Colin Ferguson & Neil Grayston
Eureka Interview
Colin Ferguson and Neil Grayston are seated together at a small table in the outdoor garden at Pasadena Langham’s Hotel. It’s a pleasant spring day and two mallard ducks are guiding their gaggle of fluffy ducklings in and out of the garden’s pond. As series leads on Syfy’s EUREKA, a comedy-drama about a secret town full of geniuses, Ferguson and Grayston have certainly seen far stranger sights.
Created by Andrew Cosby and Jaime Paglia - Paglia remains as show runner - EUREKA began its run in 2006 and has appeared every year since then, but due to seasons that were scheduled unconventionally, it is now on only its fifth season. Although the show has been a success in terms of both public acclaim and ratings, the series finale will air July 16.
Quebec-born Ferguson plays Eureka Sheriff Jack Carter, one of the town’s few “average” people (albeit with far greater than average heart), while British Columbia native Grayston portrays proudly geeky scientist Douglas Fargo and voices “smart house S.A.R.A.H. The two clearly enjoy playing off each other as they look back with considerable affection on their EUREKA days.
Both men say that EUREKA’s cancellation came as a surprise. “We definitely weren’t expecting it,” Ferguson relates. “But it’s television, so …”
“It was really a shock,” Grayston adds. “We were so ahead of the game at that point [when the cancellation was announced]. We were just airing some episodes and then to know that we had an entire season that would be in the can - it’s a big gamble for the network to go, ‘Okay, the show’s doing well, but now do we say yes to another season, where everyone’s got significant raises and all these other things - do you do thirteen episodes, do you do twenty, who knows?’ They were in a position to have a lot of loss, potentially. I mean, it’s too bad.”
“We’ve done eighty [episodes],” Ferguson observes. “Not many shows go beyond that anyway, so [cancellation] was definitely an option. And in this day and age, nothing’s secure, so you’re grateful for what you get when you get it and you move on when you have to.”
“And who knows?” Grayston says. “Look at ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. That’s coming back on NetFlix. It’s unlikely that anything like that will happen [with EUREKA], but there’s always the possibility of a movie or something like that. That’d be awesome.”
Season Five began with a number of the main characters trapped in a virtual world that they thought was real after the Astraeus spacecraft is stolen by a team who want to co-opt the best minds in Eureka. Since the characters in EUREKA are pop culture-savvy, once this ruse is found out, everyone within the show, as well as those making it, refer to the scenario as “the Matrix.”
Grayston and Ferguson are both enthused about the way “the Matrix” impacts the show. “The matrix informs the whole season,” Grayston says, “but it’s not like, ‘Oh, it was all a dream for one season!’”
“I think that’s the great thing about this show,” Ferguson opines, “is that it’s not one of those shows that does a big matrix thing and then sweeps it under the rug and then life is normal again.” He cites similar fallout from when Carter, Fargo and three other characters landed in 1947, then came back to find the present had changed and remained altered. “This big thing happens, but it drags out. There are ramifications and ripple effects all through the season, but you don’t need to have watched every single episode to get everything. But if you do, it’s a richer experience.”
One of the more unusual aspects of Grayston’s work on EUREKA is his voicing of the decidedly femine and opinionated artificial intelligence S.A.R.A.H. Is the actor on set to voice the smart house when Fargo isn’t physically in the scene? “If it’s a S.A.R.A.H.-heavy scene, I definitely do that,” Grayston relates, “if it’s a lot of interaction. It’s just a lot better, too, for Colin, because I know the place that it’s going to go, so you don’t have to wait for someone [else reading the part] to flip to the page, say the line and then go back to doing their actual job.”
However, Ferguson notes, “If Neil’s not called in on that day, it’s really hard to call him in to be S.A.R.A.H., because it’s not like we can tell him anywhere near where we’re shooting that scene. It’s a film set, so maybe we’ll get to it at 11, maybe we’ll get to it at 4. So you can’t really take his day off and say, ‘Hey, Neil, could you come in for eight hours to be off-camera for two lines?’ So for me, frequently it was my stand-in Patrick who would read the lines, and Patrick is French-Canadian, so they’re like,” Ferguson adopts his most impenetrable French-Canadian accent, ‘Jack, we’ve got to go over to ze …’ It was this thick accent. So that was always really funny. And sometimes it threw me so badly, I was like, ‘I’m sorry, can anybody else read it?’ You just want someone who’s really loud, so you’re not struggling to hear your cues. Because frequently, in that set, the camera goes three-sixty. So everyone’s outside the walls in the smart house. So they have to yell over the walls.”
Grayston recalls how he used to hide from the cameras while speaking for S.A.R.A.H. “If you’re me, you’re up the stairs by a blinding, super-hot light, and then you go, ‘Oh. Why did I come up here? This was a bad idea, I’m stuck up here for the next three hours and it’s really hot,” he laughs.
