Defying Gravity’s Laura Harris – Starry Eyed

Laura Harris as Zoe Barnes in Defying Gravity. Photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of ABC/Fox TV Studios

For as long as she can remember, Zoe Barnes has always been the type of person who has identified a goal and then worked hard and done everything in her power to obtain it. She was determined to be one of eight astronauts selected for the Antares mission – a six-year journey to explore Venus as well as other planets orbiting Earth’s sun. Zoe succeeded in turning her dream into a reality, but in order to do so she had to abort her pregnancy, the result of a one-night stand with fellow astronaut and Antares crew member Maddox Donner. As the Antares travels deeper into space, this dark secret begins to weigh heavily on her mind, giving Defying Gravity‘s Laura Harris, who plays Zoe, the chance to deliver a multi-layered performance.

“Zoe is very confident in the way her life is going and what that path is going to look like, so much so that it verges on hubris,” explains Harris. “So what happens when you’re overconfident, crap happens, and that’s definitely the case with her, but in a way it’s good. By that I mean Zoe rediscovers her true confidence in order to get back on her path. What’s interesting about our show is that we see our characters in the past as well as present, so you have an idea of what’s going to happen with them. I like that because you don’t have to explain back story, but at the same time we as actors discover more and more about our characters as well as have more questions with each new script. That helps keep things fresh for us and the audience.

“One of the biggest challenges I had stepping into this role was getting into science mode. As soon as I got the job, I planned a trip to NASA [Goddard Space Center] in Maryland. A friend of mine who works there showed me around, which was awesome, especially from a day-to-day standpoint. There’s quite a bit of archive footage and stories about the dramatic and exciting part of space travel, but there are also the everyday jobs that have to be done. I got to meet with a lot of extraordinary scientists as well as engineers and one astronaut, who also happens to be my next-door neighbor and an engineer.

Zoe in ISO's (International Space Organization) Mission Control. Photo by Sergei Backlakov and copyright of ABC/Fox TV Studios

“So that helped get me in the right mindset. Zoe is a lot like Jodie Foster’s character in [the feature film] Contact, a strong woman who has her own ideas about her life, all of which revolve around the space program and geology. My character is done with Earth rocks. Zoe wants space rocks now, and that’s all she cares about,” jokes the actress.

In the first episode of Defying Gravity, Zoe and the other prospective candidates for the Antares mission undergo a series of grueling physical tests to determine who will be able to endure their outer space adventure. This includes a ride in the centrifugal force chair, an experience that left Harris a little shaken but none the worse for wear.

“They strapped me into the chair, started to shake it and me, and said, ‘It’ll be all right,’ and it was,” she recalls. “Thank God for YouTube because it’s totally changed the way an actor can prepare for a scene like this because you can actually see the effects of things like centrifugal force and nitrogen narcosis on the human body. There’s tons of footage showing pilots experiencing such things and what you’re supposed to do, including this little breathing exercise that sort of tenses up your whole body. So that’s what I did and I think the scene turned out good, especially considering the way it was shot, which was guerilla-style.”

At work in the Antares' lab. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of ABC/Fox TV Studios

From simulated events to practical ones, the Antares crew experiences firsthand what it is like to work as well as live in zero gravity and float among the stars. That required some wire work along with green screen work for the cast of Defying Gravity, something that was both fun and taken seriously by all those involved.

“You want to be able to show a person experiencing the cosmos when they’re actually in it,” says Harris. “It’s a very human thing to just look up at the sky and experience the cosmos, but to tangibly be in it, I don’t know, I just think it must be pretty miraculous. So you don’t want to milk it, and in a show like this it’s easy to overdo something like that, especially me. I’m someone who’s into experiencing nature in all its grandeur, and I’ll admit that over the years I’ve sometimes looked kind of goofy standing in front of a green screen trying to imagine what experiencing the cosmos would be like,” laughs the actress. “I’m hoping they edited any such moments out of Defying Gravity, but I tried my best to appear believable and sincere when imagining and reacting to such situations as Zoe. I feel like we have a responsibility to the audience, and that makes the work all the more challenging.”

During their five years of training leading up to the mission, Zoe and her fellow crewmates develop relationships of varying levels and dynamics with one another. In the present, those bonds become valuable lifelines as the astronauts learn to adapt to and interact with each other onboard the Antares.

