How much creative input do you have, as an actor, on character development? (Question from William Jordan)
Our show ran very differently to most, which is in some ways an enormous privilege, but it also places actors in a position that they may not want to be in. It was a highly collaborative environment which is wonderful, but if the script hasn't been delivered, or it's going through a series of amendments, it puts a lot of pressure on the actors. It's great for the writers because they say, 'you see, you see, you don't want to write the lines now!'. It's a lot harder than it appears, to have a structural understanding of the story.
An episode has to be written specifically to certain timings for the ad breaks and for different countries. It's a complex process. What can and can't be shot within a short time-frame on fast turnaround television is also very complex, so we were the tip of the iceberg when it came to contributions where stories were concerned.
It's also a vital part in the sense that it's what's done on set, therefore it's the final product. If something wasn't working on set and the director suggested that we come up with something, then there would be a lot of input in that case.
If we had a suggestion that deviated from the script we would take it up with the writers beforehand. They grew to a point where they trusted us so much that we could either do the option that they'd done on the page and then do our own, or actually asked us specifically to do something that was more suited to us. They would insert something in the script as a benchmark and then expect us to do something that was more flavoured to our specific character traits.
It was more in Ben's domain to improvise because he was the voice of America; he was the human, the voice for all the humans watching the show. He was the one that could bring in the cultural references that the audience would understand and the aliens wouldn't. It did get to a point, though, by the end of first season when we realised there were only so many times we could play that gag of the aliens not getting it. So we had our opportunities to go to earth or simulated versions of earth so the aliens could start to catch up to speed. That is actually, coincidentally or not, the time where we started to collaborate more as actors on set with the words.
