TV Guide: Jasika Nicole Behind The Scenes

TV Guide's Infanity went behind the scenes and talked with Jasika Nicole, took a tour of the set, and checked out some the Props used in the show - including The Beacon from The Arrival, and the gas canister and the disk container from The Ghost Network.

Fringe on E!: Josh Jackson Behind The Scenes

E! went behind the scenes and talked to Joshua Jackson about last week's Fringe episode "The Equation".

Fringe Fox Fix: Anna Torv Interview

Anna Torv talks about her relationships on Fringe.

Joshua Jackson on Bonnie Hunt, Jimmy Kimmel

Joshua Jackson was on the Bonnie Hunt Show and the Jimmy Kimmel Live!, talking about Fringe, and his boyhood home (mostly about his boyhood home). One tidbit to come out of these interviews is that he referred to The Observer as September, confirming an early press release with the same name. This doesn't make the name canon in the show, but it is interesting that he would use that name. One explanation is that September could be the internal code name for The Observer.

Bonnie Hunt Show

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

What Would You Ask Walter?

FOX has scheduled a conference call tomorrow with actor John Noble, better known as Dr. Walter Bishop, to discuss the upcoming all-new episodes of FRINGE and his character’s surprising return to the mental institution!

I've been invited to take part, so if you have any questions you would like me to ask Walter, leave them in the comments, and I will try my best to get them answered.

LA Times: Fringe Q&A with Jeff Pinkner

The LA Times Blog has an interview with Jeff Pinkner, the co-executive producer for Fringe, which was just picked up for a full season by Fox. Pinkner discusses how getting picked up for a full season affected the show, hidden Easter eggs, scientific accuracy in the series, and the necessity of exploding heads in a program about science.

Fringe: A Q&A with Jeff Pinkner
Patrick Kevin Day

Q. How did getting picked up for a full season change your planning on the show?

A. If we had only done 13 episodes, I think we all would have been immensely disappointed. The story that we’ve created for this show is a multi-year story. We started by figuring out what the ending was. If we’d only done 13 episodes, I don’t think there would have been a way to satisfyingly move everything up that quickly. The answer is, it doesn’t change our long-term plans, except it allows us to see our long-term plans through.

Q: Did you have a tentative 13th episode ending planned?

A: No, to a degree that would have been planning for failure. And we were all hoping for success.

Q: How many years do you have planned?

A: 75. It will go on longer than any of us. [laughs] No, it’s sort of like an accordian file. There are roads we would love to explore if we have the time. The basic framework I don’t want to say out loud because I think it’s a jinx.

Q: Will the format of Fringe evolve over time the way Lost has?

A: I think of Lost as a show that feels like it's changed, but the change is inevitable. It started on the island, then it went into the island and now it’s about protecting the island. Our show, the basic format will not change as drastically, but it will definitely feel like a deepening and enriching of the story we’re telling.

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Q: The first few episodes of the season seemed a bit repetitive. But the Observer, introduced in the fourth episode, really changed the scope of the show. Was his late introduction intentional?

A: In some ways the show is an experiment for us. We are not, by our own admission, the best at telling stand-alone stories. Because we’re fundamentally attracted to creating worlds, which inherently have an epic scope. While shows like Law & Order are spectacular, it doesn’t have the same epic quality of say, Harry Potter.

It’s our goal to both tell stories, where if you’ve seen nothing before and nothing after, you’ll see a very satisfying 50 minutes of television. But if you have seen what’s come before, you have a whole other level of appreciation.

We set out to populate our world from the start with characters and little mysteries that will only pay off over time. There’s things in the pilot that won’t pay off until Season 3.

I can tell you that there’s almost nothing that’s accidental on the show. There’s no throw-away lines of dialogue, the Observer being in shots is not an accident. There’s Easter eggs all over the place. Many of them are just for the fun of people who want to play along. Several of them have yet to be discovered. But they’re not necessary for the enjoyment of the show. They’re really just for run. If you were to crack the code, it will raise the level of satisfaction, hopefully. For example, in every episode there’s a clue about what the next episode is going to be about.

Q: Can you give a specific example?

A: In the pilot of the show, if you watch carefully in the establishing shot of Massive Dynamic, there’s a sign on the post that’s a little rebus of a pen and a rose. The serial killer’s dad in the second episode is Dr. Penrose. There’s little fun things like that in every episode.

Q: What can you tell us about what we’ll be seeing in the next few weeks?

A: The next episode is a foundational episode, and a lot of things will be set up which will come to pay off over the next several weeks. The next four episodes are stand-alone in quality, but at the same time we start to peel back another layer of the onion. The first six were a prologue, and now we’re getting into the next chapter.

Q: When will the Observer make a major return appearance?

A: He’s laying dormant at the moment. But in the way that pieces come together and interlock, his story is still being told.

Q: Lost has been very secretive regarding its story lines. Do you take secrecy as seriously on Fringe?

A: We don’t have the same level of fanaticism. With Lost, there’s a level of fanaticism that you wouldn’t believe, and so they’re secretive out of necessity. We are definitely protective, and we want the audience to discover the show how we want them to discover it. We definitely try to protect ourselves, but we haven’t found the necessity for the government level of secrecy that Lost has needed to maintain.

Q: Dr. Bishop seems like the most fun character to write.

