By Christina Radish

In the four-hour, two-night NBC mini-series The Last Templar, Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino stars in an epic action-adventure tale about the greatest mystery of modern time. As the journey begins, Tess Chaykin (Sorvino), a Manhattan archaeologist, reluctantly teams up with FBI Agent Sean Daley (Scott Foley), and the pair are drawn into a fast-paced, romantic adventure as they attempt to uncover the lost secrets of the legendary medieval Knights Templar.

Opening in 1291 with the fall of the Latin Kingdom’s reign in the Holy Land in Acre, the burning city is taken by the Sultan’s forces, while a lone galley escapes out to sea, carrying Martin of Carmaux, a young knight from the historic order of the famed Knights Templar. Also on the galley are Martin’s mentor, Aimard of Villiers, and a mysterious chest entrusted to them by the order’s dying Grand Master. But, the ship never reaches its destination.

The story then fast forwards to present-day New York City, during a gala opening night for an exhibition of Vatican treasures at the Metropolitan Museum, where four masked horsemen, dressed as Templar Knights, storm into the museum, scattering Manhattan society. Tess watches in silent terror as the leader of the horsemen hones in on one particular piece -- a strange geared device that he grabs, as he disappears into Central Park.

As the horsemen’s dead bodies start turning up, and the importance of the stolen device becomes more apparent, Tess and Agent Daley are drawn into the dark, hidden history of the crusading Knights and the last surviving Templars’ fateful journey from Acre. The pair is soon propelled into a dangerous adventure that takes them into the cemeteries and sewers of Manhattan, across continents, through desolate Turkish highlands and finally into a violent storm on the Mediterranean that shipwrecks them onto a remote Greek island, and into the very heart of an incredible Vatican secret.

Co-stars Mira Sorvino and Scott Foley recently spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about filming such a grand epic adventure.

MediaBlvd Magazine> How much did you know about the Templar Knights before this project?

Mira Sorvino> I didn’t know that much about them. I had not seen The Da Vinci Code, nor read the book. But, I had always heard smatterings of interesting rumors, here and there, about them and I actually learned more about them doing the movie than I had known before. On the set, we had lots of books for source material, and as props for my character, in her apartment, so I started reading them while I was there. One of the ones that I snuck home with me was something called The Templars in the New World, and its premise is that perhaps some bit of the order came over to Nova Scotia and brought the holy bloodline over to Nova Scotia to a safe place and built a castle there, and the early Acadians were actually descendants of that married bloodline. That was a wild and wacky one, and I still have that.

Scott Foley> I didn’t actually know that much either. Unlike Mira, I had read The Da Vinci Code and seen the movie. The only thing I knew about them was the pop culture references that you get in books and films. But, it was a subject that interests me on the level of, “Oh, hey, there’s a script about The Last Templar. Why don’t I look it up a bit?” It wasn’t as necessary for me and my character to know that much about them, as it was for Mira’s, but I’m glad I did some research. It’s more than lore. It’s factual information, and it’s interesting.              

MediaBlvd> Are either of you history buffs, or did either of you want to be an archeologist, growing up?

Mira> When I was a kid, I was very interested in being an archeologist or an anthropologist. My aunt had worked for Margaret Mead. She had been an associate of hers, and I just found all of that stuff extremely fascinating. The way I got into Chinese Studies, when I went to Harvard, was that I took a course on Bronze Age archeology. I was a bit of a history buff, even though I majored in East Asian Studies.

Scott> In seventh grade, I went on a field trip to Mesa Verde and we did an archeological dig. I couldn’t have been more bored.

MediaBlvd> Mira, do you often find yourself watching the History Channel?

Mira> I’ve started to, more and more, but I find that it’s usually too scary when my little ones are awake because there’s always some kind of violent re-enactment, and then I have to turn it off. We just came back from Egypt. We went to the Cairo Film Festival, which was really a great experience for our family. We got to see the pyramids and the Sphynx and the Valley of the Kings. The kids just loved that, so as soon as we came home, I started watching anything that there was on television on Egypt. The only problem is that they all have re-enactments of various assassinations. There was a special on Cleopatra, and her death and Marc Anthony’s death. It’s a bit too much for the kids, who are 4 ½ and 2 ½.     

