CraveOnline: Is there a great Irisa fight we should look for?
Stephanie Leonidas: There’s several really, but there’s a nice argument between her and Nolan that’s quite juicy that I enjoyed playing, but you’ll have to wait a while to see that one.
So not a physical confrontation, more of a verbal one?
Pretty much, yeah. They have their physical moments as well. Irisa expresses herself through her knives and her physicality. She’s very animal-like in that way.
The costume is not very much. Are any takes ever ruined from shivering?
Not really. I think once the adrenaline gets going, it’s afterwards you realize how cold you are. Sometimes we would be killing each other on set and then suddenly you’d stand still, you realize your hands had gone blue, your lips had blue.
In fact, no one had ever seen my lips being blue because I’m orange. So yeah, it’s one of those things I think you just keep going and it’s only when you stop that you realize actually it’s minus whatever.
Because it wouldn’t look very badass if you shivered.
No, unless I used it in an animal way like I was shaking the whole thing off. Yeah, I’ve got to stand tall. I can’t show any kind of weakness with Irisa.
Have you gotten used to your mirror image in the full Irisa makeup?
I have, yeah. I say I have, but when I first got back into it in season two, I remember standing in the mirror going, “Wow, I kind of forgot how much it changes me.” Yeah, it’s quite amazing and it’s definitely still strange in the evenings taking it all off and seeing this other girl underneath it all.
Do you feel more yourself after, or as Irisa?
While I’m on “Defiance,” as Irisa. When I’m myself walking around the set I feel odd, and people talk to me in a really odd way. It’s like people don’t quite know how to talk to me because they see me as Irisa the whole time and suddenly they look at me like, “Who’s this girl?”
I think we’re all much more comfortable as our characters because that’s how we see each other most of the time. I mean, I got to know most of the cast as their character so days like today when I see everyone as themselves, it’s kind of like introducing yourself again.
We’re kind of used to seeing each other on the set and it kind of became our life. It’s quite an intense few months.
Irisa never has much to do with the Tarrs, does she?
No, I don’t think she quite gets the Castithans and the Castithans don’t quite get the Irathients. They’re very different creatures. The Castithans are very lizard-like,very poised, very clean. The Irathients are kind of creatures of the land. They’re very wolf-like, very feral. The hierarchy almost between those aliens are the Castithans look at the Irathients as kind of the scum breed alien.
The Irathients would probably try and chop their heads off if they said too much. It’s interesting playing those dynamics as well, but yeah, it’s interesting that you have all of that in the alien world and it’s been fun to play.
How did you spend the hiatus between season on and two?
Well, I feel like it all happened so quickly. I did a few episodes of some stuff in London. I did a “Poirot” which has now finished. It was a long running series that had been going for 25 years, so I was in the last episode that he ever shot. That was quite an emotional thing and great fun.
I also did an episode of “By Any Means” which was a series that was out in London. So I filled my time with stuff and then suddenly we were back out in Toronto and filming in minus 20. It’s been nice fitting things in in between. I have a film coming out with Dave McKean called Luna.
We talked about that last time we did an interview.
Yeah, he’s just finishing it.
Have you seen any finished versions of Luna?
I have. I did some ADR last week so I got to see bits, but I’m looking forward to seeing it all put together because it was something I did so long ago, I feel like I wish I could do it all over again really. I feel like I was so young when I did it and it’s only just coming out. It’s nice that it has finally come together.
I imagine at any age, something like that would end up looking so different than you imagined. How did it measure up to your expectations?
Well, I haven’t seen enough to be able to comment too much because there’s a lot of CGI involved, so I didn’t get to see a lot of that. Just from remembering when I saw MirrorMask, because I was young and hadn’t really worked with CGI before, I remember watching it thinking, “Wow, I look like I’m in a world.”
I loved Roger Rabbit growing up. I always wanted to be able to jump into that world and for me it was like wow, I actually did that. I remember just having a big smile on my face because Dave has a great way of creating these characters. It was full green screen for three months with MirrorMask pretty much. I’m always excited to see how those things turn out.
“Defiance” is mostly practical, right?
Mostly, yeah. We do have a fair bit of greenscreen now and again, but we have such an incredible set that we don’t need to go onto the green screen as much as maybe you would normally.
Our set is absolutely incredible and this year it’s changed slightly. There are some additions to the set and also we don’t just stick in Defiance this year. We’re out in some different locations. We venture out into Los Angeles. That’s where we first meet Irisa so there’s a lot more visually to look at this year.
Did you shoot in L.A.?
No, we didn’t. We shot in a place called Leslie Spit. Over the years, rubble has piled up and basically created an island. It’s beautiful. It sticks out into the water and it was amazing really. It was like going on a school trip because we all got in the van and off we went to another location.
Yeah, it was good fun. They’ve created L.A. out of that and I’ve seen bits of that and it looks amazing.
So L.A. is not doing so well in the future?
No, no, to say the least. There will definitely be things that people recognize as being L.A. but it’s a very different version of L.A. to what we know.