Zoe and Steve Wassenfelder (Dylan Taylor) watch intently as a situation unfolds onboard the Antares. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of ABC/Fox TV Studios

“There is a great deal of growth with all our characters’ relationships, a lot of which isn’t what you might be expecting to see, and I think that’s pretty cool,” notes Harris. “Jen Crane [Christina Cox] and Zoe are best friends, whereas Zoe and Nadia Schilling [Florentine Lahme] have this sort of modern-day love triangle between them and Donner [Ron Livingston]. Neither woman, however, is outwardly jealous of one another. Zoe and Nadia have their own rules and ideas about how they run their lives, and Donner is something that they both share, which is rather interesting. As for Zoe and Donner, they’re connected in some way. I don’t think either of them is clued into why or how, but there’s a definite connection between them that’s beyond their control.

“I have to say that working with this cast is such a delight, and that’s true of every single person. I’ve had some really awesome scenes with Paula Garces [Paula Morales]. I love her character and everything that goes on with it. It’s amazing to watch her drop into character because she does it just like that,” says the actress, snapping her fingers. “For whatever magical reason, everyone has it in their heart when it comes to playing these roles, but there is also a major and very real transformation that takes place when we’re in front of the camera. And that’s something you don’t always see. It’s very much a wow-type moment of watching your castmate deliver his or her lines, and then stepping up to the plate and trying to match what it is that they’re giving you,” she enthuses.

A familiar face to TV watchers, Harris has guest-starred on numerous series including The X-Files, Stargate Atlantis and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as well as had recurring or regular roles on 24, The Dead Zone, Woman’s Murder Club and Dead Like Me. In the latter, she played Daisy Adair, an actress from the 40′s who died but was then reborn as one of a group of “grim reapers” who collect the souls of others just before death and help them cross over to the other side. 

A contemplative moment for Zoe in the Antares' observation room. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of ABC/Fox TV Studios

“I loved doing Dead Like Me because I got to be girly, and the thing is, I don’t think I’m really a girly girl at all,” says the actress. “Daisy was so different from who I am, so it was a true acting adventure. And as a cast, we had so much ridiculous fun together. We had such raw creative energy and everything we did was full of love. The show was truly a gift and I’m so glad I had the chance to do it.”

For Harris, it is who she works with that makes her job so rewarding. “You can’t beat experiencing creative teamwork with really special, interesting people,” she muses. “I love people anyway, and acting makes you go to places that you might not necessarily want to. In the process, you end up loving and appreciating people even more, because things that may seem unapproachable as qualities in others, all of a sudden aren’t so unapproachable, do you know what  I mean? And that sort of realization makes anything in this world seem possible.”

Steve Eramo

Defying Gravity is produced by Fox TV Studios and OmniFilm Productions in association with the BBC, Canada’s CTV and Germany’s ProSieben. As noted above, all photos by Sergei Bachlakov or Kharen Hill and copyright of ABC TV and Fox TV Studios, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Defying Gravity’s Florentine Lahme – In The Pilot’s Seat

Florentine Lahme as Nadia Schilling in Defying Gravity. Photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

Come on, be honest. There has been at least one birthday when you didn’t get exactly what you wanted. That was not the case, however, for German-born actress Florentine Lahme, who, on her last birthday, received what she calls a “very nice present” when auditioning for the role of Nadia Schilling on Defying Gravity.

“My first audition actually was on my birthday, and it was pretty exciting because it led to a callback for the role of Nadia,” says Lahme. “The second time around I did a video conference with the show’s producers, who were in Los Angeles and watching me in Germany. That was exciting, too, and a bit scary. I was doing a night shoot that evening for a film in Germany and my head was so full of lines and information that I couldn’t really concentrate on the audition. Fortunately, it was the same scene that I did for my first audition, so I did it once again. Then a month or two later I received a phone call asking me, ‘Would you like to come to Vancouver and join the series,’ and I told them, ‘Sure,” she says smiling.

“The funny thing is when I was a child, my Mom asked me, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I said, ‘Maybe an astronaut.’ I don’t think I’d like to be one now in real life, but being one on TV is good.”

On Defying Gravity, Lahme portrays Nadia Schilling, an ace pilot who graduated at the top of her class at the International Space Organization (ISO). Highly intelligent and a striking beauty, she is not afraid to put her sex appeal or keen mathematical/scientific mind to good use, depending on what the situation requires. Nadia demands nothing less than perfection from herself and expects the same from her fellow astronauts onboard the Antares when they set off into outer space to explore Earth’s solar system. Jetting across the Atlantic, Lahme was anxious to step into Nadia’s shoes and begin work on the first of 13 season one episodes, but first she had to find her space legs as it were.

