Interview with Nathan + rest of cast of DRIVE by Darkfly

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Interview with Nathan + rest of cast of DRIVE

POSTED BY: DARKFLY
UPDATED: Friday, April 13, 2007 03:24
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VIEWED: 763
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Thursday, April 12, 2007 11:29 PM

Here is a link to interviews with some of the cast of DRIVE
http://uk.tv.ign.com/articles/780/780322p1.html

For all you people who can't be arsed to check the link out here are the 5 pages in all their glory,wonder if this is the longest ff.net post

US, April 12, 2007 - The exciting new FOX series Drive comes from Executive Producer Tim Minear (Angel / Firefly) and tells the story of a secret, illegal, cross country race. This week I attended a Drive press event for IGN, where six contest winners got to compete in a tire changing competition, in order to win a grand prize any of us who drive can appreciate, especially these days: $10,000 in gas.

At the event, I spoke to several of Drive's cast members, including star Nathan Fillion (Firefly / Slither), Dylan Baker (Spider-Man 2 / Spider-Man 3) and Kristen Lehman (Prison Break / Felicity). We talked about their characters, the green screen process used for most of the car scenes in Drive, and what it's like to act out many a car lovers fantasy.

Make sure to also check out our advance review of Drive!

- FOXFrom Drive: (L-R) Kevin Alejandro, Mircea Monroe, Kristen Lehman, Rochelle Aytes, Riley Smith, Dylan Baker and Nathan Fillion (kneeling)

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Nathan Fillion ("Alex Tully")

IGN TV: How are you doing today?

Nathan Fillion: Not bad. We just got off work and we scrambled straight here. I was in the lead. Kristen [Lehman] was behind me. Kevin Alejandro behind her. And then I looked in my rearview mirror and every time I changed lanes, they were following me here. Every time I changed lanes, they'd change lanes. I'd go into the passing lane, and then just come back for no reason, and I'd watch the train [of cars] behind me do the same thing.

IGN TV: [Laughs] Since you do most of the racing scenes in front of green screen, do you ever want to say, "Okay, let's take this outside," and settle it on the street?

Fillion: You know, it's funny, because the studios are all the way out in Santa Clarita, it's a 40 minute drive; it's 40 minutes to work each day, and 40 minutes back. That's 80 minutes of solid driving! That's more than I think we've ever done in one point on the show.

IGN TV: You've obviously done green screen work before, but so much of this show is in the cars. Does it take some getting used to?

Fillion: In the sci-fi show, it was a spaceship, and I had Alan Tudyk driving. So all I had to do was lean and react and go, "Oh look, there's something spooky over there," or, "There's something we need to know about over that way!" You just kind of mark it and regard and observe. With the green screen with the vehicles, Alex Tully is most often behind the wheel, so we're turning on the wheel, back and forth. But those cars are on these little coasters; I mean those cars aren't really going anywhere. So you're kind of fighting it. You have to make it look real. It's a real workout! By the time we're done, and Kristen's usually in my car, we're all reacting to speeding and jumping, and they're banging and shaking the car around… By the time we're done, we're panting, we're breathless, we're sweating. We're like, "Oh my God! Let's get of this car! It's really hot! That's an awful lot of work." And it is. My shoulders get a real workout. It's a lot of work. I banged my shoulder so hard one day. Kristen, just yesterday, banged her head!

IGN TV: Wow!

Fillion: Yeah. Just from our super acting.

IGN TV: How would you describe your character?

Fillion: I would describe my character as probably the coolest guy in the world. Alex Tully is the everyman. Alex Tully is just a regular, average joe. He's got a beautiful wife, who's a fifth grade teacher. He's a landscaper. He lives in Nebraska. He doesn't have an exciting life. He lives a very calm, very relaxed, very sensible life. When his wife is suddenly kidnapped, he's forced to win this illegal, cross country road race, just to get her back. Now you've got this average, normal guy, but really forced into a corner, and you start to think, "What would I do?" What would someone do if their wife was stolen and they have an opportunity to get them back, but they have to jump through these hoops? And then it's gonna eventually come to life that maybe Alex Tully wasn't the man that he presented himself to be all along.

- FOXNathan FillionIGN TV: How is it working with Tim Minear again on this show?

