Battlestar Galactica - SFX Magazine: Michelle Forbes Interview

At SFX Magazine:

(Please follow the link for the complete interview.)



Michelle Forbes interviewed

Tuesday February 24, 2009

Smarten up and salute Cain, people, because we've been talking to Michelle Forbes at Starfury's Battlestar Galactica convention.

Born in Texas in January 1965, Forbes is perhaps best known from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Homicide: Life on the Street. After Battlestar, where she made a brief but important appearance as Admiral Cain, she's now in True Blood. The rest of this interview will be appearing in our amazing Battlestar Galactica-themed special issue, on sale Wednesday 4 March with posters and gifts! But we thought you might like this brief snippet as a little treat to get you in the mood:

A brief excerpt:

SFX: What sort of response do your characters get at conventions around the world?

Forbes: "Oh my God! Battlestar is shockingly popular in Germany. In Germany we had 4000 people at a convention. It's amazing how far people travel. People were travelling in from Italy - it blows my mind actually. It's such a universal thing, and Germans are big into science fiction. Turns out Germans and criminals on Death Row were my biggest fans from the Star Trek days. I guess they were running it a lot in Germany. But the Death Row thing… I don't want to get a complex! I used to get a lot of prison letters but that's sort of calmed down. I think it's because of some of the characters I've played I've always had a bit of an interesting fan base."

Don't forget to watch Battlestar Galactica on Sky1 tonight, UK viewers! There's a little interview with fellow actor Nicki Clyne online already here and one with Jen Halley here. True Blood will be coming to the UK later this year, broadcast first on the FX channel and then on Channel 4.

Fringe / True Blood - Paley Center For Media: Paley Fest '09 Evenings

At The Paley Center for Media:

(Please follow the link for the complete article.)



PaleyFest09

The 26th annual William S. Paley Television Festival runs from April 10 to 23, 2009.

Location:
Arclight Cinerama Dome
6360 W. Sunset Blvd.
Hollywood, CA

Announcing Two PALEYFEST09 Evenings

Fringe

True Blood

Full lineup to be announced February 18.

Stargate / Sanctuary / Battlestar Galactica / Farscape - SFX Magazine Issue # 179 - February 2009

At SFX Magazine:

http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=latest_issue

(Please follow the link for the complete Table of Contents.)



Latest issue

SFX 179 – February 2009

On sale Wednesday 14 January 2009

FREE STUFF!

Did you resolve to do more reading this year? Get off to a good start with a free Buffy or Star Trek tie-in novel! Pick up your copy of SFX179 from any participating Sainsbury's store and you'll get a random book bagged with the magazine!


WOLVERINE

We talk to star Hugh Jackman and producer Lauren Shuler Donner about X-Men Origins: Wolverine, as well as creator John Romita Sr about creating the iconic mutant.

SPOILER ZONE

We thought it could go no bigger, but it has! Our 10-page TV reviews section includes our verdicts on Demons, Apparitions and Survivors, as well as the season finale of True Blood and continuations of Chuck, Heroes, Pushing Daisies and Sanctuary (and more!).


BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
We go behind the scenes on the final part of Battlestar's final season and talk to the cast and crew about bringing one of SF TV's finest shows to a close.

CHUCK
Another season of feel-good spy-fi is coming soon! We reveal all about the return of Chuck.

BEING HUMAN
Remember that Pilot on BBC3 that we all really liked? We've got the lowdown on the upcoming series!

TRUE BLOOD
Never mind that Twilight bobbins, this is where you want to be looking for your cool and sexy vampires.

THE FANNISH INQUISITION
We put your questions to the wondrous Claudia Black! Just what is her idea of a perfect sandwich...?

REWIND
Keeping with the Claudia Black theme, we look back on Farscape.

ANATOMY OF A CLASSIC
You dance when they play the theme song in clubs, we know you do. We discuss what makes Ghostbusters such a classic!

TIME MACHINE
We reflect on the Harryhausen adaptation of the Greek myth of Perseus, Clash Of The Titans.

COUCH POTATO
We love Michael Ironside really, but he's not above being mocked in the name of a regular mag feature!

PROFILES
We talk to Demons and Survivors star Zoe Tapper, fantasy author Kristin Cashore chats to us about her craft, and with the new season of Lost just around the corner, Naveen Andrews tells all about being Sayid ...

True Blood - Omnivoracious: Charlaine Harris Interview

At Omnivoracious (an Amazon.com blog):

(Please follow the link for the complete interview.)



