Cosmic plots, twisted relationships and naked fighting! Lee Pace and Laura Birn catch us up on Foundation Season 3. Report by Nelsonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
00:00When we started shooting it, I was like, oh, great, this will be fun.
00:02And then I realized they filmed it.
00:05It's joyful. It's kind of like not taking themselves or us too seriously.
00:10I'm not going to try to tell anyone how to watch that TV.
00:13Lee, Lara, lovely to meet you both.
00:16Congratulations on the series. Series three.
00:19I decided to look for a little recap of season two.
00:22We all say season now since, I guess, like Game of Thrones.
00:25And I started watching it. I realized it was three hours and 50 minutes long.
00:28That was a recap, which taught me two things.
00:31One, it's a very densely complex, richly complex show.
00:36And two, it's fans very meticulous and very committed.
00:41So my first question is, could season three be a jumping on point for anyone?
00:47Or is this a show to binge and binge hard?
00:50I'm not going to try to tell anyone how to watch TV.
00:54Not in this climate.
00:56I mean, however you want to come to it, come to it.
01:01I think that there's, yeah, I've jumped into the series halfway through and been like, that's cool.
01:07And maybe it's an interesting little try to kind of figure out backwards, kind of like, whoa.
01:12I mean, this is a really fun part of the story.
01:15This is where the story really kicks off.
01:19And any fan of the books knows the mule is one of the hottest characters on the page.
01:28So it's a really fun time, you know, for us making this series to be at this point of the story.
01:35But to get here, there has been a lot of world building.
01:41And some of that just takes time because you need to feel it, you know.
01:48It's just not everything has to be stimulating.
01:52There are certain things that the ideas settle in slowly.
01:56You know, in the first season, most of the story takes place on Tranter and very, very far away, a little tiny outpost at the edge of the galaxy.
02:05And that's it.
02:09That's the Selden crisis.
02:11And in the next series, we get a little bit more into it.
02:15And in this series, we get major into it.
02:17We understand a much bigger political landscape inside the galaxy.
02:23And I do think it's taken the three seasons to build that.
02:30If we started out in the first season trying to accomplish that, I mean.
02:35Heads would explode.
02:36Yeah.
02:37Yeah.
02:37I think that's the rewarding thing of sci-fi, good sci-fi, is that it is very complex.
02:42But you get a lot from it because the more that you know, the more that you feel you're part of this kind of community of people who are a fan of something.
02:50And the detail, everyone feels smarter when they have to remember a lot of extra detail in a show.
02:59Also with the relationships, like if you just see Cleon and Demersel's relationship in season three, it works.
03:10But if you know the whole backstory of what they've been through together, where it all started, who's actually the one controlling the other?
03:17Or like, do we know actually, or does it change all this?
03:21So I think it does add up, like it makes it more fun to have all that kind of history to the characters also.
03:29It must be quite interesting for you guys as well, I'll come back to it, but like your characters go through quite a big transition seemingly in each series.
03:38So it's almost like a fresh start.
03:40Some people do a TV series, they're like, oh, I've been building this character for years.
03:43But you guys, it's almost like you're starting with a new character in a show that you already know, which must be an interesting challenge.
03:47But just a word on those kind of fans again, how's the experience and interaction with them been over the last few years?
03:55Because in sci-fi, we're talking like the fan art, the fan fiction, the memes and the gifts.
04:01You've obviously been involved in two of the biggest fandoms in the world with the Middle Earth fandom and the MCU fandom.
04:07So like how are they comparing and how rewarding has it been for you guys to sort of experience that the last couple of years?
04:13It's all just part of the fun.
04:14I mean, I love people being creative and, you know, engaging with the work you do.
04:21It's, it's, it's, we do it to give people enjoyment and, and have a good time.
04:27So, yeah, that they're doing the TikTok edits and making the crazy art, go for it.
04:34Give it, I want to see it all.
04:36For me, it's the first sci-fi or genre show on this scale.
04:41And I love it, how passionate people are, how devoted, how they've searched everything.
04:47They've heard every little word there and they kind of connect the dots.
04:52I love it.
04:53I love talking to the fans because it's like the, the amount of love and caring and devotion that they give.
04:59It's so interesting.
05:00And it's, I feel it's like, it's joyful.
05:02It's kind of like not taking themselves or us too seriously, but kind of like, like playing around it, like being.
05:10And they always see things in the character that I missed or that it just didn't occur to me.
05:15Always.
05:16There's always something, a sense of humor about the character that I didn't really, I wasn't conscious of when I played it.
05:22Or, um, a connection inside the story that I never made.
05:27Um, so, yeah, it's how these things live on.
05:31I can only imagine you had to put your phone in the freezer after the, the nude fight scene went out from series two.
05:36Oh my God.
05:36The reaction to that, I can only imagine.
05:40I mean, I, you know, when we shot, when we started shooting it, I was like, oh great, this will be fun.
05:44And then I realized they filmed it.
05:47Hey, it's there.
05:47It's good at here.
05:48It's good at some point.
05:49Very, very glad, I'm sure.
05:50Well, thanks very much guys, congratulations to the series so far and looking forward to seeing what you do next.
