Post by NieMMY on May 22, 2005 8:45:56 GMT -5
SCORPIUS DELECTI
06/01, Starlog 2001 #287
Rhonda Krafchin
Wayne Pygram likes to tell a story from his first day on the set of Farscape playing resident baddie Scorpius. After hours in the makeup chair, the Australian actor emerged onto the soundstage decked out in full costume—a slinky, black, reptilian getup, bombardier-style helmet and full facial prosthetics that turned Pygram's face into a grotesque, grimacing, skeletal head with bad dental work and deep-set eyes. The five-minute camera test was the first glimpse anyone had had of the new character.
"The whole set literally stopped," Pygram recalls. "Everyone put down tools and was looking at me: 'What the hell is that?' "
Pygram pauses, relishing the memory. "I felt the power. I had walked into a room and everyone stopped. I automatically felt the seduction. Then I walked up to a friend and started talking to her about her son. How was he? How was it going at school? She had no idea it was me. And the look in her eyes, the fear in her eyes, having this skull talking to her in detail about her son. From that day on, I knew I didn't have to do much. All I have to do is stand there and speak, and people are going to listen because the image is so potent. He's spooky."
Though Scorpius was originally intended only for a four-episode story arc on Farscape, the character just proved too juicy a villain to let go. And he's not your typical alien. OK, the physical makeup is definitely disturbing (the guy even has a coolant rod that screws into the side of his cranium), but the quiet, almost gentle way that Scorpius moves through space and his lyrical voice are so incongruous with the gruesome sight, it's unsettling.
"I hope my [acting] choices are interesting," Pygram says with some thought. "I did not want him to be self-conscious at all. I didn't want him to enjoy his sense of power. He's arrogant, but he's not someone who revels in his power, or other people's pain. He just administers it. The people who are the most intimidating people are the people who are quiet—the people who don't jump up and down and make a lot of noise. But you know, behind those eyes is someone who can actually hurt you or cause you a lot of pain and distress."
What happens, therefore, when Scorpius does lose his cool demeanor only adds to the creepy factor. An inhuman, throaty growl full of vitriolic spittle erupts, stopping anything and everything within hearing distance. "Certainly when he does lose it," Pygram explains, "it should really be pronounced and downright scary. It seemed appropriate that he's someone who never loses control. When he does, he gets more pissed off at himself. It would be like he's letting everyone know he has an Achilles heel."
Although the coolant rod in his head might be considered one of the character's weaknesses, (it has already been used against him in season two's "A Not So Simple Plan"), Pygram has his own take on the situation. "I think it's dangerous that we're showing the audience that this guy overheats. But," he adds with a bit of Scorpy aplomb, "maybe we can surprise the audience with what that really is. Maybe he hasn't got an Achilles heel at all."
Playing a role in full prosthetics might have been a problem for some actors, but it became a plus for Pygram. Prior to his audition, Pygram wrapped up a guest role on Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (also shot in Australia) in which he wore full prosthetics. When he came to the Farscape reading, Pygram felt confident. "I already had a sense of what you can bring to ," he explains. "The size of performance, a quirkiness. It gave me a lot more freedom and power to play on. It wasn't an Earth-bound person talking. Scorpius was an alien. I just used the text. I took all the punctuation out. I went for a really strident, quirky thing in the way that I spoke. I know that probably grabbed their attention. If I hadn't experienced the prosthetic two weeks before on The Lost World, I don't think I would have been as brave. I wouldn't have felt as secure to go and have a crack at something so wildly different."
Pygram's experience that first day on set also reinforced his understanding of the strength of makeup and the subtlety required to make it work. "Sometimes without even having all the makeup and gear on," says Pygram, "we try to do stuff physically. Instead of just walking and talking and whatever happens, happens, we try and take control of situations. Certainly I know of myself, it limits what I can actually offer in a character or a scene. I'll be conscious of what I'm doing, and as soon as you're conscious of it, you're in trouble. You'll see an actor having fun or doing tricks. Apparently, in rushes, they can see me blush through the prosthetic. It behaves the same way my face behaves naturally, so I don't have to overcompensate for the mask. Whereas with the mask I wore in The Lost World—it was more like your old-fashioned foam-rubber prosthetic—I had to work the mask and be very conscious of what it could and couldn't do."
The Scorpius mask not only molds frighteningly close to his own knobby facial features, but designer Dave Elsey left one important human element clearly visible. "Those are real eyes looking at you," notes Pygram. "When you look at Scorpius, you can't just dismiss him, like, 'Oh, he's just an alien.' These aren't fake eyes looking at you. In fact, they're human eyes. It makes Scorpius much more viable. If you put contacts in, that's another layer that's covering up the actor. And I think it makes them safer. Having human eyes really starts to break down the idea that this is makeup. It's much more disturbing for the audience and even for the actors. I know when I look at them, they sometimes have to look away."
But it must be hard to continually play such a dark character whose every other scene involves pain and suffering (and rarely is it his). Pygram laughs. "No. I'm a bit of a creepy guy myself, really. No, you go to work, you go home. It sounds bland and sometimes people don't want to hear it. I'm not a Method actor, I don't do any of that stuff. I just get up out of my chair. I throw in my false teeth and say, 'Where do I go?'
"When I started, I wasn't quite as flippant as that. I was maintaining my concentration over longer spells through the day. But once you get a character up—you get your voice, your physicality—it's really a case of stepping into the environment and solving the problem given to you on that day. That's when it becomes really fun because you're free of worrying about characterization. You just get up and do it. It happens. Or it doesn't," he laughs. "In a funny way, having all the prosthetics on, being hidden behind all that gear, I can reveal anything I know. I can be as nasty as I like and it's not really me. I feel totally secure in there to do anything."
