Summer Glau

IGN TV: I’m a big Firefly and Serenity fan, so I’m very familiar with Summer kicking ass. Was she easy to cast having seen her in that?

Friedman: I love Summer. I tried casting Summer [before]; this was probably four years ago. The last pilot that I did, which never went anywhere, I had hired the same casting agents as Joss [Whedon] had. So they brought Summer in one day, and I fell in love with her. And I tried casting her, but I was in second position to Serenity, the movie. This was right before - Serenity was just starting up. I don’t know if they were sure exactly it was gonna go. And I loved her and I used to carry her audition tape around with me and say "I want Summer Glau," and they would always say "You can’t have her. She’s gonna do Serenity." And I was like "Damn you, Joss Whedon!" And then obviously I saw her in Serenity and thought she was perfect in it and always kept her in mind. And like Lena, there was really no second choice. That part is basically written for her.

IGN TV: The other integral role is John Connor. Two different actors have played him before. Did that give you more freedom than when casting Sarah?

Friedman: What gave me more freedom is that the John Connor we see in T2, he’s a 14-year-old kid who’s living with the foster parents. He thinks his mother is insane and she’s locked up. In T2 John Connor is a very angry kid, and a kid who doesn’t believe anything. By the end he believes. So I think the challenge is, well, what do you do with that guy a year later? Is he still that same, angry kid? Is he more introspective? He knows this stuff happened. He believes it’s stopped. He’s still in hiding from the cops and the FBI for blowing up Cyberdyne. So how do you evolve him like any kid who would go from 14 to 16, whose life dynamic has changed? I think that my conception of it and a lot of what Thomas has brought to it is sort of building on the character from T2 and seeing how that character grows and who is he now two years later, because it’s not the same situation. And ultimately, also, how does he get to where he needs to be? I think with the TV show you kind of want to start someone in a place where you can watch them grow into something else. And I think that’s a lot of what the show is about - How does this kid grow into being a man? How does he learn? And it’s not just about learning how to be a military leader, it’s learning how to be a leader of men. If you’re humanity’s last, best chance, you have to show more than just "I’m good with a gun." It’s a social thing. It’s leadership. It’s not just military expertise. So he’s got a lot to do and a lot to learn, and no interest in doing it.

IGN TV: In the footage released so far the computers and other elements seem to suggest you are setting the show in the late 1990’s.

Friedman: I’ll tell you that it picks up after T2 and goes forward. That’s all I will say. I’ll leave it to everyone to see what it does, but I think we’ve thought of some cool stuff. But it stays true to T2’s timeline as much as T2 stayed true to any timeline. It’s a very complicated timeline and you could spend a lot of hours going through your head and trying to figure out time travel.

IGN TV: Where will you be shooting the show?

Friedman: We’re shooting in L.A. We’re shooting L.A. for L.A.

IGN TV: Sarah became such an action icon in T2. You have a female Terminator on this show who can obviously do a lot of the fighting, but should we expect Sarah to still step up?

Friedman: She still steps up. It’s obviously I think the biggest leap for Terminator fans to make is from one Sarah to another Sarah. I looked in every country… We had casting people in Australia, Canada, England, New York, Chicago… I mean we cast the show for 16 weeks, which is like a feature length casting. And we were lucky, because we started before everyone else did. So I saw every actress possible for this role; 300, 400 different people. And there was no real second choice to me, other than Lena. This was before 300 and I’d seen nothing from 300. This was a long time ago and 300 was barely on the radar at that point. She was in London and I saw her on tape - a friend of mine who’s a director had recommended her - and she’s a tough, tough woman. Lena is tough. She’s a boxer. Some people wanted her to go pro as a boxer. This is really only about three or four years ago.

IGN TV: Wow, I had no idea about that.

Friedman: Lena, as part of her training, used to box this Russian woman in London in a gym all the time. She’s obviously smaller and thinner, but she’s tough. And ultimately for me the most important thing was finding an actress who embodied that spirit and who was believable in that role and not just some glammed up, Hollywood, actressy thing. But I knew I would have shot myself in the head if I ended up there. I love Lena. I love everything she did in the pilot. She’s just tough. And no one ever walks out of seeing the pilot saying, "Well, she seems like she could be a little tougher." I’ve never heard that, one time.

