Hypable attended the Orphan Black press room yesterday at San Diego Comic-Con, and got to know a lot about what the characters think about the developments this past season.
We began by asking cast members Dylan Bruce, Kristian Bruun and Ari Millen about the Orphan Black comic-books that were recently announced. With so many possibilities, we asked what stories they would like to see:
Bruun would like to see a past look at Donnie. “I would like to see Donnie, like in the past becoming a monitor. Some fun monitor situations, now that Donnie is no longer a monitor I wanna go back and see what they have him doing.” We asked if he’d like to see him in college, and he agreed. “Yeah, I’d love to see Donnie in college. What kind of doofus was he back then?”
And Millen said he would also like to see the early life, but this time of the male clones in Project Castor. “I’d love to see the early life of the Castors. Just to see where they grew up and how they got to where they are.” Bruun interjected and said that sounded like a family drama “The Castors! Early life of the Castors on the prairies, moved from Germany in 1883.”
Afterwards, we also asked showrunners Graeme Manson and John Fawcett what they hope to use the comic-books for, and if we would see more backstories in them as opposed to things in the current timeline. The response was almost a combination of the two, with Fawcett saying “For me, I love the idea of in the initial wave of comic-books showing the fans, in a graphic way, scenes we’ve already seen but then going into what happened to this character while we were off with Alison. I wanna see stuff that fits into the framework of season 1, like here’s what we didn’t see. I also love the idea of including some flashbacks into the past, and seeing how Donnie met Alison’s parents for the first time. Things like that, I think would be really exciting.”
And finally, we spoke with Jordan Gavaris, Tatiana Maslany and Maria Doyle-Kennedy. We asked Gavaris when Felix would have any sort of wake-up call, since he’s still selling drugs and doing prostitution. “I think that there’s an inference that he’s in any way aware that his lifestyle isn’t the healthiest,” Gavaris responds. “I’m sure there’s some awareness there, but I think there’s an inference there where he thinks he’s doing something bad. I think Felix just operates to survive, similarly to Sarah. So by any means necessary, if that includes prostitution or drug dealing, if it it means he can survive he’s going to keep doing that. He’s not going to put himself at risk, especially with everything that’s happened with the DYAD.”
Maslany responded to the question as well, saying “I like that the show doesn’t shame him for it, either. You know, he is out and himself and he’s sexual and unapologetic about it. It feels like he’s one of the most sure of himself characters on the show.”
We then asked Maslany how it felt to play a trans male on the show, since it’s such a huge deal to the LGBTQ population, and if she felt any heavy weights or responsibilities because of it.
“I did a lot of research, and it’s a subject that’s really important to me. It just means a lot to me that we can tell that story. I’m not a trans actor, so there is a political situation there and it’s not the most ideal but what our show does is it explores identity, and what better way to explore it through a trans male? And we don’t see trans men on screen very often at all. And you know, the best thing for me was when we heard the response to Tony, which was very polarized. But the great thing about it is that it opens up a debate and it opens up a discussion, and it makes that subject relevant and important and present in peoples thoughts regardless of how they felt about Tony, whether they didn’t understand or whatever it is.
“These stories need to be told, and we need to talk about trans stories and we need to have them represented to the point where it’s just a given and it’s not exceptional anymore, and where trans actors get to step up and play these parts in the same way that cisgendered people have been doing for a while. I felt some responsibility, but I felt a large amount of gratitude and joy.”
Share your thoughts!
Tell us in the comments how you feel about the idea of comic-books exploring backstories and current story arcs, and tell us how you felt about Tony this past season! Orphan Black will be back next season for season 3, so keep the theories coming!