Nadia at the controls on the Antares flight deck. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

“I always have huge problems with jet-lag,” admits the actress. “So I was still pretty jet-lagged my first day of work. However, beyond that, the first thing I was impressed with were the sets, which are very expensive. On top of that, and more importantly, I felt like I was in good hands because of everyone working on the show.

“We had a great deal of green screen work to do in the first episode, so we constantly had to imagine what was going on out there in space. I also had to get used to wearing a wig, which I wear during the flashbacks. In the first episode, I had a love scene with Ron Livingston [Maddux Donner], too. Its always difficult when you don’t know each other and have to do a love scene. I get sweaty palms just thinking about it,” she jokes. “So I don’t love doing love scenes, but I do love David Straiton, who directed this episode. I really enjoyed working with him and he made it fun and really easy for me.”

Although she is not afraid to speak her mind, Nadia does not wear her emotions on her sleeve, so it took the actress a little time to figure her out. “Nadia is a funny character,” notes Lahme. “When I first read the script I thought, ‘Is she really human, or maybe she’s a robot? I don’t know.’ Nadia is very much focused on her job. She’s quite ambitious as well as earnest and always wants to be number one.

“You don’t get the feeling that Nadia is a terribly emotional person. She’s on her own most of the time and isn’t really interested in getting too close to her coworkers, except for Donner, of course, because he’s her lover. But the thing is, she treats him like a sex toy or tool. I like to describe her as a combination of the Terminator and Barbie, because you cannot look into her at all. She’s pretty icy. However, as the episodes go on, you actually get some insight into her emotionally and I get to reveal her vulnerable side, which I was very pleased about.”

Antares Commander Ted Shaw (Malik Yoba) and Nadia. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

Given that she is on a six-year mission with seven other astronauts, Nadia does make the effort to behave in a professional and cordial fashion towards her colleagues. Unfortunately, she has difficulty doing so when it comes to dealing with one particular member of the crew. “I enjoy working with Dylan [Taylor], who plays Steve Wassenfelder. His character and Nadia have a special relationship – she can’t stand him,” chuckles the actress. “My character likes to complain to him, ‘You eat too much and behave like a 12-year-old boy.’

“She doesn’t understand why Wassenfelder has been chosen for this mission, and I love the scenes with the two of them because they always butt heads. That makes for an acting challenge because in real life I like Dylan, but on TV I have to dislike him. Whenever a scene makes me feel uncomfortable I think it’s great because, again, it provides me with an acting challenge.”

While her character may feel uncomfortable relating to her crewmates, Lahme has no such problems with her Defying Gravity castmates. “The last show I did in Germany [GSG 9, an action series about an elite team of crime fighters] had a large cast, too,” she says. “So I’m used to working with a lot of actors, and I think it’s terrific that we have such a variety of nationalities – the Latina, the Israeli, the Indian, the German – and everyone is so nice. Sometimes you have the problem where someone is very arrogant, but that’s not true here. Everyone is very friendly. If, for example, there’s a word in the script that I don’t understand and it’s not in my [German/English] dictionary, they’ll help me figure it out. So it truly is a pleasure working with them.”

A native of Berlin, Lahme was 16 years old when she began modeling part-time to earn some extra money to help pay for her studies in economics and Japanese at the University of Berlin. That eventually led to her being invited to audition for TV shows. “It was really by accident that I got into this business,” recalls the actress. “My first TV job was a German soap opera set in a hospital, and I played a nurse. I was familiar with working in front of a camera because of my modeling, but it still felt a bit weird. Very soon, though, I began to feel like it was ‘my thing,’ and suddenly I knew I had to do this for a living.”

Nadia during training for the Antares mission. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

Along with Defying Gravity, the actress recently appeared with David James Elliott and James Cromwell in the Sci-Fi miniseries Impact. She has also worked on a variety of made-for-TV movies and German TV series, among the latter is the aforementioned GSG 9. “In that show I did pretty much what Nadia does in Defying Gravity as far as looking at a screen and giving advice,” explains Lahme.

