Syfy Loads Warehouse 13 With Exciting New Guest-Stars

WAREHOUSE 13, the most successful series in the Syfy Channel’s history, has announced that Gina Torres will join Firefly alums Jewel Staite and Sean Maher as guest-stars during the second season, which kicks off in July. The show is currently in production in Toronto.

Philip  Winchester (Crusoe, Alice) and Paula Garces (Defying Gravity) will also appear as guest-stars this year. Torres’ and Garces’ roles are both love interests for Pete (Eddie McClintock). Torres, who portrayed Zoe Washburne in Firefly, plays Kate, an agent from Pete’s past. Garces, who played Paula Morales in Defying Gravity and Officer Tina Hanlon in The Shield, assumes the recurring role of Kelly, a sexy, spunky headstrong veterinarian in the Warehouse town of Univille who catches Pete’s eye.

In the episode featuring Philip Winchester (Jack Chase in Alice), Pete and Myka (Joanne Kelly) discover an object in the Warehouse town of Univille is transmitting increasingly dangerous scenes from old Hollywood movies. Winchester plays 1950s matinée idol Raymond St. James, the star of these movies, in roles which include a Cowboy, a Marine, a Gladiator and a Mad Scientist.

Defying Gravity’s Stephen Geaghan – Future By Design

Defying Gravity's spaceship Antares in Earth orbit.

If you talk with someone about his or her work, it usually does not take long to figure out whether or not they like whatever it is they do. When it comes to Stephen Geaghan, he loves his job. Having earned two university degrees in theatrical scenic design, Geaghan spent several months last year working as production designer on the Canadian-made Science Fiction TV drama Defying Gravity. A fan of Sci-fi since childhood, he could not resist the chance to design the earthbound elements along with the deep space environment that the crew of the spaceship Antares would be living as well as working in.  

“I had done six years as principal designer on The Outer Limits, and in that time I’d become quite familiar with the idiom,” explains Geaghan, during an interview at the Defying Gravity offices last June. “I went on to do other Science Fiction shows, and then one day I got a phone call to come to Omni Films here in Vancouver to interview for Defying Gravity. I checked out the guys who wanted to see me [series creator/executive producer] Jim Parriott and [executive producer] Michael Edelstein, both of whom have pretty significant Hollywood TV credentials. They had sent me the [pilot] script, which was only a first draft, but it was excellent and a compelling as well as moving statement of intent.  

“So I went in for the interview and brought along my portfolio as well as [demo] reel, quite a bit of which features the Science Fiction work I did not only on The Outer Limits but also other shows like Babylon 5, Sliders and Jeremiah. I ended up getting the job on Defying Gravity, and I think I got it, not because of any particular confidence, but because I was just so darn enthusiastic,” says the production designer smiling. “I was like, ‘I want to do this! I want to work with you guys!’ You can’t ignore that kind of childlike enthusiasm for the genre, and lo and behold they gave me the job.”  

Production artwork depicting the Antares.

Another shot of the Antares.

A week after booking Defying Gravity, Geaghan was in his new office at Bridge Studios in Vancouver and raring to go. “After my initial meetings with Jim and Michael, I sat down to come up with a floor plan of the basic environments that would be necessary and how they would work,” he says. “We knew that the ship itself was going to be linear. The Antares started off as a mile in length, but when I began doing my calculations it was, on a human scale as well as TV scale, too big of an environment to comprehend.  

“So we cut it back to half-a-mile, and still, a human being on the surface looks like an ant compared to the size of the ship. It’s a gigantic ship with a sun shield on the front that measures 600 meters. Each compartment is a cylinder that is 28 feet wide and 50 feet long. We calculated the look of the ship on what we believed NASA could lift in the year 2030, given the Aries heavy lifters that they’re coming up with now. We advanced it though Aries A, B and C, and we figured that the diameter of the cylinder that they could lift would likely increase, say, a couple of feet every generation. So we decided that by 2050 [the decade in which Defying Gravity is set], they could lift a cylinder 48 to 50 feet long and 26 to 28 feet wide, and each component would be two levels. So the entire ship is constructed on that basis.  

“There are rotating arms on the outside of the Antares, and these cylinders, which are where the crew lives, are the gravity environments. In some areas of the ship there’s artificial gravity, and in other places there’s what’s called nano-teched gravity. In those areas, the suits worn by our characters pull to an arbitrary north or south, so it allows them to walk normally even though it’s a non-gravity environment. Organics will float, but anything that is engineered for the ship will have an arbitrary up or down.  