True Blood: An Interview with Charlaine Harris

by Jeff VanderMeer on October 27, 2008

Since the first appearance of Sookie Stackhouse in Charlaine Harris's Dead Until Dark, readers have been addicted to this exciting and charming series set in the South. But that addiction has reached fever pitch with the debut of the new HBO series by Alan Ball, True Blood, based on Harris's "Southern Vampire Mysteries" series. Earlier this year I was lucky enough to meet Harris briefly at a convention in New York, and found her to be down-to-earth, approachable, and generous to her fans.

I recently interviewed Harris about both her books and the TV series via email. She answered my questions "sitting in my office, which is across the carport from the main house. It was intended as a mother-in-law apartment. It's one large room with a bathroom and a big closet that used to be the tool shed; I had the outside door blocked and an inside door cut. It was an inadequate tool shed, anyway. My office is "decorated" with photos of New Orleans tomb art, the usual awards and stuff, and some incredible mementos. Plus, a picture of our three children, all beautiful and talented. Of course."

A brief excerpt:

Amazon.com: I'm assuming you've seen the HBO series. How, in your opinion, does it differ from the books?

Charlaine Harris: There are lots of differences. The books are all told in the first person. The series can't be shot that way, for obvious reasons. So we're seeing the activities of some of the other characters that were never shown in the books. Sometimes, what they were off doing (while Sookie was front and center in my world) has really surprised me. And of course some characters have been changed to suit the needs of the show. I'm never bored when I'm watching "True Blood," because I really don't know what's going to happen.

Doctor Who - SFX Magazine # 176: 45th Anniversary Celebration!

At SFX Magazine:

(Please follow the link for the complete table of contents.)



Friday October 17, 2008

Latest issue - SFX 176 – December 2008

On sale Wednesday 22 October 2008

SPLIT COVERS!

Doctor Who hits its 45th anniversary this year, and we've gotten some extra-special content to celebrate - not least of which is our fantastic ten-cover split run! Which Doctor will be your Doctor?

DOCTOR WHO

The main attraction in our celebration of Doctor Who is our enormous retrospective feature, where we ask Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, Stephen Fry, Clive Barker, Paul Cornell and Mark Gatiss to talk about their love for the show. We have the world exclusive first word on this year's Christmas special, too, and to top it all off, we've got a great competition where you can win all four series of Doctor Who on DVD!

FRINGE

We talk to JJ Abrams about his new show Fringe, and find out whether or not it's going to fry our brains in the same way as Alias and Lost...


PROFILES

Michael Trucco talks about the end of Battlestar Galactica - warning, here be spoilers! - author Neal Asher tells all about the creation of a space opera, and Casper van Dien reflects on his return to the role of Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers 3: Marauder.

SPOILER ZONE

It's the beginning of the Fall TV season! We've got reviews of the season premieres of Fringe, True Blood, Supernatural and The Sarah Connor Chronicles, as well as new UK shows Merlin, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Lost in Austen... and loads more besides!

PLUS!

All this and lots more...

Sanctuary - SciFi Wire: TV Smackdown V: Sanctuary Vs. Blood

At SciFi Wire:

(Please follow the link for the complete article.)



12:00 AM, 26-SEPTEMBER-08

TV Smackdown V: Sanctuary Vs. Blood

This week, SCI FI Wire will run a daily series of stories looking at the competition among new television series we like to call our Fall TV Smackdown. We'll pit two fall shows against each other and see which one comes out the winner. Are the comparisons fair? Of course not. It's about as fair as Sylar cutting open Claire's brain in the Heroes season premiere.

It's all about the ladies in this sci-fi-vs.-fantasy feature matchup as SCI FI Channel's new original series Sanctuary takes on HBO's True Blood. It's a monster mash that has a cool, virtual world with Amanda Tapping in one corner and hot, randy vamps with Anna Paquin in the other ... with accents.

True Blood. HBO, Sundays, 9 p.m. ET/PT. Premiered Sept. 7. After the invention of synthetic blood allows vampires to "come out of the coffin"--they don't have to feed off humans anymore--they've managed to gain rights as citizens...