A: He’s incredibly fun to write. I should say it’s fun to write all of our characters and how they see the world through their prism. I think to write a show solely about Walter Bishop might be a little frustrating. The two main characters, Peter and Olivia, balance him out. I think the three of them provide a very stable triangle for our show. He’s incredibly fun to write for because he can say and do anything, which is a blast for a writer. He’s incredibly brilliant and he’s forgotten just how brilliant he is. He’s scared of his own shadow, and he’s scared of the things he’s done in the past, and he’s incredibly childlike. Which is just really fun to write for.

Q: It seems like it would be easy to go too far with the character. Do the writers have rules for him?

A: I think the rule is you have to bring it back to humanity. It always has to be honest. John Noble, who plays Walter, is unbelievably smart and insisted on finding the humanity in the character. He plays it from a believable place and doesn't play him from a goofball, cuddly cute place. That's our prime directive: Keep it real and honest.

Q: The number of characters being abducted and given extraordinary powers made a lot of sense when someone in a recent episode alluded to the building of an army. Is that what’s going on here?

A: Yes, though I think "army" can be taken more than one way, it's more figurative than literal. But I think the basic premise that there are people who are using our world as a scientific playground is sort of the touchstone.

What scares me is what science is capable of and what we know government and private individuals are experimenting with and toying with in the name of science and the spirit of pure curiosity. Science has the capability of rocking the foundation of what we consider to be reality right now. There was a very real fear among very smart scientists when they fired up the Hadron supercollider that our universe would disappear. I suppose none of us would have known it; we just would have been gone. But these aren’t things to be taken lightly.

Our world, as we’ve seen with the recent financial collapse, is controlled largely by private industry, which does not have the same regulations as government. And when you have unfettered imagination married to technological resources we’ve never had before, plus money, it can become quite scary.

Literally everything we’ve done on our show is grounded in actual scientific fact. We’ve trying to tell entertaining stories. We have the license to get a little crazy, but it’s all grounded in fact.

Q: How much scientific fact is present in any episode?

A: In the last episode, "Bellini’s lymphocemia" was a made-up name, though the qualities of the disease are real. We just didn’t want to imply that individuals working on their own could cure it. We didn’t want to be irresponsible to people with the real disease.

Q: Do you always feel that outside pressure?

A: There’s always a degree of responsibility we feel, but all of our science is grounded in reality. We’re not telling any stories that are in the world of potential.

Q: If you’re playing with the reality anyway, why rely on scientific fact at all? Couldn’t you just completely make something up that sounds plausible and go with that?

A: Yes. But our rule is we don’t want to do it if it’s totally made up. I’m sure people would tell you everything we’re doing is totally unbelievable, but for us, if we set out to do an utterly fictional show, it would probably be easier in some ways, but it would be less exciting. I think we all quite like the idea that we’re working in the realm of the real, as opposed to the entirely made-up. Again, it’s not necessary to watch the show and see how it’s ripped from the headlines, because it’s not. But there’s a certain quality of authenticity that it’s much easier to create if you know the parameters.

Q: The show’s more graphic than anything we’ve seen on network TV in a while.

A: I think we always want to have a quality of “Oh, my God, can you believe what they did on Fringe last night?” When I was a kid growing up, one my best friends’ dads was an ophthamologist, and at their house he had films of all of his surgeries. All of his surgeries were locked-down camera close-ups of eyeballs with scalpels cutting into them and peeling back the corneas. And they’d be running all the time. It was very real and honest — they were created for the purpose of education. Science is kind of disgusting. The human body is kind of disgusting when you look at it inside out, and our show needs to acknowledge that.

Q: Have you encounted any censor problems with things like expoding heads?

A: No. There’s been one or two shots they’ve asked us to trim back, but I think they do far more upsetting things on 24. Not to say that 24 is mean-spirited, but none of our stories involve torture. It’s all very organic.

Q: How’s the experiment with Fringe having limited commercials going?

A: We’re doing an extra act of television every week. Storytelling-wise, we’ve gotten used to it. It’s fanastic when storytellers are given an extra seven minutes of time, but it’s been hard. It’s impossible on prodouction. We’re doing an extra 20% of television every week. We don’t have 20% extra money and time. We’re getting comfortable with the pace of our production. But the writing is challenging, because with those seven minutes we’re still trying to keep the story energy up, and it’s a very fine line between going deeper with the story and keeping it moving.

Anna Torv Interviews

The Fox FRINGE Blog has scans of the December Issue of Sci-Fi Magazine featuring Anna Torv.

SpoilerTV also has has some quotes from Anna regarding FRINGE. We've removed the spoilers here, but you can read the full article in the Fringe Spoilers section:

Discovering new layers of her character (Olivia)
“Oh it's great because it's television so you don't really know when you start. You just do it episode by episode, and we don't get the episodes, say – we don't get them, you know, much ahead of time so every time you read it oh, my God, and that – really, oh, and then you sort of try and put it in, but it's – it's fun.”

[The Dreamscape Spoiler Removed]

[In Which We Meet Mr. Jones Spoiler Removed]

Olivia's relationship with Walter Bishop (John Noble)
“I think Olivia waits for everyone to prove themselves to her, you know, before she kind of jumps in or, you know, really gives them all of herself, but I think definitely there was a sweet scene, I know in one episode where she sort of, Walter's the only one she confides in and I think when Walter's lucid, you know, I think absolutely he's got that kind of like mentoresque, fatherly – yeah, he's like the wise one, isn't he?”

