By Christina Radish
The latest Sci-Fi Channel television series The Dresden Files tells the story of Harry Dresden (Paul Blackthorne), a regular guy with an irregular life. Dresden is a wizard -- a practitioner of magic -- who uses his unique abilities to solve the cases that come through his Chicago storefront office. Balancing his time between the real world and the world of the supernatural, Dresden unravels otherworldly schemes and crimes, and does battle with the forces of darkness, all while keeping his true activities veiled from Lieutenant Connie Murphy (Valerie Cruz) of the Chicago Police Department.
A constant cause of consternation for Dresden is the High Council -- the governing body that supervises wizards. The Council enforces the rules and makes certain that nobody ever knows what’s going on in the supernatural world. In Chicago, the Council’s Warden is Morgan (Conrad Coates), who has been Dresden’s probation officer since the wizard used black magic to kill his uncle, three years ago, in what was later determined as self-defense.
Dresden’s confidant and advisor on all things magical is Bob (Terrence Mann) who, in life, was a medieval wizard that went too far, when he took up the dark arts. Caught and killed by the Wardens, Bob’s soul has been bound to eternal servitude as punishment, and he haunts Dresden’s apartment, hoping for a chance to regain his corporeal self.
Through it all, Harry Dresden retains his wry, sardonic view of both the natural and supernatural worlds. If you ever need his special kind of detective skills, you can find him listed in the phone book. For $500 a day, with a two-day minimum, he’ll take your case and bring it to a successful conclusion. Just don’t ask him how he does it.
Based on the best-selling novels by Jim Butcher, 37-year-old British actor Paul Blackthorne, best known as Stephen Saunders on season three of the hit TV show 24, and executive producers/writers Robert Hewitt Wolfe (The 4400, Andromeda, Deep Space Nine) and David Simkins (Charmed, Dark Angel, Angel, Roswell, Lois & Clark), are bringing The Dresden Files to life for 12 episodes this season, starting on January 21st. Blackthorne, Wolfe and Simkins took a break during filming in Vancouver, Canada to talk to MediaBlvd Magazine about what fans can expect from the series.
MediaBlvd Magazine> David, it seems you have a thing for the dark side. What is it about your own childhood that invigorates you to always tackle those issues?
David Simkins> I have done a lot of genre material. I began my career as a feature writer, and I had some minor success there, early on. And then, like many of the feature writers, I found myself in the wilderness for a few years, and ended up landing a job on The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. for Fox television. I wrote the pilot for that show, and worked on that for a year. In that environment, I met a lot of people, and then, after working on Lois & Clark and Charmed, I just found myself drifting into those kinds of projects. People look at your credits and say, “Hey, let’s get him for this because he's been doing it for a while.” I came into this show after Robert and his partner, Tim Hunt, had developed it, and was brought in to help Robert, the network, and the studio hone in on this kind of material. Robert brings his own experiences, with the Star Trek universe and Andromeda, to the show as well.
MediaBlvd> Are any Roswell people on the writing staff?David> No Roswell people. But, it’s not just my voice or Robert’s voice. It’s a quite well-rounded group of people, providing those elements of mystery, character development, and some fantasy elements. While the show does delve into the magical realm, there's a very strong emphasis on character and the emotional foundation that Paul is playing. We don’t rely too heavily on a lot of flash and a lot of special effects. There’s definitely some adult angst going on with the character’s back story. But, my background isn’t really all that dark. Those shows that I worked on were all successful because they go beyond the genre a little bit and really get into character. You have to, otherwise, if you don’t, you have a pretty flat show.
MediaBlvd> Paul, did you always want to be an actor while you were growing up, or did you have other professions in mind? And, how did you break into the business?
Paul Blackthorne> I've had a very long list of professions, probably like many actors. At the age of 10, I was involved with the National Youth Music Theatre in England. Then, I drifted off here and there. I was living in New York in the early 90's, and I found myself drifting into a bit of acting here and there. And then, about 10 years ago, in London, I realized that I really enjoyed acting, but I didn't know what on earth I was doing, so I decided to learn a bit more about it. So, I studied for a couple of years, and did a little bit of work in London, which has led to whatever I've done, thus far.
