Michael Xavier habla sobre Bitten y el regresar el viernes a Syfy
by Jamie Ruby 14 Abril 2015 16:20
Friday Bitten returns for season two to Syfy with all new episodes. Last season, Logan, played by Michael Xavier, found out that his girlfriend, Rachel (Genelle Williams), was pregnant with his child, but she was kidnapped.
Xavier recently talked to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision in an exclusive interview about his work on the show and what's next for Logan.
When the actor started his work on Bitten, he took inspiration for Logan from more than just the script or the book series that the show is based on. "Every time I approach a character, I tend to look for inspiration outside of just the script or just the books that are offered. And when I first jumped onto Bitten, I didn't know too much about it. I didn't know about the books, but I jumped online, and I did some research, and I found that Logan's character didn't last very long in the book.
"And I spoke to the creative minds and our producer, and they were saying they were going to head in a bit of a different direction with Logan. So it wasn't as imperative for me as it might have been for say Greg [Bryk] and Laura [Vandervoort] to try to stick to the books.
"So what I wanted to do was look to other sources for inspiration to just get a feel of the whole folklore of werewolves. I looked towards American Werewolf in London, the movie Wolf with Jack Nicholson, and Underworld, you know, just to get an overall feel of what werewolves were all about. And that's where I based it."
Bitten, however, is not just about the characters' supernatural sides. "Once I read the script, I saw that it was strongly based in the human world of who these people were - not just who they were as werewolves, but, you know, Logan is a doctor; he's trying to build his clientele in this very professional world living in Toronto. So it was more interesting for me to find out who this guy was as a human, and then the werewolf aspect sort of came second."
Xavier has enjoyed Logan's transformations into wolf form. "I love the transformation. I remember in season one, for the first transformation, I was doing a scene with Laura, and we were going to go for a run on the beach. And I think somebody had already done a transformation before that, because this was within the first two weeks that we were shooting. And I think Greyston [Holt] had already done a transformation, so we were already talking about like 'how are we going to do this, what's it going to feel like, what kind of noises are we going to make, what's the overall feel?'
"I don't know if I want to get too crude about it, but we're a goofy group, and one of the things that we alluded to was the the transformation was like you were forcing something from within out, (laughs) and that's what they were sort of going off of.
"So my first transformation was like that, and that's basically what it is, a werewolf within that's like fighting to get out, so it's sort of painful, but there's also a sort of gratification that you get from it. That was an idea that was given to us from Daegan Fryklind, which I thought was phenomenal, because of the duality of good and evil existing all at once within this transformation was great."
Logan has changed this season, which the actor finds a bit challenging, but enjoys being challenged and being out of his comfort zone as an actor. "I guess there are always challenges in roles, because you're taking yourself out of your comfort zone, but I've always enjoyed being out of my comfort zone, especially as an actor, especially as an artist.
"In season one we had Logan really prim and proper and keeping his life together. He was the guy who seemed to have everything together, and in season two, his world is totally in shambles. He's got to find his pregnant girlfriend, who he doesn't know right now if she's dead or alive. So I think going from the guy who is done up and is always on point, to becoming this guy who doesn't know what's going to happen tomorrow, who's totally losing his cool, I think that segueing from one state of being to the other was probably the most challenging, but also the most fun."
Xavier teased a bit about his favorite moment this season. "We had a key bad guy season one, one of the mutts - I'm not going to allude too much to who it is, because there is some shock value in it, but he and Logan cross paths in season two and duke it out, and that was probably one of my favorite scenes that we shot. It was a serious fight scene; it was a very long sequence. It was a lot of choreography done by our great fight coordinator John Stead.
"And I was really biting at the bit to get it, because our writers told me about it before we got into season two, that they wanted Logan to go down some dark rabbit hole, and at some point he was going to end up getting very physical. And this scene that they presented me, with one of our nemeses from season one, I mean, it turned out beautiful. So I think our fans are going to get a kick out of that."
The actor talked more about the fight and drive that he enjoys and wants to see more of in Logan. "Season two is really expect the unexpected, so for Logan's story, I was really looking forward to seeing this guy fight like hell for as long as he could possibly fight like hell, like really draw it out, really draw out this search for Rachel. And then when and if he finds Rachel, what is he going to do? How much of a fight is there going to be once he crosses paths with the bad guys who have been keeping her locked down, keeping her away from him, and keeping the child away from him as well.
