It seems that JJ Abrams can do no wrong. The man behind such hits as Alias, Lost, Mission: Impossible 3 and Star Trek talks to Abbie Bernstein from totalscifionline.com, about the inspiration and mythology behind his most recent series, Fringe.
By: SpankMeNews, totalscifionline.com
10/1/2009
What is the genesis of Fringe?
The genesis of most things that I’ve worked on - and I think the same can be said for [Fringe co-creators] Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci – is what is it I’d like to see? It wasn’t like, “Okay, let’s do The X-Files again!”
Certainly The Twilight Zone, X-Files and Night Stalker were shows that I loved. But I was obsessed by stuff like David Cronenberg and Altered States when I was growing up. I also loved Michael Crichton’s work, which for me started with Westworld, and Robin Cook’s Coma. They all explored that weird place where medicine and science meet real life. So that's what Alex, Bob and I started talking about. It was, “How can we do a show that lives in that universe?”
How dense is the mythology on Fringe?
It’s funny. I was at my friend Greg Grunberg’s house years ago, and he was on Alias [which Abrams produced] and he’s on Heroes now. He put Alias on, and I watched a few minutes, and I was so confused. Literally, it was impenetrable! I was like, “I know I should understand this, but who is that guy?” And of course Lost has garnered a certain reputation for being a very complicated show and one where you have to watch every episode.
Fringe is in many ways an experiment for us, in that we believe it is possible to do a show that does have an overall story and end game, which Fringe absolutely does. There’s a direction the show is going and there’s an ultimate story that’s being told, but it’s also a show that you don’t have to watch episodes one, two and three to tune in to episode four.
After the large-cast shows of Lost and Alias, was one of the driving concepts behind Fringe to try to do something with a smaller cast so we can spend more time with each of the characters?
Not consciously, but certainly Bob and Alex and I didn’t set out to do something that was going to have a massive cast. For us the show started with the question, “Who are the people, and what situation are they in and how do we give them problems?”
The best shows are ones where the door bursts open and your characters are put upon to do something where the stakes are really high, despite what they want to do. Making those characters people you care about was one of the fundamental things, so we didn’t go for a plateful of people.
Are you a major Lord of the Rings fan? Lost had Dominic Monaghan, who played Merry, and now Fringe has John Noble, who played Denethor.
It just happened that way, but that is true. We cast great actors and we’re lucky to have them.
And you have an Australian actress, Anna Torv, who resembles Cate Blanchett, Lord of the Rings’ Galadriel.
Yes, there are moments where she looks very much like Cate Blanchett!
How did you come to cast her?
Anna is so fantastic. I watched her video audition for something else. When I watched it, it was just obvious that she was the actress for the role. Luckily, she was available!
We saw a lot of people for that role. We were looking for people all over the place, just to widen the range of options, but not consciously looking internationally. The fact that there are two Australians in Fringe is not a trend!
You’re successfully producing, writing and directing feature films, yet you are clearly still drawn to television.
I love it. I feel so lucky to get to do it. We [Abrams, Kurtzman and Orci] got to do Star Trek together and that’s great. But TV is such an amazing medium and such an interesting process. It’s this organic thing, and when you have actors as good as we have and a story that’s as exciting as this… to me it’s a thrill.
Finally, how was it directing Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek?
It was really just a dream experience with Leonard. He’s everything you’d want him to be. He’s funny and he’s incredibly thoughtful and surprisingly open to and receptive to direction.
I remember Leonard was doing some ADR recording. I looked at him and I wanted to burn the memory in my head, because it was so great to get to work with that guy! He’s such an amazing man and terrific in the movie. He’s a major presence in any scene he’s in.