Bullz-Eye: There are times when I watching “Banshee” where I found myself thinking, “This really couldn’t be much more of a ‘guy’ show.”

Antony Starr: Oh, really? Why?

BE: Well, you know, it’s action-packed, there’s sex, there’s violence…you can’t go wrong with those things in the “guy” demo.

AS: Yeah. I mean, look, it’s definitely and obviously going to appeal to a sort of masculine demographic. But interestingly, though, I’ve talked to a lot of women who’ve seen it, and the fact that the show is basically a love story…you know, it’s anchored on a love story. It’s the only reason this guy would get straight out of prison and make a bee-line for his lover. And a lot of women I’ve talked to have really responded to that and are prepared to go through the violence and some of the more masculine elements because of that. So I think it’s…well, we’ll wait and see, but I think it’s got a good appeal to women as well.

BE: The obligatory question: how did you find your way into this part? Did they approach you directly, or was it a straight audition situation?

AS: I was in Sydney, and I put a tape down and emailed the tape I’d made in my lounge. They responded to it, flew me over, I had a screen test, and that was all she wrote. It was actually a very simple process. The auditioning and recalling can be a bit of a nightmare, but these guys were very specific about what they wanted, and once they knew what they wanted, it was a very streamlined process.

BE: You’ve obviously done series television before, but had you been actively looking for another one, or was this just a case where it was a good part that you really wanted to go after?

AS: Very much the latter. [Laughs.] This script popped up, and, one, it was great, it was really interesting, it was a unique idea that was going on and was uniquely written. How it’s translated is slightly different from what was on the page, so it’s been a really interesting process in that respect, but the people involved with it are phenomenal. There’s staggering talent involved. So to be anywhere near involved was someone like Ivana…well, I mean, there was no choice. Of course you go for that.

BE: In regards to the translation from the page to the stage, as it were, you’ve got a series that’s created by two novelists (Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler). Did you get the impression that there was a learning curve for them in working in television? Because my understanding is that they hadn’t really worked in the medium before this.

AS: No, they hadn’t worked in TV before, and I think that collaborative process was one that…well, you’d have to ask them how they felt around that, but with regards to the scripts, the scripts were pretty solid. They attuned themselves very quickly into that. And, of course, we had Alan Ball sitting atop their shoulders overseeing, and Greg Yaitanes knows his way around a script as well. So there was a great supportive network around those guys to really help them keep focused on creating good ideas and keep inventing, keep creating without getting bogged down in “this is right, this is wrong.” And all the directors that came over…geez, they were amazing. So they were in very good hands, even though it was their first time at making a TV show. The support was all there.

BE: As far as the character of Luke goes, it sounds like there was plenty there to work with from the get-go, but have you been able to bring anything to the character that wasn’t there when you arrived?

AS: Yeah, well, I mean, they give you a sense of back story, they give you the big brush strokes, then it’s up to me to sort of fill it up with who I am, what I am, and what I can research on the internet and in books. Also, I like to get as involved as possible when it comes to the script and the creation of the character, and I think that any actor would say the same thing. Well, I would’ve thought so, anyway. [Laughs.] But I certainly like to have a really hands-on approach to what I’m doing. I definitely have creative ideas that I’ll put forward, even if it’s just to identify something that I’ve thought of, or something they’d thought of that I don’t understand. Whatever it is, the relationship’s got to be two-way. I’m not into just being instructed on what to do. The exchange is part of the fun.

BE: Had you ever met Ivana Milicevic prior to this?

AS: Nope!

BE: You guys must’ve found your chemistry pretty quickly, then.

AS: Oh, yeah, she’s…well, I’m pretty intense, especially when it comes to work. She is as well. So, y’know, naturally nothing is not gonna happen. [Laughs.] Do you know what I mean? Something is gonna happen when you’ve got two people who are really invested in what they’re doing and they really care about the result and they care about the process, both their own and each other’s, what’s happening with the other person and how you can both make it as good as it can be. You can’t get nothing out of that. Something’s always gonna happen. And luckily, right off the bat, the cast and crew that have been assembled to make this project have just been so passionate about it and 100% committed. When you get that sort of commitment, you can’t avoid a certain level of chemistry. And she’s a great girl as well. So it’s easy.

