AM: Same!
JONATHAN NOLAN: Thank you! I’m blushing!
GC: That is the case so for me, it was such an honor to be part of this. I was so grateful for that and I get to sit here and talk about this now. Also the story itself, I loved the novel and it was the first time that I had ever read anything from William Gibson! I was like, “wow, I’m so late,” this guy is amazing. Then again, with what Scott and the team did with the script, I thought that it was so solid. There were so many highs and so many positive things. There were so many things that I found to be attractive about the project. I also loved the character and I have never played a character like this before. I found it challenging but I was looking forward to that challenge. All of the themes that the series explores - all the topics, I just thought that they were perfect and it's so right to be discussing this right now.
JN: First and foremost, William Gibson. Vincenzo Natali our director, came to us with the project, came to us with the book and I had grown up reading Gibson’s books and spent years shamelessly ripping off his ideas and putting them into our own movies and shows. So it felt like there was a debt of honor there, but then I read the book and it was brilliant.
It’s also one of his books that is the closest to the bone of William in terms of his childhood in West Virginia. You can feel the reality of that world – of Flynne’s world and then when you step through the looking glass, and you meet Gary’s character and you meet Wilf – you feel the reality of his universe. So the two worlds were both so beautifully textured and lived in that it was impossible to say no.
AM: How did you prepare to play these roles?
JM: It’s all about the page, isn’t it? The book is not very different from the plot, but is very different in its style as the book is abstract and esoteric in its text. But then they turned it – Jonathan, Lisa and Scott into a story where we care about the characters a lot whether they’re in Clanton, NC or London or wherever - we care about them and that’s a great achievement of this series. You take something that can be frightening or cold or futuristic – they’re humans. They’re trying to find their way in that world.
AM: That’s great and the styling of the characters with the power shoulders that yours has T’Nia and the vests that yours wears JJ. Just these little aesthetics that also have a powerful look to them is another great layer.
TM: Often when you get a script and you have to do a lot of prep, you have to find yourself and it’s generally because it’s not terribly well written. The story might be great, but it's not well written. This is very different from that, it was serving the words on the page and then also trying to understand the bloody book because it was very confusing! For us, I mean for me, I mean you were confused too right?
JF: Of course! Once you start seeing it, you were like “oh yeah!”
TM: I didn’t understand it we shot it in May of last year and then we did pick ups and I was like, “oh, I get that now!” It was during pick ups where it locked in!
JF: It was like, oh that’s what a stub is!
TM: I kept hearing this word stub, stub, stub. What is stub? Now I get it!
AM: Do you find it difficult to take something that obviously has source material and to make the show its own while still being tethered to the root of the book that it came from?
LJ: I think that one of the things that makes it easier is my respect for Gibson is so true and so deeply rooted that I think that all of ours is. I also think that it is reciprocated. He knows that we really respect his source material and his brilliance. He knows that we really want to make the best show possible, but every time – film, TV – it’s a collaborative media. There’s no one person that owns it. It’s a beautiful thing that it’s made truly by a group of people together you know?
Scott Smith, his writers, the actors bring new angles – there are new characters in this and there are new beats and new moments and at the same time, it feels so Gibsonian and it really tries to honor the brilliant book that he made and I think that honestly and deeply, all of us nerding out together in this way and trying to make this universe, it’s been a wonderful collaboration.
VN: I want to mention Scott Smith because he had the very challenging task to adapt the book and it doesn’t adapt directly into a narrative format. If Mr. Gibson was adapting it himself, I'm sure he would change it and I know he would. But he is very open to that kind of thing and I think that Scott cracked the code which is an intensely difficult thing to do and I want to be able to give a pat to him!