[The Equation Spoiler Removed]

The science of "Fringe"
“They justify it really well, you kind of want to get online and find out if it’s actually possible, what’s actually possible and what isn’t but that’s the bit that I love about the show because I think that, you know, I can give it just the information that we get at the moment like if it’s totally okay and everyone is fine with knowing that we can clone sheep and ten years ago that was frightening, I kind of think “What are we capable of? And why don’t we know? Who does know.”

Jasika Nicole Interviews

The NY Times outed Jasika Nicole recently, so there are a bunch of interviews discussing her personal life, plus her work as Astrid Farnsworth on Fringe:

NY Times: Out in Hollywood: Starring Roles Are Rare

Jasika Nicole, right, and her partner, Claire Savage. Source: Jacob Silberberg for The New York Times

Jasika Nicole, 28, an F.B.I. agent on “Fringe,” a new Fox drama, said that as bigger parts became available, her manager, John Essay, sat her down and asked how public she wanted to be about being a lesbian.
...
“If it becomes exaggerated,” he said, “you just become the gay actress instead of a wonderful actress.”
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Ms. Nicole, who has a girlfriend, said she would just be herself.
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Now, as she becomes better known, “There’s no way I can keep quiet,” she said. “I want to be clear this is my partner. I don’t want to make that shameful in any kind of way.”

After Ellen: "Fringe" Benefits: A Conversation with Jasika Nicole

AE: Are you filming now in October?
JN: Yes, we are starting Episode 9, I believe, this week, and of course we got picked up for the back nine episodes. So in January, we will finish our 22-episode season. We’re not even quite halfway through yet, which is really exciting. I can’t wait to find out what else is going to happen!

AE: Where do you film?
JN: We film in Long Island City in Queens, at Silvercup Studios East. It’s very close, which is wonderful. I didn’t have to move away from New York City.

Clutch Magazine: Life on the Fringe: An Interview with Jasika Nicole

C: So… Astrid Farnsworth? Really, that’s this sister’s name? You really don’t look like an Astrid. You should be wearing really tiny glasses or something.
JN: You know why that’s cool? It makes her name super memorable.

C: Despite the fact that Walter (John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop) can never remember her name.
JN: Actually, I just made the connection that she has such an unusual name, yet Walter STILL can’t remember it. In rehearsal the other day, Walter called my character Afro. Which was great, but he said “NO, they’ll come knocking down my door and they’ll think I’m a racist!” [laughs] I think it would be awesome, considering I kind of have an afro.

KROQ: Joshua Jackson Interview

Joshua Jackson was interviewed by Kevin & Bean on the Los Angeles radio station KROQ.

Good Day NY: Lance Reddick Interview

Lance Reddick was on Good Day New York Tuesday to discuss Fringe and what it's like to work with J.J. and Joshua. Julie Chang also got Lance to sing a little tune for her.

TV Guide: Jasika Nicole Interview

TV Guide has an exclusive interview with Jasika Nicole, who plays Astrid Farnsworth on Fringe. Jasika reveals some interesting information about her character, and some theories about William Bell. There are some mild-spoilers in the article, so you can read the spoiler-free version below, or head over to Spoilers.FringeTelevision.com to read the spoliers.

Click here to read the Spoiler-Free article

Fringe: Jasika Nicole Hints at Astrid's Secrets
by Mickey O'Connor
Oct 21, 2008 07:16 AM ET

When Jasika Nicole auditioned for J.J. Abrams' Fringe (Tuesdays, 9 pm/ET, Fox), she was told it was for a sci-fi series that incorporated humor. As FBI Special Agent Astrid Farnsworth, though, Nicole isn't exactly given a lot of the punchlines, saddled as she is with doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the lab of mad scientist Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble). With a background in musical theater and a talent for drawing (check out her work, including an autobiographical comic, on her website), Jasika (it's pronounced jah-SEEK-uh) talks to us about being intimidated by Noble, why Astrid returned to work in the lab and her theory about the identity of the elusive William Bell.

TVGuide.com: What's a sensible gal like Astrid doing with this bunch of crazies?
Jasika Nicole: I think Astrid is really riveted by Olivia Dunham [who is played by Anna Torv]. I think for any woman starting out in her career, Agent Dunham is an exceptional role model. On Fringe, she is juxtaposed with the doctor, who is also brilliant, but was in an institution. I imagine that Astrid is trying to learn the balance of going after what you want in your career without having it be your whole life. Literally 15 minutes ago I was talking with Anna Torv about needing a scene to show that Astrid has a life outside of this lab.

TVGuide.com: So what's coming up for Astrid? Will she have a larger role in future episodes?
Nicole: She's always doing a lot of lab work, always doing a lot of filing and interjecting at appropriate moments. Episode 107 [which airs on Nov. 11] is really intense. [SPOILER REMOVED]

TVGuide.com: Do you have a backstory for Astrid?
Nicole: So far I've learned that she's really, really smart, has a brain for science even though that isn't what she studied. [SPOILER REMOVED]

TVGuide.com: Tell me about working with John.
Nicole: John is the funniest guy. I thought he would be very serious, and I was intimidated when I first met him, and I'm pretty sure he made fun of me because, you know, he likes to keep the mood light. Seeing him work is fascinating; it's like taking a master class. I just like to sit back and watch how he processes information and take notes. He's able to do a scene a million different ways within the span of five minutes because he's so able to connect with the artistic vision everyone has for this show.