IGN TV: Will it be a road series? Will they be on the run a lot?

Friedman: Not necessarily. I’d rather not talk about it completely, but the movies were always chases. Chases I don’t think work very well in television week to week. I think we have to sort of expand the world. I think it would become sort of monotonous for me to do a chase show every week, besides considering how producible it is. I think I’m much more interested in expanding the world, but not necessarily having to run all over the place. I think we’ll see them a lot more proactive and involved in a lot of things more mysterious and deeper than kind of a Terminator of the week story.

IGN TV: I was going to ask about that, because I think one fear fans have is that every week there will be another Terminator coming after them, and at a certain point you have to wonder how many times can they do this?

Friedman: Not gonna happen. Not gonna happen. I think the fear from fans is either there’s no Terminators or there’s too many Terminators, you know? And I think that’s a legitimate concern, but one that I was also concerned with, and the show is not set up to be that. Obviously there are Terminators in the show, but it’s not gonna be a Terminator of the week. That’s not how we’re gonna do it. I read online and I know people’s feelings about this. Some people are excited, some people are dubious, and all I ask is people come and watch the show for… 13, 17, 22 episodes, and then make up their mind. [Laughs]. Just give me a year! You know, you watch a lot of crap on television, and I think this is gonna be good.

IGN TV: I’m a big Firefly and Serenity fan, so I’m very familiar with Summer kicking ass. Was she easy to cast having seen her in that?

Friedman: I love Summer. I tried casting Summer [before]; this was probably four years ago. The last pilot that I did, which never went anywhere, I had hired the same casting agents as Joss [Whedon] had. So they brought Summer in one day, and I fell in love with her. And I tried casting her, but I was in second position to Serenity, the movie. This was right before - Serenity was just starting up. I don’t know if they were sure exactly it was gonna go. And I loved her and I used to carry her audition tape around with me and say "I want Summer Glau," and they would always say "You can’t have her. She’s gonna do Serenity." And I was like "Damn you, Joss Whedon!" And then obviously I saw her in Serenity and thought she was perfect in it and always kept her in mind. And like Lena, there was really no second choice. That part is basically written for her.

IGN TV: The other integral role is John Connor. Two different actors have played him before. Did that give you more freedom than when casting Sarah?

Friedman: What gave me more freedom is that the John Connor we see in T2, he’s a 14-year-old kid who’s living with the foster parents. He thinks his mother is insane and she’s locked up. In T2 John Connor is a very angry kid, and a kid who doesn’t believe anything. By the end he believes. So I think the challenge is, well, what do you do with that guy a year later? Is he still that same, angry kid? Is he more introspective? He knows this stuff happened. He believes it’s stopped. He’s still in hiding from the cops and the FBI for blowing up Cyberdyne. So how do you evolve him like any kid who would go from 14 to 16, whose life dynamic has changed? I think that my conception of it and a lot of what Thomas has brought to it is sort of building on the character from T2 and seeing how that character grows and who is he now two years later, because it’s not the same situation. And ultimately, also, how does he get to where he needs to be? I think with the TV show you kind of want to start someone in a place where you can watch them grow into something else. And I think that’s a lot of what the show is about - How does this kid grow into being a man? How does he learn? And it’s not just about learning how to be a military leader, it’s learning how to be a leader of men. If you’re humanity’s last, best chance, you have to show more than just "I’m good with a gun." It’s a social thing. It’s leadership. It’s not just military expertise. So he’s got a lot to do and a lot to learn, and no interest in doing it.

IGN TV: In the footage released so far the computers and other elements seem to suggest you are setting the show in the late 1990’s.

Friedman: I’ll tell you that it picks up after T2 and goes forward. That’s all I will say. I’ll leave it to everyone to see what it does, but I think we’ve thought of some cool stuff. But it stays true to T2’s timeline as much as T2 stayed true to any timeline. It’s a very complicated timeline and you could spend a lot of hours going through your head and trying to figure out time travel.

IGN TV: Where will you be shooting the show?

Friedman: We’re shooting in L.A. We’re shooting L.A. for L.A.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles premieres in early 2008 on FOX.