MediaBlvd> Mira, since you saw this as more of a theatrical film, is that why you agreed to do it?

Mira> There are many reasons I agreed to do it, but one of them is that it did have that big movie feeling. And, I’ve never played a leading lady like this one. I’ve played either really comedic gals, or really dramatic people, and nothing even close to this, which is a fun, charismatic character who is kind of quirky, but then, at times, could be really bad-ass, vulnerable, in love or zany. There were so many different elements to the person that I got to play. And, I knew that, with Mr. Halmi, I was in good hands. I had worked with him before, on Human Trafficking, and really love the man. He’s a great person. I feel honored that he came back to me with this. These days, I feel like there’s a real blur between what is film material and what is television material. The HBOs of the world have really refined television and brought the standard up. I don’t think something being a television movie versus being a movie-movie is a reason not to do it, these days. It might have been a few years ago, but it isn’t anymore. It’s all about the material.

MediaBlvd> What was the production schedule like on this, compared to a big-screen action feature?

Mira> It was pretty similar. Maybe it was a few weeks shorter, but it was a rather long shoot, and it spanned several continents and cultures. We did a lot of the shooting in Morocco, which was amazing.               

MediaBlvd> This type of sweeping, epic, adventure quest is really timeless. Why do you think this kind of story can still resonate with modern audiences, and why did it resonate with you as actors?

Mira> The desert sands are still something of an undiscovered country -- a frontier, as it were -- with mystical secrets of the past hidden beneath them. All of us want to believe that unknowable adventure is still possible in this modern world, which is so connected via electronic means and everyone being a world traveler, these days. Being out in the desert, it’s really a throwback to a different way of life. All of us yearn for that adventure where it’s just us testing our mettle against the elements, and against the secrets of history.

Scott> I couldn’t agree more. We all live these lives where we sit behind a desk, or we sit in front of the TV at night. And, we lead very sedentary lives. Growing up, I remember watching the Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner movies, Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile. They were these great, fun, sweeping epics, where they lived on a sailboat and road camels, and it was just fun. It’s true escapism. You mix in a little crime and a little mystery, and it’s fun to sit back and enjoy.                                                                       

MediaBlvd> Is there something elemental about these types of stories that seem to capture people’s interest?

Mira> Particularly when you get to what the Templar secret is, and the whole debate over it, and the church’s attempts to guard the secret, it touches on the very essence of the question of faith itself and what we hang our faith upon, whether it’s on literal history or something larger and more inexplicable than that. My character undergoes a transformation, as she falls in love with this man who is more religious than herself. Instead of being a cynic and a skeptic, she starts to hope that there is something more to the universe than just what is knowable on the surface. And, the Templar secret is very much connected to people’s wish to have something more out there.

MediaBlvd> Mira, were you more interested in the action part of this, or the mystery part?

Mira> I think it was the totality of the character and the situation she’s in. I had never before played a role that had all of these different elements to it. It’s light and deep. She’s fun and she’s a little crazy, but she’s also got a very serious side and a very scholarly side, and she’s also a black belt. I actually got to do all the training for that. That was me in the subway scene, doing all the fighting. It appealed to the adventurer inside me, and it was a really well-rounded female character with a lot of personality. And, I loved the subplot of the romance between me and Scott, and that Nick-and-Nora type banter. It felt like a ’40s movie.

MediaBlvd> How did it feel to be making a movie in the desert of Morocco with Omar Sharif?

Mira> It was pretty trippy. It’s one thing to be working with a legend of the Silver Screen, and it’s another to be in his stomping grounds from Lawrence of Arabia. He certainly regaled us with amazing stories from throughout his filmography. He’s just a very charming man. He’s very colorful, and larger than life. When my kids saw him, they were a little nervous at first, and then he told them he was Santa Clause and then they loved him.

Scott> That’s awesome! He was great. Being there, where they filmed Lawrence of Arabia, was something I won’t soon forget. It was extremely surreal. And, like Mira said, he’s full of stories and history, and he loves sitting down and telling you all about it.

MediaBlvd> Do you have any particularly memorable stories about something that happened during filming, either on the set or off the set, while you were on location?