Fillion: Fantastic! When Tim Minear calls you and says, "Hey, I got a new show, and I wrote a part just for you," that's when you say, "Sign me up!" That's a guy who can really tell some amazing stories. He's got such an amazing voice. And he writes the same way he speaks. He's very, very clever, just on the spot, doesn't matter what you're talking about; just very, very entertaining. So to go to work and read these scripts, you're so entertained reading them. I just love going to work, acting these bits out, playing out this dialogue, working with spectacular actors, and taking all the credit for this hard work.

IGN TV: [Laughs] You do a great job of taking all the credit!

Fillion: Thank you very much.

IGN TV: Do you ask Tim a lot of questions about what's to come?

Fillion: Oh, I love to know ahead of time, and he loves to tell me. Because we're both excited about it. It's like, "Hey, I just wrote episode seven! You want to read listen [to what happens]?" "Yeah!" It's not, "No, no, don't worry, I'll just find out on Tuesday. Don't worry about it." No, I'm right there. I want to know!

IGN TV: How is it working with Kristen? Obviously you spend most of your time with her.

Fillion: I spend most of my time with Kristen. We have the Canadian contingent in common; we're both from Canada. That, right off the bat, is a huge bonus. Aside from being a spectacular actress, and absolutely beautiful, she's extremely entertaining. I have a little bit of a problem with her being funnier than me! We're working on that. We're working on that dynamic. But every day is a great day.

IGN TV: Your fellow Joss Whedon/Tim Minear alum Amy Acker plays your kidnapped wife on the show. Have you gotten to work with her yet?

Fillion: Yes. Yes I have. And this is another one of those cases where Tim Minear and I have worked together in the past, and I'm a huge fan of his work and his talent. And he knows what to expect from me when he's asking me to come and do the show Drive. He knows exactly what to expect from me. Same in regards to Amy Acker. He's worked with her before, he knows exactly what to expect, and she's there for a reason. She's there because she's extremely talented and she does such a fantastic job. And again, I'm a fan, so it's real nice for me to be able to work with people who not only I enjoy their company, but I can really respect their talent.

IGN TV: In a lot of your work, there's humor thrown into dramatic situations, and that happens again for you in Drive. Is it fun for you to do those little added beats?

Fillion: Always fun for me. We watch movies and television, and we're familiar with story conventions. We know that the main character is the cool one and everything is going to work out for him. Because he's so cool, everything will be great. We take a little twist on these conventions.

Page 2

Kristen Lehman ("Corinna Wiles")

IGN TV: Were you a car person before you got this part?

Kristen Lehman: I drive a Prius. I do like to drive. But I gotta tell you, I don't do a lot of driving in the show, so what I'm learning to be is a good passenger. I think that's really quite a fabulous issue for me, in terms of wanting to be the backseat driver. I don't get to do it in this show. I'm only driven all around, so it's kind of interesting.

IGN TV: What's it like doing all the green screen scenes? Is it strange?

Lehman: You know what, it's not so much strange, it just requires even more make believe than what we'd normally be conjuring. But we've got some really great directors who really help us through it. In the beginning it was kind of a strange animal, and we didn't know if we could trust it; the results we'd be getting. So we'd all watch out for each other. And now I think we're really smooth and in love with the process, to tell you the truth.

IGN TV: Can you tell me about your character?

Lehman: Her name is Corinna Wiles, and I was thinking about her name the other day. And she's pretty wile. She really suits her name. She stows away in Alex Tully's truck, who's played by Nathan Fillion. Chooses the strongest and most handsome man to align herself with; become the barnacle to him, and she kind of advances through the race with him. I think she's really smart and her past is really tied to this race, so her investment is pretty deep. She'll do what she needs to do to get what she needs to get.

IGN TV: There's a gentleman who seems pretty upset with you on the first episode.

Lehman: Yes! Brian Bloom. Oh, he's so marvelous. Such a marvelous bad guy. Yeah, he stays upset with me for a long time. That's something I can tell you for sure. We're going into episode seven, and he's in fact still mad at me, so yeah. [Laughs]

- FOXKristen Lehman and Nathan FillionIGN TV: Most of your scenes are with Nathan. How is it working with him?

