a very wicked sense of humor, a chapters of British sense of humor, so it was very easy to just sit and talk about Children of Dune old thing." any premiere March 16, lust as Newman never got to share a scene with Sarandon, he 17 & 18 at 9 p.m. on didn't get to confer with Brian Herbert, son of the late Frank the SCI FI Channel, Herbert and an author in his own right, who has written tales of his with multiple own creation solo as well as several recent Dune novels with Kevin rebroadcasts each J. Anderson. "I wasn't on set when he was," Newman says. "I night. If you want to watch both missed Brian. That was a real shame. But it's nice to know that he mini-series in their was around. I've heard that Brian was very pleased with what he entirety, set aside saw and how we were getting on with the work. It was lovely to March 23, when have him around because it had been a big, big concern since we Dune airs from 1 started on the first one—and this started with lohn, whose adapta- a.m. to 5 p.m. and tion of Dune was so faithful—that we be as true as possible to these Children unspools amazing books. So it was great that Brian walked around the set from 5 to 11 p.m. www.starlog.com STARLOG/Apn7 2003 61 - ALL-NEW STAR TREK ADVENTURES Writers Naren Shankar & Peter Allan I ifSwIt Fields. $7. An SPECIAL #22 All-writers issue: 15 interviews. $7. #7 Dorn. Next Gen art. Weapon & uniform ISSUE! Official The Magazines designs. $7. Journeys These classic editions include pasts #23 Director Timothy Bond. Writers. $7. present: exclusive interviews, detailed #8 Diana Muldaur. Posters. $7. they How #24 Writer David Kemper. Directors. $7. episode synopses & amazing pho- made the #9 Trek comics. Posters. $15. series' tos! issues also feature #25 100-page issue. Brent Spiner. Sirtis. 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Method of Payment: STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION Cash Check Money Order # # # #SE Discover Master Card Visa City Zip STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE i i ii i i i i # # # #SET Your Signature STAR TREK: VOYAGER Card Expiration Date: - (Mo./Yr.) Total enclosed: $_ # SET | Your Daytime Phone #: ( ) f you don't want to cut out coupon, we will accept written orders Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery. You can fax: 212-889-7933 or e-mail: [email protected] www.starlog.com STARLOG/April 2003 — Exploring his enigmatic origins, Personal Concerns Wolverine makes a One of A"2's major plot threads leap of faith and concerns Wolverine's pursuit of looks for the man who gave him his past. His search for answers takes adamantium claws. him to a secret underground base where he may have been operated on years before, giving him his fearsome adamantium claws. If he finds the man responsible, this film's darker, more feral Wolverine—played by Hugh Jackman—will make sure there's hell to pay. "In the first movie, much of the storyline focused on Wolverine and At the helm once again, director Bryan Rogue, but that was a plot choice Singer examines the weaker side of his because they were the ideal charac- superheroes in this darker adventure. ters to take you into the mutant successful theatrical ride in summer 2000 world and yet keep you as outsiders," gave 20th Century Fox every reason to con- Jackman says. "It was a device. So, tinue the franchise. So, just as he promised, Wolverine was on screen a lot. Magneto does indeed escape from his plastic Audiences got a good introduction to prison in X2, due in theaters May 2. Far less the character as he became an essen- certain, however, is Charles Xavier's ability tial part of that whole 'save the to make good on his vow to "always be world' plot we had. there." And while no one on the X2 set will "In this film, Wolverine's personal talk about the plot except in the broadest demons are investigated," he ex- terms, there's no mistaking that today, plains. "It's more internal, in a way. Professor X is in a great deal of trouble. At the end of the last one, he was going to track down his past, and Mutant Agendas that's very much what X2 is about. If Inside Stage Bl at Vancouver Film it doesn't come to a complete resolu- Studios, Patrick Stewart, reprising his role as tion, it gets pretty damn close. With the world's most power- the return of his ful telepath, sits in his nightmares, he's wheelchair at the end of emotionally at a a raised walkway. The |» * crisis point. You get set looks like Cerebro, a more internal the special room-sized i| look at the charac- device used by Xavier ,1 ter, and that has wheelchair-bound mutant in league with to amplify his powers, 2* been really fun to Stryker. He has mysterious mental powers but there are important play with." that he'll soon bring to bear on the captive differences. Many of the ^ More romance Xavier. panels comprising the is in store for Director Bryan Singer, dressed in sweat- huge, curved wall that Wolverine, too. His shirt, sweatpants and sneakers, sits before a Stewart faces are miss- attraction to Jean monitor just off-stage and calls for action on ing. The remainder are Grey Famke Scene 170D. Brian (Adaptation) Cox, as the ft M Wm ( stained, rusted, ugly B Janssen) continues villainous Stryker, strides down the short not shiny and new as : to complicate her length of hallway flanked by two of his min- they were in the first I relationship with ions: Yuriko (The Scorpion King's Kelly Hu) film. Scott Summers and Lyman (Peter Wingfield of TV's Outside Cerebro's • (a.k.a. Cyclops, Highlander). They stop, assuming positions door, the hallway is jg played by James of readiness, while Cox enters a code on the darkly oppressive and **B| Marsden). "Yes, security keypad beside the doorway. When it corroded, with the feel basically, opens, he strides through alone and contin- *r of an old bunker. Its BBBR Wolverine is trying ues down to MacKay, where he stops, leans is concrete floor and pitted walls are studded ii Who to keep her at bay over the sickly-looking man and whispers in Wolverine? places with rusty metal bolts. This is defi Decause she's so his ear: "Make me proud." Then, Cox turns Jackman says nitely not the clean, metallic headquarters of hot for him a|1 the on his heel, strides back through the door- that X2 offers a ^. „ T . the X-Men. Rather, it's the underground ,me ckman way, seals it with the security code and turns resolution to ! ' Alkali Lake Hydro Facility in remote okes "Seriously,£ to his henchman Wingfield. the mutant's J - Alberta, Canada, converted into the secret mysterious past, there's a little bit of "Kill anyone who approaches. ..even if it's lair of former Army commander William that romance [in me," Cox utters gravely. Stryker—the new leader of the anti-mutant the sequel]. The love triangle heats "Cut!" Singer asks them to do it over movement. And Stryker is using his version up. I just love playing Wolverine again, slightly faster, eventually getting a of Xavier's device, dubbed Dark Cerebro, to again. I genuinely really love this take he likes. Afterward, he declines to put help bring about his own plans for humanity. character. I think all the characters, the scene in context for his visitor (and Stewart, exuding an unearthly, trance-like for a movie such as this, have dimen- STARLOG readers), citing its sensitive posi- calm, is not alone on the Dark Cerebro plat- sion beyond what you would expect, tion near the film's climax. "It's sort of end- form. Sitting just behind him is actor and I'm having a ball." of-the-movie stuff, so I wouldn't want to talk Michael Reid MacKay, playing a frail, —Bill Florence about what we're shooting specifically," he 64 STARLOG/ApWZ 2003 www.starlog.com explains while sipping his beloved vanilla blue suit, white shirt, gold vest and tie, remains, as he was in the first film, brilliant, ice-blended coffee. "It does tie in to a scene comes over to resume an animated discus- compassionate, understanding and forceful. I shot earlier, with soldiers guarding a por- sion with Singer about fdms and film histo- But I can also say this: He's not quite what tion of Stryker's base, and Magneto ry. Then Stewart takes his place again and he seems." approaching." they shoot the scene from a tighter angle. Singer needs a medium shot of Stryker "I would liken Xavier to Achilles," pressing numbers on the door's keypad, Stryker Forces Stewart says later, "because in every sense locking Xavier and the mysterious mutant As the crew prepares to lens a different he's perfect—except for one tiny flaw, which inside Dark Cerebro. Cox, who has delivered version of the scene, Stewart, dressed in a I can't talk about. [In this movie], Xavier his lines flawlessly all morning, finds his Providing the film's dark hallways and myriad corridors was first-time production designer Guy Dyas'task. STARLOG/AprcV 2003 65 — t Blue Demons Among the new additions to the X-Men 2 cast is Scottish (notably in the acclaimed Cabaret Broadway revival), actor Alan dimming, who plays Nightcrawler—and Cumming is no stranger to the science fiction universe. takes over from Rebecca Romijn-Stamos the mantle of X- Besides his role as Boris in GoldenEye, the actor has starred Actor with the Earliest Makeup Call. "Mentally, it's very in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (as the Great Gazoo), difficult," admits Cumming of the mutant makeup process. the two Spy Kids films and Josie and the Pussycats. He also "I have to get up really early and into a zone where I don't appeared in one of the most horrific movies of all-time mind grown men poking at my face for four hours and Spice World—but we'll just skip over that. spraying me with stuff. Sometimes I watch films in the X2 is by far Cumming's biggest project to date, and his makeup mirror, but it's quite hard if they're subtitled." character is one of the more memorable mutants from Known for such movies as Emma, Titus, The Anniversary Marvel's X-Men Universe. "I read some of the comics Party and Nicholas Nickleby and his stunning stage work [when I got the part]," Cumming remarks, "but there's still so much pressure involved with the role. Not only am I playing a blue mutant with all these odd physical things, but everyone in the world apart from me seems to have some idea about what this character should be." Adorned with a tail and many tattoos, Nightcrawler stands out from the film's other odd superheroes and vil- lains. "I rue the day that I said, 'Let's go with the tattoos! They look really great!' " Cumming laughs. "I didn't know they would take such a long time to stick on every morning. I'm hoping that if there's an JO, some strange mutant acci- dent will take place so Nightcrawler will have no tattoos and be white. Or, since the technology being used to make this film is quite incredible, I'm thinking maybe next time I could just do the film as me—and they could put my make- up on afterward. "There's a thing about contact lenses, too. People who worewnrr themthpm in thefhp first film, like Halle [Berry]TRerrvl and Rebecca, don't wear contact lenses anymore. They get those done afterward. Yet I'm wearing contact lenses. It must be a rite of passage you have to go through." As for Nightcrawler's tail, Cumming reveals that the extremity is being creat- > ed using both a full appendage and post-production tinkering. "I have a harness thing, and there are various tails with different consistencies of boinginess," Cumming explains. "Some of them really slap me in the face. When I don't have the full tail, I have this little stub thing with dots on it for the special effects people, and that's quite popular with the ladies...and the gentlemen, too." —Bill Florence Transforming into Nightcrawler is a demanding makeup process. If Cumming could turn back time, he would nix his blue mutant's many tattoos. 