Sanctuary. SCI FI, Fridays, 9 p.m. ET/PT. Premieres Oct. 3. Sanctuary is billed by SCI FI as the first television series to feature live actors against primarily virtual sets, along the lines of 300 and Sin City. While it began life as an eight-episode Web series, the television show features a two-hour premiere that starts at the beginning of the story. While investigating a murder case, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) begins to suspect the explanation offered at a murder scene. Will soon discovers that his suspicions are right. When a woman named Dr. Helen Magnus (Tapping) approaches him, she takes Will to a place she calls the Sanctuary and tells him an amazing tale. According to Magnus, the world is filled with Abnormals, fantastic creatures that are the stuff of fairy-tale books and incredible legends. The world needs to be protected from some of them, while others need to be protected from the world. Magnus has made it her mission to find and study these creatures and to offer them sanctuary if they want it. She is joined on her mission by her fearless daughter, Ashley (Emilie Ullerup), a loyal butler who looks a lot like Bigfoot and their technical wizard, Henry. As Will learns more about Magnus' world and her nemesis, John Druitt (Christopher Heyerdahl), he must decide whether he can "dare to believe in the unbelievable."

Sanctuary's Secret Weapon: With an incredible virtual world and a brunette Tapping with an English accent, who needs reality? Sanctuary is executive-produced by Tapping, creator Damian Kindler, Martin Wood and Sam Egan.



The Outlook: SCI FI's big new SF entry, Sanctuary, offers to put Tapping back in action in a role very different role from Stargate SG-1's Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, and that's a good thing. Beyond that, it's dripping with mythology and has loads of action and extremely cool visuals, not to mention some nicely drawn characters. Along with Fringe, Sanctuary has more of a fully realized world than any of the other fall offerings. Taking up residence on Friday nights, the series should be an excellent match for Stargate Atlantis. With 13 episodes ordered, look for Sanctuary to do very well for SCI FI.

The Winner: It's going to be a knock-down, drag-out marathon, with True Blood already being renewed for a second season and Sanctuary a shoo-in, considering that Battlestar Galactica and Stargate Atlantis are headed out. Let's call this one a draw, with virtual fangs. --Kathie Huddleston

Stargate Atlantis - iO9: Interview with Masters FX's Dan Rebert

At iO9:

(Please follow the link for the complete interview.)



The aging of Robert Patrick (Col. Sumner) from Stargate Atlantis' series premiere episode, 'Rising,' from the Masters FX site.

Creature Creator Dan Rebert Talks to io9 About Alien Influences and True Blood

We’ve made no secret of our admiration for special effects artists. This week, we got to talk with Dan Rebert, the Effects Producer for MastersFX, the house that created the aliens of Stargate Atlantis and Slither. Rebert told us all about his cultural influences, talked Stargate, and gave us the inside scoop on the fang physiology behind his current project, HBO series True Blood.

**snippage**

Now on a weekly show like Stargate Atlantis – I know that different houses have different approaches to weekly alien shows. What would you say your goal is on a weekly alien show like Stargate Atlantis?



Creature from Stargate Atlantis' 'Vengeance,' from the Masters FX site.

DR: "A lot of what I look at – and again, keep in mind, too, that the shop that I run down here in LA – we have a shop in Vancouver, too, and the Vancouver shop does the majority of the prosthetic work for it. The LA shop, we mainly get involved when it’s puppets or full body suits or a prosthetic that is very complex. So the shop down here, we’re more set up for larger creations.

But this shop down here did the initial construction of the Wraiths, and we actually just did something that I was real proud of for Atlantis. I think it was last year or the year before, but it was an episode called “Vengeance” that was basically an homage to the Alien movies. And it was a pretty good episode, but one of the things – we had a bunch of different designers doing monster designs for it. But when I read the script it was like, 'This is obviously an homage to the Alien movies.' So what I did then in terms of a design was something that was very reminiscent of that alien. And so a lot of times in reading those scripts – the Stargate shows kind of are a celebration of science fiction and a lot of times they kind of nod to other shows that have been done before – and a lot of times, when I see that in a script that obviously they have for the shows, obviously we don’t want to want to directly copy off of anything, but I think that’s the best approach for them is really read the script, find out what they had in mind when they were writing it, what maybe they were thinking of, and give it an original design based on those directions. The way I did it with the Vengeance monster, a lot of the front of the face was very similar to the alien – I knew they would like that – but in terms of the rest of the body, I actually modeled it after a flea. [Laughs.] Well, they’re pretty terrifying-looking when you see them up close. And I actually told them that when they were up there and they were very happy with the monster. And it was like, 'Yeah, this was what we wanted.' And I was like, “Yeah, I modeled it off a flea.' And they were like, 'A flea?” Well, you know, you take what works.'"

Creature from Stargate Atlantis' 'Vengeance,' from the Masters FX site.