Lehman: He is a laugh a minute, gracious, respectful leader. It's marvelous to get to work with him. It's great.

IGN TV: I'm a big Tim Minear fan. How is he to work with?

Lehman: Well this is my second time working with Tim. I worked with him about ten years ago on a short lived series called Strange World. And it was great when he called me. It's a bit of a reunion of sorts. You know Nathan has worked with him before, and then for me to get to work with him again was really great. His writing is so drenched in both realism and grandeur. It's so nice to be able to do his words. And he really listens to actors and I think respects the collaboration process, and that to me is key.

IGN TV: Have you gotten to work with many of the other actors besides Nathan and Brian yet?

Lehman: We've spent quite a bit of time with Kevin Alejandro and J.D. Pardo, who play the Salazar brothers, and their storyline is magnificent. They're so great! They're so great to get to work with. Their acting styles are so different and it's really great to be exposed to other actors, especially because we've got a large cast. And when you've got a large cast it means you've got opportunities for great plot because where there's good characters, there's good plots. So for now I have only intersected with Kevin and J.D., and Nathan and Brian, but we're going into episode seven, and I think I may get to meet some other scary, shady characters as well.

IGN TV: Do you like to ask a lot of questions about what's to come?

Lehman: You know what, these scripts are so complex that I spend most of the time trying to figure out the current script, as opposed to what's to come. Because they're kind of explanatory and once you understand it, you can get where you're going, but we spend a lot of time, in fact, saying, "Can you remind me how did we get here?", and, "Now does he know about this," and, "Does he know about that?" So we're really on a script by script basis.

Page 3

Riley Smith ("Rob Laird")

IGN TV: What can you say about your character?

Riley Smith: His name's Rob Laird. He's from Arkansas. He is a US Army specialist who just got back from his second term in Iraq. He's kind of coerced into this race by his wife, because she wants to keep him out of Iraq and keep him with her. So he, as a sucker, gets involved, and then realizes what he's in. And I don't know if he really wants to be a part of it, but he has to, because once you get in, you can't really get out.

IGN TV: Is this a dream come true for you, to be in a race car driving show?

Smith: Oh yeah. I mean I grew up in Iowa, so I grew up with cars and I grew up a huge car fanatic. I actually used to fix up cars myself, so to be able to be on a show like this, which is pretty mainly - it's got fast cars and hot chicks - is nothing to be ashamed of as a guy! And also our car that we drive is the old '80s Pontiac Firebird, and that was the coolest car in the '80s and even the '90s, in the Midwest. In Iowa, where I came from, like a small farming community, if you had one of those, if you had a Firebird, you were cool. I never did, so now I do. It's great!

IGN TV: Since you do most of the racing stuff with green screen, do you ever talk to your costars about what it would be like if you really raced each other?

Smith: Yeah! Well we always talk crap about that with each other; "Who's really gonna win this?" Ultimately it's up to the writers, but you know, we all have our little reasoning's for why we would win. But I think I have the hottest wife on the show, that's for sure! I get to make out with her all the time. I have a really cool car. And I'm a tactical specialist in the army! So I think if I can handle Iraq, I can handle a cross country road race. But everybody's got a reason for being chosen, so as we'll find out, we all have our own skills. So who knows what's gonna happen?

- FOXRiley SmithIGN TV: Do you ask a lot of questions about what's to come?

Smith: I wanted to ask a lot of questions, and they kind of cut us off and let us know there's not a lot of answers. We're pretty much winging it right now. Everybody gets the scripts the day before we start the episode and nobody really knows what's gonna happen. And Tim Minear is really good at keeping things interesting. So anything can happen to anybody at any moment. A contract doesn't really mean a whole lot on this show! So every time we get a script, we're all flipping to the end to see if we're all still intact and alive. I was on a show called 24 a few years ago, and it was like that. We knew we had "X" amount of episodes guaranteed, but every time we got one, we were flipping to the end, like, "Are we still alive? Yes!"

IGN TV: What's it like filming in front of the green screen so much?

Smith: It's easy in the sense that you're in a controlled environment. You don't even have to wear pants! Because you're in a car the whole time, nobody's gonna see anything from the waist below.

IGN TV: And you have a hot wife!