66 STARLOG/Apn7 2003 Stryker (Brian As the hour approaches lunch, Singer Cox) is the new contemplates a scene he'll be shooting soon leader of the in which the X-Men and several children anti-mutant walk through the corridor after a fierce bat- movement. This tle. "I don't mind the children being kind of guy is so bad, shocked [at the carnage]," Singer tells his even Magneto is out to stop him. crew. "I mean, part of me would love to have that beat where one kid is looking around [at the bodies]." "We should have a couple of * " " * bodies [in the shot], because if we don't, it'll be like, 'Where did all the people go?' " says Singer's di- rector of photography, Newton Thomas Sigel. "I understand that," Singer replies, "and if it looks too gruesome, I'll just shoot a kid greatest challenge is simply hitting the key- noticing it." pad's numbers in the correct sequence. Singer leaves the set Toad and Sabretooth "I'm sorry, it's such a little thing," he and walks briskly across aren't in X2. but Mystique says, chagrined. (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) the lot through the cool "It can be five numbers, it can be two is back as the autumn sunshine to the numbers, as long as you do it right," Singer Brotherhood's beautiful, editing room, where John tells him. blue shapes Ottman is moving scenes Eventually, Cox does get it right, and the relieved actor gets a break. "I sort of repre- sent the human face of this film," he offers. "I'm the only human that I know of in the [main cast]. Stryker is the guy who basically is the odd man out. He tries to rationalize what the mutants are about, and he tries to exercise some control over them by various means." Besides leading the charge against mutant rights, Stryker is also guilty of experiment- ing on mutants. Wolverine's search for clues to his past takes him to Stryker's base, just as Stryker puts into motion his anti-mutant pro- gram—beginning with an attack on Xavier's mansion. Cox, Singer and Hu gather by the moni- tor to go over the previous take. Hu, clad in shiny black leather, plays a mutant who nonetheless works for Stryker. A martial arts black belt, Hu gets to fight Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in X2. When the camera isn't rolling, she slips on a long down coat and slippers to keep warm on the chilly set. It's a change of pace for the actress, who has worn much less in some of her previous movies, such as The Scorpion King. "I wear a lot of clothes in this movie, and I'm happy about that, since we're shooting in Vancouver," she notes. "As for my character Yuriko is so much fun for me. I get to dd plenty of fighting. It's exciting, because this is the stuff that I really enjoy doing most." The same piece of bunker-like corridor is used for Scene 197H. Wingfield and several extras dressed as Army soldiers rush in and take their positions outside the door to Dark Cerebro. "Sound," Singer barks, and the men pretend to suddenly hear something on the other side of the door. Then Singer calls out, "Peter!" which is the cue for Wingfield to spin around in alarm and face a new, unseen enemy. Several takes later, the scene is in the can. www.starlog.com underground, it seemed natural to start look- ing at old bunkers and the bunker architec- ture of World War II. Many of the forms [on these sets] come from that: Very crude, sim- plistic square shapes, easily made in con- crete. Bryan had an idea that this facility was around on a computer. Singer wants to make Dark Corridors sure that Ottman has everything he needs to One man who won't be watching Singer make the morning's Dark Cerebro footage trash the hallway is Guy Dyas, X2's produc- work, because the upcoming scene of may- tion designer. "It's very sad," he laments. "I hem will destroy the hallway portion of the can never be around when they do that." set. "I'm about to trash that hallway forever," Dyas felt it was important to create a new the director states. "And the hallway on the look when crafting the passages inside other stage is already trashed. So, I'm not Stryker's base. "I wanted to do something going to have a hallway again after lunch. I that had quite a strong graphic image, and just want to make sure that I got everything certainly we've all seen millions of corridors humanly possible." before," he comments. "Because this base is 68 STARLOG/ApnZ 2003 www.starlog.com perhaps originally made in the late 1940s for Wolverine's an unknown function, and then it was re- quest leads to inhabited by our villain to use for his das- Stryker, who tardly deeds." has a history . V Making the corridors throughout the base of mutant (BBSS look old and corroded took "a lot of paint," experimen- Dyas reveals, "and a lot of time. Bryan want- tation. Did the Army ed all these sets to feel claustrophobic and at commander the point where the place is about to col- create this lapse, is why I went with this very which X-Man? heavy, aged feel to everything. The corridor h IT 'tfC, walls are made of wood, and we put a half- 1 V\ ' i inch of foam on top of that. Then that was f sculpted to give it a texture, and we hit it with a heavy-duty air brush and some industrial paints. The paint dries before it hits the sur- face so it clumps up, and that's how you get this lumpy texture. It has to be this heavy, Installed more recently by Stryker's forces, Stewart (softly): "That's right." because if it was any lighter, it wouldn't read the doors naturally have a newer, hi-tech Girl: "Every one of them?" on film." look. "At various points in this base," Dyas Stewart: "Oh, yes." The doorways in the old corridors, such says, "there are extremely secure doors and Girl: "Good." as the one Cox has been using all morning, elements which the villain has put in to make Then Stewart puts the Dark Cerebro are discordant with their surroundings. this base work." apparatus on his head. Dyas credits his experience on The Cell, It's a scene ripe with importance, and working as an assistant art director under therefore completely out-of-bounds for dis- Merry Mutants production designer Tom Foden, with teach- cussion with Singer or the actors. Later, how- Issues of evolution, persecution and ing him how to age a faux metal-and-con- ever, Stewart is happy to compare Professor global domination make for extreme- crete setpiece. "On that film, I learned all X's leadership qualities with another charac- ly somber proceedings in the world of about corrosion and creating color," Dyas ter he knows well: Jean-Luc Picard. "Charles the X-Men, but behind the scenes explains. "So I took much of what I learned Xavier needs more time," says Stewart. these mutant superheroes know how from The Cell and applied it to these sets. "Jean-Luc has had 16 years, and therefore to have a good laugh. "In terms of color, [much of our film is] more opportunities [to command]. With the Take, for instance, a visit to the X2 rooted in the classic X-Men blue and the rich same opportunities, perhaps we will see set by actor Hugh Jackman's sister, mahogany of Xavier's mansion above," he Xavier develop as richly as Jean-Luc has." Sonya, as the production barreled adds. "I wanted to find colors and textures "I agree," remarks Singer, a Star Trek fan, through its fourth month in that gave us something completely different who appears as an Enterprise Bridge officer Vancouver. Immediately noting the from those standards. This decrepit place just in Star Trek Nemesis. "I hate to draw com- brother and sister's remarkable facial seemed perfect for a different look. The parisons to other films, but X2 is a little like resemblance, the crew decided to have lighting scheme in these sets is yellowish the way The Empire Strikes Back explored a little fun with director Bryan Singer. green. You'll also find X's everywhere I people's frailties and the potential weakness Sonya gamely donned the Wolverine could get away with them, in keeping with of the group in their attempt to triumph over costume and makeup, then stepped in the first film's theme." evildoers. Our film is like that kind of story, for a take. Singer, watching on a moni- Back on the Dark Cerebro set, Scene 174 so you get to see everybody's weaker side tor, didn't realize the trick at first. commences. Stewart is still parked at the and their attempts to overcome those weak- "She had the mutton chops and controls of Dark Cerebro, with a bright light nesses—including Xavier. He and Magneto everything," notes Shawn Ashmore shining down on him from above. When are cut from a similar cloth. Neither of them (Bobby Drake/Iceman). "There was a Singer calls "Action," the camera slowly is entirely right or wrong, and that makes it shot from behind [Sonya] and a shot zooms in on the back of Stewart's head. interesting." from the side. Bryan's reaction, when Standing beside Singer on the stage floor Patrick Stewart cannot resist one final he finally realized what was going on, below, an assistant reads the lines that will be thought. "I would like to make it absolutely was the funniest thing I ever saw." spoken by a young actress in another cut: clear," he says with a smile, "that both Jean- Explains Singer: "I thought it was "Are we going to see all the mutants in the Luc Picard and Professor Charles Xavier butt." Hugh making some creepy face. It world?" could kick Captain Kirk's -<$f looked like he had just lost an incredi- ble amount of weight. They have the same facial structure, and then they gave her the sideburns, the hairdo and the tank top. Until it was over, I had no idea." A bemused Jackman takes up the story. "It w as funny for me until I actually saw it, and then it was really weird. I can't look at my sister any- more. We look remarkably similar." "It was the most disturbing moment," Singer adds. Jackman and his sister posed for a photo afterward, and the actor amus- ingly reveals, "My son looked at the " photo and said, 'Ah, two Da-Das.' —Bill Florence STARLOG/fyn7 2003 69 GEEK By PATJANKIEWICZ From nefarious nerd to reluctant ally, as Andrew, Buffy's Tom Lenk lives life [ike a video game. geeky Andrew Wells, whiny him to become the leader," Lenk adds. Asnerd-turned-supervillain, Tom "That was a natural progression last sea- Lenk has become an essential son. I think that had much to do with me part of Buffy the Vampire being spared, because my character had Slayer. His character, a comic book- and one last ounce of goodness left in him. Star Wars-loving couch potato, belonged to Warren was truly evil, and killed Tara the evil team known as "the Three," which [Amber Benson], as well as his own girl vexed Buffy and her pals until the other friend. I don't think my character would two members were killed off. have gone all the way through with it. The tall, likable actor (who doesn't That's my theory; the writers may tell you share his character's Valley Boy accent in something different. real life) admits that "I sometimes forget "I feel there are so many people really that we were the bad guys on the show. I like Andrew—he's a computer tech guy felt like we were so much fun that we who's too smart for his own good. He has weren't that evil, but of course, we were!" played too many video games and treats Unlike his dorky buddies, Lenk's real life like it's one. In a game, you get funny/sympathetic Andrew was spared, four lives and, if you do well, you get and is now actually helping Buffy this sea- another one. Andrew doesn't understand son (albeit reluctantly). "Andrew's per- the concept that real life isn 't a video game sonality has a lot to do with it. He's so and that once you kill someone, they don 't meek and a follower. Even though Andrew come back from that. He doesn't get it." would do evil things, it was always in a funny way. Valley Guy "From the very beginning, in working Lenk's first appearance on Buffy was with the other two, Adam Busch [as as a bloodsucker. "I did one episode as a Warren] and Danny Strong [as Jonathan], Why is this man smiling? Because Lenk is vampire named Cyrus in 'Real Me' in Warren approached things from a more delighted just to be, like, part of the Buffy Season Five," Lenk explains. "I was a dramatic perspective, and that allowed the Vampire Slayer action ensemble. vampire for a week and got killed. I had 70 STARLOG/4/)/v7 2003 guys. I I oved working with them, and it was load s of fun doing it. "Dur ing the sixth season finale ["Grave' '], it was exciting to be there, but than Wi l/ux/ 1ui*ric iVif frin inifi it rlnfkl Tt II". II I r 1111/ 11 was sad thai Warr en was gone, because I enjoyed beiilg wit h Adam, but he came |»<1V!