Crew cabin concept art.

Crew cabin concept art #2.

Crew quarters level production art.

Interior of crew quarters set.

Crew quarters/galley set.

“This was actually Jim Parriott’s idea, which I thought was terribly clever. He’s the creator of this entire world; all I do is interpret his visions. As I said, though, we started off with a very powerful, well thought out script that he produced, and that carried  on with the rest of the scripts. Jim’s overview of the show is spectacular. It encompasses a five- to six-year span, and, again, my job is to basically create the environments that elucidate what he has in mind, as well as keep the technology, not so much Science Fiction, but closer to Science Fact. And that’s been tough. We’ve had a lot of interaction with NASA as well as NASA technology and we try not to stray too far from that, even though we’re dealing with the discovery of other life forms in the show, which we have to in this genre.”  

Sitting in one of the chairs on the Antares flight deck, you cannot help but fiddle with the various controls and “play” astronaut. Connected to the flight deck is the ship’s observation deck, a retro-like domed area where the characters can enjoy a little downtime. Both these sets were among the most challenging for the production designer to come up with.  

“They were the last two sets we designed before going into production, and there were a lot of changes that occurred with them,” recalls Geaghan. “Originally, the observation deck was small, and Michael looked at it and said, ‘It has to be bigger.’ So that’s one instance where we departed from NASA technology. By that I mean eight-by-eight foot sheets of glass don’t work in the reality of space, but this was something that we had to do and say we could do in 2052.  

Welcome aboard the Antares' flight deck.

Another view of the flight deck.

A view out into space on the observation deck.

“That was difficult to justify, and also very difficult to engineer within that environment. These are large sheets of heavy, tempered glass that don’t move easily or well. So we had to redesign the set several times, including getting the panels at the proper angle so they reflected the floor and not one another or the crew, since the entire set is virtually 360 degrees of glass. There were sound problems, too, because this set is very ‘live’ inside; you get into the center and it forms a beautiful echo. So when shooting scenes we have to keep the actors out of the center of the set. There was also the fact that we had to incorporate both green screen and black [screens] – green screen when the actor walks in front of elements, and black when we’re showing a star field through the windows.  

“So this was the toughest set to actually get a handle on, and then at the last minute when we were building it in another section of the soundstage, it was determined that it had to connect to the flight deck. In retrospect, it was a terrific idea that, again, Jim Parriott came up with. He’s visualizing down the line how we’re going to use these sets, and we are in service to the script. When Jim looks at something and says, ‘Nah, we won’t be doing that, we’ll be doing this,’ you listen closely because it’s going to happen that way, and he doesn’t change his mind. Jim is extremely clear about what he needs and wants.”  

When the Antares and its crew departs for their six-year exploration of the solar system, their mission is being watched back home by the ISO (International Space Organization) and the men and women in charge of Mission Control. That locale was another one created under Geaghan’s watchful eye. “The Mission Control set had a really interesting development because when I first walked onto the set it was in its final days of being used for Stargate Atlantis and a bit of a dog’s breakfast,” notes the production designer. “I remembered vaguely what it looked like in [the feature film] Blade, but at this point, it didn’t look anything like that.  

The impressive ISO Mission Control set.

The candidates for the Antares' mission meet in Mission Control.

The men and women of Mission Control monitor every step of our heroes' mission.

“I went rummaging around for the original drawings, which were very difficult to locate, in order to find where the steelwork was. When we eventually got control of the stage, my construction coordinator, Henry Griffin-Beale, asked me what I wanted him to do, and I told him to gut the set and strip it all down. So we threw out everything – ceilings, walls, we took the floors right down to the concrete along with every piece of scenery that was attached to the steel – and then I knew what we were dealing with.  

“At that point we built a complete staircase, put in a conference room on the second floor, and added offices as well as a corridor where there were none. I also decided to use glass and open up the set up to make it much more transparent for cameras in order to create depth. We re-clad all the beams and pillars as well to give the set a more contemporary feel so it didn’t look like a turn of the century, or turn of the 20th century, industrial environment. We brought in new lighting and carpeted the floor as well as added acoustic materials in ways that look decorative, but are actually very functional and deaden sound because it’s an extremely ‘live’ environment. So all of this was a huge development and a very expensive set.”  

The production designer chuckles when asked about the bathrooms on the Antares set. “We have two working bathrooms in the crew quarters as well as one functional shower, and all these things are used in the show,” says Geaghan. “We see the characters going in and out of them. In one episode, the toilet gets plugged up and our lead actor, Ron Livingston, who plays Maddox Donner, has to unplug it. It’s a very intrinsic part of the episode, where he pulls out the seat, followed by the next piece, and reveals all these tubes, plugs and pressure chambers.  