“My character [Petra Helmholtz] was the brains on this particular show, and oh, God, the technobabble and all the monologues. I remember one day I had three pages of monologue and we didn’t have time to rehearse. So I just did it and it worked. I’m a very lucky girl in that I have a photographic memory, so if I have to do tech-talk, and even if I don’t understand it, it doesn’t matter. I can just picture the words in my mind and say them. That’s a great gift for an actor.”

Feature film-wise, Lahme starred in one of the most successful German movies ever, the romantic comedy Keinohrhasen (Rabbit With Ears). Other big screen credits include Fire, Maximum and the horror thriller Metamorphosis starring Christopher Lambert (Highlander). “I loved Highlander and I fell in love with Duncan MacLeod [Christopher Lambert],” says Lahme. “When I was cast in Metamorphosis I thought, ‘Oh, boy, I get to work with Christopher Lambert.’ He is so cute and down-to-Earth. I really haven’t had bad luck in my career so far. I always end up working with great people, thank goodness.”

Like all actors, whatever the part, Lahme wants her character to come across as believable. If she can achieve that, then it is a good day’s work for her. “When I watch myself onscreen, if I can feel it [the moment], if I get goosebumps, then I find that truly satisfying,” says the actress. “What I also enjoy about this job is that you can be anyone you ever wanted to, but cannot be in real life. That’s why I enjoyed modeling. I don’t want to wear fancy dresses all the time, but just for one day to take some nice pictures. Otherwise, I like to be comfortable. What I’m wearing right now, it’s casual, and that’s me. So being any character you want in front of the camera and playing her convincingly are the biggest [acting] rewards for me.”

Steve Eramo

Defying Gravity is produced by Fox Television Studios and OmniFilm Productions, in association with the BBC, Canada’s CTV and Germany’s ProSieben. As noted above, photos by Sergei Bachlakov or Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

Defying Gravity’s Christina Cox – Scientific Method

Defying Gravity's Christina Cox as Jen Crane. Photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

It is far from an ordinary day onboard the spaceship Antares for Defying Gravity‘s biologist Jen Crane. Rather than running experiments on plant samples or reviewing the progress of frozen animal embryos, she is standing on the ship’s observation deck and helping deal with a life and death situation unfolding before her eyes. It is an emotional scene and one that actress Christina Cox, who plays Jen, is obviously relishing. Having fought aliens as Major Anne Teldy on Stargate Atlantis, chased demons as Vicki Nelson on Blood Ties, and hunted down Vin Diesel’s Riddick as mercenary soldier Eve Logan in The Chronicles of Riddick, blasting off into outer space seems the next logical step for Cox. However, while Defying Gravity may be set among the stars, it was the story’s more down-to-Earth elements that initially attracted her to the part.

“I’d heard about Fox Studio’s plan this year for different shows, including one being shot in Vancouver involving eight astronauts – four women and four men - and I thought, “Hmm, Vancouver, plus Sci-Fi or spatial, and Christina; perhaps there’s something there. What are the odds that I might be going into space?’” says a smiling Cox during a break in filming on the Defying Gravity set. “I asked my manager to keep an eye out for this show because I always like coming home and the idea really intrigued me, which is the exploration of human relationships n such an extreme situation and the types of personalities that wind up in these kinds of jobs. Obviously they’re going to be pretty extraordinary people, and yet human beings with flaws, issues, baggage, damage and all that, which we learn about as we go along.

Jen Crane in ISO's (International Space Organization) Mission Control prior to leaving on her mission of exploration. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

“When I eventually read the script I thought it was fantastic, and contrary to what some people are going to think when they see that we’re astronauts on a spaceship, it never read to me like a Sci-Fi show whatsoever. I’m often asked why do I do so much Sci-Fi, and I really don’t have an answer. It’s just a coincidence. It’s not like I look at a script and go, ‘Ah, ha, oh, no, it’s not Sci-Fi. Forget it.’ It just so happens that I’ve done a lot of Sci-Fi, but, again, this never read to me like a ‘space show.’ On the contrary, it read to me like a relationship drama with a light touch and a fair degree of humor and sensibility, and that’s something I was interested in exploring. I’ve had a great time doing straight Sci-Fi shows and firing 50 clips with my P90. I love that training and all that action, but I was really looking forward to getting my teeth into a character-driven show, and that, to me, is what this is.

