Photo Credit: Joe DeAngelis
The start of season 2 for Falling Skies introduced a new character to us, Jamil. He was a former engineering student turned mechanic for the 2nd mass. He took the role over that Uncle Scott had after he died. Lourdes and Jamil grow close and his death was taken hard by her.
In what is widely considered the creepiest scene of the series, nearly tied with watching the kids get harnessed, Jamils death by alien spiders was a huge shock to many. We had a chance to talk with Brandon about his role as Jamil and a bit about his new series coming up called Graceland.
We asked Brandon how he first heard about the role of Jamil. “My agent in Canada presented me with the role. Jamil seemed like an interesting mix of intelligent and kinda cool.” And we cannot disagree. The role of Jamil was one of an intelligent student who had to come up with brilliant fixes in a nomadic situation.
Brandon had never heard of the series prior to being offered the role saying “As soon as I found out I’d be joining the 2nd Mass, I quickly watched the 1st season.” Science fiction is a genre Brandon enjoys but its not the only genre he has been in.
Brandon recently finished a 12 episode run on the recently cancelled AMC drama The Killing and has a long history of credit dating back to 2003. Many fans have wondered how he reacted to this death and how someone could successfully pull off that death scene. Remember the aliens are of course CGI so he had to mimic them bursting out of him without anything really there.
When it came down to actually getting ready for the scene he says “I didn’t have to prepare much. The most important thing was to commit to the action fully on the day.” Once the scene was finished, post production added in the aliens and used makeup on Brandon to show the blood and damage caused by the aliens bursting out of him.
We wanted to know, how would he handle a real alien invasion? Would he be like Jamil? “Jamil is much more handy than I am. I think the most important thing is to try and keep your wits about you amidst the chaos.”
Photo Credit: Joe DeAngelis
A new series called Graceland on USA is a a cop drama. Of that Brandon said “Graceland is about agents from the DEA, FBI and U.S. Customs who are forced to live together undercover in a Southern California beach house. Lots of action, interesting characters. I play Dale Jakes, a quick tempered undercover customs agent. I ‘m really excited about it.”
Be sure to watch Mr. Mclaren on the upcoming USA show Graceland and don’t forget to watch the Falling Skies marathon starting at 2pm today on TNT.
