MediaBlvd interviews Rand Ravich, Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi
Rand Ravich, Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi had a phone interview, a long and fun interview with spoilers through out season 2.
Damian Lewis, Sarah Shahi & Rand Ravich on NBC’s ‘Life’
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
By Christina Radish
The NBC drama Life, from executive producers Rand Ravich and Far Shariat, focuses on a detective who is given a second chance. Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) returns to the force after serving 12 years in prison for murders he didn’t commit. With a Zen-like outlook, peace of mind and no need for vengeance, Crews is focused on investigating the mystery surrounding the crime he was falsely accused of. Surrounding the complex, offbeat Crews are his skeptical partner, Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi), Officer Bobby Stark (Brent Sexton), Captain Kevin Tidwell (Donal Logue) and former cellmate Ted Earley (Adam Arkin).
Co-stars Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi, along with Ravich, spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about what fans of the series can expect from Season 2.
MediaBlvd Magazine> Damian and Sarah, how will your characters evolve, as we go into the second season?
Sarah Shahi> When we first see Dani, she’s just a little bit better, in terms of her edginess and her sobriety this year. On a scale of one to 10, she’s maybe at a seven or so. And, physically she’s a little different. Her hair is down. Her wardrobe got a bit flashier. But, I think she’s going to be challenged, at some point, with her sobriety and she could possibly relapse. She also gets a love interest, which is different for her. She can’t feel love, so it’s good for her. He’s the first person that her guard has come down with, so she becomes vulnerable, too.
Damian Lewis> Crews will continue to bounce back between the pick and mix candy store girls that keep falling in his lap, metaphorically and literally. And, there is the ongoing heartache with his ex wife. His relationships at the police station are also very bizarre. His relationship with Dani Reese improves steadily, weekly. They seem to have a good, solid respect for each other, and accept one another’s differences. There’s a new Captain at the station and he’s a little bit of a petal in the pond, but Crews learns to negotiate him and they have a weird respect for each other, although they’re very different.
MediaBlvd> What would you tell people that didn’t get around to seeing your show last season about jumping into the series, at this point?
Rand Ravich> I would tell them not to be afraid. Although it has a reputation for being slightly serialized, this year starts all over again. If you had never seen this show before, you can come to the first episode this year and be caught up by the end of the recap, which is only 21 seconds long. Because we’ve had some issues, we’ve constructed the first episode to act as a booster pilot. You will not be left behind, if you come fresh.
MediaBlvd> Last season was really about Crews’ redemption. Where is that going this season? Are we going to see more of him solving the conspiracy?
Rand> Prison is such a powerful experience that every day out of prison is like your first day out. It’s always fresh. And, Charlie Crews will always be battling with transcendence and vengeance. He wants to let go. He wants to forgive. But, he also wants to find the people responsible and shove a pistol down their throat. Those two forces pitted against each other are enough to keep the character going forever. And, in a strictly realistic, human way, I don’t think you ever really get over that.
MediaBlvd> Charlie seems to be getting closer to the answers he’s looking for. How do you think it will affect him, if he eventually solves his case?
Damian> I’ll have to look for another job, so I hope he doesn’t solve the case.
Rand> He’s going to move over to be in Chuck.
Damian> Yeah, right. He’s just going to go guest-starring in all the other TV series. If he finally finds out who set him up for the triple murder, that’ll be some kind of closure and he’ll be able to carry on with his life as normal. But, I don’t think he’s that close to finding out. There is more than just one person who’s been operating this thing. There are five or six of them, and he’s going to systematically work his way through them and find out exactly where that leads him. We don’t know how deep or how high up this corruption will go. Who’s behind the whole conspiracy? Why was he set up? Was it something personal and vindictive, or was he just a fall guy? Was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Rand> Just from an internal level, there is this vengeance machine inside the Charlie Crews character and, at any moment, he could decide he’s had enough and walk away. But, if he needs that satisfaction and that vengeance, that is very un-Zen like, he’ll never stop looking. So, at some point, the question has to be asked, is this enough? Have I closed enough circles? Have I gained enough vengeance? And, can I get back to life or will it never be enough? That conspiracy level works, both from the inside and the outside.
MediaBlvd> Considering that Charlie is very wealthy, why doesn’t he just hire a whole team of investigators to help him?
Rand> That’s an excellent question and, in Episode 1, part of the answers are solved by that. But, in some of the broader things he does, he wants to put his own hands on it. Some things, he doesn’t want anybody else to know he’s doing.