"So I just [would like to see] the overall battle, because I find the performances that are most intriguing to watch are the ones where there might be a lot of anger, there might be a lot of hatred in the world, but wherever there is hatred and anger, love isn't too far. And I think the love that he holds for Rachel is going to dictate how much he's going to fight for her. And I think in season one the audience has already got a feeling that this guy loves her to death, so how deep are the depths that he's willing to go to save her?"
At the end of the first season, after revealing that Rachel was pregnant with Logan's child, Jeremy (Bryk) had demanded of him that he would take his child from Rachel and bring it to him to raise with the pack after it was born, as is their way. Logan disagreed and was ready to run, but right now he needs the pack to help him find his girlfriend and unborn child, who were kidnapped. That, however, will not be a deterrent for Logan once it's all over. "I think in the back of Logan's mind, he's already made the decision that once he finds Rachel he's going to take her and go off the grid and raise his family as any real man should. So I think that's where he and Jeremy are really butting heads. Jeremy's very fixed on the idea that he has to abide by pack law and raise the baby amongst the pack.
"I think it was the first or the second episode where they're looking for Malcolm (James McGowan) and Jeremy says, "I will raise the baby with the pack," and Logan sort of nods his head, well doesn't really nod his head, but I guess he's just not ready to go there right then, because he's trying to stay focused on the task at hand which is getting Malcolm.
"...I don't think he's really prepared to give up his child to Jeremy and pack law, but he's definitely fixed on getting Rachel, and once we're ready we'll cross that bridge when we get there...He's sort of just going with the ebb and flow while keeping an ace in the hole, I guess."
Things are different in Stonehaven and this season the tone of Bitten is going to shift, and part of that is to do with the introduction of new supernatural beings. "Season one there was obviously this love triangle that was going on, and there was sort of jealousy undertones throughout the season, whether it be between Clay (Holt) and Philip (Paul Greene), or towards the end of the season with Jeremy and Malcolm.
"Season two, it's sort of like a big switch has been flipped, and it's taking on more of a sinister, dark, and lurking tone. So with these witches and sorcerers that are being introduced, it's a totally different feel going in season two."
Some of the new evil forces this year want Rachel. "There are definitely other supernatural beings that are in the mix in season two, and I think that you'll get more of a feel of what direction that's going to be heading in come the fourth episode. But there are people at work that have a need for Rachel...there is definitely a need that she can fill for these other people at work. These evil forces at work."
Logan and Rachel's unborn child is important to the wolves, but could it be important to these new forces as well? "There's a great importance for the baby as far as the pack itself, because we haven't had a young werewolf come into the scene in our pack in a long, long time. I think Logan probably was the last one at sixteen to be taken in by Jeremy and raised amongst the pack. Since then there hasn't been anybody, but having a baby, a young werewolf born into the pack, only strengthens the pack in the future, so that's why there's so much emphasis on protecting this child and raising it amongst ourselves.
"But outside of the pack there are again evil forces at work who may also be intrigued by the importance of what this child can mean to them and their world."
Xavier enjoyed working with the new cast members. "Tommie Amber Pirie, who plays Paige, and Tammy Isbell, who plays Ruth, they offer an immediate change in dynamic on set with the cast and just the overall feel of the work that we were going for.
"I mean, on a whole, this second season we're moving forward as a stronger collective unit, and we've really upped the ante, and I think the witches really add a lot of key ingredients to the chemistry amongst all of us. So I would say off the top, and I think they're introduced again in the third or fourth episode, the pack doesn't really know what to make of them; we don't really know what they want.
"We know that we want to get our hands on Malcolm. Jeremy wants to get his hands on Malcolm, because if he doesn't, then the pack will be turned over to this international group of alphas, and Jeremy would be out unless he can bring Malcolm's head on a stake and say he's dead and he's taken care of that. So he wants to get Malcolm for that reason. Elena wants to get Malcolm, because he killed her ex-fiancé. I need to get Malcolm, because he's got my pregnant girl.
"Then into the mix are these witches who are after the same guy, but we don't know why; we don't know if we can work together with them or if they're enemies of ours. So there's an absolute tension between the pack and the witches, and we don't really know what to make of it yet. I think we're just sort of gathering information as we go, but they absolutely present different obstacles that have the pack on our heels, and sort of questioning whether or not are we going to be able to handle this type of supernatural people who are able to make us see things that are not really there, make us feel things that we shouldn’t necessarily be feeling, sort of manipulating us to their advantage. So we have to sort of recalculate and gain a deeper understanding of how we attack this beast."
http://scifivision.com/2598 