TVGuide.com: But why can't Dr. Bishop ever remember Astrid's name?
Nicole: I wonder if it just started out as one joke, and it just ended up being so charming and funny that they kept it going. It's hard for me not to laugh; John's reading on it is so funny. We have this running joke where we're always trying to think of new names for Astrid. We were rehearsing a scene the other day and he called me "Afro," and I died. I fell on the floor laughing. He's also called me "Aspirin" and "Ostrich."

TVGuide.com: And when he finally does pay attention to her, he attacks and sedates her. Why do you think Astrid came back to the lab?
Nicole: At first, it was discouraging that they didn't put anything in that told you why Astrid returned. But I think that it sets up something to happen later. [SPOILER REMOVED]

TVGuide.com: Personally, I think that Astrid is much more than she appears, that maybe she has some kind of special skill or power that's related to Dr. Bishop's work.
Nicole: I think that is very, very possible. The best theory I heard so far is that I am William Bell.

TVGuide.com: Wanna hear the best William Bell theory that I heard? That he's Blair Brown's prosthetic arm!
Nicole: [Laughs] That's beautiful. At night, it leaves her body and goes out and does bad things.

J.J. Abrams: Fringe proudly and squarely exists in the science fiction world.

J.J. Abrams talked to Starwars.com about Fringe (and Star Wars).

I read that Fringe had an interesting bovine problem because you couldn't use the same cow from the pilot so you had to bring in another cow and paint it to look like the original.

I wish that had been the biggest problem on the show. [laughs] We had an issue with the cow not being able to cross the border from Canada where we shot the pilot. Apparently, cows are contraband.

Did you have any other obstacles with Fringe that you hadn't come across being a TV show veteran? How has your experience working on this show differed than that of something like Alias or Lost?

I have relatively speaking very little experience, so every time I'm involved in a movie or a TV show it always feels like a brand new set of challenges. On this show, among others, it's a question of pacing the show and how much we reveal. We are obviously taking scientific notions and pushing them into insanity so this is not a documentary or a course on science. It's supposed to be taken as Frankenstein was -- an entertaining narrative that takes the ideas that surround us and push them much farther than they are currently able to go. When Star Trek first came out with communicators and the idea of a laser shooting something, these were scientific notions that didn't exist. And now 40 years later there actually are lasers that can shoot as weapons, and there are communicators that we have in our pockets. The idea that some of the stuff we're talking about potentially could come to pass is a fascinating one, but we're not pretending that this is all real and happening now. The fun of Fringe is that it's a "what if" scenario. Every episode gets to play with the impossible idea that something might happen and how do we deal with those ramifications and consequences? What does it mean to live in a world where science has run amok?

Even TV shows that are supposed to be based in fact like C.S.I. and House aren't exactly using proper science; you can't get DNA results in two hours.

Most legal or medical shows stretch the truth. There are trials and treatments that come to resolution at hyper speed and the reality is much different, but that reality isn't always entertaining. Fringe proudly and squarely exists in the science fiction world.

You often create Web sites for fictional companies like Massive Dynamic for Fringe and The Hanso Foundation for Lost to draw the viewer online and give them another experience outside the TV show. Why is a transmedia experience important to envision in all your properties?

Doing something online, whether it's stuff we did on Lost or Alias and even on Felicity -- one of the characters, Noel Crane, had a Web site -- the idea is more that, if I was watching a show and something was mentioned I'd be able to go online and see it. This just provides another level of discovery and interaction. Often there are clues that connect to things in the story if you care to pursue those or examine them or discover them. It's something as a viewer I like to do, so it really comes from my, and the team's, desire to create entertainment that goes elsewhere than just the TV or movie screen. That elsewhere might be online or places yet to be discovered. It's not about trying to blur the line, it's about creating an experience that is more than just the narrative that you are watching in front of you.

Read the full interview at Starwars.com: J.J. Abrams Talks Fringe, Cattle and Star Wars

J.J. Abrams Live Webchat: Is Over Arcing Mystery Winning Out Over Procedural On Fringe?

The Guardian has posted a transcript of their LIVE webchat with J.J. Abrams which took place earlier today. Below are a few of the more telling answers JJ gave in response to questions about Fringe, including on finding Fringe's rhythm and on the existence of a Lost size mystery.

Q: To you, is there an upcoming episode that you are especially proud of and you think will be a fan favourite when the series is finished?

Also, I have noticed a certain formula in the structure of the episodes so far. Is this something that is going to carry on, or will there be variations on this formula? Sorry if that isn't too specific. - owlwaxer

JJ - We are still finding our rhythm. If you look back at the early episodes of your favourite shows you will find they are a little bit to the left of what the show ultimately became. I feel we are still arriving. The fourth episode, The Arrival, is closer to what the show will be.

Q: Is Fringe going to be a big mystery as Lost is, with all the cryptic clues. Or will Fringe be a light venture? - yamatoEva

JJ - There will be and there already is, and ep 4 begins it, the over arcing mystery of the show. The goal is to do both - to tune in and enjoy without knowing anything that comes before it but also if you watch every week you will see things you understand and that are connected tot he larger picture. We are looking at both of them. -- Full Transcript

Jasika Nicole Interview with TheFringePodcast

TheFringePodcast has an interview with actress Jasika Nicole, who plays Astrid Farnsworth on Fringe. They chat about her love of art, how she came to be a part of Fringe, life on the set, JJ Abrams, Creepy Bald Guy (sort of), Gene the Cow, and other topics.