BE: The show often feels like an ’80s action movie transported into present day. There are…I don’t want to call them “tropes,” because they’re not delivered in a cliched way, but there are certainly a lot of aspects to the series that you can imagine in a Schwarzenegger or Stallone or even a Chuck Norris film.

AS: Like what?

BE: Well, you know, ex-con tries to make good, that kind of thing.

AS: Yeah, okay. You’re actually the first person who’s said that. [Laughs.] But that’s interesting. It’s an interesting world that the show inhabits. I never look at it as an action show. I always look at it as a love story that has action on top of that. I guess that classic sort of starcrossed-lovers thing comes up for me as much as any sort of action film from the ’80s, per se. But there’s definitely elements in there. The show’s got a heightened reality as well, so we can get away with a lot more and have those ideas in there, those extremities, and we can do it in such a way that it’s not threatening to the audience. We can have really violent scenes where you don’t vomit or wince as an audience…well, hopefully not, anyway. [Laughs.]

BE: And I think that heightened reality might be why I liken it to an ’80s film. I don’t feel as intimidated when I watch those films, because I’m kind of caught up in the fun of it all.

AS: Yeah. And that’s exactly right. It’s not like you’re watching something that’s more documentary-like in style, where when someone gets hit or someone gets hurt you wince or shudder and really feel like you’re experiencing it. There are episodes that come up where the bad guy will get his comeuppance. So it becomes fun. You invest, but in a different kind of way, as an audience. And I think that’s a great way to take people into a world like this, where it’s pretty grim. There’s drug dealers, there’s all sorts of things that come up, like bad guys shooting each other and terrible things happening, but in a fun way. And there’s a sense of humor going through it as well. Jonathan and David, they’re both very funny guys, and they both have a sense of humor that shows up through the series.

BE: To talk about some of your past work, do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

AS: Um…there was a film that I did that didn’t get much…it got screened in New Zealand, but it was called “After the Waterfall,” about a park ranger who loses his daughter and goes through this pretty traumatic experience, which I think was probably more fun to do than it was to watch. [Laughs.] It was a pretty hard watch. And it was pretty chronically under-funded as well, which was really frustrating. We shot it in what seemed like a blink. So it had problems in the edit, and, yeah, there’s a lot wrong with it, but at its core it had a heart that was…I mean, I really responded to it. You know, you get attached to things. I get emotionally attached to things I’m in, that I had an intense experience in or whatever, so naturally those things that you love and you put so much into, you want them to do well. And when the baby’s delivered, you want someone to hold it…and in that case, with the distributors, we were pretty let down. Which was pretty frustrating. There was no one there to take care of our baby when it was born. [Laughs.] Which was tough to swallow.

But with that said, I got representation over here because of it, so to a certain extent I got something out of it. But it was still pretty frustrating to see that happen. But it’s inevitable, I suppose. It also came out right when the financial crunch really hit, in 2008 or maybe 2009, and people just didn’t want to go to the cinema and be reminded of how tough life is. They wanted escapism. They wanted to go and eat popcorn and see explosions. You can look at a lot of films coming out today, and the climate is not…there are a lot of films being made today that seem to me to be pure escapism. Which, y’know, there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it’s great when other things pop up as well.

BE: Okay, a geeky sidebar question.

AS: Cool!

BE: As someone from New Zealand, have you got any particular favorite New Zealand bands?

AS: [Instantly.] The Datsuns. They’re great. I love the Datsuns. And I’m obliged to say Crowded House. And Split Enz.

BE: Do you like the Chills at all?

AS: The Chills…? I…I don’t actually know them. Is that terrible?

BE: Maybe.

AS: [Laughs.] If it helps, there’s another young band I like that’s quite good. The Tuts.

BE: Are you familiar with Flying Nun Records?

AS: Yeah, yeah. Flying Nun, they do a lot of the slightly more non-commercial bands that come up, yeah? With really interesting voices. New Zealand, there’s been a big push since the late ’90s, probably, on the music side of things. The arts in general, but particularly music. And we’ve a had lot of really good exports.

BE: Can you even speak to how much Peter Jackson has helped out the film industry in New Zealand?

AS: Oh, well, obviously, you can’t escape “The Hobbit” as the moment. It’s pretty crazy! And he’s obviously a super-talent, and he’s done great things for the industry down there.

BE: Just a few more as we start wrapping up. What are your recollections of working on “Without A Paddle”?