“Probably more than anything else, Defying Gravity is about the alien within all of us and that we’re trying to get to know,” continues the actress. “We only learn to understand that [alien] self through experience, and this is such an extreme experience. Everyone’s issues are going to rise to the top and they’ll be forced to confront them. I think that’s what a situation like this does, and one of the issues that we’re dealing with right now [in the real world] as far as trying to plan long-term space missions, is what will something like that do to the human psyche? How will we cope if we’re out there longer than six months? On our show, these people are facing six years of isolation from their family, friends, social network, etc., and it’s going to have an effect on their psyches. Will they lose it? Will the ship come back empty with a bunch of blood smears on it? That’s not Science Fiction, that’s hardcore reality, and as human beings are we equipped to survive that?

“Acting-wise, I liked that the character of Jen that I’ve been give the opportunity to play has some real issues that are actually going to be confronted. Why is she so messed up? We’re going to find out, and I was really looking forward to playing someone a little more flawed, a little darker and a little more sympathetic. There are so many great characters on this show, and one of the things I enjoy about Jen is that she can be slightly less together than, say, Vicki [from Blood Ties] was. Although in truth, Vicki was not truly together at all. She was just better at putting on a front.”

Jen senses that something is not quite right onboard the Antares. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

In Defying Gravity, the straight-talking yet compassionate biologist Jen Crane is part of a team of astronauts who, in the near future, are chosen for a six-year mission to explore Venus and other planets in our solar system. Although she had plenty of scientific credentials required for such a task, Jen still had to undergo an intensive physical and mental training program with the rest of the prospective Antares crewmembers. Like her TV counterpart, Cox did her own “training” before going in front of the cameras to play Jen.

“In my research for this series I was lucky enough to speak with the psychiatrist who is on the selection committee for the Canadian Space Program, and, in fact, had been my neighbor from the time I was around eight years old,” she notes. “His current job is helping pick candidates for the Canadian Space Program, and the thing is they really don’t know what the long-term effects of this kind of isolation might be. Their studies include profiling for the personality types best suited for the sort of mission that we’re seeing on our show. One of the big questions is will they be able to have social interaction among a small group of people for six months, a year, two years, six years? Also, are they media savvy Do they put on a good front? They have to be able to communicate with the public and be sympathetic to them because the space program relies so much on public funding.

“On our show we have two groups on the ship – the engineers and the scientists – and they have very different objectives in the way they process information and search for answers. As an actor, this is my first time being on the science side of things, which is the ‘what if?’ as opposed to, ‘OK, how do I handle this? How do I fix this? How do I contain it and make it function in a reasonable and tangible way?’ which is more the engineering side. I’ve played law enforcement types, lawyers, federal agents and other people who need solutions. They’re a little bit more linear in their thinking. They don’t want things to keep extrapolating beyond the realm of their knowledge, and the thing is, Jen is looking for evidence of life outside of Earth. It’s her belief that we’re not the only sentient beings in the universe, so she’s hoping to prove that. And in the process, she’s also trying to figure out if we as human beings can survive out of our [familiar] environment for extended periods of time.”

A bit of downtime for Jen in the Antares galley. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

During the Antares training program, Jen befriends geologist Zoe Barnes (Laura Harris), who, after a one-night stand with astronaut Maddux Donner (Ron Livingston), ends up pregnant. Meanwhile, Jen becomes romantically involved with astronaut Ted Shaw (Malik Yoba), but later falls in love with astronaut Rollie Crane (Ty Olsson). The couple marry two years before being assigned to the mission, but when Rollie and a second crewmember are subsequently grounded due to a medical condition, Donner and Shaw are ordered to replace them. Needless to say, all these prior relationships make for plenty of riveting space drama.

“It turns out that Jen’s primary relationship is not with her husband, but her best friend Zoe,” says Cox. “It’s an interesting journey personally because at the beginning of the series, Zoe and Jen meet during training, so their friendship is new, just like the friendship between me and Laura Harris. So it’s been evolving and developing story by story, and the more information that Laura and I get, and the more shared experiences our characters have, only helps further inform us when it comes to our performances.

“Jen believes that she’s going on this mission with her husband and her best friend, but by the end of our first episode, complications arise and now she is going to spend the next six years with her ex-boyfriend and her best friend, while her husband Rollie is back on Earth. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be trapped anywhere with an ex-boyfriend for six years,” chuckles the actress. “Can you imagine, your ex and six other folks onboard a spaceship. Never go on a cruise or get into any type of vehicle where you may be stuck somewhere for a long period of time with an ex. This is my advice. After all my years of life experience, that’s what I’ve come up with.

L-R (front row) - On the Antares observation deck: Maddox Donner, Zoe Barnes and Jen Crane; (back row) Nadia Schilling (Florentine Lahme) and Dr. Evram Mintz (Eyal Podell). Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

“With Ted and Jen, it depends on how long they were together and how difficult their break-up was. We’re still discovering as we go along on the series exactly what happened with them as well as Rollie and Jen. So it could get a little awkward up there in space, and maybe a little weird, too, but it’s all good. Again, there are human issues being dealt with in a heightened situation involving these characters, and there are secrets that they’re discovering. It’s like the Lost world. People describe this show as Grey’s Anatomy in space with a touch of Lost. I have to say that I like the idea of secrets in the story. It makes it more compelling and it’s definitely going to be quite a trip for audiences to follow. The secrets are causing our characters to reflect on their own issues and life experiences, which I think is fantastic. It’s done with a light touch as well, and I don’t mean in a shallow or insubstantial way, but rather not hitting you on the head.”

When asked about her work filming the first episode of Defying Gravity, one word immediately comes to Cox’s mind. “Terror,” she recalls. “It’s such a big show, and my first ensemble show, and everyone blew me away because they’re so flippin’ talented. You’re surrounded by this group of people, each of whom are very special and bring so many different things to the table, and suddenly you realize that you’re in a situation to create something quite special and interesting. The casting process for this program was a long one, but the result has been a particular type of alchemy that’s needed for a TV series to work.

“A studio can cast a movie by numbers, bring in blockbuster stars and then hope it works, but there are films where that’s been done and they fall flat because the chemistry isn’t there. Of course, I’d like Defying Gravity to be a huge hit and have a long and lovely life, but ultimately what I’ll get to take away from it is an extraordinary experience with an incredible group of actors. When we shot our first episode we could feel that alchemy coming together. When you see the work that everyone around you is doing, you want to match it and hope you are, but you don’t know. I don’t watch dailies. I can’t stand watching myself, so you have to trust your directors, and that if it [a scene] doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t, so you have to figure out how to make it right.”

Jen suits up for a bit of space walk. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

Unlike most new shows that film a pilot, which may or may not then be picked up by a network, Defying Gravity shot a 13-episode first season which is airing Sunday nights in the States on ABC. Cox’s previous series, Blood Ties, also had that same distinction, having made 26 episodes that then aired on the Lifetime Network. It is a rare creative situation that the actress is incredibly grateful for.

“This business is so up and down and I’m really fortunate to be able to do 13 episodes of something,” she says. “I’ve done a bunch of pilots and it can be heartbreaking. You grow attached to the people as well as the premise and the story that you want to tell, and then you sit on your butt for 10 months while the network decides whether or not they want to move forward with it. If they decide not to, then it’s back to the drawing board. So this [Defying Gravity] was like winning the lottery. Now that we have the 13 episodes, we’ll just have to wait and see where that takes us.”

Steve Eramo

Defying Gravity is produced by Fox Television Studios and OmniFilm Productions, in association with the BBC, Canada’s CTV and Germany’s ProSieben. As noted above, all photos by Kharen Hill or Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any form. Thanks!

Defying Gravity’s Ron Livingston – Reach For The Stars

Ron Livingston as Defying Gravity's Maddux Donner. Photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

When he was growing up, Ron Livingston wanted, like many children, to one day become an astronaut. It has taken a while, but that dream has finally come true for him, albeit in a fictional way. The handsome and affable actor leads an international cast in the Canadian-made space drama Defying Gravity, which airs Sunday nights on ABC. As Chief Engineer Maddux Donner onboard the spaceship Antares, his character is one of eight astronauts (four men and four women) on a six-year mission to explore Earth’s solar system. Given the recent anniversary of man’s first landing on the Moon, this seems the ideal time for this type of story, and Livingston could not agree more.

“I can’t remember since I Dream of Jeannie the last time we had a TV show about astronauts,” says the actor, sitting in his trailer on the Vancouver studio lot where season one of Defying Gravity was filmed. “I think part of that is because it’s something that has always been too technically difficult to pull off. You can occasionally do it for a movie, like Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff, and HBO had that fantastic [miniseries] From Earth to the Moon, but it’s not usually done for long-format fictional storytelling. If it is, it’s typically in a Star Trek world or some version of that, and takes place on an advanced spaceship in the distant future and involves aliens.

