A hugely successful British import that’s creating quite a buzz, Torchwood hit American shores with a bigger budget, lots of action and just the right blend of humor and romance. In this cast interview, Torchwood newbies and regulars express their thoughts about their characters and what excites them about the amped-up series everyone’s talking about.
Gwen is such a complex character. How will she change?
Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper): She changes in every episode. She’s got a new threat, a new man to fight. She changes all the time. She adapts all the time. She’s unstoppable. She’s so militant, so driven.
Do you have a direction that you want your character to go?
EM: Well, not that it would mean anything, but Gwen is going in the direction that I love to play. I love the action and her witty-ness. I could never come up with a better idea than the writers. I mean, I could say something, but it would be so lame. So, she’s going in the right direction. With all the fighting that Gwen does, my friends are starting to call me Kung Fu Cooper.
The action and martial arts are great. Do you have a stunt double for the fight scenes?
EM: Oh, I do. And she probably hates my guts. At the end, she comes in and gets all done up and she does the stunt. But I do all the fight scenes myself. Their staff is great. They’ll go through the fight scenes with me. It’s like a choreographed dance. I do all of it. I love it.
Did you go through any martial arts training?
EM: I’ve always done that sort of thing. I started boxing at a young age. You get taught stagecraft combat. Some people can do it, others can’t. If I thought for one minute that I was really taking a chance in doing something, that I’d risk breaking my neck, I’d tell the stunt double, okay, you can take over from here. There are so many great fight scenes coming up. I can’t wait for you to see them. Actually, there’s one scene where my stunt double smashes through a wall and into a shop. They wouldn’t let me do that one.
Will Esther’s character grow in the CIA?
Alexa Havins (Esther Drummond): She changes drastically. She’s the character that changes the most and grows the most. She’s a little meek and by-the-book. And we all know that you can’t do that with Torchwood. When you’re out there, there are no rules. It’s crazy. It’s dangerous and it’s raw and real. You’ll see an emotional growth and a physical growth with Esther.
What’s going to happen to Esther romantically?
ED: She wants a little Mekhi in her life. You’ll see that in the first couple of episodes–he’s rough, emotionally shut off from the world and he’s focused on work. So she’s trying to get through, “knocking at the door.” You’ll see their relationship develop but it kind of takes a turn, so it develops in a different direction. The biggest relationship is with Captain Jack and Gwen. They [writers] really take her under their wing and develop that.
Do you work with the writers on the script?
ED: No, we don’t. We talk. And say, “wouldn’t it be great.” But the writers are so darn good. Every script you get is great. They put so much time and thought into story development. Some ideas have been bounced around for years–like the Miracle Day concept. Russell [Davies] is a brilliant storyteller and he brings in Jane [Espenson]. I did sit down with them and they said this is kind of where we are and this is where we want Esther to go. It was a really strong place for her. She’s initially a little nervous, a little out of her element. But she has a fun place to go. It’s a good experience.
Your character is perhaps the most fascinating. What’s his journey?
Bill Pullman (Oswald Danes): Well, he’s trying not to go to Hell. He’s got a great journey and I think it comes from Russell’s sense of humanity, which never abandons characters. He’s ready for any character to take surprising moves. Russell is always appreciative of his audience. But he doesn’t want to be told what to write or how to tell a story. And I think there’s a kind of mischief in him that wants to set up an expectation and then turn it around and around again. Some of that is just good storytelling. And some of it is just heh, heh, heh!
How did you prepare to play such a creepy guy?
BP: You know actors. That’s kind of the gift you get, to go off and build a separate reality. I have always found that sometimes clearly delineated characters are the easiest to do–rather than, like, a male lead in a romantic comedy, which is the hardest thing to prepare for. Oswald is great because you got stuff to read, you got YouTube, and you got your own time alone. You know you’re going to a place that’s different from yourself, so you give yourself the time to separate from the father, the check writer, the kid’s school chauffer. So you go, “okay, I got some work to do. I’m going to be away for three hours now.” It’s like a joy. I love getting a job because it’s like, I don’t have to figure out how to fix that tractor anymore.
We’re already seeing changes in Rex. Where’s your character going this season?
Mekhi Phifer (Rex Matheson): What’s great about playing a strong character like Rex– who’s thrown into this Torchwood world–is the arc that I get to play. He’s hard edged and a little set in his ways, and he can be a bit abrasive at times, but once he really realizes–and Torchwood realizes–that we need each other, you start to see the change in him. We peel back his layers like an onion and you begin to see what makes him tick. We get a glimpse of what his family life was like and what his lifestyle was like. So he’s going places. It’s a really good journey.
Did you do some background research on the CIA to get up to speed on how they operate?
MP: You know, it didn’t really require that much background work, although I did my own personal research on the Internet. On my last show, I got to play an FBI agent, so I worked with the FBI. I’m also a big espionage film buff. I’ve seen a lot of movies about the CIA and what they go through. But the show is really character driven rather than procedural driven. So we don’t have to be so locked into procedure. And the CIA is more unorthodox, not like the FBI who wear suits and ties. The CIA get to wear whatever they need to blend in to do their job efficiently, so it changes to whatever’s on the page.
Do you like the humor in the show?
MP: I love it. It’s not slapstick. It’s borne out of real situations.
Alex A. Kecskes is a published author of "Healer a Novel" and "The Search for Dr. Noble"—both now available on Amazon. He has written hundreds of film reviews and celebrity interviews for a wide variety of online and print outlets. He has covered red carpet premieres and Comic-Con events for major films and independent releases.