Scott> Omar Sharif was in this movie. He played a brief, but pivotal character, and I had the pleasure of meeting him, one of the days on set. We actually had a couple scenes together, but Mira spent most of the time with him. He was very popular over there, being from that part of the world. He kept signing autographs and taking pictures with the local crew, and I didn’t want to bother him, so I went over when it looked like he was done and introduced myself to him. He said, “Goddamn it!,” and took my hand and he put it on his crotch. He said, “I’ve got a hernia, and they keep making me stand up!” My wife was visiting at the time, and she said, “What happened?,” and I said, “I think I just touched Omar Sharif in a place that a lot of people wish they could touch Omar Sharif.”

Mira> I have an anecdote. It was when we were doing the boat scene, at the end of the second episode, when we were supposed to be on the Turkish sea, in a storm to end all storms. They had a really amazing special-effects team on the movie, and the boat was on something called a gimbal, that would literally pitch as you were standing on it. We were all playing this fight scene with guns and hooks and fistfights, and they also had a machine that would dump between 500 to 1,000 tons of water on us, each take, as a giant tidal wave is supposed to come over the deck. Scott was fighting with the bad guy, and they were wrestling for control, when I came down, trying to help. I grabbed a hook off of the wall, thinking that I was going to use this hook to help pull away the assailant, and a big wave of water came in and washed my contacts out of my eyes. And then, the boat gave a big lurch and the camera operator started to slip on the deck of the boat, and we were all slipping and sliding. All of a sudden, the hook got caught behind me on some outcropping from part of the ship slammed into my face, and I broke five of my teeth. There was blood everywhere. My lip was all split open. And, at that point, they ran in with their epinephrine and non-stitch stitches and make-up. For some reason, right around that point, our wonderful director decided that we should have a kiss to end all kisses. I had also just seen the doctor that day because I had a horrendous cold. So, I said, “I don’t know if you really want to do this. First of all, I’m bleeding from the lip, and I’m mangled looking. And, second of all, I’m going to make Scott sick. He’s going to get really sick.” But, (director) Paolo Barzman said, “No, no, it’ll be fantastic! It’s going to be great!” So, they spent half an hour painting the rest of my mouth a dark blood purple, so that it was all the same color, and we had this kiss to end all kisses, several takes in a row. At the end of it all, the moral of the story was that poor Scott ended up laying in bed for two-and-a-half weeks after that, completely sick as a dog.

Scott> I think the only thing worse than ending up that sick was pulling back after every take with gobs of Mira’s mucus in my mouth. It was disgusting!

MediaBlvd> What was it like to film in a place with the beauty and romantic background of  Morocco?

Scott> It was unlike any place I’ve ever been. It’s hard to explain. I didn’t realize how hot it was, when I was told it was 52 degrees Celsius outside, until I got back and did the math on my computer. That’s about 125 degrees Fahrenheit. There was no shade. Rocks radiated this heat back up at you. But, it was nice. We had fun.

Mira> I actually enjoyed the desert. I had never really spent much time in the actual desert, and this was almost like the surface of Mars. The color of the earth was red, not tan. I thought it was all going to be this big beige landscape, and it was really this gorgeous red. We shot one day in this ancient village where some of the homes were made out of mud and stone, and some of them had been abandoned. And, right next to them were the same-looking structures, except little children would peep out of them, and there would be one electrical cable running into them. We were in one town, and it had a graveyard behind it. Then, one day, Scott and I just sort of wandered off, took this path next to the graveyard and found this incredible oasis in the desert.

Scott> It was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Literally, there was nothing. It was brown and red everywhere. And then, we rounded a corner, and there was a spring with palm trees and fish in the water. It didn’t belong there. It was unbelievable.

Mira> And, all of a sudden, there was a breeze, and there were pink flowers, the air was fragrant, and there were little frogs jumping around in the water. We took pictures on our iPhones just to commemorate it because it was so unbelievable. And then, we went back to the incredibly dusty, dry town.                                                                                                   

MediaBlvd> Are action sequences fun to do, or are they too much hard work to be fun?

