...Anna Torv, ActorAfter a two-month preemption, Fringe returns tonight at 9:00 p.m. with the episode “Inner Child” immediately following American Idol. TheTwoCents had an opportunity to chat with Anna Torv, an acclaimed actor in her home country of Australia, about Olivia’s future, Olivia’s past, and the end of the season.
TheTwoCents: What were some of the initial challenges, acting-wise, you found stepping into the role of Olivia Dunham?
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TTC: What were some of the initial challenges, acting-wise, you found stepping into the role of Olivia Dunham?
ReplyDeleteAnna Torv: I’m still – I still – there’s an art to it that I haven’t mastered yet of following the trails, you know, and yet still maintaining a sense of character, but yet having a focus so totally on: we need to find this, we need to find that. I haven’t done anything with such momentum before. That’s been challenging. Also, you are constantly dealing with different events and different happenings each week, keeping that in your head and knowing where you’ve been and where you’re going, that’s been kind of tough.
I think, now we’re getting to the end, I think that it’s taken Olivia a little bit of time to find her place in the world too. I think that she’s lived – I think she had lived a life that was very systematic, this is where we go from A to B to A to B, and everything was kind of neat and ordered and organized, and she knew who she was and where she was. And I think that’s actually where you met her in the very, very first couple of scenes in the very, very first episode. I think it took her a while to kind of get herself back together. And I think, by the end of this season, that she’s definitely a different person, and I think that her objectives are different. I don’t know. That wasn’t really very concise, was it?
TTC: Going into these last episodes of the season, what will we discover about Olivia’s intriguing past?
AT: We slowly start to discover some – I never know what I can and what I can’t say – but we start to discover some things that sort of happened to her when she was really little that she doesn’t really remember, but they start to kind of – you start to see the stories or the lives of Peter and Walter and Olivia kind of begin to interlace a little bit, and you sort of see how their paths have crossed before.
TTC: There have been hints of Olivia possibly having superpowers. Will you be investigating yourself? Are there any more things that were done to “Olivia” that we don’t know about?
AT: We do start to find out what was done to her when she was little, and we also start to figure out what – I think that the episode where she turns the light box off, that's been shown, isn’t it? “The Ability” [episode] when you find out that she maybe has some special ability” And you start to delve, we do get to delve a little bit into that, to work out why she has that ability or superpower or if it’s something that’s been done to her. Yes, we start to. I’m terrible at these plot questions because I never know how much to give away or not, so it sounds like I’m being really shifty, but I’m not. I’m just trying to compute what’s illegal. No, not illegal, but what’s OK to say.
TTC: I know you can’t say a lot about plot points, but looking at the final scripts and filming the final episodes of the season, what sort of is your reaction? Are you surprised? Are you excited? Can you tell us a little bit about sort of, you know, your feelings reading those final scripts?
AT: Yes, I’m really excited, and things kind of like, I think because we’re gearing up for the end of the season, we sort of started to, I guess, things sort of started to get a little bit more cemented. We shot an episode a little while ago, one of the last ones directed by Akiva Goldsman [Oscar-winning screenwriter of “A Beautiful Mind” who wrote and directed the episode “Bad Dreams,” airing Tuesday, April 21 at 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT], and I think that kind of pushes it into a different direction but not into a different world. It sort of pushes us a little bit deeper into some of the things that we’ve been touching on, and we’re shooting the season finale at the moment, and I’m really excited. I’m excited at the prospect of where the show could go. If we’re lucky enough to shoot a second season, I think it’s going to be really great.
TTC: The show, from a viewer’s perspective, it’s been interrupted a few times, and it can be kind of hard to catch up. I know that personally, as a fan, that I’m going to have to go back and sort of reference the last episode before we go into next week’s episode a little bit, but do you think it sort of has stunted the show’s momentum, or do you think maybe it’s alienated fans at all having these long breaks? And what would you use as a pitch to bring people back into the show?
AT: I don’t know. I hope [the audiences is not alientated]. I really, really hope not. I don’t know. I think we’re kind of lucky in that if you are following it, there are things to follow, but if you are just dropping in, I still think that you’re going to be able to get your head around it. You’ll be able to grasp where we’re at. I don’t know. That’s the sort of decisions that are, you know, way above me. And I’ve been on a couple of different shows that have had really big breaks and then come back, and it hasn’t affected it at all, and some that it has. So I’m really hopeful that people, you know, tune back in and go on the journey with us.
I think, particularly if you have been watching it, we really do start to pull ideas from previous episodes and things start to come together, and not necessarily the way that you would expect them to. You definitely feel the momentum of the show coming to a climax, and if you’ve been watching, you’ll like it. And I think it only gets better.
I know that J.J. [Abrams, co-creator/executive producer] has been saying this for ages. This is absolutely a show that you can just start watching. You’re going to catch up. Like, the first episode back, you’ll catch up. You’ll understand who everybody is. Usually there are a couple of different layers, there’s the overarching mythology and little ongoing bits and pieces that come in. But then there’s also a story that’s just for that particular episode, so I don’t think it’s something that you have to watch all the time. If you’re just tuning in, or if you’re a previous viewer, I think you’ll enjoy it. That’s a terrible pitch!
Don’t forget! Fringe returns tonight at 9:00 p.m. on Fox immediately following American Idol. The series will run six episodes uninterrupted the rest of the season until the season finale on Tuesday, May 12.