AS: Um…it was fun. We shot it in Wellington, which is a nice town to be in. God, that was awhile ago. Yeah, I had a very small part on it. But it was fun. I came along, and…it was great.

BE: Did you get to interact with Anthony Hopkins very much on “The World’s Fastest Indian”?

AS: A little bit, yeah. I mean, he’s a pretty amazing human being, a pretty interesting guy. Everyone wants a piece of him, so I had to sort of take a back seat on that, because I wanted to give him his space a bit more because he was mobbed constantly. But he seemed lovely.

BE: You started out in soaps. Do you ever pat yourself on the back for having made it out of that niche? Because many people get trapped there.

AS: Yeah, well, I did one soap (“Shortland Street”) for seven weeks, so…

BE: Sometimes that’s enough.

AS: Sometimes that is enough. [Laughs.] But, look, in retrospect, I’d done nothing substantial prior to that, and it’s a good way to find your feet. That particular show in New Zealand is a great platform for people to sort of get in and cut their teeth a little bit, get on the set and learn. There’s nothing like diving in. And it’s a brutal environment. My hat’s off to anyone that can survive in that. I can’t function that quickly. I take much more time, and those guys…it’s mechanical what’s going on in those shows, and anyone who can keep up and do well in that environment, hey, I’m in awe.

BE: Okay, last one: is there any intrinsic difference between working on a series in the U.S. versus working on one in Australia or New Zealand?

AS: Look, the main difference is probably scale. Obviously, it’s bigger here. I’ve worked in both Australia and New Zealand, and it’s very similar in both countries. It’s really… [Sighs.] It’s just very small. And naturally, what comes with that is that you don’t have a lot of money to throw around on production and different things that get financial attention over here. So that would be the main thing. That said, you know, it’s basically still the same thing. It’s still ultimately taking someone else’s words, filling them with you, and trying to tell the truth to someone else. So basically all the raw elements are the same, I think. I think it’s easier to get caught up in that whole “the size of it is so much bigger” thing because it’s all bright and shiny over here. [Laughs.] But I feel very lucky to have come from a place like Australia and New Zealand, because New Zealand knows how to keep people real…and you can take that however you want!

I was in a show in New Zealand that went pretty well: “Outrageous Fortune.” It just went crazy in New Zealand, which was great. It was great to be a part of something that…well, in a lot of ways, it really broke ground, in terms of the fact that there’d never been a show that’d gone past three series. And New Zealand has a bit of a cultural cringe which I think “Outrageous Fortune” helped people get over and sort of get behind New Zealand content, because we are very hard on ourselves and domestic product down there. So being part of that was fantastic. And also you learn that you might’ve done six seasons of work on a TV show, but no one knows who you are in the rest of the world. [Laughs.] Only in New Zealand.

So, y’know, there’s not a lot of frills in New Zealand, but that also makes it a nice place to go back to and call home and sort of get away from the busyness and craziness that it is over here. It’s a different system. It’s an operation over here. Which is great, but…I feel very lucky to be able to dip into them both.

The WIGS channel on YouTube could unkindly be called the online equivalent of television’s Lifetime network, specializing in stories of the lives of women that are, ironically, primarily created by men. The first of these web series is “Jan,” created, written and directed by Jon Avnet, who is probably best known for producing hit ’80s and ’90s films like “Risky Business” and “Fried Green Tomatoes,” the latter of which he also directed. Like the superior “Blue,” “Jan” is simply named after its lead character, Jan (Caitlin Gerard), an aspiring photographer who has just gotten what might be her big break, so long as her life doesn’t get in the way.

Jan works as an assistant to Mel (Virginia Madsen), an established photographer whose latest project is a book called “Afterglow,” which is a collection of shots of women immediately after the completion of sexual encounters. The first session features British movie star couple Gery (Stephen Moyer, best known as Bill Compton on HBO’s “True Blood”) and Andie (Jaime Murray, best known as Lila Tournay on the second season of Showtime’s “Dexter”). Gery seems to immediately like Jan and, when Mel is preoccupied with a phone call at the crucial moment, he convinces her to take the shots instead, which leads to Jan being fired. Luckily for her, deadline pressures from the magazine Mel works for causes her to rehire Jan, though Mel takes the credit for the photographs and warns Jan that she is on thin ice.

Jan also has a junkie boyfriend, Robbie (Kyle Gallner), who is constantly pestering her and her roommate, Vanessa (Laura Spencer), and complicating their lives. This subplot should make the series more interesting, but what it mainly does instead is make everything feel less focused. The tone of the entire series is very uneven, and quirks like Jan’s initial clumsiness and her habit of getting the hiccups when she’s nervous come and go without ever really going anywhere interesting. Likewise, the late addition of a new boyfriend for Jan feels inconsequential and tacked on, despite the conflict it would seem likely to create with Robbie, the ex, and Gery, who flirts openly with Jan and drops by her place to take showers (another contrived quirk that feels less than genuine). All in all, the stakes are never really high enough, nor is Jan a compelling enough character to make this series particularly worthwhile. Check out “Blue” instead, if you want to see what the WIGS channel is like.

Uh-huh. That’s exactly what I thought.

Oh, fine, so I couldn’t see how many people raised their hands. I still refuse to believe that I’m the only one whose mind went down that road, though I admit that it’s possible I was the only one who was also thinking, “You might, I might actually watch that…” Not that it was a great film, but it had a pretty interesting cast (Scott Bakula, Jason Bateman, Hector Elizondo, Robert Loggia, Larry Miller, Sinbad, and Rob Schneider), and the college-football-team premise is one that would be easy to pick up 20 years after the fact.

But, no, USA’s “Necessary Roughness,” while also about football, instead revolves around Dr. Dani Santino (Callie Thorne), a divorcée who reluctantly takes on a job as a therapist for a pro football team – the fictional New York Hawks – in an effort to keep herself and her children  afloat financially. After settling into the gig, Dani’s success with the Hawks combined with a significantly increased profile lead to a sudden influx of new and equally high-profile patients. In addition to Thorne, who you may remember from her roles on “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “The Wire,” and “Rescue Me,” the show has several other familiar faces within its cast, including Marc Blucas (Riley Finn on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) as Hawks athletic trainer Matthew Donnally, Scott Cohen (Max Medina on “Gilmore Girls”) as Nico Careles, the team’s ex-SEAL head of security, and Mehcad Brooks (Eggs on “True Blood”) as T.K. King, the Hawks’ star player.

What’s that? You say you’re intrigued and want to know what you missed during the show’s first season? Wow, good thing USA thought ahead and put together the perfect collection of clips to summarize the first 12 episodes for you…

A few weeks back, USA was kind enough to offer me the opportunity to head down to the “Necessary Roughness” set, tour the facility, and meet with Thorne, Cohen, and Brooks. Each of these fine folks sat down with myself and my fellow TV critics, bloggers, and interviewers (I’m just trying to cover all the bases to avoid missing out on someone’s favorite term for themselves) and chatted about their work on the series thus far and what viewers can expect from the second season of “Necessary Roughness,” which premieres – yikes! – tonight at 10 PM.

That’s fine, go ahead and run set your DVR now, so you don’t forget. But rush right back, because the highlights of those on-set conversations are coming right up…

Of the cast members we were fortunate enough to meet with, Callie Thorne was with us for the shortest amount of time, owing to the fact that she was actually between scenes when she came down to the conference room for a chat. When called back to the set, the powers that be toyed with the idea of having us stick around to grab her between her next scenes, but in a lovely moment of democracy in action, the group voted to head back to our hotel, as there was no guarantee of A) how long it would take for her to finish the scene she was working on, or B) how long we’d end up getting with her before she had to head back to work. But she was quite lovely while she was with us, and she did give us at least a bit of insight into returning to the role of Dr. Dani after the hiatus, her feelings on the character, and her appreciation of the opportunity to get out of the football stadium once in awhile.

Q: Dr. Dani has the season full when the season kicks off.  Could you talk about getting ready for this second season and some of the fine tuning that went on?

Callie Thorne: That’s a good question about getting back into it, because we did have a nice long hiatus and…it’s always a little nerve racking coming back into a show and, um, before this I didn’t have so much to think about. [Laughs.] This was the first time, coming back into the second season of the show, being number one on the call sheet. I was very nervous about that.  We luckily had about a week before we started shooting, which was little bits of rehearsals, little bits of fittings, and so the guys and I got to play and talk and hang out, and we all just naturally fell back into our roles, and it really made the first few weeks of work that much more sort of giggly and fun.  Because, really, I think what our cast…what we all respond to the most is laughing with each other. Even if it’s dramatic scenes or silly scenes, that’s how we get into it with each other, and I think that shows up on screen. So it was very smart for them to have us come a week ahead of time.