MediaBlvd> Your acting background doesn’t really include many sci-fi and fantasy projects. Do you find it hard to go from predominantly realistic situations into something like The Dresden Files, or did you want to do the series because of that challenge?
Paul> What appeals to me, in a script or character, is that when they start dealing with the development of that character, with regard to the relationship that person has with those around him, whatever the genre or time setting, it’s those issues which make something appealing to me. And, although Harry Dresden’s world very much has supernatural elements to it, it is also combined with the real world. He just tries to get by in life, and deal with his relationship with himself, and with his past and present, so that he can make his future a bit better. It’s really that that appeals to me, regardless of whatever the genre might be.
MediaBlvd> How did you actually come to this role? Was it a simple as somebody offering the role, or was there more of a story involved?
Paul> My agent sent me a script, I read at an audition and got hired. I was in England, at that time. I was late, on a train in London, and I barely left the terminal when I started reading the script. I had barely left the terminal, when I thought to myself, “Wow, this would be a nice character to play. This would be a lot of fun.” To be honest, I am absolutely useless with anything technological. I can't even put up a shower curtain.
MediaBlvd> For the producers, can you talk about how you approached the casting process for Harry Dresden? Was it Paul’s work on 24 that particularly caught your attention?
Robert Hewitt Wolfe> We saw a lot of people. We had open auditions and saw people you've heard of, and people you haven't heard of. We saw a lot of different people because we knew that the show depended on finding a really great Harry Dresden. When Paul walked in the room, to be honest, I don't think, we knew his work from 24 at all. I knew him from Lagaan, which was a Bollywood musical that he did, in which he played the villain. When he came in, he just did a terrific audition. We never said, “We really should look at Paul Blackthorne.” If we'd been smart, we would have said that, but we weren’t that smart. It was our casting people who brought him in, and it was a terrific call. He came in and he earned the part.
MediaBlvd> Paul, what was the hook for you, in terms playing Harry?
Paul> With many heroic leading man characters that are created, they are not the most interesting to play, from an acting point of view. Harry is interesting because of that reluctance he has to save the world, and because he is driven by elements of his past. That psychological factor really does come into play.
MediaBlvd> Do you see Harry Dresden as a reluctant sorcerer?
Paul> Yes, I absolutely see him as the reluctant hero. Whereas most people may enjoy the idea of saving the day, it’s really brought him trouble. Harry would really rather be sitting at home. Sometimes, saving the world is really a bit of a drag, but somebody’s got to do it. Harry is heavily involved in magic, and he’s involved in the real world, and he tries to reconcile them both, but things tend to get in the way. He prefers the idea of a peaceful life, rather than one involved in other people’s misdemeanors, and what not.
Robert> Harry keeps telling himself that he would like nothing better than to sit with his feet up, do nothing, relax, and have a very quiet and peaceful life, but he doesn’t actually do that. There’s a little more going on there, psychologically, that keeps him from being that kind of guy. On some level, by going out and saving small parts of the world, he’s working out some issues.
MediaBlvd> As producers, you bring such creative heavy-weight to this series. What is your creative process, in getting into the world of Harry Dresden?
David> One of the first decisions that we tackled was, is this series going to be a continuing story, or whether each episode was going to be a stand-alone mystery that an audience could tap into and not feel like they were missing things. Essentially, we decided to do stand-alone episodes with a continuing storyline underlying those episodes. When you do stand-alone episodes, it puts you in a different creative frame, where you are approaching each story. You are also paying attention to where the characters are and where the characters are going.