In this season’s episode “Jack of All Trades,” Carter swaps bodies with Fargo, as well as two other characters. What kind of preparation did Ferguson and Grayston do to play one another’s roles?
“Well, Neil was my favorite person to imitate,” says Ferguson, “because Neil moves the most of everybody else. He’s always looking, there’s always a take on the situation, there’s always an opinion, always. So with Neil, there’s always something to play, which is really funny. It’s also how Neil has sort of brought himself to be the centerpiece of the whole show, because he’s so good. In the editing room, you can always cut to Neil. So that was really, really fun.”
Grayston tells Ferguson, “I really enjoyed one thing you said to me, after you had done it, was like,” here he imitates Ferguson, “‘Wow, it’s tiring being you. You just don’t stop moving.’” Then Grayston sounds like himself at his most chipper. “‘That’s what I do.’ I actually got Colin to say the lines that I was supposed to say as him in his voice, so that made it a lot easier, ‘Oh, okay, this is how he would do it.’ That was my method of doing that.”
One of the most elaborate EUREKA episodes was last Christmas’ “Do You See What I See?,” with all of the characters becoming animated, changing from one style to another throughout. Did Ferguson and Grayston have favorite animated renditions of Carter and Fargo?
“I’m tied,” Grayston says, and turns to Ferguson to ask, “What was yours?”
“I loved the Rankin and Bass Claymation stuff,” Ferguson replies, “just because I grew up with that. I just loved that the genre came back, let alone to grow up with Bing Crosby singing on it, and then to see my head, which is oddly just as long, it was like, ‘Oh, that’s so cool!’ It was a good moment for me.”
“Yeah,” Grayston says, “that and the anime were my favorites, because it was just really badass.”
Show runner Paglia has said he would have liked to do a musical episode.
“That would have been great,” Ferguson muses.
“Yeah,” Grayston agrees.
Ferguson considers it a little more. “Talk about pushing your boundaries, though. I’m not a singer, so …”
“Nor am I,” Grayston adds.
“So it would [have to] be a really simple song. Like ‘Hot Cross Buns,’” Ferguson decides, laughing.
Grayston laughs as well, suggesting, “A really awkward rap or something.”
“Fargo raps!” Ferguson marvels, then recalls, “Me and Salli [Richardson-Whitfield, who plays Carter's now-wife Allison] were joking about that. She was like, ‘If Fargo raps, I’m leaving the show.’”
WAREHOUSE 13 and EUREKA exist in the same universe. Fargo has visited the Warehouse on several occasions and Allison Scagliotti’s character has been to Eureka. With EUREKA over, might Fargo or even Carter turn up at the Warehouse?
“I would love to go back again,” says Grayston. “There hasn’t been any official talk yet, but we’ll see. Fingers crossed.”
“We’d both say yes,” Ferguson points out. “If you want to write it and put pressure on them, you can.”
With spaceships, giant robots, explosions and the like in most episodes, Ferguson and Grayston have had to play opposite a lot of green-screen effects over the years. “It got much easier,” Ferguson says, “probably because as we went along, we got to establish our needs, so the vis effects guys were far more aware of what we needed, and it just became a really even ebb and flow of information.”
“Yeah,” Grayston agrees. “We could just ask for simple things like, ‘Hey, can you put pink tape on that tennis ball on that stand over there? Just move it for me?’ We all worked together and that was I think maybe the difference with some other shows that have got different departments who are each trying to do their own thing, but not sort of coming together in the way that we did - that we had to do, because we worked so fast.”
Ferguson adds, “And then we’d break through the resistance that I think other shows set up, because a lot of times, you get this,” he imitates someone angrily berating an actor, “‘Hey, just do it!’ and you’re like, ‘Okay, hold on, this is what we’re asking for, it’s really reasonable.’ And then when they realize that you’re not trying to mutiny or commandeer the set and you just need one little thing done, they’re so appreciative, they’re like, ‘What do you need? A little piece of tape? Oh, yeah, yeah, what else?’ We respect [the crew] and they respected us. ”
“It’s hard work they do,” Grayston notes.
Grayston and Ferguson both joke that playing Fargo has rubbed off over time on the actor who portrays him. “I’ve found I’ve become more accident-prone<" Grayston says. "It's kind of annoying. And I do have - me and my friends call it 'Neil luck.' Because with technology, I actually have really bad luck all the time. I can buy something new and then right out of the box, it just doesn't work right."
Ferguson gives an example of this. "Neil's computer is an Apple, everyone has Apples, nothing ever goes wrong with them. Neil's like, 'Is this on?' His battery is so swollen that his mouse doesn't work.