Scott> They can be both. They’re a lot of hard work, and a lot of times they’re dangerous, but because of the excitement and the adrenaline, I love them. It’s so much fun. As an actor, what drives me is the two-person scenes where we’re sitting across from each other, talking and crying, or laughing. But, the action allows you to get away from that for a little bit, and it’s a great amount of fun. Mira and I had all the water stuff on the boat. It rocked 60 degrees, back and forth and side-to-side. And then, there was all the stuff in the desert. We had explosions, and Mira was doing all this stuff on a horse. It was crazy. We got to pretend every day, and that was the best part about it.                                    

Mira> It gives you that sense of play that you have when you’re a child, getting to take on some of those scenes, like the subway scene where I take on the assailants. I trained for that for weeks in California. And then, when I went to Montreal, I showed our stunt coordinator what I had learned, and he showed me what he had in mind, and we combined the two. I ended up doing every single take with the wide and the close, and the poor stunt double was standing around all day, waiting to do it. I was so proud of myself, it was silly. But, then I watch it and I’m like, “Wow! It’s so dark, it really could have been her the whole time.”

MediaBlvd> Do you guys find that stunts get harder or more difficult as you get older?

Mira> No, I actually found them really fun. I honestly don’t feel any different than I did 20 years ago. I know that sounds silly, but maybe it’s because I wasn’t a super-athlete in high school and didn’t stress my body that much. I rode horses and danced ballet, but I wasn’t on any team. You hear about all these injuries sustained by high school athletes, who are playing really hard, and I never had any of those. My joints and muscles are all still working fantastically, and I really enjoyed the training for the fight stuff. I had a horse when I was a teenager, so the horseback riding stuff was easy because I used to show-jump and everything.

Scott> I don’t think the stunts get any harder. But, the recovery, the day after, is like drinking. When I was a kid, I could drink a lot and didn’t feel it the next day. It’s the same for stunts. Now, I feel it for days. But, the stunts are a fun part of what we do, whether it’s getting in a car and pulling a 180 or a 360, or jumping off a building into a bag. I’d gladly pay the price of a sore back or a twisted ankle the next day, or the next week, for the opportunity to do it.

MediaBlvd> Besides the physical challenges, and getting five of your teeth injured during filming, was there anything particularly challenging about these parts for either of you?

Mira> From the script to the screen, I was very interested in making the character not be too facile and obnoxious. Sometimes, as written, she came off a little bit shallow and obnoxious, and I really wanted to give her more depth and heart, so I tried to do that, at every turn. When I watch it, I’m happy with the way she comes off because she’s kind of fun. Even though she does some naughty things, at times, she seems to be a real human being. There’s a delight that she has, both in her work and with the flirtation with her and Daley, that makes the movie entertaining for me to watch. A lot of times, when I’m watching my own work, I’m monitoring whether it’s a truthful moment, or how the accent is, or whatever. This time, I was laughing and enjoying it, and that made me happy because I’ve never had a role that went from action to serious drama to romantic banter to scary thriller, back and forth, all the time. This one character had to encompass all those different things, and I really enjoyed that. It was really fun to play a character that got to have enough charisma to balance those switches.

Scott> As Daley was written, he took his belief in religion and God very seriously, sometimes, I felt, too seriously. We worked on making him not so much a strict follower of any specific discipline. He was more of a believer, and not a follower of religion. It was extremely important to me to not make him a strictly religious, God-fearing person. But, there had to be a balance between Tess’s belief and Sean’s belief, in order for the story to work out, and in order for there to be a lot of the scenes that there were, and I think it worked. I enjoy watching it, too. I don’t get too bogged down by the whole religious aspect of it, even though it’s a big part of the film.

MediaBlvd> What were the biggest challenges of working in Montreal?

Mira> Finding a restaurant that was open when we were wrapped. There are no restaurants open past 9:00 pm there. There’s nowhere to go. Being originally from New York, I was just flabbergasted. My husband would come to visit and we’d have the kids bedded down, so we’d go out and literally find no place with an open kitchen. That was my challenge in Montreal.

Scott> My biggest challenge in Montreal was actually being away from my wife for four weeks. We were there for six or eight weeks, and she came up to visit once, during that whole time. That was hard. Any time you’re away from your family for a long time, it’s tough. And, it was cold!