Robert> The basic creative process is fairly standard. The writers brainstorm, and we come up with at least 50 different things. Then, we go through them to see which ones feel like they would not only be really interesting, in satisfying mysteries, but also whether they would bring out something in Dresden’s character and help the audience understand him a little bit better, or whether they would challenge him, in some way, and give Paul and the rest of the cast opportunities to really explore their characters and present some great stuff. We go through a fairly long process, as a writing team, with David really breaking down the story and understanding every bit of the story, and then, whoever is going to write it, goes off to write it. Then, everybody gets together and gives notes, and it’s just sort of this continual process of creative feedback. That’s how we worked on Star Trek too. And then, directors come, they get notes, casting happens, the network and the studio gives notes, you adjust things for different cast members, etc. It’s television, which is a great, organic process. One of the things we do, with this show, is that we really approach it much more like a detective show then a genre show.David> The studio and the network have very much been champions of telling stories that are emotionally based and much more about character. The Sci-Fi Channel, to their credit, understands why we want to focus on the character aspects and the emotional core of who Harry Dresden is.
Robert> There’s two ways to approach this show. You could make this show a supernatural show, where you occasionally find some human elements. But, we try to do a real human show that has a supernatural twist on top of it.
MediaBlvd> What are Jim Butcher’s thoughts on you bringing his books to life? Is he working with you on the development of the show?
Robert> Jim has really been happy with what we've done. He’s very much aware of the processes involved in adapting something from one medium to another. He, himself, made the comparison to the X-Men movies. For people who are real comic book geeks, you can get very upset that, for example, Wolverine and Rogue joined the X-Men at the same time, in the movies, instead of Wolverine joining first, and then Rogue coming along several years later. Different mediums have different demands, and Jim is very hip to that whole process. He just looks at it like it’s a different take. It’s a parallel universe to his books, and he’s cool with that.
MediaBlvd> How closely do you want to follow the books, and is there any particular book in the series that stands out to you as something you’d like to write?
Robert> We really love the books. The truth is that, when adapt anything, you have the write more towards the television media. Jim Butcher is terrific and his books are great, but they also tend to be very big, and they play a lot like action movies, in a lot of ways. I particularly like Summer Knight (book 4). I think that one is a lot of fun. And, we took a little inspiration from Fool Moon (book 2) for one of our episodes. But, aside from Storm Front (book 1), which is the original pilot, that we’ll probably run at about episode 4 or 5, most of the other stories are, basically, entirely created by the writing staff.
MediaBlvd> How did you end up casting Terrence Mann as Bob?
David> The character of Bob, in the Jim Butcher books, and in the original version of the pilot, is a talking skull. So, when the pilot was shot, there was an attempt to duplicate that talking skull aspect. Originally, Bob was almost like the phantom source of knowledge for Harry Dresden. And then, when we cut the pilot together and realized that, if we are going to continue with this talking skull, there would be a monetary issue because we would be paying a lot of money in special effects to generate this effect. And, secondly, the relationship between Dresden and Bob was not coming across. There were many long discussions about whether or not we should get rid of Bob, or what we could do with him, and it was decided that we should actually make him a character. We looked around at actors and landed on Terrence, and we’re extremely pleased. It’s a lot of fun and there’s a lot of room to explore, not just Dresden’s character, but also Bob’s character, his back story, how he got into the skull, what crime he committed, whether he was a terrible sorcerer or a victim of circumstances, etc. Making Bob a live character helped everything, all the way around. It helped the story and it helped in managing the special effects.
MediaBlvd> But Bob can’t leave Harry’s office, correct?
David> He's a bit like one of those dogs who has an electronic sensor. He's bound within a certain distance from the skull. If Harry takes the skull out, Bob can go with him. And, there is an ongoing undercurrent of the Bob character wanting to be free. Ins some upcoming episode, he's going to make some tragic decisions to try to get himself out of his particular purgatory, which will affect Dresden and the story.
MediaBlvd> In the first pilot, which will now be aired a few episodes into the season, characters like Morgan and Bianca the Vampire were introduced. Are fans of the book series going to get to see those characters again?