**snippage**

Did you have consultants on any of the science fiction shows, or was that mostly on the other shows?

DR: "Not so much on the Stargates and stuff like that, but there usually is a medical consultant on most of the medical procedure shows we do. Like, we did a show a long time ago, Kingdom Hospital, and there was a medical consultant that was very involved in the brain surgeries and things of that nature. I’m trying to think if we didn’t have any consultants on True Blood. I can’t think of any off-hand. They don’t really have too many vampire specialists. I think that was Alan’s job because Alan came up with the whole mythology of the vampires. I had an interview for HBO and I was explaining to them how vampire blood is very thick and syrupy and human blood is more runny and brighter red, and they asked me, 'Well, how do you know what vampire blood looks like?' And I said, 'Alan Ball told me!' Well, he’s the boss."

~~**~~**

The link to Masters FX site:

True Blood - Total SciFi: Stephen Moyer Interview

At Total SciFi:

(Please follow the link for the complete interview.)



Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin

Posted on Wednesday 03 September 2008

Stephen Moyer: There will be Blood

True Blood is HBO’s fang-tastic new vampire drama, based on Charlaine Harris’s popular series of books, The Southern Vampire Mysteries. Abbie Bernstein caught up with one of its stars, Stephen Moyer, to talk about vamping it up…

True Blood isn’t Stephen Moyer’s first time as a vampire. However, this is the first time he’s had to wear fangs, he explains with a laugh. “I did play a vampire in 1998, in a [BBC] series called Ultraviolet, and I have these canines that you can see.” He displays his teeth in a cheerful smile, displaying surprisingly large real canines. “So we decided [in Ultraviolet] not to give me fake teeth. But in this one, we have different teeth. It’s quite funny. As a kid, I had to wear a retainer to push the teeth straight. And [wearing the True Blood fangs is] like having a retainer. You kind of have to [puts on lispy voice] talk like this and you have to learn to talk with them in!

“It’s quite difficult, but we’ve all got much, much better at talking with them in,” he continues. “There was more looping [re-recording of dialogue] at the beginning, but people have got better, and we’ve kind of reduced the size of the teeth a little bit, so actually, there’s very little looping now...”

True Blood begins on HBO on 7 September 2008.

True Blood - SciFi Weekly: Interview with Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer and Alan Ball

At SciFi Weekly:

(Please follow the link for the complete interview.)



INTERVIEWS

September 01, 2008

Ex X-Man Anna Paquin teams up with Stephen Moyer and Alan Ball to give Charlaine Harris' vampire books eternal life

By Mike Szymanski


Alan Ball acknowledges that vampires are in. Somehow in the psyche of the world right now, plenty of people like vampires. So he is particularly excited about bringing the Charlaine Harris books to HBO with the series True Blood.

Ball spoke at a private telephone press conference less than a week before his show debuts on Sept. 7, and he joined his two stars, Anna Paquin as psychic Sookie Stackhouse and Stephen Moyer as vampire Bill Compton, at the Television Critics Association interviews in late summer.

Anna Paquin, what do you think of doing TV after doing movies all of your career?

Paquin: I think ensemble acting is the most fun, because in this case you have extraordinary people around you that you get to play with all day. I wanted to re-create the adventure and the fun and the sort of excitement of reading those books and the feeling like I had stumbled into this world. I have to see what happens.

Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer

Stephen Moyer, what do you think is different in this series?

Moyer: Something I don't think I've ever seen in a series ... is how you get to the end of each episode, and the episode begins where that episode ended, and that happens all the way through the season.

Alan Ball, it seems like vampires are in vogue again. Do you have any insights on that?

Ball: I think vampires are a timeless, powerful archetype that can tap into people's psyches. They've been around forever, even before the reinvention of vampires in the 1990s with Bram Stoker's Dracula. A lot of world mythology all over the globe has creatures like the succubus, the one that feeds on the essence of people. I don't really know why this is all happening at this time. I'm just glad it's happening.

True Blood - NEW Series Premiere Sunday, Sept 7 on HBO

True Blood series premiere is scheduled for Sunday, September 7 at 9pm no HBO. Starring Anna Paquin, Ryan Kwanten, Rutina Wesley, Michael Raymond-James and Jim Parrack.



(Please click on photo for larger format.)

Official website

True Blood - Strange Love

Two years after the development of synthetic blood allowed vampires to reveal themselves to the world, a waitress with telepathic abilities becomes intrigued by a vampire who pays a visit to the local bar where she is employed.


Episode Trailer