Mira> Yeah, it was cold! I started to get a little bit depressed, actually. It was springtime everywhere else, but it was snowing at the end of April there.

MediaBlvd> From an acting standpoint, what did you guys like about working with each other?

Mira> I just had so much fun with Scott. He’s such a funny, nice guy. We really had fun, in and out of the scenes. We just laughed, all the time, on the set. It’s a real plus when you enjoy working with your co-star so much. I just felt like we could bounce anything off each other, and it brought out a zany side in me that worked for the character, once we got to Morocco. The character was supposed to be realizing, more and more, that she’s attracted to this man. And, instead of being so hard-edged and fighting him at every turn, she’s just starting to be a little giddy, weird and crazy with him. I had fun doing that. I felt comfortable enough with Scott that I could be that exposed and wacky.

Scott> The same for me, too. As an actor, you’re always looking for somebody to sink your teeth into, material wise. And, for me, I was able to sink my teeth into Mira. Anytime you have two characters, who are written in the way these were, they have to develop a relationship and really fall in love, and Mira and I had a great time, getting to know each other and working together. It echoed throughout the entire crew. We had a blast.

MediaBlvd> Would you guys consider working together again?

Mira> I certainly would.

Scott> Of course!

Mira> I would love to do a sequel! That would be my ideal next step, if this project is well received. It would be really fun to take these characters to some other country, for some other great mystery, in China or India, or something like that.

Scott> Yeah, I agree. We really did have such a good time together. I would work with Mira again, in a heartbeat.

MediaBlvd> Mira, how did having children impact your performance as a mom, in this film?

Mira> I strengthened her feelings for the child. In the original script, the child was really more of just a plot point, and I wanted to make it much more important to Tess that she try to not make the same mistakes her own father made, when he left her behind a lot while he was off on his digs. Knowing how much I care about my own children, and how excruciating it is to make any choice that involves spending time away from them -- I’ve actually only spent two nights away from my daughter and one night away from my son ever -- I could relate to that. So, I just beefed up her warmth towards her daughter, and how much she takes care of her. In the original draft, the babysitter was there when I get home from the party, and had put my daughter to bed. And I was like, “No, she’d wait up for me, so I could put her to bed. I’ll read her a story. I don’t want her to be the kind of mother that sees her child for one minute and then passes off the responsibility again to somebody else. That’s not who I want to play.” And, I think that it gives her a little bit more heart, and some more conflict in the story, in terms of her ambition to discover this great secret, but also her desire to be a good person and a good mother.

MediaBlvd> What was it like, taking your kids around the world with you, on this adventure?

Mira> It was good. We started a journal for my daughter, Mattea, and she was writing about riding camels. We took a camel ride into the desert, which was very lurchy. It’s not like a horse. It’s a very strangely moving ride. In Canada, we started teaching her French. She’s got a really great ear, so she was very proud of herself saying, “Bonjour!” and “Merci!,” and all of that. They do seem to have a real appetite for travel now, which is great. We just went to the Egypt Film Festival in November to premiere my film Leningrad, with Gabriel Byrne and Armin Mueller-Stahl, and they were very excited to see the pyramids and to, once again, ride more camels there and to go dance in the courtyard of the Temple of Luxor. I traveled a lot with my parents, when I was very small. I still treasure those memories of being in the Bahamas with those supposed talking dolphins of Day of the Dolphin, or going to Spain when my dad did A Touch of Class, with George Segal and Glenda Jackson. For me, that gave me my wanderlust and, as long as you spend all of your spare time with your children, when you’re doing this sort of thing, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for them.

MediaBlvd> Do they like what you do for a living?

Mira> My daughter likes this movie. She calls this The Mommy Movie. I screened it for my family and she was like, “That’s mommy!” More than my son, who’s only two, she really got wrapped up in it. I had to cover her eyes during the scenes that had to do with the murder story and, of course, the love scene, but after it was over, she said, “I want to see The Mommy Movie again!” She really loved it. Although, she did have issues with me loving another child. She did not like that I had another daughter that I loved.

MediaBlvd> What makes a career in this industry rewarding for each of you?