\ turn lunim. 11 lull mil i Liuiij; u» what happened to the dynamic when it was just the two of us, Danny and me." Fan Boy Lenk comes from Ventura County. "I j;iu\v up i-ici mm iin ml; cvcij wnu.ii vray in Southern C;ilifornia theater," he says. "I did lots of nlusic. I'm an instrumentalist, — — — Sister. I wrote a spin-off all about her char- When the trio first met Spike, "He was and Star Wars helped make him popular with acter. She and I write together a lot. I'm hop- gonna break my Boba Fett action figure!" viewers. When he's in jail in "Two to Go," ing to turn the original play into a sitcom, so Lenk chuckles. "James Marsters was fun to Andrew wishes he had a fake epidermis I'm taking baby steps with getting that work with, too. I remember him talking to escape kit, "Like Lex Luthor uses in the going." Danny about Shakespeare most of the time. Special Treasury Edition Superman vs. the As for returning to Buffy, "Joss was quot- He's an actor's actor." Amazing Spider-Man." It was a funny shout- ed as saying that he brought us back because out to the fans. "I have to credit that one to we were so funny. What can you say about Comics Buff Doug," Lenk laughs. "I had no idea what it Joss Whedon?" Lenk asks, rhetorically Lenk is also fond of Buffy's writers. was and had to ask him about it. He went speaking. "I know this word gets tossed "Doug Petrie is great; it was really exciting upstairs to his office and brought the comic around so much these days, but he's such a that he was involved," Lenk says. "He and book down. He showed me what Andrew genius. Joss is so great. I'm always in awe Marti [Noxon] wrote our first episode, and was referencing, because it didn't mean any- I when talk to him, because I'm so nervous. his first time directing was that episode thing to me. I had no clue. But once I saw it, He's the guy in charge of I thought, 'OK, thousands everything, but he's funny, of people will be very excit- smart and in-tune. Sometimes ed to hear this!' I'm intimidated, because he's "So much of what we this icon who has created a say is about all that stuff unique universe with this with a backstory to it [SF show. and comics]. In one of last "Socially, I've talked to season's episodes, I had no him a few times outside of idea that most of what I work and he's like the fans said—every single line in that he knows everything was a Star Wars reference! about the show. He'll talk to It just cracks me up. me about a specific funny Hopefully, it's funny to the moment I had. Or he'll say, 'I people who don't get the was obsessed with that line.' references. I liked it when I It's so great that someone painted the Death Star on " loves their work so much that our van in 'Next to You.' they'll take the time to tell Another episode he you what they found in your really enjoyed was "Dead performance. Joss is a great Things." "That was nice, guy" because that was the one Andrew's increased role where our work took a more has given Lenk a chance to serious tone," Lenk re- meet the rest of Buffy's cast. marks. "We saw what we "I only worked with Sarah were doing and what we Michelle Gellar a little last were capable of when season," he remarks. "Last Warren's girl friend gets year's 'Invisible' was interest- killed. I also liked 'En- ing. That's where we turned tropy.' I think Drew Green- Buffy invisible, but it was also berg wrote that one. En- the first show where I got to tropy means when things work with Sarah and Alyson fall apart—I didn't know [Hannigan]. It was nice to that, Drew told me. I believe finally meet someone else on that's the one where we first the show, because it had just get the freeze ray. I was been the three of us [Busch confusing the invisible ray and Strong] for months and with the freeze ray. There months. I didn't get to know are so many 'rays' in this the rest of Buffy's cast that series! I liked that one well, because we three were because we got to do the mostly plotting on our own. whole Mission: Impossible Who gets to wield the deadliest weapon? And will someone "The cool thing about motif. I had some great, please tell this Terrible Trio whether it's an invisible ray, a freeze ray or Sarah is that she's such a pro- a ray ray? Whatever. hilarious lines." fessional and knows exactly One Buffy souvenir Lenk what she's doing. She knows how to make ["Flooded"]. That was the one where we first is desperately seeking is his own action fig- the best of her time, and on the other side, showed up and vowed to go after Buffy. ure. "I think Danny has an action figure. And she's really fun. We were stuck taping in a "What made it so much fun was that if he has one, I want one, too! If they make car and so we played stupid travel games. It Doug was extremely excited about directing one of Warren and don't make one of was just nice that she was so friendly and and had very high energy. He was so into Andrew, I'll really be P.O.'d!" took the time to get to know us all a little bit. finding every funny moment and really And the actor's newfound fame has so far "I actually worked a lot with Michelle working with us. I think that helped establish been a blessing, not a curse. "I love every Trachtenberg—more than Sarah and the oth- the trio for us and what our characters' rela- minute of this show," Tom Lenk says proud- ers," he notes. "Michelle is so much fun. We tionships were. Doug set the tone for what ly. "Actually, I read about my popularity on bonded on the set and had a good time. It's we were gonna do throughout the rest of the the Internet more than I experience it in real quite amazing to me that she's so young and season. It allowed us to carry that through, life. Living in Los Angeles, people try to be professional, but it hasn't gone to her head even though different directors came after respectful of their favorite actors, so it's not despite the fact that she has grown up a child him." like people are pounding down my door and star!" Andrew's obsession with comic books hounding me at all hours. It's fun!" -Ar 72 STARLOG/April 2003 www.starlog.com IBYiDYNAMIClFORCESl '\/. MARVEL PREMIERE COLLECTOR PLATE: / THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN BY ALEX ROSS! ' k k Featuring the incredible "Head Behind the Shadows" painting by T artist Alex Ross, Each porcelain plate, measures 10 3/8", will I feature the full-color Ross image, complimented by a gold bor- der accent around the rim! 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He played another blind character in Butterflies Are Free—and won a Golden Globe. Blind by pat jankiewicz Albert is your classic working actor. Besides holding his own against Hollywood heavyweights like Charlton Heston and Goldie Hawn, he has appeared in numerous movies, TV shows and soap operas, playing cops, astronauts, scientists and million aires. He has also delved into superheroes and cartoons. Long before Ben Affleck donned scarlet as Daredevil, Albert loaned his noble voice to the blind adventurer on the popular Spider-Man animated series. Now, Disney has collected those episodes on a new DVD, Daredevil vs. Spider-Man. "What's wonderful about Daredevil is that he has what's consid- ered the most difficult challenge anyone could face: blindness," Albert begins. "Yet somehow, amazingly, in a world of visual cues, Daredevil has not only managed to survive, but he has a wonderful life. "Daredevil is a great character. I'm glad they're putting the DVD out there. Daredevil was lovely for me, because it resonated with the blind man I played in the movie Butterflies Are Free. When I did Butterflies [for which he won a Golden Globe], I studied at developing the blindness. The acting itself was gonna 74 STARLOG/Apn7 2003 Photo: Richard Cartwright Fantastic Four gave Albert the chance to soar the skyways as his jfefefc^V favorite comics hero: the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ c°s c s " ve %v su rt ^*0L*f*&.i Mfe^ about having to pretend to be blind at the same time." To play a blind man, "I went to the Braille Institute for several months [and acted] as though I had been blinded and was trained by them. I learned all the little things that sell blindness. It's not what you do with your eyes—that's the last thing that anything is going on with—it's what you do with your body and space. That's the key. What I loved about it—and people joke about it but it's actual ly true—is that your other senses do sharpen considerably. "This was preparation for Daredevil, but I didn't know it at the time," Albert explains. "I actually got a blind cane and dark glasses and would walk around the city, being blind. I hadn't done any films yet, so no one knew my face, and I would go to restaurants, ride the bus, all as a blind man. After a while I got rid of the glasses and people accepted it—with a major cue being the blind am — cane. Then I stopped using the cane, too, and I still [passed for] blind. It gives you a perspective on your other mm senses. I would get dizzy in large groups of talking people, trying to focus on who was speaking." mm Daredevil "has a basic metaphor to him—the hero who has a challenge to overcome. In comic books, that's taken to the mm extreme. He's granted these powers—his radar sense—that allow him to overcome his shortcomings. Daredevil wants to protect Wf the innocent and bring down the Kingpin, the man behind his father's murder. I thought Roscoe Lee Browne did a great job as W Kingpin. I've known Roscoe since the '70s; he even did a John Wayne movie, The Cowboys, where he brought great dignity to the role of the cook." Comics Fan Albert "was a big comic book fan as a kid, but I had bizarre tastes. Growing up by the ocean and being a surfer myself, the Silver I Surfer was the man, as far as I was concerned." Albert got to resist Galactus and wield the Power Cosmic when he played the Silver Surfer in the Fantastic Four cartoon. "That was great," he smiles. "One of the reasons I accepted the job was that I truly loved the character. The fact that he walks around followed by lions and soars on his surfboard accompanied by flying birds was right up my St. Francis' alley! "Silver Surfer is the complete opposite of Daredevil," Albert argues. "Daredevil is an internal character, forced that way by his blind- ness, while Silver Surfer is an alien, completely connected to the whole universe. The smallest atom in the Surfer is somebody else's uni- verse. Daredevil lives in complete darkness, but not negatively so, while the Silver Surfer is external and infinite." Albert is the perfect performer to portray a cartoon superhero because "I always wanted to be one as a kid. My Mom used to tease me about my 'falcon on the wrist' syndrome," he laughs. "I always wanted to be a hero from watching Dudley Do-Right cartoons as a kid. "Maybe my voice lends itself to that type of part. To me, it's sad to have a voice with that kind of theatricality while living in the age of Motel 6 'just plain folks' voiceovers! For years people have told me to do voiceovers, but I've only done two or three. I love doing them, though, because I can go to work wearing my big fuzzy slippers! "I did a wonderful animated show for Steven Spielberg called Invasion America" Albert says. "I got to work with Leonard Nimoy on that and had so much fun. It was a big project, very carefully and caringly put together. We were