You’ve heard it a million times: the cast of a television show insist that they’re all the best of friends, and that the close friendship you see on the screen is exactly the way it is in real life.

It’s not until years after the show has wrapped that you learn the truth: that the backstage squabbling was far more interesting than anything you saw on-screen.

But the stars of the well-received new BBC America drama Being Human, about a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost who share an apartment together, insist that they really are great off-screen friends. And after meeting them all and watching them interact at a gathering of the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, I’m convinced they’re telling the truth.

“We’re so different, all of us, quite different people,” says Aidan Turner, who plays the vampire, of his off-screen relationship with his co-stars. “Russell [Tovey, who plays the werewolf] can be quite extroverted sometimes, and I’m quite the opposite in weird ways. [Our tight friendship] just happened. It’s a funny thing. I did another series after this one where it’s about a brotherhood in Victorian London, and we knew we had to get along, and we did [but it wasn't the same]. I don’t know why it works, why you get on with some people, and sometimes you don’t.”

“No, I can’t stand them,” says Tovey when asked to confirm that he’s friends with his co-stars. “They’re horrible! They’re lying!”

But when he’s done joking, Tovey says, “We are friends. I’ve been spoiled. I did The History Boys, and there were seven other boys, and we genuinely got on well.”

Being Human is shot in the U.K. city of Bristol, and for the course of filming the series, the actors all live in flats next to each other.

“Even while filming, we’d all end up in one of our apartments,” says Lenora Crichlow, who plays the ghost. “For different reasons. They came to my apartment to eat, we went to Russell’s to watch TV, and we went to Aiden’s to chill out and listen to music.”

“It’s very much life imitating art,” Turner says.

Tovey is quick to point out, “We are different from our characters. In the show, Mitchell is the leader of the house, and we’re like the squabbling children. In life, well, Aiden’s effortlessly cool anyway, I’m a bit more scatty, and Lenora’s cool as well. So I probably am the one who’s a bit more screamy and shouty.”

“It’s such an easy thing to say, because you talk to any actor, and they say the same thing, ‘Yeah, chemistry was easy,’” Turner says. “But [the three of us] just get on, we’re just mates. We’ve been hanging out [even here at this conference] in each others’ hotel rooms, having drinks, talking, shooting the breeze. It’s almost that thing, immediately get comfortable with somebody, and you don’t need to talk, you can just hang out. I know when Russell is maybe not in the best of moods, and I wouldn’t even acknowledge it or say anything. We can just feel each other.”

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »

Four Torches (Out of Five)

Talk about your high concepts!

In Being Human, the new horror drama series beginning Saturday on BBC America, a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost end up sharing an apartment together.

But these aren’t your usual monsters. None of the three wants to be what each has become. The show is about how they cope with being not-quite-human.

“I feel safe here,” one character says of their flat. “There are monsters outside.”

In other words — irony alert! — despite the fact that they’re all “monsters,” they’re not really monsters. In fact, they’re probably more human than most actual human beings, who blithely take for granted all the normalcy that these folks crave.

And yet, they’re definitely not like other humans. John, the vampire, still craves the blood he has forsaken. George, the werewolf, so hates his condition that he refers to it as “that thing that happens to me once a month.” And Anna, the ghost, is a ghost in every sense of the word, refusing to give up the life and love she once shared with her fiance, clinging to the apartment they once shared.

It is, of course, all a metaphor for the struggles we all face against our own darker, weaker natures.

All three characters became monsters more or less involuntarily (the vampire, we learn, became that way by sacrificing himself to save others). The first three episodes made available by the network for preview concern themselves with the main characters learning some of the intriguing secrets behind why they became what they are.

Reportedly, the initial concept of the show, created by Doctor Who writer Toby Whithouse, was darker, and it was made intentionally lighter, post-pilot. For example, John says to George the werewolf, after he’s been told off by someone else, “If anyone said that to me, I’d bite their head off. I suppose in your case, that’s actually a possibility.”

Tone-wise, it’s much lighter than Supernatural, but still darker than Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The three leads, meanwhile, are all quite charming, and if you’re a fan of the adorkable Russell Tovey, it’s worth noting that he spends much of the show bare-assed, either turning into a werewolf, or turning human again.

Still, as clever and funny and often emotionally engaging as it all is, it isn’t “must-watch-TV.” Frankly, twenty years after Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and its oceans of imitators, the monster-as-a-metaphor-for-the-human-condition concept is getting pretty tired.

But it’s well-made TV, and if you’re intrigued by the premise, it’s definitely worth a watch.

Being Human airs on Saturday, July 25th, at 9 PM/8 C.

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »