Audience: How's the band?
Anthony: We're still in the band together. At
Burbank, we had only had two rehearsals with the bass player, and we had never performed
in public before. We've now gotten to the point where we're well-rehearsed and ready to
perform.
Audience: The first time I heard D'Argo, I
immediately thought of Worf from Star Trek. Was he an inspiration for the voice?
Anthony: That's really interesting, because I
chose D'Argo's voice deliberately to try to be different from Worf. [Demonstrating as he
speaks:] Worf is very deep and clean, D'Argo has much more rasp. [laughs] D'Argo's put
away a LOT more vodka!
[returning to the band topic for a moment]
Wayne: We actually recorded the drum performance
for WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN in a studio, in an hour and a half session. So we were actually
playing the track on that episode, in the nightclub. It was fun.
[on the guest stars]
Anthony: Because of the size of the production,
vs. the size of Australia, it attracted all kinds of talent. Every guest star was an icon.
I was practically beside myself when Angie Milliken was on in season one [THANK GOT IT'S
FRIDAY...AGAIN]. Jon Hardy is, despite his joking, a national treasure in Australia. You
cannot get more acclaim in theater than Jonathan Hardy has. It's really a privilege for us
to be able to stand in his company. That's led to me directing him in something, and we're
actually working on a film together right now. Imagine the top person on Broadway (in
English terms it would be Olivier), coming to do the voice of your puppet. 'Jonathan
Hardy? Jonathan Hardy is going to voice our puppet?'
Wayne: You get people like Claudia Karvan, who's
absolutely beautiful. She was all excited about doing the paint and the prosthetics before
we began shooting. Then she came up to me the middle of the first morning, and said, 'this
sucks!' They tried to get her back a couple of times [for additional episodes], but missed
out.
Audience: I missed getting to hear you in Burbank
last Fall - where can I get a copy of the CD?
Anthony: One thing about the CD: it's a demo (it
even says 'demo' right on it), it's not a full album. But now we've progressed.
Wayne: We haven't really found our sound. The most
important thing is to go and do as many shows as possible, get the cobwebs out, discover
ourselves. We made 500 CDs, as a limited thing, so once they were gone, they were gone.
[Anthony also mentioned that they've got several dates
planned, and there was a strong hint that a new CD would be released in the not-so-distant
future.]
[re: newspaper ads purchased by the fan community]
Wayne: The ad in the Sydney Telegraph was really
beautiful, to thank the crew, that was really great. I think it's still on my
refrigerator.
Audience: If Farscape had done a musical episode,
do you know what type of music each of your characters would have been given? What would
you like to have done?
[Apparently, at one point there was talk of a musical
episode, but then Buffy did it, so the idea was dropped.]
Wayne: I think Scorpius would have sung Frank
Sinatra.
Anthony: D'Argo's in KISS.
Wayne: [regarding doing a musical episode] It's a
delicate thing, you don't know how the fans will react to it.
Audience: What are Scorpius' feelings for Sikozu?
Wayne: That last scene [in BAD TIMING] was erotic
asphyxiation, but I looked at the final cut and said, I've killed her. That was just me,
my reaction to seeing it, but I think I killed her.
People were concerned I would undermine Scorpius when I
first started to do comedic moments as Harvey. The writers went on to support me with some
really lovely scripts. I had something to do [as Harvey] in the episode, it wasn't just a
frivolous thing.
Audience: How did they do the coolant rod effect?
Wayne: There were actually three versions of the
headpiece. One had a head-rig with the rod extended, then there was also a mold of my head
made up, that they can shoot around, plus I shot the live action part in front of the
green screen.
It was actually hard on my ears [the sound of the rig].
Trying tapping your ear with the flat of your palm, even very gently - that's what it was
like.
[Editor's Note: try it. It's surprisingly loud, and you
can see how it would be extremely uncomfortable in very short order.]
Audience: What's your favorite Shakespeare role?
Anthony: TEMPEST is a fantastical metaphorical
play, it has some of the most beautiful lines.
Wayne: I think the perfect play for me is A
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
Audience: Can I thud for you?
Anthony: Can you what?
Audience: Thud!
[a merry round of explanations of the term followed]
Anthony: In Australia, thud means to hit someone!
[Fan came up and demonstrated a thud; Anthony graciously
caught her.]
Audience: What's up between Scorpius and Braca?
Wayne: I don't see Scorpius as a sexual being at
all.
Anthony: I'll explain it like this: Sikozu is
dead. Braca is not.
[much laughter]
Audience: How did you get involved in THE CASTLE?