MediaBlvd> Do you and the writers know who framed Crews? Is there an end game that you’re playing towards?
Rand> We’re playing towards several. We know the next few levels of where it’s going, and the most interesting parts of that are how they relate to him, personally, and not just faces on a board. They are the characters that he will be encountering and enfolding into his life, as he moves up the ladder. We do know the next few levels of where he’ll be going, character wise.
MediaBlvd> Are there any plans to introduce flashbacks?
Rand> Those would have to be structured in a longer form, and not in a traditional flashback way. It would be fun to do a prequel episode, but I’m adverse to flashbacks, only because they become a narrative crutch, like voice-over. They take a lot of the challenge out of forward momentum. But, yeah, we talk about it all the time. It would be fun to go back and see seminal events in prison, see the day he met Adam Arkin, see his early relationship with his ex wife, as well as for the Dani Reese character, her time as an undercover operative and how she became addicted to heroin. It becomes a little slippery, when you start using flashbacks. They can take over and weaken the power of any narrative.
MediaBlvd> Damian, Charlie Crews looks like a really fun character to play. Do you have a good time playing him?
Damian> I have enormous fun! I only took this role because I enjoyed the script so much, and hopefully I will always maintain that standard. But, Rand wrote a fantastic canvas, on which this character can do almost anything. That’s what’s so much fun about it. Rand talks often about wish fulfillment. This guy is a Christ-like figure. He goes through a hellish experience and is born again. He is literally born afresh into an alien world that’s moved on , in the 12 years that he’s been in prison. On that canvas, you can really create any situation. Any scenario would be plausible. He has quirks and characteristics, and a slightly cracked maverick personality, as a result of his time in prison, coupled with his underlying darkness, his need for vengeance and his constant conflict in him not to engage in the dark anger. There is this vengeful side of his character, but he is also trying to embrace the positive in his life, which just makes for constant fun. I thank Rand for writing such a fun character.
MediaBlvd> Rand, when you conceived of the character of Charlie, was the audience’s inability to relate to such a bizarre character something that you were thinking about?
Rand> Yeah. Certainly, that is one of the reasons for the Dani Reese character. In a lot of ways, she is the viewer. She sees Charlie Crews like we see Charlie Crews. We can relate to him through her. But, I’m hoping there are a lot of things about Crews that everybody feels the same way about, and that they wish they could be as cool as that, or they wish they could go through an experience as horrendous as prison and be made better by it. Hopefully, with the Crews character, there is both relatability and envy.
MediaBlvd> When Charlie Crews was introduced as a character, he was understandably awkward and a bit bizarre to those around him. But, through the first season, he transformed into somebody a little less strange and a little more normal. Was that transition planned from the beginning? Rand> That transition was actually very natural. The uncomfortableness of the strangers were just superficial mannerisms, as he was reintroducing himself into the world. He was looking for attachments, as he was trying to adhere to the world he’d been away from so long. Those were all the things that didn’t match up with who he was in prison and how he was in the world. Hopefully, as he gets more attached and we get deeper into his character, there will be differences in him. The world will be more profound and more deeply felt, and there’s tons of fun. As we have the opportunity to move deeper into the character, those things should be more deeply felt.
MediaBlvd> Damian, how did it affect your playing Charlie, from Episode 1 through the end of the season, knowing that this transformation was coming, and that the character would be a little less bizarre and a little more comfortable in the real world again?
Damian> It just seemed entirely natural to me that there would be a normalizing process for him. He came from an alien environment and spent 12 years there, and is now back in what should be his natural environment, but instead it is just alien to him. The world’s moved on, technologically. He’s changed, emotionally. He’s a little quacked by his experience. He’s been affected by it. There’s a little bit of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a little bit like war veterans who come back and behave erratically. They feel they’re not able to share their experiences. Charlie is isolated from the world, for those very reasons. If you found him becoming more agreeable, a little bit more conventional and sociable, and more naturally integrated, that’s because that’s just what happens. I think you’ll see him continue to normalize, as the series goes on.
MediaBlvd> Do you guys think that Charlie will ever ask Reese for help in solving this conspiracy, or will he just not ever fully trust her?
Rand> Oh, absolutely he will bring her in. It’s completely on a parallel with them having sexual relations. Once they do that, they’ve crossed over a part in their relationship that you can never go back and pretend didn’t happen. We’ll have to be very careful with that.