Grayston takes up the tale. "The battery swelled so much that it popped the screws out of the battery itself that was covering it. I was like, 'Huh, I didn't think they did that.'"
Ferguson observes, "Any normal person would go, 'You know what, this looks dangerous, I'm going to take it in.' Neil has it for a year - 'I think it'll probably fix itself.'"
"I brought it in to Apple," Grayston recalls, "and the guy is like, 'Oh, yeah, that happens sometimes …'" This was before the Apple tech saw the swollen battery. Grayston re-enacts the other man's reaction. "'Whoa!'"
Besides his work on EUREKA, Grayston reveals that he has recently completed filming in another role that requires pop culture awareness. "I did a movie with Greg Grunberg called END OF THE WORLD. It's a Syfy original. It's about the end of the world," he explains with a laugh at the self-evident title. "It's about two video store clerks who have to save the world from an impending disaster with their encyclopedic knowledge of disaster movies and so it's not a wacky send-up of disaster movies, it's sort of like an homage to them that's very tongue in cheek. It's a lot of improv and a lot of me and Grunnie just sort of bantering back and forth. That should be on some time this year."
Did that come through Grayston's connection to Syfy via EUREKA? "Well," he observes, "it's a Syfy movie, so I guess [Grunberg] had had a deal to do a couple of the movies, and this was one of them, and it had been in development for awhile, and then someone at NBC suggested me, apparently, and I thought, "Sweet, I'm being offered a movie, I'll do this." And it was a lot of fun. It was actually one of the funnest experiences I've had filming a movie."
Meanwhile, Ferguson has not been idle, either. "I shot a pilot for Fox called LIKE FATHER. Bill Lawrence is the executive producer, who did SCRUBS and COUGAR TOWN. And that was great. Fingers crossed."
As well as serving as EUREKA's star, Ferguson has directed three episodes of the series, "Your Face or Mine," "The Story of O2" and "In Too Deep." Additionally, during his 2010 hiatus, he directed the Syfy Channel movie TRIASSIC ATTACK and starred in LAKE PLACID 3 for the network.
“They wanted me to act in [a Syfy Channel movie],” Ferguson explains, “and we did this thing where I got to direct the one right afterwards, so luckily, it worked out with something I was really familiar with. [In LAKE PLACID 3], there was a guy in a sheriff’s uniform and a jeep being chased by monsters, so it was a little lucky,” he laughs.
Ferguson adds that he preferred not to act in the same movie he was directing. “I wanted to separate them for my career and for the experience. I wanted to be in one and do that completely, and then, because it was [filmed in] Bulgaria, and I didn’t know the crew, and I didn’t know how facile it was going to be to get things done, I wanted to make sure that I had all of my attention on the job I was being paid to do. They’ve come to me again, I’ll definitely be [directing] another one.”
As for Ferguson as a director on EUREKA episodes, Grayston offers, “I like the way Colin moves.”
Ferguson mock-accepts this compliment with, “You’re sexy, too.”
Grayston continues, “He moves really quickly as a director. He just breaks everything down in such a simple way. Sometimes to be on set, it’ll be like, ‘Why are we not shooting right now?’ And Colin always has the plan.” He turns to Ferguson. “One day you were telling me about when they were going to build one of the sets, you were like, ‘Can I get the walls twelve feet high and this much around so we can get the camera in and be able to shoot down here?’ I really liked that.” In fact, Grayston adds, sometimes Ferguson directed so efficiently that the company ended filming early. “There were a couple days where we were like, ‘Are we going to keep on just filming, so that they don’t get mad?’ Normally, we would film twelve to fourteen hours a day, and [on Ferguson's episode], we were done in eight.” He compliments Ferguson again. “Well done.”
Over all five seasons, what do the actors think have been the biggest transitions for their characters?
“It’s the one where Jordan [Hinson as Carter's adolescent daughter Zoe] has pink hair, ‘Right as Raynes,’” Ferguson answers. “That was an episode where I had a big blow-up with my daughter and obviously afterwards, there’s sort of a breakdown for him, where he couldn’t do that any more, he couldn’t just take her out at the knees when she does something wrong. He has to admit that she’s an adult and start giving her credit where credit is due. But for me, it’s been a really slow melt. I’m the plot hammer a lot of the time, so it’s a slow development that I’ve got to go through. I haven’t gone through anywhere near what Neil did, where all of a sudden he’s head of Global Dynamics [after the return from 1947]. ”
Grayston says he’s happy with the changes in Fargo. “There was already a little bit from the pilot to, say, Season Four, where - what’s the word I want to say? - he’s getting a little bit too bungly at a certain point and it was a little bit too like,” Grayston employs the voice an older sibling would use when chastising a younger brother, “‘Fargo.’ I found it sort of dehumanized the character a bit and it just made him like comedic relief, even though sometimes it wasn’t that comedic, it was just annoying. But the reboot, I think, really solidified putting Fargo back on as an actual human being and not just a ‘Whoa, I’m going to fall, press a button’ guy. I really liked that. It was nice to really get to play a human being again.”