06/01, Starlog 2001 #287
Rhonda Krafchin
Wayne Pygram likes to tell a story from his first day on the set of Farscape playing resident baddie Scorpius. After hours in the makeup chair, the Australian actor emerged onto the soundstage decked out in full costume—a slinky, black, reptilian getup, bombardier-style helmet and full facial prosthetics that turned Pygram's face into a grotesque, grimacing, skeletal head with bad dental work and deep-set eyes. The five-minute camera test was the first glimpse anyone had had of the new character.
"The whole set literally stopped," Pygram recalls. "Everyone put down tools and was looking at me: 'What the hell is that?' "
Pygram pauses, relishing the memory. "I felt the power. I had walked into a room and everyone stopped. I automatically felt the seduction. Then I walked up to a friend and started talking to her about her son. How was he? How was it going at school? She had no idea it was me. And the look in her eyes, the fear in her eyes, having this skull talking to her in detail about her son. From that day on, I knew I didn't have to do much. All I have to do is stand there and speak, and people are going to listen because the image is so potent. He's spooky."
Though Scorpius was originally intended only for a four-episode story arc on Farscape, the character just proved too juicy a villain to let go. And he's not your typical alien. OK, the physical makeup is definitely disturbing (the guy even has a coolant rod that screws into the side of his cranium), but the quiet, almost gentle way that Scorpius moves through space and his lyrical voice are so incongruous with the gruesome sight, it's unsettling.
"I hope my [acting] choices are interesting," Pygram says with some thought. "I did not want him to be self-conscious at all. I didn't want him to enjoy his sense of power. He's arrogant, but he's not someone who revels in his power, or other people's pain. He just administers it. The people who are the most intimidating people are the people who are quiet—the people who don't jump up and down and make a lot of noise. But you know, behind those eyes is someone who can actually hurt you or cause you a lot of pain and distress."
What happens, therefore, when Scorpius does lose his cool demeanor only adds to the creepy factor. An inhuman, throaty growl full of vitriolic spittle erupts, stopping anything and everything within hearing distance. "Certainly when he does lose it," Pygram explains, "it should really be pronounced and downright scary. It seemed appropriate that he's someone who never loses control. When he does, he gets more pissed off at himself. It would be like he's letting everyone know he has an Achilles heel."
Although the coolant rod in his head might be considered one of the character's weaknesses, (it has already been used against him in season two's "A Not So Simple Plan"), Pygram has his own take on the situation. "I think it's dangerous that we're showing the audience that this guy overheats. But," he adds with a bit of Scorpy aplomb, "maybe we can surprise the audience with what that really is. Maybe he hasn't got an Achilles heel at all."
Playing a role in full prosthetics might have been a problem for some actors, but it became a plus for Pygram. Prior to his audition, Pygram wrapped up a guest role on Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (also shot in Australia) in which he wore full prosthetics. When he came to the Farscape reading, Pygram felt confident. "I already had a sense of what you can bring to ," he explains. "The size of performance, a quirkiness. It gave me a lot more freedom and power to play on. It wasn't an Earth-bound person talking. Scorpius was an alien. I just used the text. I took all the punctuation out. I went for a really strident, quirky thing in the way that I spoke. I know that probably grabbed their attention. If I hadn't experienced the prosthetic two weeks before on The Lost World, I don't think I would have been as brave. I wouldn't have felt as secure to go and have a crack at something so wildly different."
Pygram's experience that first day on set also reinforced his understanding of the strength of makeup and the subtlety required to make it work. "Sometimes without even having all the makeup and gear on," says Pygram, "we try to do stuff physically. Instead of just walking and talking and whatever happens, happens, we try and take control of situations. Certainly I know of myself, it limits what I can actually offer in a character or a scene. I'll be conscious of what I'm doing, and as soon as you're conscious of it, you're in trouble. You'll see an actor having fun or doing tricks. Apparently, in rushes, they can see me blush through the prosthetic. It behaves the same way my face behaves naturally, so I don't have to overcompensate for the mask. Whereas with the mask I wore in The Lost World—it was more like your old-fashioned foam-rubber prosthetic—I had to work the mask and be very conscious of what it could and couldn't do."
The Scorpius mask not only molds frighteningly close to his own knobby facial features, but designer Dave Elsey left one important human element clearly visible. "Those are real eyes looking at you," notes Pygram. "When you look at Scorpius, you can't just dismiss him, like, 'Oh, he's just an alien.' These aren't fake eyes looking at you. In fact, they're human eyes. It makes Scorpius much more viable. If you put contacts in, that's another layer that's covering up the actor. And I think it makes them safer. Having human eyes really starts to break down the idea that this is makeup. It's much more disturbing for the audience and even for the actors. I know when I look at them, they sometimes have to look away."
But it must be hard to continually play such a dark character whose every other scene involves pain and suffering (and rarely is it his). Pygram laughs. "No. I'm a bit of a creepy guy myself, really. No, you go to work, you go home. It sounds bland and sometimes people don't want to hear it. I'm not a Method actor, I don't do any of that stuff. I just get up out of my chair. I throw in my false teeth and say, 'Where do I go?'
"When I started, I wasn't quite as flippant as that. I was maintaining my concentration over longer spells through the day. But once you get a character up—you get your voice, your physicality—it's really a case of stepping into the environment and solving the problem given to you on that day. That's when it becomes really fun because you're free of worrying about characterization. You just get up and do it. It happens. Or it doesn't," he laughs. "In a funny way, having all the prosthetics on, being hidden behind all that gear, I can reveal anything I know. I can be as nasty as I like and it's not really me. I feel totally secure in there to do anything."
Yer but who knows they make more episodes one of these days