“There was a great deal of research done to try to find out how a zero-G toilet works and we duplicated it rather closely, right down to the seat belts and stirrups. We literally detailed things right down to that level. I think we did a calculation of exactly how much toilet paper our characters would actually need to take with them on the ship for a six-year voyage. And it’s a lot of toilet paper,” jokes the production designer. “We even have a whole water recycling area as well that’s shown in one of the episodes.  

The Antares' water filtration system.

Major Tom's bar, the ISO team's favorite "watering hole."

Another shot of Major Tom's.

“We tend to be very thoughtful about how we come up with and design things for this show, and I think each and every person in this art department has a love of outer space. We’re all children of the 60s and 70s – I’m actually a child of the 50s, but we’ll leave that alone,” he says with a laugh. “I remember things like Sputnik and Telstar, so I grew up with space and Science Fiction, and when I got this show I was like, ‘I can do this. I can render this.’  

“The other thing is we’ve all been influenced by the classics. Everyone here has in the back of their minds that marvelous quality of design that was in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and even though we don’t have a feature film budget here on Defying Gravity, we can get pretty darn close.”  

For Geaghan, working on Defying Gravity has been like being a kid in a candy store, and he has high praise for the creative people in his department who have helped bring this story to life.  

Paula Morales (Paula Garces) receives medical treatment in the ship's hyperbaric chamber.

The Antares' crew is enlightened as to the mysterious contents of one of the ship's pods.

Maddox Donner (Ron Livingston) tests out one of the EVA (extra-vehicular activity) suits.

“It’s an amazing crew,” he says. “There’s Suki Parker, our art director; John Gallagher, our principal illustrator, who has been with us right from the very beginning; Clyde Klotz, our secondary illustrator, who’s another talented man; Tim Joyce, our draftsman, and Krista Strofe, graphics. There’s also our set decorator Jonathan Lancaster and his crew, who have done a terrific job in maintaining the visual integrity and detail that this show needs and requires.  

“This band of little merry men and women come in here every day and bust their guts to give the program the visual reality that it has, and we all love doing it,” he enthuses.  

Steve Eramo  

All photos courtesy of and copyright of Stephen Geaghan, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!

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 Paula Garces – Act Of Faith

Paula Garces as Paula Morales on Defying Gravity. Photo by Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC

If you have to go to work, it helps if you like your job, and that is definitely true of Defying Gravity‘s Paula Garces. It is only the middle of what looks to be a long day on the show’s Vancouver set, but the actess is still full of energy and eager to talk about her involvement in the series. Her character of Paula Morales is part of an international team of eight astronauts who, after five years of intense training, set off in 2052 on a six-year journey to explore our solar system onboard the spaceship Antares. Besides her duties as mission payload specialist, Paula is also transmitting daily status reports back to school classrooms on Earth. It goes without saying that she wears a lot of proverbial hats, and Morales could not wait to try on every single one of them.

“My character is obviously of Latin descent, although we haven’t specified exactly from where,” notes the actress, who is back in her trailer after a quick visit to make-up in preparation for her next scene. “Paula is also a scientist and a pilot as well as extremely religious and conservative, so she’s constantly having to deal with conflicts between her faith and science as well as religion. On top of that, Paula is experiencing the various difficulties that I think anyone in real life would be faced with if they were travelling in space and separated from their family and friends for an extended period of time. She’s in charge of a space classroom as well, and when you lump all that together, Paula can occasionally be a little bit off-putting because she’s quite misunderstood by those around her.

“So she needs to be a number of different people at the same time. Paula has to be bubbly and smart along with cute and charming so that the kids back on Earth will listen and actually learn something from her. At the same time, she has some dark issues to deal with and, again, is conflicted, which sometimes ticks off the people she works with. So it’s been really interesting to see her develop, and I’ve been very lucky as far as the writing. The show’s producers/writers have given me a great storyline that I can wrap myself around and lose myself in. It’s a lot to do, but I love it and I hope I’m doing a good job.

“This part is full of layers and, again, I’m thrilled with the fact that my character is not only a scientist and astronaut, but also someone of faith. At the beginning I was wondering how that would work, but in researching the role I discovered that several astronauts are religious, specifically Catholic, and have even taken communion up in space and things of that nature. There is so much I can play with as Paula, including the fact that she’s petite and cute and sometimes doesn’t get taken very seriously. Yes, there are still stereotypes that she has to fight against, even in the not-so-distant future. It only goes to show that everything changes, and yet some things remain the same.”

