I had a great interview with Tony Curran for the first season of Syfy’s “Defiance,” getting to know Datak Tarr and his pale white race of Castithans. Datak’s wife Stahma (Jaime Murray) seemed to be manipulating things behind the scenes, but she got caught and Datak was elected mayor at the end of season one.
Things will be even more complex for Datak when “Defiance” returns for season two on June 19. I got to catch up with Curran about the new season of “Defiance,” in which it seems Datak is worse off than we left him. Can he rise back up to the top of the town called Defiance?
CraveOnline: Is Datak getting even more action this year?
Tony Curran: Well, you know at the beginning of season two, he’s not in Defiance. He’s been displaced you might say.
That didn’t last long. He took over in the first season finale.
No, it didn’t, did it? Because he’s from the gutter and rose up to a place of some prominence, it didn’t last long because I don’t think he’s politically inclined. Although his wife was pushing him in that direction, you can take the boy out of the gutter but you can’t take the gutter out of the boy in many ways. That showed at the end of season one, his wrathful raging behavior was too difficult to control.
When he won the election, did you think that would set him up for a while?
Oh, he certainly hoped so. There’s a moment with Stahma and Datak when he wins and it’s like great, okay, what now? I’m sure there’s plenty of things to be done, like George W. Bush in headlights. I’m sure he would’ve done many things, but he didn’t obviously get the chance to because of his behavior.
Where is Datak at the beginning of season two?
Can’t tell you. Did you see pictures of him? He’s somewhere far away where he’s in trouble. He’s definitely trying to get back to Defiance. He’s trying to get back on his perch as it were.
It’s nine months later, so do we find out where Datak has been for those nine months?
What normally happens when you stab a general to death. He got caught so he’s been banged up.
Assuming he gets back to Defiance, when he sees Stahma again, what’ she going to think about her?
Very good question actually because when you watch episode one, she’s obviously been in control in a sense. She’s tried to take up from the disaster at the end of season one. So Stahma and Alak try to keep the family business afloat.
But of course without the patriarch, without Datak there, it’s been challenged in many ways, but it wouldn’t be if I was still there. But when he comes back, obviously Datak wants to slip into his usual role, but being away for nine months, when he comes back he might find that there’s been a few changes.
Whether he likes those changes or not, that’s yet to be seen. He might find that the goal posts have been moved somewhat and he wasn’t expecting that. Obviously everybody in Defiance is doing their best to get me back to Defiance. That’s what he’s hoping anyway.
Datak and Stahma were already on the outs last season. Will he be happy to see her and want to reconcile?
Well, I think because obviously what she did, after he found out that she was double dipping, if you will.
That’s one way to put it.
That’s one way to put it. He’s obviously not too happy about that, but I think he’s gotten over that. I think he still loves her and I think he’s forgiven her but he’s hoping that she’s going to be working on his behalf to get him back to Defiance.
That’s a pretty big assumption. She might have reasons to leave him there.
That’s a very good point as well. That would be terrible then, a terrible mistake on her part. It could throw the fox into the chicken coop if you will, if she did that.
As you see, she’s not quite sure whether or not he has forgiven her and she’s a woman, in season one, like many of the characters that has reinvented herself. To reinvent herself and get on top without him being there and his bullish behavior, maybe she’d be happy doing that. I don’t know, I can’t say.
Have they actually created a situation where they’re safer with Datak in prison, or do they really want him back?
I think they definitely do, but they want him back in a manner that he’s not going to self-destruct again in many ways if he is, because becoming mayor for an hour wasn’t exactly what they had in mind. Like many villains, they just snap and it’s not like he’s more conniving like this skullduggery wife.
He’s more spontaneous and Stahma’s an animal as well in her serpent-like ways, but he’s more of a wolf. He just attacks instead of thinking, and ask questions later. When you ask questions later, unfortunately it’s too late. When he comes back, if he comes back, there’ll be a sh*t storm. There may well be a sh*t storm.
What will Datak think of Alak taking over in his place?
That’s a good question as well. At first, I don’t think Datak wanted Alak to be part of what he was. I think he wants his son to go on into some other job and not be in the family business. I think he wants him to be part of something other than his father, something better.
Whether that happens or not, once again, is yet to be seen. I always thought similarities to Michael Corleone. He never wanted to be part of the Cosa Nostra or his father’s family dealings but he ended up becoming the head of it. Once again, I’m speculating but you’re asking great questions.
How easy or difficult was it to slip back into the role of Datak?
It was challenging in the sense that we shot the first three episodes back to back. I say back to back, not in sequence, which was even more challenging than season one. The pilot which was two episodes, this was three episodes and I was having a baby at the time. My baby was born halfway through shooting those first three episodes, so they kicked back all my shooting basically. Everybody had three weeks to shoot three episodes. My baby was born on the fifth of September and on the fifth of September, I flew to Toronto, on the 6th, 7th and 8th I shot three days and I shot three episodes in three days.
For me, it was challenging in the sense that I relish that because a lot of the time you’re on set, you’re waiting about. But when it’s all you, it was all Datak stuff morning ‘til night, I basically prepared everything for those episodes, they dropped me in and bang, we were off. It was great to be back because the first three episodes, I can really see an evolution of a lot of the characters, the beginnings of an evolution of where they might be going.
Everything is broken, to use that term. Season one it was “New Earth, New Rules.” Nolan’s traipsing around New York, L.A., there’s flashbacks. There’s a lot of characters you find out even more dark past about them, skeletons in the closet as it were.
A lot of the first season was about refugees in many ways and about displaced individuals, like what happens to planet Earth, what happens to humanity? There’s a lot of dealings with some very sinister and some very dark human elements in season two with a lot of complexity and emotional depth and emotional darkness that arises. You’ll be like, “Wow, f***, is that a Syfy show?” You don’t expect that from something else, but it falls into place in “Defiance.”