Robert> They’ll absolutely get to see Bianca again. And, there are other characters from that original pilot that we will see again. Morgan is a very important character to us. In a lot of ways, he's more important to the TV show than he is to the books. So, we’re really focusing on him. Really, we’re focusing on Harry Dresden, Lt. Connie Murphy and Bob as our main cast. And then, we’ve got a few other recurring characters that will be surprises.
MediaBlvd> What were some of the challenges you found bringing the show from pilot to weekly series, and what were some of the changes you had to make?
David> The biggest hurdle, in terms of producing a show, is money and time. As writers, we dream big. We want the stuff we want. But, there are all those realities of making sure that we're using the sets properly, and that we're not exhausting Paul too much. You have a certain time and money frame that forces you to rein in your creative instincts. But, within that frame, there are plenty of goodies to play with, in terms of story, character and effects. It's always a bit of a juggling act, but we've all worked at it quite a bit, over the years, and we're pretty confident we know what we're doing.
Robert> One of the best illustrations to the whole process is the evolution of Bob. When we approached the original material in the books, we understood how Bob worked, but we also understood that it had to be more visual and more animated in the series. Television is not like walking in a straight line, where you see where you're going and you walk across a big flat field, and you're there. It's a lot more like skiing or surfing. You're going to get to the bottom of that mountain, but if you think you're going to go in this exact line when you're at the top of the run, you're probably going to break your leg. So, you learn to read the mountain as you're going and you learn to be flexible. You still have your creative goals in mind and know where you're going, but you have to be flexible about how you're going to get there.
MediaBlvd> Do you see the special effects of the series being more subdued outside of Harry’s office, and more elaborate inside of his office?David> I would say that the only thing we're trying to do with the special effects is to make them feel legitimately of the world that Harry and Lt. Murphy are in. There's no real delineation between inside his office or outside his office. Harry is particularly careful to not demonstrate or provoke supernatural elements in the outside world because it means he has to answer to the High Council. As with most detectives, in this genre, he has a foot in both worlds -- the world that they inhabit with its darker aspects, and then the world that we all live in. Harry’s problem is that he’s dealing with the cop realm and the supernatural realm. He needs to keep things on the down-low, in terms of the supernatural elements. That said, there are those moments where things just get out of hand.
Robert> The truth is that, most of the time, when we do see magical stuff happening, we’re seeing it through the point of view of Dresden and one of his clients. We’re just trying to do fun effects. Some of them are very subtle, and some of them are not so much.
David> We want to make sure that Harry’s abilities don’t swamp the narrative and don’t create a situation where we’re dealing with a superman who can accomplish anything at anytime. We are treating this world, and the supernatural aspect of Harry’s character, as having real world consequences. When he creates a spell, or pulls something off, it creates some sort of magical moment. There’s a physical toll that’s taken on Dresden. He’s weakened by it. It’s not all fun and games. Sometimes the evidence he pieces out of a crime scene with his abilities is right on, sometimes it’s a bit foggy, sometimes it’s unsuccessful. It’s just about trying to make sure that the things are not handed too easily to him, or to the audience, and that there are difficulties there.
MediaBlvd> Since you’re leading into Battlestar Galactica, are you going to attempt to match the emotional intensity of that?
David> The answer to that is no. I don't want to say that this is a romp or a farce because it's not, but there is humor, there is emotion, and there are aspects of tragedy to it. For the most part, this should be a fun, welcoming, entertaining and charming hour of television.
Robert> This show is a lot more quirky. We are not struggling with the big issues, except when we are, and then we try to hide it a little bit more.
MediaBlvd> Along with the mystery of the week, have you created an arc that you’ll take over the first 12 episodes, that will help reveal more about the mysteries?
Robert> Absolutely. There are definitely all kinds of fun pieces of Dresden’s back story and history, that continue to help the relationships evolve with the people in his world. Those run very strongly through all the episodes. There are a couple of episodes that are heavily about that kind of thing. There is a definite story to the first 12 episodes. There are demons, in his past, that drive him to not be the guy sitting on the couch.