MediaBlvd> Charlie is a pretty Zen character, but he is looking for answers for what happened to him. Do you think that will ever turn into crime, even though he is so Zen?
Rand> There was blood. He killed a couple people, in the season finale last year. Damian, personally, wants to shoot more people. He comes to me all the time to tell me so. With the wanting to be better, but wanting vengeance, I think everybody has both of those things. He wishes he could be better, but it just feels good to be an animal. He will battle with that and give into that, and then strive to be better.
MediaBlvd> Damian, since your character has this Zen-like outlook on things, did you actually study Zen, or brush up on any of the teachings?
Damian> For the first half of the first season, I had to wear a wig because I shaved my head. I was in a monastery for three months, prior to filming. No. I read books, and I have a friend who has actually been a Buddhist monk, in upstate New York, and I consulted him. And, Rand gave me Alan Watts tapes. He is somewhat of a crackpot, but hugely entertaining, so I would wake up and then listen to Alan Watts on my half-hour drive into work, every morning. That was it, really. You find that it actually aligns with the way we just all try to live our lives. People who grew up in big cities like I did, and a lot of us did, try to find still moments in their lives, and moments of quiet peace, when you just embrace what’s happening now, stop projecting forward and stop regretting what’s passed. That’s a daily struggle for me, and for a lot of people. It really just was an expansion of an idea that we grapple with daily, anyway. It was a lot of fun to investigate.
MediaBlvd> How challenging is it to make this series and be this character, compared with other projects that you’ve worked on?
Damian> It’s easy because the writing is excellent. It’s fun and it’s serious, when it needs to be. It’s entertainment. The hours are difficult. There’s no question. No one is going to pretend otherwise. And, to stay fresh and focused on any sort of preparation that you did, earlier on in the day, when you were fresh, is hard when you’re shooting important, key scenes at 3:00 in the morning. I wish we could make this show in shorter time, but I happen to know that that’s the experience for a lot of other shows, too. It’s hard. It’s a little brutalizing. What it does to you, working long hours like that, is that it affects your outlook, and it affects your interaction with the world around you and with other people around you. You end up using a lot of energy, just trying to maintain an adjustment and a balance. I wish I didn’t have to spend so much energy doing that, but it’s not just me. Everyone is having to do the same thing.
MediaBlvd> Sarah, with the mystery that surrounds Reese and her father, how much of that mystery is revealed to you, as the actor? If you know more than your character, how does that affect playing the character, who is clearly in the dark about who her father really is?
Sarah> Dani doesn’t really take confrontation very well, but she does have a moment where she confronts her father. She still doesn’t know the details of things, but by that point, she knows that he was involved.
Rand> She knows, emotionally, what her father is capable of. She grew up with him, and there was a moment last year, where she was trying to figure out whether he was mean or bad. She has personal experience with her father, but she’s not witting to all of the details.
Sarah> The good thing is that I really don’t know that much. I don’t like to know too much ahead because I like to just be in the moment, as much as possible, with her. If I know too much, that’ll affect how I play it. I read the scripts, so I know what’s going on, but when I slip into Dani’s skin, it becomes a whole new world. At this point, I have similar issues with my dad and his absence, and the questions that I have with him. There’s a period of time where he was that is parallel to the Jack Reese/Dani Reese thing. I know he was up to no good, but there’s a part of me that’s afraid to ask exactly what happened because I kind of know. It was because of family, and the whole thing. It’s the same with her. She knows, not only from her own experience, but from what people say at the precinct.
Rand> The difference between the Crews character and the Reese character is that Charlie Crews can’t help pick at it. He wants to know. And, Reese, like a lot of people, doesn’t want to know.
Sarah> Because of the rehab and the drugs and all that attention, she’s like, “Just let me put my head down and do my job. Don’t bring me into this stuff. Don’t give me anymore attention than I need.” She doesn’t want to mess up her second shot at redemption.
MediaBlvd> The new Captain, played by Donal Logue, has a creepy infatuation with Dani. Is that going to continue throughout the season?
Sarah> Yeah, it is, actually. It’s going to develop into something else as well.
Damian> A creepy fascination for Crews.
MediaBlvd> Damian, can you talk about what Ted does for Charlie Crews?