As the characters in EUREKA have experienced a variety of timelines and realities, do either or both of the actors have a preference among them? “The Forties was hard,” Ferguson says of the time-traveling two-parter. “That clothing sucks. I mean, the wool - you’re wearing a wool suit? In the rain? Who thought of that? How did we win any wars? It was awful. And the shoes - this wafer-thin shoe that’s unbelievably uncomfortable. I tip my hat to the soldiers. That [clothing was] insane. I’m surprised anyone lived. No one killed by bullets, but wool …”
“But it looked super-cool,” Grayston points out.
“So it wouldn’t be that.” Ferguson muses aloud. “For me, what’s the best reality?”
“The new timeline,” Grayston suggests.
Ferguson agrees that he likes the changed version of the present Carter, Fargo and the others found upon their return from the past. “I like the alternate timeline - the reboot, as it were. Because all these characters developed organically and naturally, and with the reboot, [the writers] can actually take Neil and put him in charge of the town and that gave a whole new lease on life. Because we had Ed [Quinn as Nathan Stark], who was the head of the town and then Ed left the show, his character died, [two] seasons in, so there was sort of a gap in the structure of the town from a dramatic level. And so by shuffling the deck and putting Neil on top, it gave us a new lease on life and a really organized structure with which to do the drama.”
“Yeah, what he said,” Grayston concurs with a laugh. “I think it summed it up pretty nicely.”
Looking back, do Ferguson and Grayston have favorite EUREKA episodes? Ferguson replies, “I like the two that Alexandra [de la Roche] directed, which were ‘Smarter Carter’ and. Jaime [Paglia's directorial debut], ‘Jack of All Trades.’ And I also like the ‘Up in the Air,’ where the bank gets stolen. Those are probably my favorites. I love when we get goofy.”
“‘Liftoff’ was probably one of my favorites,” Grayston says.
“The first three of this season have got to be some of yours, though,” Ferguson reminds his friend. “That’s some of the greatest stuff you got to do.”
Grayston says some of his favorites may be still to come, “Because I’m waiting to see these newer episodes as they air, just because it’s fun to see it, to experience it with everyone else, so I think there’s going to be a lot of stuff this year that I’m going to like a lot. But I’m a no-spoiler kind of guy.”
EUREKA would normally be in production at this time of year. How keenly do the actors feel its absence?
“Well, it’s funny,” Ferguson says. “I love change. I think everybody does, right? Part of me is really happy to be not exhausted, like, ‘Oh, it’s springtime and I can go outside.’”
Grayston echoes the sentiment. “‘The sun! I can be in it!’”
“Yeah,” Ferguson continues. “And that’s really, really great. It’s also sort of a victory lap, because it’s airing and we know the episodes are going to be well-received, because they’re the best stuff we’ve done, so I really love that. It’s sort of a win-win for us. But of course, also wistful because the chapter is closing. But it’s been a good run.”
At least a deal was reached between Syfy and the production team that allowed the writing and making of a finale episode that wraps up the storylines. Both actors say they are very grateful for this.
Grayston observes, “I can’t imagine what it’s like for those shows who get canned in the off-season. You don’t get to say goodbye to anybody, you just find that you’re not coming back.” It’s disturbing even for audience members, he adds. “On Netflix, I’ve been watching a bunch of shows. And I’ll get into it and it’s like, ‘Oh. That’s how they ended? Damn.’ Like THE BLACK DONNELLYS or NO ORDINARY FAMILY and stuff, all these shows that are like really good, and it’s just like …” His voice trails off, echoing the unfinished nature of the story arcs.
Is there anything either Ferguson or Grayston would like to add about their EUREKA experience?
Oh, gosh,” Ferguson says. “So much. What would I like to say?”
“There’s a lot of nudity this year,” Grayston quips with a straight face.
“Yes,” Ferguson affirms solemnly, “nudity and death, murder. GAME OF THRONES, ha! Tune into EUREKA, we’re a nine o’clock show now,” he laughs.
More seriously, Grayston says, “Probably just thanking the fans for sticking around for so many years and so many long absences and split seasons and everything, writers’ strikes.”
Ferguson says, “I do tip a hat to their dedication and to their loyalty and generosity with us when they meet us. People have been really kind to us, and it makes a big difference.”
“We wouldn’t be here without everyone watching,” Grayston concludes.
By Abbie Bernstien
Buzzy Mag Entertainment Reporter
