How did you approach playing the various versions of Scorpius, and which was the most fun to play? Question from Amy Tyndall.
The Harvey character, he had a very clear function, to go hunting for information. But the liberation, when he evolved, was when Scorpius, in his arrogant way, took out the chip, but left the clone. [Since then] he’s like an actor without a role.
So that led me to go a little bit more crazy. Really to free it up. For me, it’s just clear cut, it’s pretty obvious that they’re two very separate characters. There’s no confusion, [I don’t] have to go away in a corner and prepare anything, nothing like that at all.
Certainly the real liberation came when Scorpius did extract that piece of data out of Crichton’s brain, and the notion of this guy is, he’s a loose cannon. He’s bouncing off the walls, going crazy. He wants to be useful, he wants to do something. He’s an actor with out a role. So that’s when he really got energised.
He has a manic nature, which he didn’t have to start with, because I really didn’t know what I was doing. I was just putting my foot in the water. But, as I say, once we extracted that piece of data from Crichton’s brain, I just knew that I could go to play, I could actually really up the ante, turn the volume up.
Is Harvey fun to play?
There’s fun and there’s fun. I mean, the comedy is fun. There’s no doubt about it, the silliness is fun. But there’s nothing like intimidating people. And winning. You always win. Even when you give it all away, they think they’re winning, they think they’re winning. Not!
I love that. You know, the seduction.