Damian> He’s just my house bitch. He really does what I ask him to do. I don’t need to explain it any more than that. No. Two men have an opportunity to get close in prison. He was in prison for a white collar crime. He comes from a different world. He comes from the financial sector. He was made an example of and probably got a penalty that was more dramatic than it needed to be. The back-story, just loosely, is that Charlie probably saved his life in some kind of way, and then Charlie was given this huge settlement. Who better to look after it than the financial guy that he spent some time with in prison. So, Ted lives in Charlie’s house, and he’s being integrated more and more into the stories of the week. And, with his own expertise, he is helping Charlie solve crimes — if not the crime of the week, then the more serialized element, which is that ongoing conspiracy story. People love Adam, and they love the character of Ted Early. How to get him out of the house, so he’s not just a guy sitting there with the apron on in the kitchen, is a challenge, but there’s a lot of fun stuff. He gets into a business school this year. You’ll see him in a lot of good, comedic scenarios.
MediaBlvd> Is Ted a crutch for Charlie, so that he doesn’t have to fully enter the real world?
Damian> I think they both suffer a little bit from post-traumatic stress disorder. If this was a different show, you’d see them in treatment. They’d be in therapy, every week.
Rand> You’re absolutely right, he is a crutch. If they have each other, they don’t have to completely re-enter the world on their own.
Damian> Ted is the one guy who Charlie can share his experience with. I use the analogy of war veterans because they are people who come back and feel isolated and disenfranchised. There’s no one else that’ll understand what they’ve been through, so he is an emotional crutch for Charlie. He’s his emotional partner as well as his roommate. But, nothing physical is going on.
Rand> It’s like two astronauts who have been to the moon. At the end of the day, what they went through, the other people in their lives cannot understand, so they have that in common.
MediaBlvd> The character of Crews’ father was introduced last season. Is that going to be developed more this season? Are we were going to actually see Crews’ father and that relationship?
Rand> That will absolutely be developed this season. There’ll be more of the lovely Christina Hendrix playing Charlie’s future mother-in-law. And, hopefully, we’ll be building to a wedding, by sometime at the end of the calendar year.
MediaBlvd> Will the relationship between Crews and Connie develop more this season?
Rand> It will definitely be developed, and we’re hoping in a surprising way.
MediaBlvd> How do you feel about the fact that you’re shooting out in L.A.?
Rand> From the very start, my partner, Far Shariat, and I wanted this not to be a dark, brooding show. There’s so much darkness in Crews’ and Reese’s back-stories. They’re homicide detectives, so there’s death every week, and we wanted this show to be about striving toward the light and finding things out there in the sun. Although there are tremendous tax breaks in other cities, and we did investigate those, NBC let us shoot it here. L.A. is a city where everyone comes to reinvent themselves. The sun is a big part of the show, and we talk about that with the production designer and the D.P., on a constant basis.
MediaBlvd> Damian and Sarah, how do you feel about being in Los Angeles full-time?
Damian> I love it! I’m not from here, so it’s very much a part of my personal adventure . I came to live in California to be on the Pacific Ocean. I grew up in a North European city, where you don’t see much sunshine. In fact, I think I’ve seen more sunshine in this one year than I’ve seen in my entire life there, so I’m a little bit shocked. But, I love it. Getting to know a new culture, a new city, and integrating into it, I feel more like Charlie Crews than I could say.
Sarah> I’ve lived here for seven years now. I’m from Texas. I love L.A. I’m not one of those people that goes around saying, “Oh, god, I hate L.A.! The traffic sucks.” I love it. I love the sun. Two hours up north, you get the snow. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
Rand> It is so fun to make a show here, after having so many shows double Vancouver for L.A. We park on the street, turn the cameras on and it’s all there. It’s fantastic!
MediaBlvd> How has your life changed, since doing this series?
Rand> Well, they got to meet me.
Sarah> I bought a house, so that was great!
Rand> And, they shoot a lot more guns than they used to.
Sarah> I stop traffic now just because I have a badge.
Damian> Oh, honey, you’ve always stopped traffic.
Sarah> I don’t know. It’s not like I get recognized or anything because I’m at work all the time .
Rand> They’re both working incredibly hard, for many hours. Because the production values are so extraordinary, we have to make a movie, every week, and Damian and Sarah are on every page of the script. Every eight days, they’re making a little feature and it’s grueling, the amount of work the two have to do. I couldn’t be happier or luckier to have them both in my cast.
[ Source: MediaBlvd ]