“Defying Gravity, to me, kind of harkens back to a lot of the Science Fiction I grew up with, including works by Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein, where it was still about the exploration of space in its infancy. If the Sixties Apollo missions were the infancy of space travel, then this [program] is where toddlers go, do you see what I mean? This is in our own backyard. We grew up in school learning about the planets – this is Mercury and it takes so many days to go around the sun, and it rotates on this angle, and it’s composed of these substances, etc. We also have a history of associating the planets with gods – Mars, the God of War, Venus, the Goddess of Love, Mercury, the messenger, etc.

“So I thought this show was a great opportunity science-wise to go, OK, what will it be like to explore these planets with pretty much the technology we have today plus a couple of things that we’d need to get there in the next 30 or 40 years. And then on another level, to tell a bigger mythological story, but one that feels like an old one as opposed to something made up.”

In Mission Control, Donner tries to assess a situation unfolding onboard the Antares. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

A veteran astronaut, Maddux Donner is a man struggling with a demon from his past. He and fellow astronaut Ted Shaw (Malik Yoba) were ordered to leave two fellow astronauts behind on Mars during a previous mission, and that decision continues to haunt him to this day. Much to Donner’s surprise, he and Ted are chosen to replace two Antares crewmembers who, in the eleventh hour, are diagnosed with a mysterious heart condition. After an altercation during a press conference, which leads to words between him and Mission Control Flight Control Director Mike Goss (Andrew Airlie), Donner prepares for a journey he will never forget. For Livingston, his first day on the Defying Gravity set is equally memorable.

“First of all, the sets are spectacular,” he notes. “Mission Control is not to be believed. It’s three levels and I don’t think quite as long as a football field, but it’s probably half of one, and it photographs beautifully. We did the press conference scenes the first day, and first days are always interesting because you’re getting your legs underneath it all and are sort of thrust into this world that until now you’ve only imagined. Suddenly you’re in it, and you have to try to make it look like you’ve been living in this world forever, so that always takes a little time.

“The other thing I remember from day one is that it was the first time we tried out some of the floating in zero-G moves, and it took us a couple of times to get it right. There was a combination of techniques that we used to try to make it look like our characters were floating, and it was a little trickier than we first thought. We knew it was going to be tough, though, and we knew that a number of Sci-Fi shows out there seems to balk at it. They go, yes, it’s space, but there is still gravity. Sometimes you have to do that, but in this case I think they [the producers] wanted to see the zero-G stuff and wanted to make it work. To me, it really helps make the show by giving it an added level of familiarity. We all have those images in our heads of astronauts floating in space. They’re really specific and connected to what we’ve seen from NASA, so it ties our world to this [fictional] one.”

In the opening episode of Defying Gravity, viewers are made privy to the ill-fated Mars mission involving Donner. There is also a surreal space-walk sequence involving him and another member of the Antares crew. Both scenes are among those that the actor especially enjoyed shooting. “It was very cool because we had to pull all sorts of elements together, including the EVA [extra-vehicular activity] suits along with wire-work and a lot of green screen,” recalls Livingston. “What was really fun was trying to do something that you’ve never quite experienced before and making it look like you have.”

Donner, Ted Shaw (Malik Yoba) and Zoe Barnes (Laura Harris) onboard the Antares. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

“On top of that, we were dealing with the various technical aspects. For example, if you have a strand of hair that falls or a tool that’s clipped onto your belt and moves, well, that’s gravity. Anything with a pendulum motion is a dead giveaway. So it was trying to figure out what works, what doesn’t work and how do we sell this to an audience. The lighting is different, too. On Earth, almost everything we look at is filtered through an atmosphere, so things are softer and shadows have almost sculptured edges to them. In space, however, there’s a great contrast. Something is either lit or it’s not, and that was kind of a challenge for our DOP [director of photography] and the lighting guys as far as if it’s not lit, then we can’t see it. Is it totally dark? How do we make it look like it does in space, but also in a way that we can still tell our stories?

“The entire process reminded me a little bit of working on [the 2001 miniseries] Band of Brothers where, on one hand,  you’re going to work and making a show, but on the other hand, it’s an opportunity to learn and explore.”

Has it been difficult for Livingston to get used to performing while wearing the EVA suits? “It’s definitely one of the more challenging things we do, but I guarantee you that our suits are not as cumbersome as the real thing,” he says with a smile. “So I always try to remember that and it has given me a new-found respect for people who wear them in real life.