all pretty proud of it. Regrettably, it didn't do as well as we hoped. Again, I played a heroic warrior/poet kind of guy, Rate. I remember one line from the whole show—one of the favorite lines I've ever said as an actor. We're going into battle against the aliens, the young prince I'm the guardian of and me, and I'm putting on camouflage/war paint and he's watching me with great respect. As I do this, I say, The grey is for the spirits beyond, the brown is for the Earth that takes our bones.' He asks me, 'What about " the green? Why do you use the green?' And I reply, T like the color.' k As millionaire developer Elliot Burch, Albert was part of a bizarre love triangle between himself, a gorgeous socialite/attorney (Linda Hamilton) and a poetry-quoting lion man (Ron Perlman) in the cult TV series Beauty & the Beast (which he previously discussed in STARLOG #153). "I had a wonderful time on that show," he declares. "A great experience. The show itself was wonderful, something I'm very proud to have been involved in. I mean, how many shows do you know that are a major hit and end every episode with Shakespeare? Yellow Rose Photo: Copyright 1983 NBC "Ron is the bee's knees! We have very loosely stayed in touch over the years. I have a tremendous affection for him because he's a sweet and honestly funny human being. Ron was mischievous about him- self—in terms of the 8-inch platform boots, the lion's mane, his face and the capes he had to wear. He loved all that stuff!" Beast Boy Playing Vincent, "Ron used that great whispery voice. My character was above ground and in love with Linda. I didn't know about Vincent, but that was about to change and did change at the very end of the show's last season. Basically, the series ended with me—I can't remember why—setting up a 'hit' on Vincent, so he would be shot and killed. At the last second, we had this scene where I took the bullet for him. "It was my final show ["Beggar's Comet"], and I remember filming that scene in the middle of the night in San Pedro. I was freezing, standing on the dock, talking to Ron, who was in a boat, and [his character is] unaware that I have a rifleman getting him in the cross-hairs. I had really been looking for- ward to this scene, because, during the show's run, Ron and I had never had a scene together. We finally get this scene—with Ron in full Vincent makeup—and I'm thinking, 'This is gonna be fun. Our charac- ters will finally have a chance to mix it up.' So I look at him, they call 'Action' and I see Ron moving his lips, but I don't hear a damn thing! "When his lips stop moving, I spit my line out, but I'm horrified and confused. His lips start mov ing again, but no sound comes out! Then I realize that his whispery Vincent voice doesn't carry!" Albert laughs. "I played the only real scene we ever had together without hearing a word he said! And although I was shot, I was supposed to survive. If we had done another season, [creator] Ron Koslow said I was gonna go underground with Vincent. Vincent was gonna nurse me back to health. I was gonna be on both levels: above and below ground. Regrettably, the show was cancelled." Of all his adventures on Beauty & the Beast, "I do take some pride in being the only person who got to kiss Linda Hamilton! That girl has some nice lips," he says proudly. "There were difficulties, though. Linda wasn't happy. I Running a ranch on the Western remember we shot in a studio in South Central LA—it was so series The Yellow Rose, Albert acted dangerous, they had to drive us to the parking lot! alongside Sam Elliott and night, were in "One we shooting a paper Cybill Shepherd. plant and Linda was pregnant but hid- ing it. Six inches from her on the wall was a big sign that said: EXTREME CHEMICAL DANGER TO PREGNANT AND LAC- TATING WOMEN. The plant was full of chemicals, bleaches and dioxins—all this stuff that causes cancer if you just look at the canister! She was on her way outta there the very next day." Acting Heir As the son of Hollywood legend Eddie Albert of Green Acres and Switch fame, the actor learned how to live and survive in a cutthroat industry. "My Dad taught me a lot. Having been raised in the limelight, appearing on Edward R. Murrow's show and in Life mag- azine with my Dad, I grew up in the classic Hollywood family without the classic Hollywood parents," he comments. "I had terrific parents who were very loving and loyal. But I essentially decided that I didn't want to do celebrity stuff for the rest of my life. I wanted to settle down and be a working actor, do leads and character roles. I wanted to make a good career but stay a little under the radar. To me, it's a family business. I didn't do this for stardom." He made his debut in an unusual way. "My Dad had a six-hour live talk show out of San Francisco," Albert recalls. "I think his co-host was Betty White. You can imagine that having to fill six hours of live [broadcast] forced him to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and so he came up with me! I started my career at the age of one, getting my first haircut on his show, live—and it has been down- hill ever since! "My whole life—whenever my Dad went on location filming or did a play on Broadway—my family would go together. We were a traveling gypsy pack. Shortly after my TV haircut debut, my Mom [the dancer known by the single name Margo; she was in the 1937 Lost Horizon] and I joined him in Italy, where he was shooting Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Greg Photo: Wynn Hammer ^ Peck. I was lucky enough to grow up, literally, traveling all over the world, but in the bosom of my family. I basically continued doing that in my career, with my wife and daughter. I If Beauty & the Beast hadn't been didn't take the girls on the more dangerous shoots—I was just off the coast of China cancelled, Albert says Burch during Tiannemen Square, at the Eastern horn of Africa when the troops came would have been back—both above and below ground. into Somalia and in Red Square when the tanks rolled in, during the fall of communism. I was shooting one of my favorite films, The Ice Runner. If anyone has a director's cut of it, I would love to see it." Surprisingly, he never appeared with his Dad on Green Acres. "I avoided appearing on Green Acres with an unholy fervor," he chuckles. "It 76 STARLOG/fyn7 2005 www.starlog.com Today, Albert was just Keeps working. He the '60s, I was a musician and truly loves putting up with school barnyard humor was not — acting. high on the list of what was cool at the time! Also, having the last name 'Albert' —that was very close to the name of the show's pig, 'Arnold.' So there was a considerable overlap of the pig possibly being my brother! I was flattered, but the pig felt terrible." While Albert was "acting during the day, I was also working at night as a studio drum- mer, playing drums and percussion for Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder, Joni Mitchell, Rita Coolidge, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Booker T. I did the 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' tour until Snaky Jim Kelton threw a TV set out the window and Cloudy Chuck Blackwell almost beat the shit out of Rita. I " said, 'I'm outta here. Music ain't worth the grief!' Cobra Pal Over his years as an actor, while making such mainstream fare as 40 Carats, Midway, When Time Ran Out and The Greek Tycoon, Albert has also compiled an impressive array of genre credits, from horror to SF to action-adventure. "I took Henry Fonda's advice to heart and never said no to a job," he smiles. "I value the experience of the production and location far more than the reviews and receipts a film makes." Some experiences, however, were more memorable (and dangerous) than others. The House Where Evil Dwells "was kind ofif^^ nightmare," he shudders. "The whole shoot was at night. A very crucial member of the production—I'm hesitant to say who—was absent much of the time, for illegal and nefarious reasons. The script that I said yes to and the budget it had were no longer there. The budget is crucial for that type of film, with monsters and special effects. As I learned early on with Roger Corman, you damn well better have the money to make it—or so much smoke nobody can tell ! All the money was gone, spent on various illegal, nefari- ous things. Even though House Where Evil Dwells was a real piece of shit—pardon the technical language—on the other hand, I had an extraordinary experience in Africa. "I nearly died twice making that in Zimbabwe. We were working late, I'm slightly hypoglycemic and there was a bowl of chocolates on the table. To keep my energy up, I started popping the chocolates, but I thought that they had a weird taste. It turned out that the 18- year-old prop girl had injected turpentine into the chocolates to keep [people] from eating them! I took a lot of poisonous turpentine in and had to stick my finger down my throat. "The most dangerous thing I did on that movie was piss," he smiles. "The [port-a-potties] were too gross to use, so every night I would just pee on the roots of this big tree in the dark. I would hear a rustle of leaves and laugh about disturbing the rats. The guys on the crew started teasing me—but in a respectful way. I said, 'What's going on?' and an African crewman said, 'You're the guy who pees on the cobra.' I said, 'Beg your pardon?!?' He explained that a 12-foot King Cobra lived in the roots of that tree, and every night they would gather to watch me piss on it!" • On Corman's low-budget ALIEN knockoff Galaxy of Terror, Albert met James Cameron. "He was the art director," Albert remarks. "Not only do I remember him, but we got along pretty well! I knew Corman's reputation for being the cheapest son of a bitch on the planet—while he drives a different color Maserati every day—but the first time I walked on our Galaxy sets, I was blown away. It was a tunnel, and I thought, 'Wow, how cool! There's more money in this film than I thought "But as I walked down this tubular tunnel with a flat floor, I noticed that the floor grillwork was really upside-down milk crates, with lights under 'em. The futuristic modular units all over the walls were fast food containers that had been opened up and hot-glued to the wall! That was a lot of bang for your buck! I said to Cameron, 'Congratulations! You started with junk and came up with a set!' "The movie was originally called Quest and not a bad script, but before the ink was dry on our con tracts, Corman changed the title to Galaxy ofTerror\ Zalman [Red Shoe Diaries] King and Erin [Happy Days] Moran were also in it. At one point, I had to kiss Erin, and I wanted to do some- k thingthinj interesting. Whether it's a fight or a love scene, you always try to come up with some- thing unusual. We were wearing these backpacks with headlights on our shoulders, and the on/off switch was down by our asses. So when I leaned down and kissed her, ^ without telling anyone, I made her headlight come on! To this day, I have never seen Galaxy of Terror. To me, the reality is just doing it. That's where my desire is satisfied, and that's how Working on Roger you become a seasoned veteran." Corman's low- budget Galaxy of Terror, Albert met a young Jim Cameron, who served as the film's art director. All Galaxy of Terror Photos: Copyright 1981 New World Pictures Photo: Copyright 1982 United Artists Thriller Star Albert is amused by the popularity of his SF and fantasy roles. "There's always great interest in the genre stuff," he professes. "My wife Kate [Woodville] is constantly amused that she's still—to this day—30 years later, getting fan mail from when she first came over from England and did one of her first jobs here, a little throwaway thing called Star Trekl In retrospect, at least in terms of people's memories, it has been the highlight of her career!" (Woodville can be seen as the high