Anthony: I actually shot that before Farscape. In
Oz, I'm only cast in comedic roles. Working class morons, that's all I play. I think you
should feel ripped off, if you see someone in a film and then see them in real life, and
they look just the same. The transformation is important, it's difficult, detailed work.
D'Argo was a wonderful experience for me, I can really pull these things off.
THE CASTLE I've always had trouble explaining - we
actually revoiced every line for the American release. They absolutely destroyed the heart
of the film. They took out the Australianisms, but it's a film about
Australianisms. My aboslutely favorite show right now is King of the Hill, which is
actually an excellent way to describe THE CASTLE.
[on the most satisfying moments working in the show]
Wayne: The most satisfying moments in season four
were the execution [of Scorpius, in WHAT WAS LOST Part II], and then [Harvey's]
resurrection. We almost never worked on location, but nearby to Homebush there was an old
munitions facility, and the storage facility was set up so that the munitions would be
accessed by rolling them out on these metal rails. So the original plan was to roll the
casket out on the existing rails. We rehearsed it there, and it looked great, with all
these candles burning in the place...but all the candles burning without ventilation
caused everyone to break down coughing, and we had to bag that location. We wound up doing
it later in the studio.
[on the "leather pants" story]
Wayne related how on his first trip to Burbank, his
credit card bounced when he was checking into the hotel. Later he was wandering down
Melrose and was looking through the shops; there was this French woman in one shop,
evidently dressed in leather, who kept inviting him to feel her backside to see how smooth
the leather pants were. The price tag was $700, but he figured, what the heck, the charge
will bounce anyway, I'll tell her to go ahead and ring them up. But no, the $700 charge
went through, so he wound up with $700 leather pants. "But they no longer fit."
Audience: What have you been up to, recently?
Anthony: I did eight weeks lecturing at
Australia's national acting school. I also did three telefilms, a play, hosted a tv
show...
Audience: Where did you get the inspiration for
the scream in 422?
Anthony: Gigi [Edgley] was standing behind me -
she reached around and grabbed my balls! I actually had a line there, but no...
[joking...we think:] We did take after take trying to get it right until finally Gigi's
hand couldn't do it anymore.
[on behavior on the set]
Wayne and Anthony described how cast & crew went over
the line of crass behavior so often on set, that they developed a little hand signal (this
is the line, and you just went past it) to indicate when that line was crossed.
Audience: Scariest thing on the show?
Wayne: I'm claustrophobic. Every time I had my
head molded, it was torture. The second time, I came out blue, almost unconscious. It
takes, what, 15-20 minutes in the bloody mold; it felt like two hours.
[He also mentioned that the reason he turned blue was
that he was congested, and just couldn't breathe. He had to put his hand up, and ask to be
let out.]
Anthony: The worst part was having my chest waxed
to play Jool. That was a scary moment.
Audience: Anthony was in a short film sketch as a
man preparing for a blind date. When was that shot?
Anthony: About two years before Farscape started.
I was quite proud of that. It was a good break for a new talent, the director said hey,
I'm new and I don't have experience, but I'm prepared and would you do it? So we went over
to his apartment one weekend and filmed it with a bunch of mates. He [the director] went
on to win all kinds of awards, and I think even sold it to the SciFi Channel [likely as
part of their series, EXPOSURE]. It's called BLIND DATE.
Audience: Who's the biggest joker on set?
Wayne: There's very little time on set for jokes,
but I was given a camera to do a little documentary on Farscape. [Anth cringes] I caught
Anthony in several positions scratching his backside. Finally Anth pulled a Qualta out of
his ass and said, 'I think I've found the problem!'
Anthony: Farscape: high brow, intellectual humor.
Audience: Are you sure Sikozu is really dead, this
being FS?
Wayne: No, I'm not. That's just what I saw in it.
That was Scorpius' last scene, that was how I wanted to end it.
Audience: How do you get a break in the biz?
Anthony: I have an answer for that, and it's
'self-sufficiency'. Just getting out there and doing lots of dispiriting things, and doing
things instead of whining about what you haven't been able to do. Sure, maybe nobody's
watching the results of your work, but you're doing it, getting it out there. You just
need to be pointing in the right direction. Being depressed about something, losing
momentum, is a surefire way to not succeed.
The students I see at NILA, it's not the smartest ones
who are going to be successful. It's the ones with the right attitude. Kate Blanchett was
in my class, and she couldn't land a gig after school. She was working in a bar. But she
didn't get discovered there - she just kept going out there and trying, until she finally
got through the door. You have to be a commodity in the first place, because you love it.
[Anthony offered to sing; folks brought up some drums and
a guitar and he and Wayne did a quick song.]