Paula Morales holding "virtual class" with her students back on Earth. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC

Like most acting opportunities, Garces was sent the pilot script for Defying Gravity by her manager, and as soon as she began reading it, she became enamored of the Paula Morales character. “That can sometimes be the kiss of death for an actor,” she says. “We get sent so many scripts, a lot of which aren’t very good. So when a good script does come along, you fall in love with it, but you don’t want to deal with the heartbreak in case things don’t work out.

“I actually flew to Toronto to audition for the role with Michael Edelstein [series executive producer] and David Straiton, who directed our first episode. I was very nervous, but David read with me and said, ‘Don’t worry, you’re totally rocking it.’ As soon as I heard that, it kind of gave me the confidence that I think the role needed. I also feel that was something that James Parriott [series creator/executive producer] needed to subsequently see from me in-person, too, because prior to this they had just watched a tape of my work. Once that saw that confidence, though, I think that’s what made them decide, ‘OK, maybe we should give Paula Garces a shot at this role.’ So I really have to thank David for saying what he did to me during my audition, which is not typical. You usually don’t know that early on whether or not they like you. Sometimes I think I’m totally awesome during an audition, but I guess I stink because I don’t get the job,” jokes the actress. “Other times, I think I blew it and I get hired. It’s a crazy business, but in this case I’m delighted that things worked out the way they did.”

Although Garces’ audition jitters soon became a distant memory, those butterflies in her stomach returned, albeit briefly, when filming began on Defying Gravity‘s opening episode. “I think we were all terrified because it’s such a big show,” she says. “We had to establish the ship and the outer space elements as well as our characters’ training and them being astronauts and so forth. Then there were the technical elements, including getting to know the sets, dealing with green screen and the wire work, the latter of which is necessary with any scene where there is zero gravity and our characters have to ‘float.’

“So that was all pretty daunting simply because there was so much foundation for us to lay, and if you don’t do it right away and grab your audience’s attention, then they won’t give the series a chance. Having said that, I think our first episode stands on its own and hooks you into our story and all its wonder, which includes hope for the future and finding answers to the unknown.

All smiles inside the Antares' lab. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC

“The thing is, I see this show as being less Science Fiction and more Science Fact. It deals with things that are happening now in the real world with regard to space travel and how it’s likely to change or improve over the next 40 or 50 years. That’s a huge undertaking because you have to keep things real. You can’t be like, ‘OK, we’re going to magically teleport ourselves to that planet.’ Everything has to be thought out and make sense. So our first story really gives you a taste of what the relationships between these people are like and what they’ll be facing in their next six years together on this extraordinary mission that I believe humankind would one day want to take.”

When it comes to relationships, perhaps the oddest one onboard the Antares is between Paula and theoretical physicist Steve Wassenfelder (Dylan Taylor). The two formed an unexpected bond during training, specifically during medical training when a man under the influence of an unusual drug died in front of them. Since leaving Earth orbit, ”Wass” has taken pot shots at Paula’s religious beliefs, and at one point even accidentally injured her, but despite this there remains a connection between them.

“Now that I’ve watched some of the footage, I find Paula and Wass to be the ‘youth vote’ on the ship if you will,” muses Garces. “As for the actual reason why she feels connected to him, I believe it’s because she finds Wass brilliant. At first he comes across as a slacker, and I think Paula sees him as a waste of talent. My character is someone who works hard and is very disciplined, so she doesn’t quite get the whole slacker mentality. However, what Paula eventually comes to realize is that this is just Wass’ way of dealing with the isolation of space and being on this mission, which is actually a pretty smart way of looking at things.

“As these two characters have their conversations and debates, because they have quite a few debates on science and religion, Paula sees that underneath all that information and ‘I don’t care’ attitude, Wass has a huge heart. And I think vice versa, he admires how disciplined she is. He begins to realize that maybe he should worry about Paula and try to give her certain [scientific] information that perhaps she’s a little too stubborn to see because of her faith.”

Moments before an unfortunate accident that nearly ended Paula's involvement in the Antares mission. Photo by Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC

Coincidentally, one of Garces’ favorite Defying Gravity moments is with her and Dylan Taylor. “I love doing wire work, and there’s a scene between Paula and Wass where a section of the ship loses gravity,” says the actress. “As tricky as it was doing the wire work, there was a great deal of humor in that scene. I don’t want to spoil it for those who might not have seen the episode yet, but one of these two characters isn’t a very good astronaut when it comes to floating, but I’m not going to tell you who,” she teases.