priestess Natira in classic Trek's "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"; she discussed the episode in STARLOG #132.) Although Albert appeared on Deep Space Nine ("A Man Alone"), "To be honest, I don't consider Deep Space Nine a Star Trek," he says. "It was so different from the original image of what Star Trek was and always will be. It felt like a different TV series, so I didn't see myself as being on Star Trek. My wife Kate was on the real Star Trek, and they look down on all us newcomers!" On Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Albert notes, "I played Jason, the Red Ranger's father. Power Rangers was an interesting but weird experience. I would do four scenes in one day that would be used in two or three episodes, and I would be working with people in enormous and smelly rubber suits! It didn't sweep me away like the part of Daredevil did, because DD had a lot to say metaphorically." Albert's erotic thriller Sorceress "was originally an action thriller, with no black magic overtones at all. It was a very straightforward story, a B-film, nothing to be proud of, but it was decent and I tried to do a decent job with it. Then [director] Jim Wynorski told me he re-cut the picture to start at a certain point—around the middle of the script—so when I [first saw] it, my character is introduced driving home. On my car phone, I tell my wife, T got the job!' It then cuts to my wife saying 'Wonderful' and setting up the table for a special dinner. Then they cut to this Living in The beautiful woman— I think it's Julie Strain—in baby oil and a black negligee. I said, 'What the hell is that?' House Where Evil { because it wasn 't in the script. Then it cuts back to me and my wife. Long story short, it cuts to the woman in the Dwells wasn't a I baby oil and negligee surrounded by candles, and she's holding a large knife—and in the center of a pentagram pleasant Ift is my head shot [an actor's standard publicity photo]. experience for the "The woman stabs my photo in the face and they cut to a car crashing. Apparently, it's supposed to be actor. k my car," Albert laughs incredulously. "I said, 'Jim, what in the name of Sarah Jessica Parker was that?!?' L The scene was so offensive, I refused to loop it. But I've done many movies in the action-adventure genre where they've switched to 'an erotic thriller.' Basically, they take normal action-thriller scripts and add Brandy, the heroine, taking a shower. And Brandy has a 56-inch bust that press- es up against the glass. I did about two or three of those films before I realized, 'Wait a minute—I have to get into the hot tub again')' Julie Strain and I were not the Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn of erotic thrillers!" Besides acting work, Albert has been spending quality time with his family. "My daughter Thai's just graduated with honors from UC Santa Cruz and she's a musician," he remarks. "She even had a gig at the House of Blues. I've been mar- ried 28 years now, and I have to credit my parents for giving me the example of how a relationship stays together. "I still see my Dad every day. I take care of him. He's 95 now. Eight years ago, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and, in my opinion, he has beat it. He's still funny, sweet and mis- chievous. His words are very slow but he still follows everything. My Dad is my dearest friend and we love each other deeply. He has taken care of my skinny white ass so long, it's about time I returned the favor!" Albert is also in the new true-life book Not By Accident. "Four years ago, my daughter said, 'Dad, somebody's in the canyon yelling for help!' I ran and found a red-haired girl in a pool of blood with a destroyed leg, 90 percent of it Galaxy of Terror's sets cut off. A horse was looking at her quizzically. She had considerable arterial impressed Albert, who, spurt and was bleeding out. I pinched the artery and kept her talking. When I closer inspection, upon heard her name was Samantha Dunn, I asked, 'You Irish?' She said, 'Yeah.' realized that they 'Ever been to Ireland?' 'No.' So I started talking about the smell of burning were constructed out of peat fires and the colors of the heather until the paramedics showed up, and milk crates and fast then I went with her to Ireland. She wrote Not By Accident and makes food containers. me sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now it has come full circle—she's staying with my father and caring for him. Not By Accident, a new "It made me realize how life is," Edward Albert says true-life book, chronicles thoughtfully. "I love acting. As a career, it has given Albert's association with ^ author Samantha Dunn. me so many great friendships and wonderful adventures." The actor saved her life, ^ and now she takes care of his father, Green Acres' Eddie Albert. www.starlog.com Order now while issues last! Note: All issues include numerous articles & interviews. Only a few are listed for each entry. #2 Gene Roddenberry. Wonder Woman EP #54 3-D Issue. Bob Culp. #80 Billy Dee Williams. 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Richard #306 December. $10. lssue# Price $ lssue# Price $_ You can fax: 212-889-7933 or e-mail: [email protected] of TV's top stars in the cop and Onedetective categories, Mike Connors first burst onto the scene in the late '50s as the undercover agent in Tightrope; he represented the long arm of the law again in the '80s as a federal man in Today's F.B.I.; and in the interim he had his best— and longest-running—role as the Los Angeles-based private detective Mannix (earning five Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe). Movie fans remember a whole 'nother Connors, however. This one was named Touch Connors and his "beat" was a dark Best known as and sometimes dangerous (for real!) low- TV's two-fisted budget B-movie world of slippery characters (and hard- like Roger Corman, Samuel Z. Arkoff and skulled) Joe Sam Katzman. This. ..is his story. Mannix, Mike The actor actually began life under yet Connors first another name, Kreker Ohanian. Born and got into screen raised in Fresno, he lettered in high school action as football, basketball and track, but his athlet- "Touch" Connors. ic and academic pursuits were temporarily shelved while he served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Following dis- charge from the service, he enrolled at UCLA, where he became interested in the theater. Once Hollywood took notice, he made his debut in a supporting part in the J 952 suspense r Sudden Fear with Joan Crawford. But the road to Mannix and TV stardom was paved with many unusual roles, from, a gangster menacing Earth 's last sur- vivors on the Day the World Ended (1956), to a killer clad in animal skins who prowled by the African full moon in Jaguar (1956), to the Bond-like secret agent Kelly in the spy- spoof Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die (1966). Connors recalls these offbeat roles, and others, in. this exclusive interview. STARLOG: According to your studio bios, your early career plan was to follow in your father's footsteps and become an attorney. MIKE CONNORS: That's true. My lath was an attorney and, of course, every ethnic parent wants their kid to be a doctor, lawyer or professor. So my mother—my father was dead by the time I started college—insisted I become an attorney. I didn't want to, but to keep her happy, 1 went to law school. STARLOG: At what point did you switch to wanting to be an actor'? Inakes alive! Mike Connors, TV's intrepid Mannix, remembers the perils & pitfalls of low-budget pix. www.starlog.com STARLQG//A/?n7 2003 CONNORS: While I was a freshman play- I said, 'Wo—but I'm sure thinkin' about it "Cubby" Broccoli was one of the agents han- ing basketball at UCLA, we were playing a now." [Laughs] I called Ruth Burch back and dling me there. game before the varsity game, and a coach told her I would be interested in acting, and STARLOG: So you're signed by Gold- came up to me and said, "There's a friend of she said, "OK. I'm going to set you up with wyn. ..but you never were in a Goldwyn mine in the audience with his son, and the a coach." She sent me to Bob Paris—he had movie, were you? son would like to meet you ballplayers." He coached Clark Gable, and he was at the time CONNORS: When my 90 days were up, took me over to the side and said, "This is coaching.. .she went with Howard Hughes... Goldwyn let me go. Then I later found out Mr. Wellman and his son, Bill Jr." "Hi, Bill STARLOG: Terry Moore? what the ploy was: Farley Granger, who was Jr. How are you?" And so forth and so on. CONNORS: Terry Moore. I told Bob, "I under contract to Goldwyn, was giving 'em a The coach introduced each of the players to have no money," but I did have a postwar bad time about money. So Goldwyn told the boy. We then played basketball—and I Jeep. "If you'll deliver some scripts and do Granger's agent, "I just signed a kid from played a pretty rough game of basketball at some things for me," he said, "I'll coach you UCLA that's the same age as Farley, tall, that time. After the game was over, the coach for free." So I delivered some scripts and so dark, same size, good actor.. .and if Farley came to me and said, "That fellow you met, on for him, and I started working with him, doesn't come around, he's getting the parts Wellman—he's a director [William "Wild [opposite people like] Terry Moore. But that Farley has." Well, the minute Farley's Bill" Wellman]. He liked your voice and the before I could work with Terry, Hughes had agent saw that Goldwyn had signed me, they way you played basketball, and he wants to to OK me. One day, Bob told me he wanted made a deal and Farley came back and the know if you might be interested in being an me to come to the Goldwyn Studio on South Goldwyn people told me, "We don't need actor." I thought it was a joke and said [scoff- Santa Monica and Formosa. I went there. I you any more." So that's why I was signed by ing], "Sure, any time." [Laughs] So a few went to the gate guard and said, "I'm here to Goldwyn, to make Farley toe the line. But it : days later, the coach said, "I talked to see Bob Paris and Terry Moore." He said, got me an agency, which was great.. .except Wellman and he says when he gets ready to "Well, just wait right here." I waited and I'm that, at first, nothing was happening. do a picture, he'll give you a call." About a standing around and looking, and suddenly So one day I'm sitting in the office, wait- week later, the coach came to me again and this old Chevy pulls up, stops and the driver ing to go in to tell 'em that I was leaving, that this time he said, "There's a casting lady looks me over. And I look at him and say to I wanted a release. As I was sitting there, named Ruth Burch. They're looking for a myself, "I think that's Howard Hughes!" The [agent] Henry Willson walked in. Henry new Tarzan and she called and asked if there car goes in, about 20 minutes pass and the asked, "What are you doin' here?", and I was an athlete here. I mentioned the situation gate guard says, "OK, you can come in." said, "Well, Mr. Willson, I'm going in to tell with you and Wellman, and she said, 'Have Hughes had said OK, and so I started work- 'em I'm leaving the agency." He asked why, " him come out and see me.' So I went and ing with Terry. That's how my whole career and I told him that nothing was happening. saw her and she said, "You're wrong for got started. Later on, I was doing a play at He said, "Sit tight a minute." Henry went in, Tarzan, but have you ever thought about act- UCLA, and a scout from Goldwyn Studios and then when he came out, he told me, "I'm ing?" I said, "No, not really." She said, saw it and offered me a chance to do a test. handling you. Just stick with the agency, I'll "Well. ..think about it. And give me a call." So I went to Goldwyn, and they did one of take care of it." Well, what had