Scott> For me, it’s the people you work with and the work you do. I rarely watch the final product of things I do. Maybe it’s because I do so much television that I don’t get to see it, and I forget to watch. For me, it’s all about what’s happening that day, and not necessarily the product that I’m creating, at the end. What’s rewarding is the continuation of work, and meeting new people and the enjoying them.

Mira> It’s the memories that you have from the sets. It’s icing on the cake, if the project itself is ultimately well received, but it’s really the doing of it, and playing the role and getting to know all the various and sundry artists that you work with, through every part of the cast and crew, the production team and the director. I’ve loved certain working experiences so much. Sometimes I remember playing the person and it feels like real memories, which gets a little strange. I have serious memories of these other lifetimes I’ve lived, as these other people. When the quality level is high, and you care about the people you’re working with, you have a level of trust and fun with them.

Scott> For me, it’s the day-to-day. It’s about getting up, going to work, and enjoying what I’m doing and the people I’m doing it with. We worked for six months on this thing, and every day was an experience. It’s not about the product for me, but the six months of work.

Mira> It makes me happy to see the product meet the expectations of how it felt, on a day. You always have a feeling about whether something is good or bad, while you’re working on it, and usually that’s not wrong. It’s very nice when it comes out well, and it’s disappointing when it doesn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t exceed your expectations, but instead falls short of them. But, that’s just a color that’s added at the end, as an overview. The real experience is the making of it, and being there and doing the work. We’re actors because ultimately we like that work. We prefer acting to other jobs we might have pursued.                                                                

MediaBlvd> Mira, you were on House last season and now you’ve done this. Has that given you a taste for wanting to do a television series?

Mira> It comes up, now and again, but thus far, I’ve always turned down the opportunity, just because of the lifestyle and the fact that I have two little kids. I don’t know what the future holds, but right now I’m very content with my project-oriented lifestyle rather than a permanent schedule, for as long as the series would run. I grew up with my dad making television series, from time to time, so I know the schedule. I think there’s great stuff happening on TV. So far, I just haven’t seen my way to signing up for a lifestyle where I knew I would be working that much, every year, if the series was a hit because of my children. But, in the future, down the line, you never know.                                 

MediaBlvd> Is your reluctance to working on television just the time commitment, or do you find that the material you’ve been presented hasn’t been as good as some other projects?

Mira> Maybe it’s been a combination of the specific projects and the time commitment. I haven’t seen anything yet that has made me say, “Okay, I could potentially commit seven years of my life to this.” When you sign on for a TV show, the standard contract is for seven years. That’s a huge amount of time. And, my kids aren’t even in elementary school yet. Working as much as I have, while they’ve been on the planet, has been a real trial for me. I grew up with a stay-at-home mom, so I always feel like a terrible person, when I go off to work, but I’ve limited it to six months or less, per year. I just couldn’t do that with a standard television series. Maybe with a cable show, but even then, six months would be pushing it, to get everything done. And then, of course, my real interest has always been film. If I did six months on a television show, in the interim I’d be like, “Oh, I want to do that film.” And then, all of a sudden, I’d be working all the time, and I wouldn’t be a very good mother. In terms of House, I would love nothing more than to come back for an arc on that show. I’d love to have Kate Milton return to the hospital because she’s a teaching fellow there. So, we’ll see if that ever happens. I could come back for a few more episodes. That would be really fun. That’s the best of both worlds. I could piggyback off of their remarkable show and their great writing. The producers are fantastic, and all the actors are fantastic, and I had a great time working on it. And, I wouldn’t have to commit to seven years.

MediaBlvd> Can you see yourself doing this again, in another movie?

Mira> I would love to play Tess again. She was really fun. She was vulnerable enough to have heart, but not without her naughtiness. She was a little geeky, not unlike myself, but also had this zany fun. I really enjoyed playing her, and felt like I could show a big range of who I am as her, which I enjoyed.                

MediaBlvd> What are the chances of a sequel?

Mira> Mr. Halmi, our wonderful producer, for whom I’ve worked before on Human Trafficking, has certainly said that that was possible. It’s a distinct possibility. Everything depends on people tuning in.