We recently had the chance to talk with showrunner and E.P. Remi Aubuchon and actor Doug Jones about the Volm, the mythology behind the aliens and what Remi has enjoyed most about Falling Skies season 3. Remi recently announced that season 3 would be his last, and that former BSG writer and director David Eick would be taking over.
Doug Jones is known worldwide for the roles of Abe on Hell Boy and many other films requiring him to be in full body prosthetics.
Tell us a little bit about what it takes to get into costume?
Well this one is – first of all, it’s much quicker to get into the makeup. It was only a couple of hours as opposed to the five hours I’m used to for film roles, so there’s that.
Also, I did have to do the usual physical training because I had a lot of extra weight to carry around with me with the muscles built-in, because Cochise is much more muscular than I am, so there’s that. But also, he’s a very – he stands and talks a lot. He’s very smart and very astute and very informative, so he – it was a memorization issue for me too with paragraphs of dialog that were being rewritten up to the day we filmed.
So it was a challenge, and yet one that I really welcomed because I just absolutely love this character.
Tell us about the Volm and what backstory we might get.
Questions remain as the season opens with you know why are they here? Why are these Volm characters here? Are they friends or foes?
I come off friendly and I would like to think that I stay that way, but I think if you look at me and my character through the perspective of Will Patton’s Colonel Weaver or Collin Cunningham’s John Pope, those characters are the ones that are kind of the naysayers that are not quite on board with me yet.
Now Noah Wyle’s Tom Mason, he’s the one who befriends me and he’s the one I’m most interested in because he’s the leader of his people, I’m the leader of mine, and we have a lot of responsibility to share together.
So I think if you look at me through the perspective of all the characters on the show you’ll get a better idea of where I’m headed.
For Remi, we discussed in deeper length his experiance as a writer and show runner, including what his favorite parts of season 3 were.
You always hope as a writer that you bring yourself to every script that you write. I personally have identified with you know, most of the characters that are in Falling Skies. I identify with aspects of them including Cochise, and I think we’ve all known what it’s like to be in a situation that you’re not completely – well, that you’re a foreigner in or in many ways, you know, you certainly don’t feel in step culturally with it. And I tried to bring some of that to Cochise, which Doug wonderfully took and ran with.
Someone asked me the other day, you know, “What motivated you to find a character like Cochise?” And I said, “Well, my experience that I’ve spent in Mexico for a couple of years where I had to fit in and work with people and had language barriers, and yet found myself falling in love with you know the Mexican people and the culture itself.”
And, I think there’s a little bit of Cochise in that as well.
Can you tell us what your favorite story line or episode was in season 3 for Falling Skies?
Well season 3 is of a piece and my – the whole trust of season 3 has been Tom Mason’s struggle to find himself as a leader, which he is – was not born to, not particularly comfortable with, and his – and trying to balance that with his – the needs of his family.
And knowing that instinctively he feels he’s doing the right stuff even against the odds of it not appearing on the surface of being the correct path to take, specifically with his relationship with Cochise and also the decisions that he makes as President of the New United States. That really I found compelling and fascinating, and full of rich colors to write for.
I have to be honest, Robert, you know I enjoy writing for Falling Skies and my leaving has absolutely nothing to do with that. It’s really about wanting to pursue a dream that I’ve had for a long, long time, and feeling like now is the time to do it.
So the relationships between the characters in Falling Skies have just been a dream come true for any writer, but especially me because I’ve really gotten to explore some pretty complex thematic ideas in the Falling Skies, and I think specifically in this third season where we’ve really gone much deeper into the characters’ complex relationships.
Remi continued on to explain a bit about the mythology and how the new season would focus on a much broader group than the 2nd mass.
Yes. And actually, I think this is a really good question because the challenge for us is then to not only expand our scope of the world as we know it on Earth, but also expand the bigger picture, the mythology by bringing in the Volm, by deepening our understanding of the Espheni and the Overlord. The challenge of course is always how much and how fast do we expand that world out?
Bringing in new characters with fresh perspectives and new experiences is an important aspect of dealing with a growing story. As we meet a lot of people outside of the 2nd mass, the story becomes broader and bigger in so many ways.
We had some very specific characters this season that help us to expand that world. Marina, played by Gloria Reuben, who is wonderful. And Marina has her own experience not only of the invasion, but she clearly seems to have a sense of politics. She was in the background in Charleston way before Tom and the Second Mass ever showed up.
Then we have a character we’ll introduce played by Robert Sean Leonard, Roger Kadar, who we learn has been the “mad scientist” in the bowels of Charleston that’s been keeping the infrastructure alive all this time. And obviously also has such a very deep trauma in his experience with the invasion that he won’t even come to the surface to interact with other humans.
I think we start to see that we’ve been so focused on the experience of the Second Mass. But to suddenly see how other humans are dealing with everything I think makes for a very rich tapestry in this season.