happened STARLOG: Who was Tarzan at the time? those ["personality tests"] —look forward, was, Henry went in, and Mark Fellman, who Who were they looking to replace? look this way, look that way, how old are ya?, was an agent there, said that I didn't have a CONNORS: Lex Barker. Anyway, the next and so forth. And Goldwyn signed me to a chance, that I didn't photograph good and so day in a speech class I was taking, the speech 90-day contract. Well, when word got out on. And Henry said, "I'll make you a bet that teacher Estelle Harman asked me, "Would that Goldwyn had signed me, every agency I can get him a job." (Henry didn't like you stay after class? I would like to talk to in town called me. I thought, "Gee, this is Fellman; he thought Fellman was a phony.) you." She said, "I'm casting a play, All My terrific," and I signed with Famous Artists So Henry told me to stick with the agency Sons, and you would be perfect for one of the Agency, which was a big agency. [Eventual and he said, "OK, now, the first thing we do parts. Have you ever thought about acting?" James Bond film series producer Albert R.] is change your name. You— got any nick- names?" I said, "Touch " Willson said [instantly], "Great! Touch, that's it!" Because at that time it was Rock Hudson, Rory Calhoun, Guy Madison, Race Gentry... STARLOG: And he named 'em all? CONNORS: Yeah. So I hated it, absolutely hated it. STARLOG: If you knew going into your career that you could have made a go of it with your real name Kreker Ohanian, would you have kept it? CONNORS: Absolutely. It's the one big regret I have, that I let them talk me into changing my name. When Henry took me over at the agency, he said, "There's already an O'Hanlon [working in Hollywood], George O'Hanlon, and Ohanian and O'Hanlon are too close. We gotta change your name." He came up with the Connors, and then Touch Connors. And I hated it from day one. Then, when I got the Tightrope TV series [1959-60], I wanted to go back to Ohanian. And Columbia Studio said, "No, no, no. You've done too much as Connors. We want to keep Connors. You can change the first name." On the Day the World Ended, gangster Connors coped with post-apocalyptic STARLOG: You've used Ohanian as a char- terrors and a B-movie monster (played by FX maestro Paul Blaisdell, who also suited acter name a time or two. up as the Voodoo Woman creature seen on page 86). CONNORS: One time. After Mannix, I did 82 STARLOG/A/?n7 2003 — — — a horrendous experience, I'll tell you—just the worst. I remember doing silly stunts in those days that were absolutely ridiculous, but I did 'em. For instance, in that picture, I was supposed to dive into the water and swim up to an alligator and knife-fight it and kill it. Now, just previous to that, we were in a row- boat, and one of the fellows rowing took a paddle and swung it at something in the water, and we saw this snake go flying. It was a water moccasin, which is deadly. So now, the next day, I was supposed to dive into this swamp and swim out to this alliga- tor. A big alligator. I said, "Look, this is ridiculous." They said, "We're gonna tie the alligator to a tree across the bank, and it can only go so far. And then you dive in and swim toward it, and when you get to a certain point, you stop." STARLOG: And you have to hope that the alligator doesn't wriggle free a pilot, and my character's background was CONNORS: And hope that I don't misjudge what I am, Armenian. [Ivan] Goff and [Ben] it. Much later in my career, I would have Roberts, who produced and wrote Mannix, said, "Hey, I tell you what. [Makes an were also the writers-producers on this, and obscene gesture] Go get yourself a good they asked, "Why don't we use your real stuntman. I ain't gettin' in that water with the name here, as the character?" snake and the alligator—you're crazy!" But STARLOG: Once you did get going with in 1955, / did it. And it worked out fine. They Sudden Fear and other early parts, were you also had the biggest rattlesnake you've ever making a decent living? seen in your life. It was real big around and CONNORS: No, I didn't really make any it was about six feet long. I hate snakes. I was kind of a living until I did Tightrope. That tied to a tree and that rattlesnake was sup- was the first significant money I made. Up posed to crawl over my leg. The trainer said, 'til then, it was just struggling. In fact, almost "We're gonna get the poison out." every three or four months, I would tell my STARLOG: But that doesn't mean it won't wife, "If something doesn't happen by bite you! Christmas, I'll quit and go back to law CONNORS: I'm a nervous wreck. So I'm school." And Christmas would come and I watching, and they milked the snake, and I would say, "If it doesn't happen 'til Easter..." notice now that the trainer is trying to get this "If it doesn't happen 'til Fourth of July..." snake and he's being very careful how he's And finally, things started to pop. going about it. I say [whistles through his STARLOG: Working for Roger Corman and teeth], "C'mere a minute," and I ask him, "If AIP in the early years of your career—what Young and fearless, Connors dealt that snake has no poison, why are you being was that like? directly with alligators, snakes and dirty so careful about grabbing it?" He says, CONNORS: [Laughs] God, how can you water in Swamp Women. "Well. ..you know.. .sometimes..." At that explain it? You would rehearse maybe once n the or twice and shoot it and print it and move 1950s and '60s, Connors on. You did all those pictures in seven, eight, paid his dues nine days—there was no time taken on those and worked things. No money, no time, but it was experi- for tuna ence, credits and a few bucks. sandwiches STARLOG: Everybody I've talked to about making low- Corman's Swamp Women [1956] talks about budget flicks the hardships. Do you have a favorite story? like The CONNORS: Well, Roger took us into the Oklahoma swamps outside of New Orleans to shoot Woman. that. He got a place that used to be a hotel it had been shuttered and closed for.. .maybe years—and [laughs] he re-opened it, put a bunch of old beds in there, and that's where we stayed! Out in the middle of nowhere! Now, the girls in that picture had it much worse than I did. They were playing escaped convicts, and they captured me. They had to trudge through the mud, the swamps, pulling this rowboat, and I was sitting in the rowboat high and dry. Then toward the end, after I escaped, I had to dive into that dirty water it had snakes and stuff in it, and it was just terrible. But to Roger, it was like [shrugs], "So you get bit by a snake—big deal!" It was www.starlog.com STARLOG/4 pril 2003 83 " just one of the top terrific guys. I believe he was responsible for a lot of actors coming back to do more pictures for AIP. Many peo- ple, had they dealt with Sam Arkoff on those AIP pictures, would have said, "Screw." But Alex was such a sweet, wonderful guy that, when he would call and say, "Hey, listen, we got a new project...", you would say, "OK, Alex." STARLOG: So you knew Arkoff and Jim Nicholson, too? CONNORS: I liked Nicholson. I think he was the real brains behind the actual picture- making. Arkoff was the businessman. Sam never met a man he didn't like.. .to screw [laughsjl As far as I was concerned, he did not have a lot of integrity. You never knew what he was gonna do. And he was always angling, maneuvering, always had that his All is not what it seems. Has a savage Jaguar mangled poor Barton MacLane (in bloody phony smile on face and a great big cigar. hammock)? That's what duplicitous Connors would like everyone to believe! Well, the proof is that even Nicholson could not get along with him, so they finally split. point, I say to Roger, "Roger, before I do this on the tail, and then when I got pushed off I'll never forget, I produced a picture for AIP scene, you get somebody to tape that snake's the raft, that weight kept the tail down and I back in the '50s called Flesh and the Spur mouth." They say, "Yeah, but we like it stayed underwater for, I dunno, half a minute [1957]. I raised the money, and we shot the [untaped].— You see the tongue and all that, or whatever, and the tail stayed underwater. picture for $117,000. In color. Pretty good and " I tell 'em, "I don't care what you like. That's how they got the shot. cast. No better, no worse than 90 percent of Either tape that snake's mouth or get some- Mickey also directed me in a picture the pictures that AIP put out. We never saw a body else's legs." They finally taped the called The Twinkle in God's Eye [1955]. dime profit out of it. Now, AIP made millions snake's mouth and the snake went over my Mickey signed me under a contract, and I did off of that type of picture, but my picture legs. But I gotta tell you—and my wife will a pilot for him called Daniel Boone. But "didn't make a dime." And Arkoff would just verify it—I had nightmares for weeks after I about the time we finished shooting it, smile and say [sweetly], "Well, you know, got back, about that.. .big snake [laughs]\ Disney came out with Fess Parker [as Davy that picture, somehow it just didn't take STARLOG: Before we get away from the Crockett], so that was the end of Daniel off..." Then, in the '80s, I decided to produce jungle and snakes, were things any better Boone. another picture, Too Scared to Scream making Jaguar"} STARLOG: Getting back to Corman and [1985]. A friend of mine, a very wealthy CONNORS: That was for Mickey Rooney's AIP—did you get any direction from friend, wanted to get in the picture business, company—it was with Sabu, and the gal in it Corman, or just where to stand when you and he said, "I'll put up the money." I kept [Chiquita] was a dancer, from the Chiquita started talking? telling him, "It's not a good investment," but and Johnson dance team. I played a character CONNORS: It was pretty much, "Do it he said, "I don't care. I just wanna do it." So who put on this jaguar outfit and killed peo- quick." There wasn't a lot of acting direction Tony Lo Bianco came to me with a script and ple and made it look like the animals did it. going on. For him, it was where to set the said, "I want to direct this," and the timing So I'm in this outfit on a raft, Sabu and I are camera and how to make the most use out of was right—it was a [horror movie script], fighting, he throws me over the side and I go the time he had. You were pretty much on and this was about when all those horror pic- under into the river and the piranha eat me your own. tures were popular and making money. So alive. Well, the first couple times we try it, STARLOG: Most of your seven AIP movies we put together the project, got the money the tail of the jaguar outfit comes to the sur- were produced by Alex Gordon. and had a pretty good cast lined up: Anne face. They say, "Jesus, it doesn't look like CONNORS: Loved him. He was the one Archer, myself, Ian McShane. he's being eaten alive because the tail is guy that every actor liked—everybody that STARLOG: Maureen O'Sullivan. floating up here!" Finally, they put a weight worked for that company liked Alex. He was CONNORS: Maureen, John Heard...a lot of 'em said they would work for scale because they knew Tony or me and we gave 'em little pieces of the action. Before we got ready to shoot, I called Arkoff and said, "Sam, I would like to talk to you about something." Up until this point, there was no animosity or anything between us. So I went in and explained, "Sam, I'm getting ready to shoot this picture and I would like a little advice about distribution. I know nothing about dis- tribution. Do you think I should get distribu- tion ahead of time, before we start shooting, or wait to take a gamble on it?" He said, "Lemme tell you this: Why don't you just stick to acting and let us stick to producing?"