The stars of ‘Spartacus: Blood and Sand’ spill the beans on their characters, casting, green screen and nudity
January 19, 2010 by Lance Carter
Filed under Interviews
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Spartacus: Blood and Sand is a retelling of the classic story of a Roman Gladiator who eventually rises up to lead a massive slave rebellion. But this is not your Dad’s Spartacus. This is much cooler. Much, much cooler. I’ve seen the first 4 episodes and they rock.
In this exclusive interview, Andy Whitfield (Spartacus), Lucy Lawless (Lucretia) and Executive Producer Steven S. DeKnight talked to me
Spartacus: Blood and Sand premieres this Friday, January 22nd on Starz!
Side note: This was a much longer interview but about halfway during the call, I noticed my cat chewing the cord that I use to record the audio. I quickly replaced the cord but missed a lot of great questions. You can thank my cat for that. And if you listen to the audio of the call, you’ll be able to hear her “meowing” in the background. Ah… the pleasures of working at home.
Let’s pick up the action…
[My question was: How do you get mentally prepared for a long shoot like this?]
Andy: stay present and go, what do I have to achieve today and collaborate with some of the most amazing people I’ve ever worked with. It’s achievable. It does take its toll at the end. Everyone needs a big rest, but even on the last day, everyone was there, the crew were there, and you could just feel how proud and how excited and how exhilarated everyone was. You almost could feel like they could have two weeks off and start again.
Do you guys both still get nervous before a big scene?
Andy: Lucy?
Lucy: If I’m naked, yeah probably (laughter). I don’t know. Now that there’s such a relationship of trust between the actors and you’ve got directors that are really just fantastic –
Andy: Yeah, I think, I mean I think that is true. I think, you know, from what we have achieved – that gives you a lot of confidence. But I also am conscious that there is always a necessary amount of fear just to have everything sharp. You know, it’s that thing, no pressure, no diamond. And I think you just sort of get used to it and accept that it will always be there.
For example, if I had to audition for something tomorrow, I would be as nervous as I was before. And I’d spent nine months doing the best training for acting I could possibly ever have. And I think that’s appropriate. I think that you just accept that that’s gonna be there. And just trust it’s gonna go away it’ll go away the second you commit to what is there.
Peter Mensah: “The greatest experience for an actor is working”
December 1, 2009 by Lance Carter
Filed under Interviews
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You’ve seen Peter Mensah in tons of things but most notably 300, Hulk and Hildago. He’s usually the menacing or authoratative guy who gets in the way of the main character but in real life, he couldn’t be nicer. Maybe I shouldnt say that… I don’t want to ruin his authoritative cred!
Peter is starring in two great upcoming projects, James Cameron‘s Avatar and Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
In my exclusive interview I did at this summers Comic-Con, we talk about his Spartacus character (Doctore), working with green screens and he even offers up some advice to actors.
Is this your first Comic Con?
This is my first Comic Con. I’ve done some sci-fi fantasy. I did 300, etc., but I’ve not really attended, usually because I’m working somewhere else at the time. This time around Rob [Tapert - Executive Producer of Spartacus] and the guys actually flew me back for this.
Tell me about your character.
I get to play a character called Doctore on Spartacus, and Doctore is the gladiator trainer. And it’s his job fundamentally to bring up the up and coming new gladiators and also to prepare sort of the well-schooled gladiators for each and every fight. And you know what’s fascinating about doing this is you sort of get to see how Roman society worked way back when, I think 73 B.C. And the fact that these stadiums could house 80,000 people, would come in and watch these fights. Physically. They didn’t have pay-per-view. They had to show up.