Smith: And I have a hot wife! So maybe I'm not wearing pants. You guys don't know what happens between takes. But though it's easier, because it's controlled, and it doesn't matter whether it's hot or cold outside, it's harder, because on top of acting, you have to pretend to drive. Normally, if you're just driving, we've done it so long, it becomes second nature. But when you're not moving and you're sitting still, you have to pretend to drive, which is harder than actually driving. You have to make sure you don't over steer, and when you look in your rear views… I started to pay attention to how I drive in real life, and your rear view isn't that big an adjustment to look into with your eyes. But on the first couple of episodes of the show, I'm like throwing my head way up into the air. It's like the mirror's not that high, you know? And how often do you look at the person in the passenger seat when you're talking? Are you looking ahead, actually watching the road enough? All those things you need to think about in your head, on top of acting.

IGN TV: Have you gotten to work with anybody besides your wife yet?

Smith: No! I didn't know anybody's name for the first two episodes! It wasn't until we were all doing this promo shoot, just hanging out together, taking pictures, that we spent like five hours together and got to know each other. Because I'd only worked with Mircea, who plays my wife. I think I've only still worked with her, and we're six [episodes] into it. But things shift and things change. Not that I don't love working with her every day, but I look forward to working with other people too. It's gonna be fun.

Page 4

Mircea Monroe ("Ellie Laird")

IGN TV: What can you tell us about your character on Drive?

Mircea Monroe: Ellie is married to Rob. He's in the military and she doesn't want him to go back, so she enters this race to keep him from going back to Iraq. But as the show progresses, things might not be what they seem. And she may make choices that surprise us.

IGN TV: What's it like doing the green screen scenes?

Monroe: I've actually had experience with it for horror movies. I never knew that they would be so helpful to me! [Laughs]. But from that I kind of had an idea what it is. I've never been in a fake driving [scene], which is something you have to do right, because people relate to it. But I love it! You use your imagination and you're really acting. You're really making this world that is completely not there happen.

- FOXRiley Smith and Mircea MonroeIGN TV: Riley told me he's very happy with the car you drive on the show.

Monroe: Yeah, he loves it. I kind of could care less.

IGN TV: [Laughs] Okay! That's what I was going to ask.

Monroe: I mean it's fine. But in this, speed isn't necessarily the most important thing. You have to figure out clues and you have to use wit and there's all these different dynamics that are happening. It's fine though. It's worked for us so far! It's in good working order, so I guess that's good.

IGN TV: How's Tim Minear to work with?

Monroe: Perfect. He's smart, he's witty, he's considerate. He's available if you need him for anything. He's fantastic.

IGN TV: Are you someone who likes to ask a lot of questions after you get a part, about what's to come?

Monroe: Oh my god, yeah. Riley was like, "Shut up!" Well not as far as what's to come, because that, pretty much from the beginning, we knew we wouldn't know anything. So it was kind of decided from the beginning to just go with it and there weren't answers for the questions. But I love to, on sets, just ask everything, so I know that I can be solid. That's how I work. I like to know everything.

IGN TV: What kind of questions? Just about your character and her back story?

Monroe: That, but once there weren't answers for that you just have to live in it and be present. But just as far as the way things work, or in a scene, if possible, I want to see playback of what's happening, or where we're looking. Kind of the normal stuff, but really meticulous sometimes… but I'm trying to let that go, in my real life. [Laughs].

IGN TV: You have a large cast, but you don't work with most of them. Is that a strange experience?

Monroe: Initially, a little bit, but now we all know each other. There's some scenes that we're all in, in passing. And there's some scenes, as the show goes on, where partners have the possibility of switching up, so that happens. And at this point, because we're up to episode six, we all know each other, and all have good relationships, and good rapport… Know each others names, and all that good stuff… Finally! It would be like, "What's…?"

IGN TV: [Laughs] "It's that guy!"

Monroe: "It's that guy, who I'm on a show with! F**k, what's his name?!" No, everybody, we get along so well. It's really a blessing. It's such a blessing.

- FOXMircea MonroeIGN TV: We always hear that to get cast on a network series, you go through hell.