— I said, "Well, Sam, I'm gonna produce and he said, "Well, you're making a big mis- take, and... there's nothing I can tell you." And I left. That's Sam Arkoff. It would have Connors produced Flesh and the Spur (1957) and Too Scared to Scream, cost him nothing to spend a few minutes and a 1985 horror movie co-starring such pals as Maureen O'Sullivan and Ian McShane answer a few questions for me. I wasn't ask- (both pictured), as well as John Heard and Anne Archer. ing him to distribute it. If he had wanted to 84 STARLOG/Apn7 2003 www.starlog.com distribute it and said, "Hey, I'll give you so- a delightful old guy. But my best memory is and-so," I would have been willing to listen. that Denning and I became very, very good But he just completely said, "Screw off." friends. I loved him. He was just a sensation- Some time later, I got a call from him—they al guy, and his wife Evelyn [Ankers], who by were going to honor him somewhere and so that time had quit acting, was terrific. he was calling people, asking if they would STARLOG: Does anything come back to make an appearance. I said, "I'm just really you about the making of Day the World too busy," and I wouldn't go. I never talked Ended! to him again. CONNORS: I remember that, in the movie, STARLOG: MP's Day the World Ended practically the entire Earth was devastated by with Richard Denning, Adele Jergens, atomic blasts, or whatever the blasts were. In Raymond Hatton—what memories? the little house where we survivors were CONNORS: Adele, for many years, lived staying, we had all the curtains closed—and just three doors away from me, she and her when we looked out through the curtain, we husband Glenn Langan. She was terrific. I had to be vvvvery careful that the camera loved her. Bawdy gal. And Raymond was couldn't see out through the curtain, because just great, I enjoyed working with him. He there was nothing devastated out there! You told great stories about the old days and was would do a little peek like this [Connors pre- Aided by stalwart secretary Peggy (Gail Fisher), detective Mannix solved cases weekly on CBS for eight years. tends to be parting curtains a fraction of an inch], to make sure that the camera couldn't see [laughs]. STARLOG: You worked for Corman four times in one year, 1954-55—then never again. CONNORS: I had co-starred in four pic- tures for him at $400 a picture. So I decided that I was going to tell him that I wanted a raise. I met him at his office—his office was a couple doors away [and upstairs] from Scandia, a very terrific restaurant. In those days, to have a lunch at a restaurant like that was unheard of for me. So we came down the stairs and—instead of turning left to the They were there the Day the World Ended: Lori Nelson, Paul Dubov, Richard Denning, restaurant, we turned right and crossed the assistant director Lou Place, Connors, producer Alex Gordon, Adele Jergens, Colonel street and went into Turner's Drug Store, George Mitchell and Raymond Hatton. where they had a sandwich bar! We sat down After the atomic blasts, Connors gets tough with Jergens. In real life, the two Day survivors were longtime neighbors. STARLOG/4/;n7 2003 85 — Rio de Janeiro offered at the bar and he said, "Order anything you STARLOG: Maria English was i actual high-jinx to like!" [Laughs] also in Voodoo Woman. Connors—who I ordered a tuna sandwich and a cup of CONNORS: I don't remember a daringly climbed a coffee, sitting on the stool at the counter, and lot about Voodoo Woman. They giant statue to 1 said, "Roger, I've done a number of pic- had set [a small] jungle up on a perform Kiss the tures for you for $400 a movie. I would like stage, and they could only shoot Girls' action. What a raise." He said, "All right, you're right, about 10 feet [of the set] at a was he thinking? Mike, you're right." And he raised his coffee time. Then they would move the cup to his lips and looked at me and said, camera and shoot 10 feet the "I'm gonna give you. ..uhhhh... $1,200." other way [laughs], and then 10 "Wow," I thought, "1,200!" If he had said feet sideways and 10 feet this $500 a picture, or even $450, that would way. It was kind of difficult to have made me happy. But as Roger took a sip visualize what you were trying to of his coffee, he saw my eyes go big, and he put over—seeing a jungle that put the cup down and added, "...for three pic- was only 10 feet by 10 feet square tures." [Laughs] I said, "Roger! That's still and trying to picture yourself $400 a picture!" And he said, "Yeah, but I'm deep in the heart of Africa! gonna give you three pictures." And that was Maria, though, was terrific, I the end of my working for Corman. liked her very much. She stayed STARLOG: Did you enjoy working as fast to herself quite a bit, but she was as directors like Corman and Voodoo a very pleasant gal to work with. Woman's Edward L. Cahn would work you? STARLOG: Did you ever do a CONNORS: It was good training, let me put movie that was so bad that you it that way. It's much like the difference thought, "This is gonna hurt me?" between shooting television and a feature CONNORS: Yeah, about five of today. I'll tell you another anecdote about 'em [laughs]\ Most of 'em AIP working for AIP: When I produced Flesh Corman pictures! I thought and the Spur, one day Arkoff, Alex and I Voodoo Woman was going to be joke. for three years and we've finally got a hit, guess Nicholson called me in the office. We Jaguar was another one. Sky Commando and now you want to move it?? No." Aubrey hadn't started shooting yet, but I was told, [1953] with Dan Duryea was another one said, "Either move it, or you're through." "This is how we're gonna promote the pic- that, about the second hour of shooting, you They got pissed off and said, "OK, we'll go ture," and they showed me artwork of Maria knew it was going to be a disaster. It was a to another network," and they left. That's English on an anthill, staked out, with war picture using a lot of war footage. We why the show didn't continue. ABC wanted Indians around her. "Fellas, that's beautiful," were supposed to shoot that in six days. Well, an hour show, and we did it as an hour, but it I said, "but we got no Indians in the picture. the day before we were gonna finish, the didn't work. So, Tightrope went off the air. No Indians, no anthill, nothing like that in camera department called and said the last STARLOG: Is it true that you were offered the script." They said, "Well, that's the thing two days of shooting were completely unus- the opportunity to replace Raymond Burr as we're talking to you about. We're gonna have able—there had been a camera malfunction Perry Mason? to put in a scene." I said, "You mean, right in or a hair in the gate. Dan turned to me and CONNORS: What happened was, again, I the middle of the picture, suddenly a bunch said, "Hey, guess what? We're gonna get a was used as a foil [laughs]. Burr was giving of Indians appear, grab her, put her on this couple of extra days shooting, we're gonna 'em a bad time, and he refused to come to anthill and disappear?" They said, "That's finally make some money from [producer work. So they called me and said, "We want right, because this is how we're gonna pro- Sam] Katzman." The next day was the end of you to do a Perry Mason, and if Bun doesn't mote the picture!" [Laughs] So that's what the original six days, and Katzman came on come around, you're Perry Mason." So I did happened! AIP sold all their pictures on the the set and said, "Well, thank you very much, one Perry Mason ["The Case of the Bullied promotions—the poster was always the most fellas, that's a wrap." We said, "W-w-what Bowler," 1964], where they said that Perry important thing. about the two days of scenes that are unus- was out of town and had called in his best able?" He said, "Aw, don't worry about it, friend to take over the case, so I took over, we'll put in more stock footage!" [Laughs] and he wasn't in the episode at all. Well, two So in essence, the picture was shot, basical- weeks later, Burr signed the deal and he was ly, in four days' worth of production! back as Perry Mason. STARLOG: Was there ever a point at which STARLOG: At the height of the James you thought, "I've done so many B-picmres, Bond movie craze, you played a Bond-like it'll be too tough to progress beyond this?" CIA agent named Kelly in the send-up Kiss CONNORS: Yeah. Television is what saved the Girls and Make Them Die (1966). me—doing Tightrope was what really CONNORS: That was a lot of fun. We shot changed everything around for me. We did that in Rome and Brazil. It was a wonderful 44 episodes and it was in the top 20, and the experience. Dino de Laurentiis produced it. I reason it went off the air was Jim Aubrey, the had a two-way wrist radio. If I put my heel head of CBS. We had a pharmaceutical com- down, a dart would fly out of my shoe. Terry- pany sponsoring us—in those days, one Thomas was the driver of my Rolls-Royce, company sponsored a show, and they pretty and he would pull over to the side of the much had the say-so as to what happened to road, press a button and a big billboard your show and what you were doing. This would come out and we would be hidden pharmaceutical company had bought a time, behind it [laughs]. .seal Bond-type stuff! 9 p.m. on Tuesday, and they had had that for STARLOG: The high point of the movie years with CBS and never made a score. literally! —is your fight scene on top of the Every show they tried had bombed. We Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. [Tightrope] came along, and we were a hit. CONNORS: That statue is on top of Mount Acting in a 10-foot-square movie jungle And Aubrey said to them, "I want to change Corcovado. The mountain is 2,300 feet, and made it tougher for the Voodoo Woman your show to 10 p.m. on another night!" The then the statue [is almost 100 feet tall]. In cast to pretend they were in Africa. company said, "No! We've bought this time one of the main sequences, a helicopter 86 STARLOG/fyn7 2003 www.starlog.com — der and hooked a foot into it. The helicopter flew straight up and stopped, and then brought me right back down. That was the first time I understood what people mean when they say, "I got weak in the groin." When I stood up there, I had that strange feeling. STARLOG: But you weren't really scared of heights or you probably wouldn't have done the stunt. CONNORS: Heights never bothered me in those days. Back then, I could climb over the edge of a building, do anything. But today, if I get up on a tall place and look over, I get a funny feeling. It's strange how, with age, it has changed. STARLOG: Was the idea that, if this movie had been a hit, you would have continued as Kelly? CONNORS: I don't know what their thought was. Originally, I was strongly con- sidered for the role of Matt Helm. But they signed Dean Martin to play Matt Helm and Maybe 2,400 feet above the" put in Kiss the Girls they were the same city isn't the best place me — for silverware or type of bigger-than-life character. to grapple — if-. catch a helicopter ride. STARLOG: What do you think of Kiss the Girls! comes with a rope ladder and picks Kelly up off of the top of the statue. We had already filmed all the fighting, the hanging over the sides of the statue and all of that. But for this [the helicopter stunt], I said, "I'm not gonna do this." They said, "We'll get a stuntman." Incidentally, we were the only company the government had ever allowed to shoot on that statue, and they had given us, like, two days. At the second day's end, the director Henry Levin said, "Mike, you're finished. The stuntman will be here pretty quick to do the last shot." That was the only shot we needed to complete the sequence, and it was the last time we could use the statue. At the bottom of this statue, there was a little bar, and, since I was all through shoot- ing, I was sitting there having a drink, wait- To countless fans, Connors (born Kreker Ohanian) will ing to see the stunt being done. This little CONNORS: It was pretty well done. I think always be Volkswagen drove up and out came this it should have gotten a little better reaction heroic TV Portuguese stuntman. He was standing by than it got. I thought it was funny, had a good private eye Mannix. the car and our interpreter was talking to him sense of humor and I was happy with it. And, in Portuguese. I saw him get in the car, turn by the way, Terry-Thomas, that English actor around and drive off [laughs]\ I found out with the gap in his teeth, was wonderful. We later that when the stuntman had been told would be out in the middle of the jungle what to do, he said, "What are you, crazy?" shooting and his wife would show up at and he left! Jesus Christ, the whole sequence lunchtime and set out a blanket and bring his was dead without [that capper] —what were lunch out to him. The rest of us were eatin' we gonna do? The helicopter was circling, box lunches, and he would be sitting out waiting for the order to come in and pick there with the silverware and wine. And he up... whomever. And so I said, "[Screw] it. would say [Connors pretends to be drinking I'll do it." So I climbed up there tea, pinky finger extended, English, accent], STARLOG: You had to walk all the way up "Just because we are in a barbaric country, again? we don't have to act barbaric." [Laughs] I CONNORS: Yeah! So I went back up there loved it; he was terrific. and I got out of the hole and 1 was sitting STARLOG: When you produced Too there and it was really windy. 