iF Magazine Interviews Shannyn Sossamon ~ Part 2

Sean, from iF Magazine, has published part 2 of his great interview with Shannyn Sossamon. I like how candid she is too. It must run in this cast.

Spoiler Alert.... she discusses feature episodes and what happens with Coraline. Just wanted to warn ya.

iF Magazine :

Has anyone discussed post writers strike where the storylines may be going?

SOSSAMON :

No, I actually don’t think anyone has had that discussion yet. We’re about to shoot twelve right now. Twelve is amazing and it brings the audience back in time to the history of my family and then gets into a little of where Josef is from. We’re going to shoot that and then no one dies and it’s pretty open ended. Beyond that, there were four more episodes purchased, and those aren’t written yet. So once we finish twelve, we’re done because of the strike. Then when we come back and we have the four, and then we wait to get really picked up!

iF Magazine :

Well, MOONLIGHT has a strong fan base and the ratings have been good so I have a feeling that your show will be back. .

SOSSAMON :

Aww good! I love Alex [O’Loughlin] and Sophia [Myles] so much and I love everyone on the show including [Producer] Joel [Silver] is just a neat man and I adore him. It feels like a family on set. The make-up and hair people, the creative teams behind the show, the cinematographer Marvin; everyone has really held this show up. They’ve believed in it every day and they won’t let it go. No matter what kind of drama is going on, and all of the times that some shows would’ve stopped trying; no one on MOONLIGHT has stopped trying, especially Alex he’s just great.

iF Magazine :

In terms of Coraline from vampire to human are we going to get the full back story of how she did that?

SOSSAMON :

Oh yeah, you’ll get the whole thing in twelve and it makes sense. Not only does it make sense, but also they came up with a really great way to explain it. It’s not fun when you’re playing the role when you don’t know how the heck she did it, and now that I do it’s cool; at the time I didn’t know how my character had changed.

iF Magazine :

You obviously can't approach Coraline and play her just as evil, so what’s the trick to finding the reality of this character?

SOSSAMON :

In this episode I get to be a vampire so I didn’t have to be Morgan, I got to be Coraline. In episode ten I got stabbed and was in the hospital and I escaped and no one knew where she was. Now, I just get to play Coraline for twelve and I’m excited about that because I want to get to know her and have the audiences get to know her. It’s not me having to act out the crazy love, or the crazy love elements; it’s just absolutely real. I think a lot of her history is going to come out. When she’s not playing to Mick and she’s put that to rest for a moment, I think she’s got more depth and is much more intense and fierce. We’ve really never seen her when she’s not playing to Mick and to their deranged love. Who was he before she met him, was she always doing this with men? I think Corlaine was always in love with Mick, in a way that is not healthy, and that’s a deep connection that will always be there. Now she’s going to have to learn how to handle things not working out. Whenever he stands next to her, I think it’s for her not to have him going along with her plans. He tests her.

iF Magazine :

What would you think if in the future they did episodes just featuring the different vampires for an episode instead of Mick?

SOSSAMON :

I think if they took some more risks with the characters that people would love it, but there is always a procedural element of something that has to be figured out in every episode. I think Mick will always be a part of the stories even if it is more Josef heavy or Coraline heavy or Beth heavy. So far, they’ve stuck to that, but I think it would be a great idea. I bet Alex would like it too, so he could at least have a little bit of a break. They could really make it interesting and make it more dramatic. I certainly think the audience of this show isn’t watching each week to see what the procedural for the week is going to be. I think they watch it for the drama. They love Mick and Beth and the tension between them, and I think they’re responding well to Coraline. Even if people hate her, people need to be rooting for something to happen. I think even if they are reacting against Mick and Coraline, then I’m doing my job and they should root against it.

Use this link to read the whole interview ~

http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=2510

iF Magazine Interviews Shannyn Sossamon ~ Part 1

To keep us going through this long Moonlight break, iF magazine is doing new interviews with the cast of our show. *cheer* Sean let me know about his recent chat with Shannyn Sossamon. This is part 1.

I like Shannyn asking Sean what he thinks about her character. That shows she wants to know what the fan's reaction is to her portrayal. His answer is spot on, "The bottom line with her is that she is an ancient vampire, even if she turned herself human in the present, she doesn’t have the same concepts of right and wrong that our society has today. She has different boundaries and she’s not really evil; she does what she thinks is right and almost everything she does is out of love for Mick, even if it is not a healthy kind of relationship."

It is great to hear what she thinks about Coraline and some of the behind the scenes decisions.

Shannyn Sossamon :

Of course, all of the things with Coraline, to be perfectly honest I didn’t know which direction it was going to go. When we first started filming the show it was unclear; the only thing that was clear was Mick St John’s character and his relationship with Beth was pretty clear. Coraline and her role was sort of unclear, but they knew they needed a character that would trouble with that relationship. Also, to make him a vampire in that way made it interesting and sexy.

Shannyn also confirms what we already know, Moonlight means so much to Alex and he is involved in everything!

iF Magazine :

....when you were cast, you knew about the flashbacks with Coraline. Then from that point things changed and did you know how they were going to bring her into the present?

Shannyn Sossamon :

The possibility that she was going to come into the present was always there. Did I know that they were going to the story with Morgan? No. I never knew how evil they might write her. I never knew how much she was going to try to mess up Mick’s life; it truly was as up in the air as any character could be. The only thing that was certain was that my character had made Mick a vampire on our wedding night, and then in the 1980’s she was left in a burning hotel room to die because she had kidnapped a little girl to turn her into a vampire for the ‘family’. Then of course that girl was a young Beth. So they needed all of that to secure the story for Mick and Beth for that central relationship. That was all that anyone knew about Coraline, so everything since then has been per discussions with all of us. Alex [O’Loughlin] has been really involved in the vampire elements so that it’s not just a procedural show. They all want it to have the depth of the vampire world and where they come from and all of the history. That stuff makes it yummy to watch, because procedural gets boring after awhile and there are so many of them on TV.

Interesting...... Alex has said in many interviews that he is not attracted to doing a procedural drama. Shannyn says the same thing here.

iF Magazine :

I know from talking to Alex, that in future episodes we’ll get to see more of Coraline and Josef’s past and see the even older vamps. How much of that are you actors told before hand and how much do you just discover when you get the scripts?

Shannyn Sossamon :

It’s about fifty-fifty, because there have been times where I’ve had discussions with the show runners and then I get a script and it’s in there. I’m always surprised that they stuck with what was discussed. I know Alex is really involved, incredibly involved, in where it’s going and he wants answers and wants to know where it’s going. So, no one is really just waiting for the scripts. I get in there a lot, because I was never fond of the uncertainty at the beginning of what exactly I was getting into. I was constantly asking questions about what was happening now and if I was playing in a certain episode I asked questions about how everything connect so that it all made sense. I wanted to create a performance that if it were a feature film it would make sense; otherwise it’s just confusing. The Morgan storyline threw me for a loop a little bit, but it was fun.

Read the entire interview here ~

http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=2491

New interview with Alex discussing the future of Moonlight and more!

iF Magazine's site has an incredible new interview with Alex! He discusses the rigors of playing Mick from 4:30 in the morning until who knows what time, doing about 75% of his own stunts & so on. Moonlight's rabid, loyal and adoring fans also get a shout out from him! :) Looks like he too is trying to get Nina Tassler and CBS to tell us whether the show is getting picked up or not. I like the fact that he says "... I am not going to conduct this character and myself as if we aren’t coming back. As far as I am concerned we are coming back.... " Good for you, Alex!

Read!

http://ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=2481