IR Interview: Anna Fishko For "Orphan Black - Echoes" [AMC] - video Dailymotion

The Inside Reel

Showrunner Anna Fishko talks to The Inside Reel abot tone, characterization, build and thematics in regards to her new series continuing the Orphan Black universe: "Orphan Black - Echoes" on AMC.

Transcript

00:00I'm in danger, and I think you might be too.

00:17This is part of something bigger than you can possibly understand.

00:25I'm going to get some answers.

00:26You going to help me or what?

00:32Because you've worked on such a diverse amount of shows, I mean, I bring to mind Tyrant and

00:36Colony, ones that have so much dread, approaching Orphan Black, and obviously it's a new idea

00:43within Orphan Black, where did you have to start in terms of the psychology of a character

00:49like Lucy to permeate it forward?

00:53I think I just spent a lot of time thinking about really what it would feel like to wake

01:00up and not know who you were, and have to figure everything out from a very sort of

01:07limited data set.

01:10So she has a lot of skills, there's a lot of things that she does know how to do, but

01:17she just doesn't have a lot of, she doesn't have long-term memory, so she doesn't have

01:22the ability to recall her name or what's happened in her life up to that point.

01:28And so what would you, what would you want to know?

01:32Obviously there are the immediate concerns about safety, and so she's just trying, she's

01:36really just trying to survive, I think we would imagine for that first year of life.

01:43But once she'd kind of figured out how to kind of get herself on her own two feet, what

01:50are the things that she would care about?

01:52What are the sort of burning questions that she would still want answers to?

01:57And so I just spent a lot of time thinking about how that would feel.

02:12What is this?

02:42Now when you approached it tonally, obviously the idea of problem-solving, but conscience,

02:49what is the right thing to do in terms of the character?

02:52Can you talk about building that and building that over the season?

02:57Because it has to keep upping, but you have to understand her perspective as well as Jules'

03:01perspective and others.

03:04Yeah, I think I really wanted to kind of take this really complicated story and meet it

03:14out in tiny little pieces and packets of information up until about the midway point of the season

03:21where I felt like we could really explode it open and give the audience this hopefully

03:27satisfying answer about why Lucy was printed and who she was.

03:34And I felt like at that point we would really get this very hopefully moving and sweet and

03:40to a certain extent simple story explanation for who she was that maybe wasn't what we

03:45were expecting.

03:46And that would kind of cement the audience's kind of feeling about what was happening in

03:53a different way.

03:54So now that we had all of that information and that backstory, it would propel us into

03:58the second half of the season with kind of fresh eyes.

04:01This isn't how I wanted you to-

04:03What is this?

04:08You were created.

04:11You were printed from a high-resolution scan using a very complex process.

04:23I was- I was printed.

04:27It's a new technology.

04:29It's the four-dimensional printing of human tissue.

04:37That doesn't make any sense.

04:40It's the truth.

04:41Everybody, to a point, besides Lucy has a facade, you know, that they're sort of putting

04:46up and trying to sort of angle on that.

04:49Can you talk about looking at the characters that way?

04:52Because it has to start from the top.

04:54Obviously, having Kristen play the character was probably because of her empathetic nature,

05:01but because she of the way as an actress, she's very intelligent about it.

05:06Could you talk about finding the character in her and sort of moving with her in that

05:12idea?

05:13Yeah, I think- I think we- I really started with Eleanor's character to a certain extent

05:20because they're all prints of Eleanor.

05:23So, I spent a lot of time thinking about who Eleanor was before she got sick and what her

05:32kind of character traits, you know, as an academic and, you know, as a fairly, like,

05:38liberal, kind of smart, ambitious researcher, how those character traits might- might appear

05:49in somebody who had a very different experience of the world, like- like Lucy does and like

05:55Jules does.

06:08So,

06:30well, because if memory is an interesting thing, how we remember things versus how things

06:35actually play out.

06:36Can you talk about toying with the ideas of memory and the- the thematic of that?

06:41Because, you know, that- that can move so many different ways and you do it very well

06:45here.

06:47Yeah, I really was interested in this idea of these psychological experiences and our

06:52memories of them being core to who we imagine ourself to be.

06:57So, I think there's a moment where they go to see Eleanor's mother.

07:01They visit her in this sort of ice cream parlor and it's a really interesting scene

07:07and- and the mother character says that the most terrifying thing, you know, she's struggling

07:12with- with Alzheimer's and that the most frightening thing for her is that she can't-

07:16she wakes up and she can't remember who she is.

07:21And I think that- that sense of identity is tied to memory and that's a very interesting

07:28thing, right?

07:29Because it's- these are all things that have happened in the past, but those experiences

07:33kind of build up over time and they define who we are because they give us our sense

07:38of self.

07:38So, how scary would it be to have lost that?

07:42I have to figure out who I am.

07:45Sorry, do we know each other?

07:47Don't think so.

07:51I think she's me.

07:57This isn't gonna end well.

IR Interview: Anna Fishko For "Orphan Black - Echoes" [AMC]

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