Listen Now:

Download: TheFringePodcast Episode 0111

Secrets of Fringe, with Kurtzman, Pinkner, & Orci

There's no new episode of Fringe tonight, but Executive Producers Alex Kurtzman, Jeff Pinkner, and Roberto Orci have something to tide you over until next week - The Secrets Of Fringe. They discuss seven important insights about Olivia Dunham, Walter Bishop, Peter Bishop, Phillip Broyles, The Observer, The Pattern, and Agent Scott.

If that only whets your Fringe appetite, why not catch up on some Fringe podcasts, or head over to the Fringe wiki, and contribute to Fringe community!

UPDATE: E!'s Watch With Krisitn has some more Q&A with Kurtzman and Orci. Specifically, they address some concerns I have seen in the comments:

Is It All About Walter? So far almost every case has tied directly back to Walter's (John Noble) work. Isn't that a lot of weirdness leading back to one man? Said Orci: "There is a much larger mosaic at play here, and Walter's work is part of it. A lot of the work that Walter did before he was committed, and before he lost a lot of his memory, was stolen from him. The question is, who stole it and why, and does the Pattern have something to do with the work that he's done?" However, Kurtzman said, "It won't always be about his work." And thank goodness, because I love the guy, but Walter was thisclose to becoming the Mary Sue of mad scientists...

more...

Ask JJ Abrams Your Fringe Questions

JJ Abrams will be participating in a LIVE webchat on Friday, October 10, 2008. The chat is sponsored by The Guardian in the UK, so the start time is at 6:00PM BST (which in the US is 10:00AM Pacifc / 1:00PM Eastern).

Since they have only seen the pilot episode in the UK, your questions will need to be very general in nature. Questions must be submitted ahead of time, so submit your own questions here, then join the chat on Friday to see what the answers are.

JJ Abrams on Conan

J.J. Abrams on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, talking about Fringe, cloverfield, Lost, plane crashes, sound effects, and talking kittens.

Fringe Interview with J.J. Abrams and Spike Feresten

Talkshow host Spike Feresten talks to J.J. Abrams about FRINGE!

A.V. Club Interviews J.J. Abrams

Go to the A.V. Club to read article in its entirety or view Fringe specific excerpts here...

The A.V. Club: How do you generally feel when a new TV show of yours is about to première? Anxious? Confident?

J.J. Abrams: Well, it's a cocktail of excited for people to see it, terror that no one will watch it, and relief that something I've been working on for so long will finally be out there. Oh, and panic that I can't make more of the little changes we've been making all along. All the times I've been lucky enough to be a part of a show that's actually gotten on the air, it's always that same mixture of excitement and utter fear. Which is kind of what I hope people will feel when they watch Fringe. [Laughs.]

AVC: One thing about TV that's different than movies is that you can adjust as you go, and if you're on the air long enough, you can respond to the audience response. Do you pay a lot of attention to what critics and fans say when they write about your work?

JA: Oh, sure. I mean, the noise you hear after people see something you do—whether it's a TV show or a movie—that always makes you see that thing slightly differently. Without question. The ability of a television series to make adjustments is something you've got to take advantage of. And test-screening a movie can be helpful too. But the part that can be dangerous is when you take those notes as gospel, instead of taking them with a grain of salt. The key is to use the response as one of the tools in your box, as opposed to using it to determine what you do.

AVC: You didn't direct the Fringe pilot.

JA: No, I was directing Star Trek, and the studio didn't want me to put that on hold so I could go do my TV thing. [Laughs.]

AVC: Do you want to direct an episode?

JA: Well, I'm hoping. Maybe a season finale or a season opener or something. I've been wanting to do it since the pilot. We have great directors working on Fringe, but when someone else directs something that you're involved with, it's always their vision, and the director in my head is definitely wanting to get involved.

AVC: The pilot of Fringe opens up with an airplane in trouble, which is similar to the opening of Lost. Was that a conscious nod, or just a coincidence?

JA: What happened was, we were discussing what the opening of the show should be, and we talked about so many different things, so when the plane idea came up, the last thing on my mind was Lost. Later, we realized it sounded an awful lot like what we did on Lost, but by that point, honestly, I thought, "Who cares?" It's appropriately creepy, and large enough in scale to fit the bill for an opener.

AVC: If you look at a lot of the TV and movies you've been involved with, like Cloverfield or Lost or now Fringe, you seem to be trying as hard as you can for as long as you can not to reveal the trick.

JA: I think that that's partially true. Like with Cloverfield, the whole idea with the marketing and the quick release was for people to have an experience as it happened, instead of pre-experiencing it by reading all about it. But I feel like with Fringe, the mandate is to try to do something week-to-week that's a procedural like CSI, but a skewed procedural, that's as creepy as humanly possible. While with Lost, on the one hand, it is a show that seems to duck answering questions. At the end of the pilot, you have Charlie asking "Where are we?", and that's something the audience still wants to find out. But week-to-week, that show answers a lot of questions, just not always the ones people feel are the ones that matter.

