Stargate Universe season two premieres September 28 on Syfy.
Sanctuary returns September 28 with a 20 episode third season!
“I saw a copy of it. It’s very good! Gail is wonderful in it!” Shanks said. “After doing so much stuff that’s based in borrowed concepts, and saving the world and saving the universe, and trying to save your butt from the villain kind of thing. To do just a sort of simple slice of life family story with kids and home and mortgage and blah, blah, blah is a nice departure. And it’s a good movie...“
“Brotherhood was the first one where it was my idea and I had to go figure it out. It was phenomenally complex. They all laughed because they knew how difficult it would be. I was young, stupid, and had a lot of time on my hands.”
“Cut! That’s great,” enthuses director Martin Wood. “Let’s do it one more time, only from a different angle.”
“It’s great to work on green screen because the possibilities are endless,” says Dunne, taking a breather while the cameras are being repositioned for a new shot. “You can do anything, you can create any type of creature or setting, so it’s amazing. It’s also not difficult to act in this sort of environment because I have the privilege of working with such a talented company of actors. The thing that I did have to get the hang of was the dimensions of space. We do a lot of stuff where we’re running through the Sanctuary and turning corners, and every now and then while filming the Internet pilot, Martin [Wood] would call, ‘Cut,’ and then say, ‘Hey, Robin that was terrific, but you just ran through a wall.’ And I’d be like, ‘OK, what are the dimensions here?’ and they’d put green tape down on top of the green floor to mark off the boundaries. So there were things like that to get used to, but once I did, it was really exciting because with every new script that came out, you never knew where your character was going to end up and what we were going to do.”
Oh yes. The 1960s was a dreadfully turbulent time for the United States racially, and racial conflicts were bursting out in the form of race riots in our major cities. I, as an Angeleno, I still remember the terror of the Watts riots in 1965. And at that time Star Trek had not only a multi-racial cast but also an inter-racial kiss between a black woman, Uhuru, and a white man, Kirk. Now, 40 years later, we have an enormously popular black president of the United States. What was hopeful back in the 1960s has become a powerful reality today! And thus Star Trek still remains very relevant.
I think it’s that human spirit of wanting to see a glimmer of hope – something President Obama is talking about in our current economic turmoil. That hope is essential. We need to have confidence in our ability to overcome challenges. I think it’s that core philosophy and those core values that has helped to maintain Star Trek’s popularity.
Shanks: The story is about a family, or more specifically a woman played by Gail O'Grady. She's a music teacher, and I play her husband, and one day she wakes up to find that she has breast cancer. Obviously, there are ramifications for her and her husband and their two kids. There's a paradigm shift in her life and in the family's life that her illness causes, and it's all about how a catalyst can cause change in people's lives for the better. I don't want to call it a feel-good cancer movie, but it is a feel-good cancer movie that teaches the characters to live life for life's worth and to not go through the motions anymore. It's a touching story.
AT: Apparently the Board of Trustees is going to invite me to become a board member for the Waterkeepers. It’s an organization that’s hugely important to me, so I’ll be doing work with them.
We finish shooting our season in July and then we’re in post-production. I’ve been offered a film that would shoot in late summer/early fall called "Water’s Edge," which I’m excited about. And then the Stargate movie is potentially happening late fall, is what I’m hearing.