1 started to Scared to Scream, you said that if it made stand up, and I couldn't—we had to wait "til money, you would be happy to make another the wind died down. Finally, it died down, 1. picture. But you didn't make another one. got ready to stand up and the helicopter Does that mean it didn't make money? came. As it came around, I grabbed the lad- CONNORS: The fellow who put up the STARLOG/4/>n7 2003 87 ' money, Ken Norris of Norris Industries, got DOn'T MISS WHAT his money back. But I didn't enjoy the process of producing. I found that many aci times I had to tell director Tony Lo Bianco, On "You can't have another day on that loca- tion," knowing as an actor that he should ' mm have it, to make it work. But financially, we Interviews: David Sm couldn't. He would look at me like I was JaB Duchovny. Rene Auberjonois, Salome SCI-FI HI! crazy and I would say, "Tony, I know. To do FftJ Jens, Tim Russ. Pat this thing right, you need more time there. ' Ta " man Richard ' . jjrtJ i'n Here's the programming lineup Or you need this or that. But—we can't do wMBflfflfl Chevolleau. Sliders. of past editions. Order NOW. it. I just don't have the money and I can't raise any more." And I didn't like having to say no when I knew the answer should have been yes. Producing is not for me, unless you've got unlimited money and can do what you want. scant STARLOG: What are you doing now? that - \ ¥ * ' 'people : ffjl CONNORS: I've pretty much retired. I do a ,f already ^ . . i few things now for charity—I just participat- ^p^**^ ed in a two-hour special for the legal system life ^Sk^ to help the mentally ill. And then I did anoth- er fund-raising thing for a bunch of doctors if c #3 #5 who are going to Europe, mainly Armenia, Interviews: Chris Interviews: Kate Interviews: Robert Interviews: Christopher to operate the eyes of kids free Carter, Nicole deBoer, Mutgrew, Michael Dorn, Picardo, Garrett Wang, Judge, Ben Browder, on young of Bill Mumy, Robert Armin Shimerman, Alyson Hanntgan, Michael Easton, Chris charge—set up medical trucks and stuff. But Duncan McNeill. Jonathan LaPaglia, X- Cirroc Lofton, Anita La Owens, Kevin Kilner, other than that, I'm not doing much. The last Roxann Dawson, Mark director Rob Bowman. Selva, Richard Burgi, Nick Searcy, B5 direc- Dacascos, X-writer Young Jules Verne, Sabine Karsenti, Kevin tor Janet Greek. thing I did was a couple of years ago, a Vince Gilligan. Complete Babylon 5 Conroy, John Cope- Writing Trek. S6 movie [Gideon, 1999] with Christopher Animated Godzilla. S6 Episode Guide. S6 land. The Sentinei Epi- sode Guide. SS Lambert, Chuck Heston, Carroll O'Connor, Shelley Winters. It was about a bunch of ,>.- MRS : KAY t people in an old folks home, and it was quite a good picture. STARLOG: But you're still getting offers. CONNORS: I've had a few offers to go and meet about pictures. The last one I almost went to: They're shooting it now; it's a com- TOOTHERS edy directed by Barry Levinson. I was tempted because it was a cute part—not big, a small part. But I don't have the drive or energy to do it any more. I enjoy playing golf when my back lets me, having breakfast #6 #8 #9I I mmm #10 Interviews: Jen Ryan, Interviews: Tia Carrere, Interviews: Gillian Interviews: Sebastian with friends. Sarah Michelle Geifar, Eric Close, Jonathan Anderson, James Spence, (Catherine Renee O'Connor, Nana Frakes, Amanda Tap- Marsters, Robert Helgl, Jennifer Sky, STARLOG: There isn't anything you miss? : Visitor, Terry Farrell, ping, Robert Trebor. Leeshock, Michael Phil LaMarr, Melissa CONNORS: I miss some of the cama- Carrie Dobro, Jason Roswell. 7 Days. Shanks, Christien Crider, Farscape cre- raderie and all. But the business is so differ- Carter, Alan Scarfe, Beastmaster. Black Anholt, Glen Larson, ator Rockne O'Bannon, First Wave creator Scorpion. S7 Now & Again creator Roswell creator Jason ent now. It's not [the same] feeling when you Chris Brancato. S6 Glenn Gordon Caron. Katims. The Others. go on a set—it's almost like it's everybody Big Guy & Rusty. TV's Jack of AU Trades. Starship Troopers FX. Complete Millennium & against everybody. At least, that's the feeling Complete Hercules Poltergeist Episode 1 get, which may be wrong. But in the old Note: Issue #7 is SOLD OUT. Episode Guide. S7 Guides. S7 days, if I heard that, say, Paul Picerni had gotten a good part, I was thrilled to death. SCI-FI TV BACK ISSUES [Actor Picerni, co-star of the 1953 classic House of Wax and the TV series The Please send me these SCI-FI TV issues Untouchables, arranged and sat in on this Price Price # # Total endosed$_ breakfast interview.] But today, it's almost # Price # Price like everybody resents the other guy getting # Price # Price something. Postage & Handling: One magazine PAUL PICERNI: I have to break in here for add S3. Two to five magazines add $8. Six Caid ExpiraSon Date: /_ _{Ma/Yr.) one minute. This man is one of the most gen- or more magazines add $10. Foreign: One magazine add $9. Two or more mag- erous guys in the business. When he was Nbur Daytime Phone #,( azines add $5 per magazine. New York doing Mannix, and a lot of guys like me State residents add 8 1/4% sales tax. were looking for jobs, he would give the Method of Payment: FWNameAsSAppearsOrNfcurCaid casting director a list of his friends like Paul GashQ CheckQ MoneyOider Picerni, Dick Bakalyan, Tige Andrews, who- DisoaerQ MasterCardQ Visa Street ever, and he would say, "If ever a part comes Cash, check or money order to: up that these fit, I want you to put 'em in." STAFSLOGGRCURNC. As a result, every year I would do a Mannix. 475 Park Avenue Soft Cly State Zp New\&rk, W 10016 Not too many guys would do that. CONNORS: Well, to me, the business was If you do not want to cut out coupon, a thing we will accept written orders. Please NfrurSgnalure of friendship and people helping allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery. You can fax: 212-889-7933 ore-mail: phillip®startoggroup.com each other. www.starlog.com . . BIGGEST MOVIES! THE BEST MOVIE MAGAZINES! ^lease indicate quantity of each being ordered. POSTAGE & HANDLING: One magazine: add $3. Two to five magazines: add $8. Six or more magazines: add $10. Foreign: One magazine: add $9. Two or more maga- 007 James Bond Godzilla Poster Magazine $3.99 The Shadow S4.95 zines: add $5.00 per magazine. New York State residents add 8 1/4% sales tax. Technical Journal $6.99 Jason Goes to Hell: Spaceballs Poster Magazine $3.50 Canadian residents add 10% sales tax. OVERSEAS (PLEASE NOTE: Customs 007 James Bond The Final Friday $4.95 Spawn $5.99 requires purchaser's daytime phone numbers on all Overseas orders.) 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Fantasy Worlds Volume 2 S7.99 Rocky IV $3.95 25 Years of Sci-Fi Movies $9.99 If you do not want to cu! — Freddy's Dead: Rocky IV Poster Magazine $3.50 The Untouchables $3.95 Your Signature out coupon, we will accept The Final Nightmare $4.95 Rocky IV Magazine plus Walt Disney's Dinosaur $9.99 written orders. Please allow Godzilla Movie Magazine $5.99 Posters $4.95 Total enclosed: $_ 4 to 6 weeks for delivery. You can fax: 212 •889-7933 or e-mail: [email protected] _ W— ginia's small college of distinction") or back to recount just why Marvel Comics, Doc Savage paperbacks and the Creature from the Black Lagoon enlivened my childhood (and yours?). Time is long and space is short this issue. How novel. It's usual- And I guess I should avoid "Essays O' Fun," wherein I'm sud- ly the other way around. But with such limitations, I really denly chronicling the bruising action in a Rollerball game by a team shouldn't indulge in lengthy prose studded with big words, of champion athletes comprised entirely of STARLOG contributors, expansive phrases and parenthetical revealing the existence of my evil asides (should I?). Besides, I want to twin (Evad to you!) or speculating on run the cartoon big. SIVKEH THE BBR SKIS: the nature of "crap circles" in the So, no "Adventures in Magazine work of one of Hollywood's most Editing" from me this issue. ("You pretentious filmmakers. Naturally, know, little Debbie, this is what we these kind of Liner Notes are sup- call the folio. It's the magazine's posed to be funny, though that has title, date and page number, and it always been a matter of intense usually appears at the bottom of the debate and uncertain resolution. page unless the Editor and Art I did have some subjects that Director started drinking again and might make appropriate editorials forgot all about it.") I'm not going to someday: "The Greatest Magazine instruct periodical wannabes on pac- We Never Published," "My Trip ing, article mix or why we ended up Down Under to Cyber-Wonderland publishing more Dinotopia stories (1998)," "Hot Star Trek Babe Bimbo- than anyone wanted and not as many a-Rama A-Go-Go!" (sorry, just a Firefly pieces as everyone hoped. title), "The 10 Best 10 Best SF Nor will I go on about my least Lists," "My Friend Yoda" and favorite part of STARLOG—the "Mutants We Love" (Rogue is really "Last Farewell" obituary listings, alluring, but you can't touch her with which sadden me greatly with every a 10-foot pole). Alas, all those Liner entry I must make—or my very Notes would have been just far too favorite job, selecting the cartoons long. And, in •tum/ Pumt>le 800 DIFFERENT POSTERS: Moviepostershop.com 1-403-250-7588 Earn Tickets for Free Videos Free Video Search For as little as S60, reach Earth's largest SF audience. PLASTIC MODEL KITS of Science Fiction, comics, Pre-Viewed DEADLINE: For #31 2, in our offices by 4/8. For #31 3, in by Videos As Low As $10.00! TV, movies, space, figures, etc. 1950s-1990s, HUN- 5/6. Absolutely no ads accepted a/terthe deadline. DREDS available. Free catalog, we also buy/trade. SCI-FI, HORROR BASIC RATE: $20 per line. Minimum: 3 lines, 48 charac- & MORE! Green's Models, Dept SL, Box 55787, Riverside, CA ters per line (including punctuation, symbols & spaces). For an updated catalog 92517. (909) 684-5300/(800) 807-4759/Fax (909) Small display ads: $150 per column inch. 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STATE ZIP_ SPIDS !f Cronenberg goes insane - - mm mm mm w w mm mm i priiiri iiiiiiiiiiib 111 Y Available At These And Other Fine Retailers cnRkio[-> QANDAI EDW0RQ entertainment sijnco/ist (°BE£jj GameStop Cfye) amazon.com HMj www.bnnclai-ent com \"*%* ^* i The store for movie lowers W { \ S n.-ickV/siCN & 2002-2003 Project .hack