Paul> Those demons in his past are a lot of what drives him to do what he does. And, as we’re going through the season, we’re exploring a lot of those elements. We’re looking into the back story, along with the stories of each week, and it’s all tying together.
MediaBlvd> Do you plan to have a reveal on the final episode of the season that will take you into another season?
David> I’m not a real fan of cliff hangers. With this show, and the way these mysteries of the week are being developed, I just really want the audience to want to come back because this is a fun hour of television with an interesting character and interesting stories. I don’t feel like we should have to tease the audience, in that way. My point of view is that this should just be a really great party that you want to come back to, no matter how that episode ends. That said, we are structuring it as a bit of a book end, in terms of the arc of Harry’s back story and Harry’s present day story. There will be a bit of an answer to something, which is set up early in the run, and there will also be a bit of a question.
MediaBlvd> Do you prefer working with a shorter series, of 12 episodes, as compared to a 22-episode season?
Robert> I want to do 26 a year, just like on Deep Space Nine. I love doing television. But, there is a nice rhythm to an 11 or 12 episode season as well. You get a little more time to breathe, afterwards, even though the intensity is same when you're actually doing it. You get a month or two off, instead of just two weeks for Christmas and three weeks for the summer, like we did on Deep Space Nine. But, I like to work, so I don't mind doing the more intense seasons as well. The shorter seasons are a little bit more sharp. They swim forward. In a longer season, you can have a more change, in types of episodes, whereas in a shorter season, you have to be a little more on point.
David> We need to do a musical, at some point, just to shake it up a little bit.
Robert> Yeah, but in an 12-episode season, there's no time for a musical. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. The truth is, they're both great to do. I don’t think any of us have any complaints, either way.
MediaBlvd> With the success of shows like Heroes, do you see a change in the trend of sci-fi shows being about space and the future? Do you think sci-fi shows are becoming more reality based?
Robert> I think that it’s impossible to predict where things go because what drives successful programming is just good storytelling. The setting really doesn’t matter so much. The truth is that the Sci-Fi Channel has two very successful space-based shows with Stargate and Battlestar. They don’t really need another Battlestar. They need other things to bring in other people, which is why a show like this, or a show like Eureka is appealing to them. If they didn’t have a show like Battlestar, then they would need a show like Battlestar. I think they’re also developing Flash Gordon. It’s not that they’re adverse to having a show that’s set in space. I just think that we felt good for them. I don’t think anyone could have predicted the success of Heroes. No one really predicted the success of Lost. No one had predicted the success of Desperate Housewives, or Grey’s Anatomy, or even House. At the end of day, it’s all about telling a good story with good characters and terrific actors, and hopefully the audience will find the show.
MediaBlvd> Robert, you are very active in the online fan community. What benefits do you get from reading fan feedback?
Robert> Very early in my career, when I was working on Deep Space Nine, I got into some discussions on one of the Star Trek boards, and it’s just something I've done ever since. If you’re a fan of a show, it gives you a little bit of a connection. Also, with this particular show, it can help create some buzz. Jim sells a good amount of books, and there are lot of fans of The Dresden Files. We knew that we were going to have to make some creative changes to the source material, in order to really make it work for television, instead of in a novel, so by engaging some of the fans on the net and explaining things to them a bit, I just felt like we could help people understand the process a little better and give them a little insight into what happens when you move something from one medium to another. And, it’s fun. It’s a nice way to kill 10 minutes, when I’ve got a little bit of writer’s block. Plus, I'm just a big geek.
MediaBlvd> Paul, have you thought about what it’s going to be like, if there is a Harry Dresden action figure with your face on it?
Paul> I haven’t thought about that at all, no.
MediaBlvd> Do you think it’ll be a weird experience?
Paul> We're just sort of enjoying the show, as we’re doing it. I think that’s the most important thing. We’re enjoying the process of actually creating it. Television shows come and go, movies come and go, people come and go, lots of things come and go, and I’m just happy, in this moment, to be enjoying this process. Whatever happens, I’ll take it as it comes.