I think that even if you're wondering if two characters are ever going to kiss, drawing out the inevitability is part of the fun. Whatever the genre happens to be. Now in a movie, you get all the answers by the end, except in Pulp Fiction, where you don't ever really get to know what's in that case. But even in movies—a great example is North By Northwest, where you don't really know what the microfilm is, but who cares? By the end of the movie, the answer that you get is not really the answer that you thought you wanted to know. The answer you get is: "Oh, they're in love, and now they're married, and these were the circumstances that led up to that. They almost died a number of times, but they survived and they found each other," I feel like in telling stories, there are the things the audience thinks are important, and then there are the things that are actually important.

Fringe News Roundup

PopMatters.com: Aussie actress Anna Torv is busy keeping secrets on 'Fringe'

Anna Torv has just returned to her Manhattan apartment from another demanding shoot on the set of Fox’s new suspense series, “Fringe” (Tuesdays, 9 p.m. EDT). But her workday is not done.

“I have to cram pages of dialogue for tomorrow,” the actress says on the phone. “And I have to learn a couple of lines in another language so they don’t sound like gibberish.”

What language is that, Anna?

“I don’t think I can say,” she responds. (more...)

You get that a lot when asking about “Fringe.” The series, from TV’s uber-producer J.J. Abrams ("Lost), is shrouded in mystery.

Each episode delves into a shocking underworld where weird science meets the supernatural. Both in its dark tone and its suggestion of massive conspiracies afoot, “Fringe” is reminiscent of “The X-Files.”

“It’s all very, very top-secret,” says Torv, who stars as buttoned-down FBI agent Olivia Dunham. In two weeks she’s done more for the pantsuit than Hillary Clinton ever did. “We get the scripts and everyone is gagging to find out more clues. We sit around trading theories.”

Olivia is charged with cracking these occult cases. Her helpers are an eccentric scientist (John Noble), who has spent the last two decades in a mental institution, and his reluctant handler and son (Joshua Jackson of “Dawson’s Creek").

“Fringe” is off to a healthy start. In fact, this week’s episode had 47 percent more viewers than last week’s debut (13.4 million vs. 9.1 million) - a boost attributable to its lead-in: the season premiere of “House.”

Snatches of foreign dialogue aren’t the only language barrier Torv faces in playing the role. The newcomer must also erase all traces of her Australian accent. There’s a coach on the set to help Torv and Noble (also an Aussie) sound American.

“You get into a groove and it becomes less cumbersome,” Torv says. “Every now and then you slip up. You always lose it when you have to scream loudly or get emotional.”

After years of restrained dramatic roles in Australia and Britain, Torv is delighted to suddenly be an action star.

“I love running and jumping,” she says. “The days that I spend (shooting scenes) in the lab, I get edgy and agitated. I’d rather be out in the street chasing people.”

Just being selected for the part was something of an adventure.

“We had been searching for our Olivia for along time,” says Alex Kurtzman, the show’s cocreator and executive producer. “We got down to a scary place - three days before the pilot was scheduled to begin production.”

The casting director brought in a tape of Torv, whose last name reflects her father’s Estonian heritage, auditioning for another show. The producers were so impressed they immediately arranged a transpacific teleconference so they could watch the actress do some scenes from the pilot.

That cinched the deal. Torv quickly secured a visa and flew off the same day to Toronto to begin shooting.

“Given the fact that Anna literally had a day and a half to prepare for the pilot,” says Kurtzman, “she did an extraordinary job. And she’s growing into the role more and more each week.”

Things haven’t slowed down since production of the series shifted to New York.

“I had five days to get it all sorted out - to get a Social Security number and find a flat,” says the actress, who looks like Cate Blanchett on the show, but more like Claire Danes in real life.

She loves what she’s seen of New York, but she really hasn’t had much of a chance to explore her new environs yet. “I leave my house, get in a van, go to work, get back in the van and come home to sleep,” she says.

Nor has she had time to savor her instant stardom. “All the billboards (promoting the show) went up this month,” she says. “I was lamenting the fact that my mom wasn’t here. ‘Look, Mom!’ But I’m glad the show is finally out there. It means I don’t have to explain what it’s about anymore.”

Torv wrapped her role in “The Pacific,” next year’s WWII miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, before being cast in “Fringe.” (The 10-part HBO saga about three Marines was shot in Australia.)

But she has no other projects on the horizon. In fact, she is flabbergasted at the very idea.

“Oh God, I’m not thinking beyond tomorrow,” she says. “I’m literally going day to day.

“I remember when we were shooting the pilot, the lovely Joshua Jackson would say to me, ‘Nothing prepares you for American TV.’ And I was like, ‘I’m sure.’ And now I’m saying it to myself every day: ‘Nothing prepares you for American television.’ “

StarPulse.com: Joshua Jackson Injured In A Prop Mishap

Actor Joshua Jackson was left with a bloody nose after a dangerous stunt on his new TV show sent him rushing to the emergency room.

The former Dawson's Creek star plays the son of an eccentric scientist in new series, Fringe. However, his return to the small screen was short-lived when he had to be taken to hospital after a copper wire was shoved up his nose for a scene, hitting a vein and jeopardizing his role.

But he's convinced the show will be a smash, telling the National Enquirer, "I can now say that I have literally put my blood into this show."

CraveOnline.com: Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman on Fringe & Trek

Crave Online: How many episodes will you be writing yourselves?