“That said, they [the costume department] have done a fantastic job of building these things and have made the suits very wearable. Of course, there are small technical things that you have to deal with. For example, the suits need to be ventilated a little bit so you’re able to breathe in them, but if you do that, then you have sound issues because you hear the ventilation. So you have to turn the ventilation off in-between takes. The suits also have to be built in such a way that they can be cleaned. How do you build a spacesuit that’s machine-washable? Also, when you go to lunch you need to be able to get out of your suit and back into it relatively easily and quickly. So there’s all that stuff, but, again, they’ve really done a phenomenal job with everything.”

Maddux Donner, all suited up and ready for action. Photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

While most of us go our separate ways when we leave work for home every night, the Antares crew in Defying Gravity work and live with one another. Over six years, that type of arrangement could wear on your nerves. For Donner, it is even more complicated; he had a one-night stand during training with the ship’s geologist, Zoe Barnes (Laura Harris), resulting in a pregnancy she kept secret, and he has also been involved in a long-term sex-only relationship with Antares pilot Nadia Schilling (Florentine Lahme). There is a third woman who Donner has feelings for as well. All this is grist for the dramatic mill, as Livingston explains.

“Without giving anything away, we tell this story simultaneously in what I call mission time [present day] and training time [flashbacks], which is five years in the past when this group of candidates started training for this mission. What’s great about how that works is that we’re seeing two stories at once. We’re seeing where these relationships have come to, how they’re unfolding, and where they’re going. We also get to go back and learn how these relationships began and what the backstory is. And what’s neat is that a great deal of the time, the backstory informs the present day story and vice versa.

“Donner has a history with not one but two of the women on the ship, so right away there are a couple of different triangles going on, and that just adds to the relationship drama on the show. Donner actually has three women in his life. He’s got Sharon who’s the ghost from his past; she’s one of the two people he lost on Mars. He’s got Nadia, the sort of fire-breathing fighter pilot who is definitely his match, but they’re both a little emotionally shut-off and enjoy a very physical/sexy type of relationship. Then there’s Zoe, the kind of girl next door who he fell in love with and who he can’t quite wrap his head around.

“So for both me and my character, the show is a lot about trying to juggle these three women and find a way through that [emotional] minefield. Most of the [real life] space missions we’re familiar with last anywhere from 12 to 14 days, and every once in a while someone went up to the Mir space station, or now the ISS, and hung out for a couple of months. On Defying Gravity, this is a six-year tour of duty. There’s no place to go, so there’s also an element of it being kind of a reality show from hell in that you’re stuck on a ship and you’d better like it, or at least be able to deal with it. I think a lot of the drama comes from that. There’s an old playwright adage that says the first thing you have to come up with is the reason why your characters can’t leave, and I think they’ve come up with a pretty good reason on this show.”

Donner and Zoe on the Antares observation deck. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC

At that moment there is a knock on the actor’s trailer door. He has to change into his flight suit in preparation to block the next scene. Walking back to set, Livingston is happy to share a bit about his own past, including how and why he became an actor.

“I had all types of different professions in mind,” he says, “but by the time I was actually old enough to get a real job, this is the one I wanted. However, as a kid, I don’t think I was ever under the impression that this is how I would be making a living. I started doing plays in high school and when it came time to stop, I didn’t and just kept going.”

Livingston’s credits include the feature films Office Space, The Cooler and The Time Traveler’s Wife as well as regular/recurring roles on such TV series as The Practice, Sex and the City, Standoff and the aforementioned Band of Brothers, in which he played Captain Lewis Nixon. “Band of Brothers was an incredible project to be a part of,” says the actor. “It was almost like being part of living history. I can really understand a lot of the modern-day war reenactors because I felt like that’s what we did; we basically reenacted World War II, only we got to do it on a really nice playground.”

Listening to the actor speak and watching him at work, there is no doubt that he is in the right profession. “Nobody comes into this business because they want [job] stability or they’re afraid of what might happen down the road,” says Livingston. “Everyone here is of like [creative] minds, and this cast and crew, in particular, are great guys. We have work to do, but it’s fun. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t do it because the days are just too long,” he laughs. “Believe me, we’re having a good time.”

Steve Eramo

Defying Gravity is produced by Fox Television Studios and Omni Film Productions, in association with the BBC, Canada’s CTV and Germany’s ProSieben. As noted above, all photos by Sergei Bachlakov and Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios/ABC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!