Sarah Connor Chronicles Kicks Off

SFUniverse participated in a recent conference call with Sarah Connor herself, Lena Headey and Sarah Connor Chronicles showrunner Josh Friedman about the show’s second season.

There has been some criticism that this John Connor seems like he’s “too emo” to ever become the hard-edged savior of mankind he’s been billed as. Headey said this season we’re going to see John man up, so to speak. As a mother, it’s naturally going to be hard for Sarah Connor to step back and let that happen.

“It’s been an interesting season,” Headey said. “I feel that Sarah has taken kind of a backseat in terms of being proactive and taking care of business.  I think that we’re going to see a lot more of John taking control and then becoming, making steps towards becoming the man he has to be to take on his tasks.  And I think this season for Sarah is kind of her losing slight control over everything pretty much, and my feeling is that I think there’s a slow madness sort of happening in her because she feels that everything’s kind of out of reach right now.

Headey said that’s been an interesting shift for a character that always seems in control of everything. At San Diego Comic Con they dropped the hint that this season someone is going to die. Friedman said no, Cameron does not count. And let’s face a robot technically isn’t “alive” to begin with. But that’s a completely different sci-fi debate.

“Well, I mean, you’ll know it when you see it,” Friedman said.” It’s certainly not, it’s not, you won’t have to ask about it.  I definitely don’t count, I mean, I do think there’s obviously some stuff in the first episode kind of thematically about dying and resurrection and reorientation of all the relationships, but when the character dies, I think we’ll know.” 

Many fans and writers alike have speculated that things like character death are mandated by “the suits” upstairs, whether they call for a specific head to roll or simply cut the acting budget by – one actor’s salary. Friedman said this upcoming death and all such plot developments come as the story dictates.

“No, it’s pure storytelling,” he explained. “It’s painful to say good-bye to actors.  It’s painful, especially this show.  Everyone’s wonderful and they’re all lovely people, and going to an actor and saying, “Here’s the script and this is what’s going to happen,” is extremely difficult, and it’s never driven, at least so far, for us, it’s never been driven by economics or anything extracurricular.  It’s … writer’s room and you’re, all of a sudden you’re having this dawning realization that you have a really good idea for something story-wise, but it’s going to end up costing somebody a job.  And it’s not easy.  These are people, and most of them will, they’ll go on and get other work, but it’s not a fun thing to do really.” 

One of the most debated changes is this second season is the casting of Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson as the CEO of a major corporation. Yes, this is Manson’s first acting job and yes Friedman realizes there is skepticism. Friedman added to that debate by mentioning that Manson is a friend of his wife’s. The scrutiny on Manson just got cranked up another notch.

“I’ve known Shirley, I’ve known her well for a couple of years, and I’ve known her off and on for many years,” Friedman said. ” She’s a friend of my wife’s.  Personally, I’ve always enjoyed her, and I’ve known her as a performer, and last year, when we were doing the show last year, whenever I’d see her, I used to joke with her about coming on the show to do one episode or something like that because she never acted.  And we’re like, “You know, you should come, do one thing, come be a scary terminator for an episode or do something like that,” and she always said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re never going to do that.” 

And then this year, when we started casting, I actually wasn’t thinking about her for this part.  We’d just started casting this part, and then somewhere about a week into casting, I thought I want to bring Shirley in and see if she’s up for it, see if she wants to do it, and she was actually in Europe, I think, for a funeral.  And I e-mailed her and said, “Do you want to come in and audition?”  She said, “Well, yes, I’m coming back in town on Sunday.”  I said, “Well, we need you in on Monday,” and she came and she did it, and she’s just got an incredible charisma. 

And also, she’s just very professional.  She’s always prepared, and her learning curve in terms of the craft part of it has been very high so far, so I don’t know.  It sort of just happened organically, but she also had to go through the entire audition process just like any other actor.  She was given no extra points for being Shirley Manson.  I think, in some ways, she was given minus points by people who thought maybe she couldn’t do it.”

Rest assured Terminator fans will be watching Manson closely. Some of the rest of this interview is a little spoilery, so we’ll show you more tomorrow. SFUniverse readers will be knee deep in Sarah Connor Chronicles coverage this week as another press event is coming up Wednesday.