Roberto Orci: We'll see. We did the first one after the pilot to sort of show out how to do it in an hour format. Now Pinkner and the staff, it's going to be their turn.

Alex Kurtzman: It's funny, we were not planning on being that involved day to day and what happened of course is that we totally fell in love with it and so it became impossible not to be. Jeff Pinkner runs the day to day and he's doing an unbelievable job so we're there just to kind of help him in whatever way we can.

Crave Online: What was the idea to make cows a running theme?

Alex Kurtzman: Actually, the funny thing about the way that the cow came into the show is we were writing a scene and I had this instinct that something weird should happen in the scene. I was like, "We need some element in the scene." And Bob said, "What about a cow?" That's how we work. One of us will raise a question and then one of us will start pitching out answers. Suddenly we had a cow that actually weirdly organically had a real fit in the show. That's how the cow came about.

Crave Online: Do you think by episode 13 or 14, you'll run out of cow stuff?

Alex Kurtzman: We might run out of cow stuff. We might. You've got to use the cow very specifically, very sparingly, although you can never have too much cow, can you?

(more...)

Screenwriting duo Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are quickly becoming Sci-fi gurus. After a stint on Alias, they landed the job of bringing Transformers to the screen. Now they have its sequel, the Star Trek prequel, and the new TV series Fringe all going on this year. The duos watched Fox PR bring cows to the streets of San Diego during this summer's Comic Con to promote the show's oddball themes.

Crave Online: Are you J.J. Abrams's go to guys now?

Alex Kurtzman: That's certainly a really nice way of putting it. I think we just really like working together. It's easy. We have an immediate language, an immediate understanding. We have all the same references. We grew up loving all the same things and so it's easy. When you're doing these kinds of shows which are challenging, you really want someone who just understands the language of it immediately.

Roberto Orci: Oh, we do one together and one apart. It's like we're dating without commitment. We see other people.

Crave Online: Does he have a mandate for a kick ass girl in every show?

Alex Kurtzman: I think we actually all gravitate towards women for some reason as protagonists of our shows. I couldn't exactly tell you why. I think maybe because in a man's world, especially in the world of a federal agency, you are pushing a lot harder, there is more of a struggle. That's always interesting to us.

Crave Online: How many episodes will you be writing yourselves?

Roberto Orci: We'll see. We did the first one after the pilot to sort of show out how to do it in an hour format. Now Pinkner and the staff, it's going to be their turn.

Alex Kurtzman: It's funny, we were not planning on being that involved day to day and what happened of course is that we totally fell in love with it and so it became impossible not to be. Jeff Pinkner runs the day to day and he's doing an unbelievable job so we're there just to kind of help him in whatever way we can.

Crave Online: How do you balance the standalone episodes and major story forwarding ones?

Alex Kurtzman: I don't want to give away too many of the individual story plots but I think it was very important to all of us to make sure that each episode feels like a standalone. Yet you will know that there is a much bigger mythology that kind of runs across both the season and the series. So while a problem will be set up and a problem will be solved in each episode, there are larger mysteries that play out.

Crave Online: Does it have to be one or the other?

Roberto Orci: No, it can be both. For example, the pilot, there is an arrest, there's justice, you catch somebody but clearly there can be more going on. That's a great template for how if you want to see more in what the episode is, you will. But if you're my father in law and you just want to see an arrest and you want to see justice, you'll see that too.

Crave Online: After doing Transformers and Star Trek based on classic properties, did you have an itch to come up with something your own?

Alex Kurtzman: We always do. Doing things like Transformers are great for their own reasons but yeah, you always want to invent something original. We actually just did a movie called Eagle Eye that we've produced and that was an original. It was actually an original concept from Spielberg and we kind of developed it with him. It's really gratifying to do that kind of thing.

Crave Online: How does it feel to be on the ground floor of Fringe versus joining Alias midway?

Roberto Orci: It's fantastic. It's also you can't blame anybody else. There's no, "Well, he didn't do this right on the pilot." Now if something is not appropriately set up or if the skeleton of the show is somehow off, it's going to be our fault.

Crave Online: What was the idea to make cows a running theme?

Alex Kurtzman: Actually, the funny thing about the way that the cow came into the show is we were writing a scene and I had this instinct that something weird should happen in the scene. I was like, "We need some element in the scene." And Bob said, "What about a cow?" That's how we work. One of us will raise a question and then one of us will start pitching out answers. Suddenly we had a cow that actually weirdly organically had a real fit in the show. That's how the cow came about.

Crave Online: Do you think by episode 13 or 14, you'll run out of cow stuff?

Alex Kurtzman: We might run out of cow stuff. We might. You've got to use the cow very specifically, very sparingly, although you can never have too much cow, can you?

Crave Online: How did cows end up becoming so weird, like since Twister?

Alex Kurtzman: I don't know, I think people love cows. I think they're just sort of fascinated by cows. Cows are a mystery.

Crave Online: We do slow down when we drive by farms.

Alex Kurtzman: We do. Yes, we do. We wonder what it would be like to graze.

Crave Online: Are any movies being pushed away to focus on this?

Alex Kurtzman: No, because there's two of us, we found a really good balance. It's one of the major benefits of having a partner. We find a way to do it all.

Crave Online: How weird is it to be at Comic Con and not talk about Star Trek and Transformers?

