Co-Creator of Orphan Black, Graeme Manson - Exclusive Interview

By Abbie Bernstein On June 13, 2014 In People of Interest, Science Fiction & Fantasy Actor and Author Interviews 1 Comment

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: GRAEME MANSON ON “ORPHAN BLACK”
By Abbie Bernstein

In BBC America’s hit series ORPHAN BLACK, now in its second season, Tatiana Maslany (who has racked up a number of acting awards and nominations for her work here) plays Sarah Manning, a young mother and grafter whose life changes when she happens upon her exact double right before the other woman commits suicide. This leads Sarah to housewife Alison, scientist Cosima, homicidal Helena and corporate climber Rachel – all also played by Maslany. Sarah discovers that she and the others are clones, part of a scientific endeavor that has deadly people involved on all sides.

ORPHAN BLACK was created by John Fawcett and Graeme Manson, who also serve as executive producers. Manson is present at a Q&A session held by BBC America for the Television Critics Association. Afterwards, he takes time to answer a few additional questions about ORPHAN BLACK and – on the creative team – who knew what when.

For starters, Manson – who also served as a producer/writer on the SWAT team series FLASHPOINT and who scripted the ingenious low-budget horror thriller CUBE – says that he and Fawcett have known from the start where it was all going. “We have a big picture. We know what we’re all about.”

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Season 1

Season 2

How many seasons does that big picture encompass? “Well, we conceived of a three-season arc, but we believe that that end point either elastic enough to push down the road or maybe do that and then reboot the show in another way.”

There are, however, changes along the way, Manson explains. For example, the writers knew all along that Alison’s husband Donnie, played by Kristian Bruun, would turn out to be spying on his wife. The twist that Alison would wrongly and homicidally assume the spy was her neighbor Aynsley, played by Natalie Lisinka, was created later. “The first-season wrinkles with Aynsley, I don’t think we had that when we were doing the Donnie torture scene, the ‘craft room torture scene,’ as we call it. I don’t think we knew exactly how it would wrinkle at the end with the neighbor and everything, but [Lisinka] was a tremendous performer, and we really all loved that storyline, the way it played out.”

As for the fallout for Alison, Manson observes, “She’s certainly a tense person to begin with, and the secret that she’s keeping is really going to eat at her in an interesting way, and Alison has got some explosions coming up. So that’s really, really great.”

Does Manson know how many clones there will turn out to be? “The number of clones – we haven’t said how many are out there, so part of the wonderful process of this is when John and I are coming up with new ideas and pushing the story forward, and who can we meet without exhausting the concept. You know, it’s not a clone of the week show. Obviously, we take a lot of care and time with developing our clones, and the first thing we do is, we go to Tatiana and we begin really involved conversations about the character coming up. For instance, last season we went to Tatiana in about Episode Six or Five to say, ‘So, we’ve got this Rachel Duncan character’ to give Tatiana enough time to prepare, and then it’s become a really great process when we work on these characters together.”

Maslany is so skillful at making all of her characters such totally different people that it’s sometimes hard to remember the same actress is playing all of them, even though the women are physical clones. Have Manson and Fawcett ever wondered if there are limits to what their leading lady can and will do?

“No,” Manson replies. “We do it very much as a team. We might come up with a character and go, ‘That would be great for the story,’ and then we’ll present that character idea to Tatiana. We’ll work on it together. We’ll work on the character together. And we don’t want to blow the fun of meeting a new clone, so we don’t want to do it [introduce new clones] all the time.”

Sarah’s young daughter Kira, played by Skyler Wexler, won’t turn out to be a clone, Manson promises, although, “We could clone her. You’d have to clone Kira herself. She could be cloned because she was naturally born from Sarah, before and outside of all the conspiracies.”

Will we ever meet Kira’s father? “It’s possible. Not this season, but maybe.”

Might anyone else get cloned, say, Sarah’s best friend Felix, played by Justin Gavaris? “Everyone would love a Felix clone,” Manson jokes. “Everyone should have one.”

In ORPHAN BLACK, Matt Frewer plays Dr. Aldous Leekie, a scientist at the center of the clone conspiracy. Frewer starred in the groundbreaking ‘80s series MAX HEADROOM as the title character. For many who saw the ahead-of-its-time show, it was an indelible experience. Asked if Frewer’s casting was tied in any way to MAX HEADROOM, Manson answers with an enthusiastic “Yes! I totally loved MAX HEADROOM in the day, and my partner, John Fawcett had worked with Matt Frewer. So when we had the character of Dr. Leekie, there was nobody else – we went straight to Matt.”

There is a lot of real science mixed in with the speculative science propelling the plot of ORPHAN BLACK. Manson relates that the creative team does a lot of scientific research, which not only provides facts but sometimes inspiration as well. “There’s lots of stuff that we’ve found and mined science-wise.”

When the Season One finale was written as a cliffhanger, did Manson and Fawcett know they had a Season Two pickup at that point, or were they risking the wrath of viewers who could be left hanging?

“I think we got the nod on Episode Four,” Manson relates. “So there was a lot of relief at that point.”

There was no Plan B if they had been canceled, Manson adds. “No. We were just going for it. We have a long-term plan, so that’s pretty elastic, conceptually, to go with the elastic premise. So when we were initially pitching the show, we had to tell the nets that we were pitching to why the show was perpetual, why it would keep going, so John and I did have a plan that was involved in the pitch. We did have a [series] bible that spun it out for at least three seasons.”

Interviewed by Abbie Bernstein

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