Monroe: It's definitely an intense, emotional ride, for sure. But I'd done two other pilots, which is less than a lot of people on the show. Like Riley I think has done ten, which is crazy! That makes me want to hang myself! Not doing them, but just the process… But the great thing with Drive is I had actually met them a year before, and read for them and auditioned. So I was aware of them and I thought very highly of them. It wasn't such a foreign experience, you know? It was a very comfortable experience. And they were so kind and so articulate with what they wanted that it wasn't awful. It was actually kind of enjoyable, which is nice!

IGN TV: So do you talk with the other actors about who might win the race? Are you rooting for your character?

Monroe: I haven't really had that conversation. I'm not sure if other people have or have said that. But for me, that's not really a concern right now, because winning doesn't necessarily mean… Well, right now, winning means the money. But as an actor, we don't really know the rules of the race. We don't know when that happens how it's gonna change up. It's such little information that winning, in this case… Maybe the winner is dead in season two! Who knows? [Laughs]. I don't really care about winning if it means keeping my job!

Page 5

Dylan Baker ("John Trimble")

IGN TV: Do all actors dream of getting to do a racing show?

Dylan Baker: Well it's funny, a lot of the people in it, we thought that we would be doing more driving. Because right now, it's a lot of green screen, and then they let the pros take over. But every now and then, there's this car… I won't tell you why, but I've been driving a Solstice every now and then, and I'm not actually the one driving it. But the person who is can't actually drive a stick well, so to get back to the first place, so we can do another take, they let me drive the car back. So I've been having a ball, driving this Solstice around! So we get in our driving whenever we can.

IGN TV: What's it like doing the green screen scenes?

Baker: The great thing is that sometimes you'll have five or six scenes and they're cut up and split up. And usually you'd have to film this one and then this one and then go back and film this one. But with green screen, you get to do them all back to back, and you get to have a kind of flow to the thing. So actor's actually love it! It's like, okay, I'll pretend I'm in a car driving. That sounds good! I can do that?

IGN TV: How does your character come to be in the race?

Baker: I am a dad, which is definitely my big thing. And my daughter Violet is with me. I'm a rocket scientist, John Trimble. Basically, he'd never do this, but something happens that you'll see in episode two on Sunday night that causes me to change my mind and throw myself head first into this race. And it's all about the competition and all of the sudden having to talk to my 17 year old daughter. And I don't think she's talked to me much in the past few years, but now she's forced to because it's just the two of us in a car.

- FOXDylan BakerIGN TV: How is it working with your TV daughter, Emma, since you have so many scenes together?

Baker: I'm just crazy about Emma Stone. She's the best. She's really great. She's a young actress, but you feel like she's a Borscht Belt comedian, because she's always cracking up, but really a good worker and I think we got a good relationship in the show.

IGN TV: Have you had scenes with other characters besides Violet yet?

Baker: A few. It's been pretty limited so far. I've worked with Rochelle Aytes, who's in another car, but now all of the sudden we got together. And now Taryn Manning, we started having little scenes together. Just in bits and pieces, you start to work together.

IGN TV: How is it working with Tim Minear?

Baker: He's great! He's mostly strapped to his keyboard, just writing and writing and writing, because there's so much to get done. But I love the relationship that he built between me and Emma. I think it's really fun, and it'll be fun to explore.

IGN TV: Do you ask a lot of questions about what's to come for your character?

Baker: I certainly asked, and I said some things like, "Now is this going on? And what about this? And my marriage, what's going on with that?" And they kind of said, "We'll think about that…" So I get the feeling that we're all exploring this as it goes. I mean every time I get a script, I'm like, "Where did this come from?" There's these huge twists and shifts that I didn't expect to happen, so it's pretty interesting. I don't mind them not telling me, as long as they keep it this good!

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Drive's two hour premiere airs Sunday, April 15th at 8:00 pm ET/PT on FOX, before moving to it's regular Monday, 8:00 pm ET/PT timeslot on April 16th.

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Friday, April 13, 2007 3:24 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

Great interview! Thanks for posting it up in it's entirety Darkfly. Can't see it from work. Gorram firewalls.

I wonder why Nathan called Firefly "the sci-fi show". Is he not allowed to mention the name because he is a Fox employee again and he is acting in a capacity for that company during the interview? Seems unlikely, but it just struck me as odd as he has always seemed to mention Firefly by name when interviewed.

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