Alex Kurtzman: It's weird actually. It's very strange because all we want to do is talk about Star Trek but we can't. And Transformers, we're literally in the middle of shooting it. We finished writing it maybe a month and a half before. Literally we finished it and they started shooting it. I think maybe next year at Comic Con we'll have more to say about Transformers because it's going to be coming out right before Comic Con next year.

Crave Online: Michael Bay said he wrote some of Transformers 2 during the strike. When you got back were you surprised where the script had gone?

Roberto Orci: No, he just took our treatment and transferred it to screenplay format. He picked a few characters from Hasbro and wrote what kind of things he needed in production but he didn't write a script.

Crave Online: Were you involved in choosing new characters?

Roberto Orci: We were involved up until the strike and then shortly thereafter. Of course, it's a continuation of the first movie. It's the characters that we selected from the first movie in addition to some of the ones we wanted to see that we couldn't put in the first movie and some of them were even in our original drafts.

Crave Online: Was it fun to just pick through the catalog?

Alex Kurtzman: Actually, that's weirdly deceptive because it's really hard. It's hard. The more robots you have, the harder it becomes.

Crave Online: Some died, so they were eliminated.

Alex Kurtzman: Some of them died but there are literally hundreds of transformers in both the mythology and the toys. Really what it's about is figuring out who are the ones that are going to matter to the story? Who are the ones that are relevant to the story? The easiest thing in the world is to throw in all these robots but you don't want to do that if you can't make some kind of personal connection to them.

Crave Online: Is one of them a girl?

Roberto Orci: It's possible.

Crave Online: Are the hackers gone?

Roberto Orci: They will not be returning. We love them. If they would have fit, [we'd have them back]. Our lead for the movie is Sam and Mikaela. They are now going off, this is two years later. We didn't want to just bring characters back just to bring them back. They had to be organic to the story and they weren't.

Alex Kurtzman: Sam's going off the college and I can't say too much about Mikaela but obviously, the end of the first movie set up that they finally got together so now the question is are they going to be able to stay together.

Crave Online: What was the decision to start two years later?

Alex Kurtzman: I think we just felt ultimately like any other way into the story felt like a cheat, that you needed to pick up where they left off and see what was happening with their lives now.

Crave Online: What have the transformers been doing on earth for two years?

Alex Kurtzman: Well, you'll have to see the movie and find out.

Crave Online: But it's addressed?

Alex Kurtzman: Yes.

Crave Online: Were you able to have any bigger ideas since they've established that it works on screen?

Roberto Orci: Yeah, the first movie was very much structured as a mystery, such that the transformers are revealed at sort of the midpoint. This time, this is a different structure. It's a different movie, it's a different story. The transformers are there from minute one and that's something that now we actually felt confident we could get away with because we saw that it could work and that you could have these sentient robots and you're happy when they're on screen.

Crave Online: My favorite scene is the backyard. Are there any great small funny moments in the sequel?

Roberto Orci: Absolutely. It's still a continuation of these characters. Tonally it's similar. If you like the first one, you're still going to get that intimate story of who Sam is and what he's doing but if you're a sci-fi fan of it, because we can start the movie much more transformer-centric, it's a more balanced story with higher stakes as many sequels tend to be.

Alex Kurtzman: I will tell you that a key to that was the parents. That was a really big part of it was the fact that he was hiding the robots from his parents. Those parents are just unbelievably great. They're so funny and so I think you will be seeing the parents again.

Crave Online: When you write a Star Trek script, how awesome is it to see J.J. built the set?

Alex Kurtzman: It's insane. It's just insanity. The fact that somehow we've inherited that mantle is insane. It's such a responsibility. We take it so seriously and between all of us, Bob and me and Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk and J.J., there are different degrees of fandom and different degrees of knowledge and different perspectives on what Trek is. It's a really good mix of people because I think it will ultimately allow us to stay very true to canon and also bring something new.

Crave Online: Are you tempted to write in dramatic pauses for Kirk?

Alex Kurtzman: [Laughs] No, because the tricky part about it, and this is actually hard I think on all the actors, is the actors who played those parts in the original series and established those characters, are legendary. Everybody knows those actors and everybody knows those characters. So you have to be consistent with that if you are going to cast new people in those roles and yet, you have to bring something new to the mix. So the actors were walking this very tricky line of not giving a cartoony performance that's really mimicking the original actors, and bringing their own thing to the table.

Crave Online: J.J. was marveling at how you established Kirk and Spock's bond

Alex Kurtzman: It's the most gratifying thing I think for us about the movie is watching that.

Crave Online: How did you conceive of it and how was it never explored before?

Alex Kurtzman: We did a lot of reading of the books. I think we consider the books canon to a large degree so it's very important to us to stay consistent. But there is a bit of a hole and there's actually different mythologies about their history so it's a matter of staying consistent but also figuring out how you can play around a little bit anchored by the rules

io9.com: Why Fringe Is SF TV's Most Reassuring Show

We admit it; We're fascinated by Fringe... what makes the show so compelling for us... is the way that... it's actually the most upbeat and reassuring show you can imagine for mainstream America. Here're our top reasons why each episode of Fringe is an hour of being told that everything's okay, really:

• Everything Weird Can Be Explained Away
• Science Is Magic And Can Do Anything
• Corporate America Is On Our Side
• The Good Guys Always Win

(more...)