Helix Season 2 interview with Kyra Zagorsky and Steven Weber

 

Helix is back for a second season on Syfy. Season 1 introduced us to a team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who travel to a research facility in the Arctic to investigate a potential outbreak of disease. While there, they find themselves stuck in a life-or-death situation that could decide the future of humankind.

I was lucky enough to chat with two of the stars from the upcoming season Kyra Zagorsky and Steven Weber.

Kyra Zagorsky plays Dr. Julia Walker. Still reeling from the revelations in Season One that changed her life forever, Dr. Julia Walker is pursuing her own agenda to define her new identity. In league with her captors, the shadowy Ilaria Corporation, she must use her passion, courage and fierce independence to find her moral compass and create purpose in her new existence.

Steven Weber plays Brother Michael. As the head of the enigmatic order living on the island, Brother Michael welcomes the CDC with caution. A student of nature and lover of science, he eschews modern technology and is suspicious of outsiders ... yet he has designs on making an impact that reaches far beyond the Abbey, and he will stop at nothing to preserve his way of life.

Kyra, how different is Julia now that she is aware of her immortality?

Kyra: She's very different. She's basically become a completely different person. She's connected to Ilaria now. She's connected to the immortal population. So she's in a completely different world and she's a survivor still that one thing that's still strong piece of Julia, that's in her character, and now she's just navigating through this as well

Steven, you're new to Helix this season. Tell us a bit about your character.

Steven: Brother Michael is a leader of a fellowship that dates back several generations. People call it a cult, but he doesn't necessarily. He is a botanist, a naturalist, and organic farmer. He is a molecular biologist He has years of knowledge in the field. And he has perpetuated, or helped to perpetuate this fellowship for a long time. He is on intimate terms with many of his followers. He a father to some, a brother to some, in a spiritual sense. But his reign is strengthened by a virus, a disease. So the CDC pokes their noses in as their wanton to do and they come on the island, and start to straighten things out.

What sort of preparation did you do to prepare for playing this character?

Steven: I killed a lot of chickens. (Laughs) No I didn't really have to do anything because it was all written down. The character is really benign when we first see him. He's spoken about as having a lot of charisma and control. I thought, well if they're talking about it I don't have to show it. I don't have to go out of my way to do that. So I didn't really have to do that much preparation.

Kyra, will we get any glimpses into what Julia was up to between the main events of season 1 to the flash forward that showed her as being on the Board of Directors at Ilaria?

Kyra: We will get a glimpse of it. Julia goes through a lot of different obstacles in the second season and she's going to meet a lot of new characters that kind of help her to figure out this new world that she's apart of now. But once she gets reconnected with Alan Farragut again a lot of what happened in between will come up, and there's a lot of fireworks that go on when these two characters come together again, and the politics and the social issues about what immortality is. So it's interesting and its heated.

Can you tease for fans regarding the relationship between Hatake and Julia?

Kyra: It's unresolved. (Laughs) It's definitely that.

Last season there was a lot of action. Steven does your character get to see any action this season?

Steven: Uh, huh. Possibly. The reason I say possibly because the entire tone of the show is amped up from the first season. So there's a lot of everything. There's a higher intensity so there's a lot of action and interaction. It's not like I have fist fights with Billy Campbell or anything.

Awww.

Steven: I know, I know we should be stripped to the waist. You'd like that wouldn't you?

(Kyra Laughs)

Maybe, maybe just a little.

Steven: Yeah. But there's a lot of psychological interplay that gets very dark and extremely frightening. It can really be kind of enjoyably awful if you know what I mean.

Did the two of you get to share some screen time together?

Steven: A little bit. Our characters do intersect along the lines, somewhere along the way in a fairly interesting way, I think. But like I say there's all these concurrences, there are these separate strings of stories that are running concurrently and then they begin to interweave as the season progresses and resolves shockingly.

If you could be on any other show, is there one that maybe you're watching currently that you would like to be a character on?

Kyra: I'm watching a lot of great shows right now. There's so many shows I'd want to be on. Honestly, I've been watching Hannibal, An Honorably Woman, Homeland. I've been watching Master Chef Junior which is my favorite. I would love to be on it, but I'm too big. (Laughs) TV is kind of a great playground for actors right now. All of the characters are fantastic, the story lines are really good, they're being shot well. I think TV is a pretty wonderful place right now, especially for women, well for men too, but its always been the case there.

If you could have anyone guest star on Helix who would you want to bring on?

Steven: Alive or dead?

Sure alive or dead.

Steven: I think Abraham Lincoln would be really cool to have on the show.

Kyra: I think my vote would be Morgan Freeman.

Steven: I would have to agree to disagree with that one.

Helix Season 2 premieres on SyFy, tonight, January 16 at 10/9c.