“That scene was so funny and realistic, because if you stop and think about it, astronauts are human beings, right, and not robots. Once they finish whatever tasks they’re supposed to do in a day when they’re up there in space, they have to live their lives. So they’re working out, eating, sleeping, reading, acting silly, whatever, and I think this particular scene with Paula and Wass helped bring out the human side of what could happen to someone up in space who’s not accustomed to being in zero gravity. The special effects in the scene are incredible and how we shot it was really cool. It was done in a very different style and we used a bunch of tricks that I didn’t even know about, so it was a great learning experience as well.”

The eldest of two sisters, Garces grew up in New York’s Spanish Harlem and was raised by her mother, who encouraged her interest in the arts. “I had braces when I was 12, and by coincidence I met this agent at a dinner party that my mom gave,” recalls the actress. “She thought I was cute and said to me, ‘Come see me when you get your braces off because I think you can make some money doing TV commercials.’

“A year later that same agent came to our house again and she asked me, ‘Why didn’t you come see me?’ Later on, my mom asked me to at least make an effort to go see this woman because she was her friend, so I did and ended up getting five auditions, including one with [producer/writer/director] Martin Scorsese. Of course, I had no idea who he was, and when I got home from the audition my mom asked how it went. I told her it was OK and that I spoke with some guy whose last name sounded like Spacey. My mom called her friend to find out more, and this woman told her, ‘Well, first of all, your daughter was auditioning for Martin Scorcese, who is directing a public service announcement about drugs, alcohol, teenage sex and AIDS. It’s going to be shown in theaters nationwide and, oh, by the way, she got the job. Paula is super-funny, down-to-Earth and was the only one who was completely honest and kind of told him [Martin] off.’

Having previously worked together on another series, Paula Garces and Malik Yoba (Ted Shaw) are reunited on Defying Gravity. Photo be Sergei Bachlakov and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC

“My mom was like, ‘Oh, my God,’ and after hanging up the phone she immediately educated me on who Martin Scorsese was,” laughs Garces. “He’s the reason I got my SAG [Screen Actors Guild] card, and from there I was lucky enough to get work on most of the New York-based TV series including Law and Order as well as New York Undercover with Malik Yoba [Ted Shaw on Defying Gravity], Oz and The Sopranos. I got my big break when Jerry Bruckheimer cast me in Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Following that I did a soap opera [The Guiding Light] for three years, then [the feature films] Clockstoppers and Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, and I just carried on from there.”

On TV, the actress is perhaps best known for her performance as Officer Tina Hanlon on the crticially-acclaimed FX series The Shield. “Every single day on the The Shield was a wonderful challenge,” she says. “I was only supposed to do one episode. From what I remember, the producers were auditioning very muscular women for this particular role, and here I was this tiny little thing. However, I thought, ‘The easy route for a female cop would be a big, muscular, in-shape, tough looking woman. But what about the female cops out there who don’t necessarily look intimidating, but who are still street-smart, know they can kick ass, and have an intuition about them that would be an asset on the streets as far as fighting crime.’

“So that’s how I spun it, and I think they saw in my audition that I would be good next to this big guy, Michael Jace [Officer Julian Lowe], who ended up being my partner on the show, and the dynamic worked. After that first episode, they asked me if I would continue as a recurring character, and the next season they invited me to be part of the regular cast. It was a fantastic program to work on and, of course, after they established my character, they took great pleasure in having this cute little girl run through the streets, beating up bad guys with a baton, and cuffing them,” laughs Garces. “They gave me all this nasty, gritty material, and I think the show’s writers enjoyed seeing the expression on my face when I’d first read the scripts. It’s that quality and high standard of writing that keeps you on your toes and interested in your job. It’s the same on Defying Gravity.”

As the actress approaches her 20th year in the business, Garces has not become at all jaded about the work, and has no intensions of falling into that trap. “I still get a thrill out of booking a job,” she enthuses. “You study your lines, go into the audition room, bear your soul and hope that they like you. I don’t know what it is about us actors, but we’re desperate for other people to like us and reward us for just memorizing our lines. So when I get that phone call from my agent or my manager saying I got the job, it’s such a high for me. It’s the best phone call you can get as an actor.”

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 Sergei Bachlakov or Kharen Hill and copyright of Fox Studios and ABC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!