And then in regards to Dr. Dani…you know, especially that first script coming back, there’s so much going on, but everything was so wonderfully detailed.  It made it easy for us to slip back in. And I also really liked the fact that it wasn’t, like, a year later. [Laughs.]  You know, it was sort of really a perfect time to come back.  The audience wasn’t struggling to remember what happened, nor were we struggling to sort of establish things that happened, having to do expositions, stuff like that.  It was all right there.  So I have to say it was easier than I thought, but mainly because we all laugh a lot and we’re able to make those connections again very easily.

Q:  How does Dr. Dani help TK get through everything this season?

CT:  Well, it’s even sort of questionable when we come back if she’s really helping him at that point, because he does think of her in this maternal way, which I think kind of backfires a little bit when we come back to that.  Because now it’s almost like he’s rebelling as a child or, you know, a teenager or whatever would with the parent.  And he isn’t accepting what really happened to him.  He’s in this sort of state of denial, and that makes their relationship really difficult.  She can’t get through to him, and…it’s interesting, because I have thought of it more in terms of a mother kind of trying to get through to their child, to sort of try and get in any which way to get him to admit what happened, because he really is… [Hesitates.] As wild as TK was last year…and he’s a wild and extraordinary character…he’s even more so when we come back, but not for the best reasons.  So I think it’s really interesting the first few episodes watching Dr. Dani trying to get in there any which way, and he’s not taking it.  He’s really not working with her at all, and that’s new, you know.  I think that is a new place to find them and…um, and then you’ll see what happens. [Laughs.] And if that’s good or bad for anybody.

Q:  Where does Dr. Dani get all her strength from?

CT:  I love that, because a lot of what I bring to the character myself is a lot of my own mother.  I grew up with a single mother, so there’s a lot of tone and behavior that I think of in terms of my own mom as well as the woman that the show is based on.  The character is based on a very strong woman (Dr. Donna Dannenfelser), a very… I’ve always said she’s this force to be reckoned with.  And that is in the writing, you know, because she is in the writer’s office, she’s always there to be a part of what the particular patient of the week is.  So she’s also there to make sure that the character is very true to herself and the circumstances that she has been in that we are now bringing you know to the screen. And then I’m also thinking about my own therapist in real life.  And all three of these women are all incredibly independent, are all women that I’ve learned extraordinary things from and still do, and so I really think that that has a wonderful mix with the way the writers write her, and so it also sort of falls into place that these are the women I have in my mind, and the way that they write her is a very strong voice and…sometimes that’s not true.  Sometimes you’ve got an enormous amount of homework to do in order to bring a woman like that to life.  It’s changed in the past few years because there’s so many incredible lead women now, and they’re very layered, some of them are likable and some of them are not, and that’s what women are. We’re many different things.  So I got all that going on, and then I have the luck of good writers that are creating this woman alongside with me.

Q:  What sorts of insights have you gotten from the real Dr. Dani?

CT:  Well, one of the things that’s really hard for me as Callie, doing a lot of the therapy scenes, is, you know, you see someone in emotional pain, and my natural instinct – and I think for a lot of people that I know – if you have a heart, your instinct is to feel for them and to…you know, I want to go and give them a hug, or I want to go, “Oh, my God, I know,” or whatever. The main thing I’ve learned from Dr. Donna is that place that you have to go to, that neutral place, so that you can be a safe haven for that patient. You know, a place that they can be honest, not feel judged, not feel like they have to impress you or whatever. So I’m learning some things about how she’s got to present herself as a therapist that help me as an actor, just sitting in these scenes. You’re so used to reacting as an actor, and you know that’s what you’re taught in every class.  You know acting is reacting, but most especially in those therapy scenes, I have to really go to a certain head space to not give too much away and let those scenes really be about who I am with and let them tell their story. So I think that’s the biggest thing I learned from her in regards to the character.

And then in my life, I’ve very much learned from her.  It’s a theme in the show as well that sometimes people just want to be listened to, and…it was something I spoke a lot about last year, too, that I have learned to be a better listener because of my conversations with her, and I found myself babbling with her, talking. Sometimes we talk by Skype and I’m going on and on and I feel so great afterwards, and I realize she didn’t even say anything.  [Laughs.]  She just listened to me, she didn’t try to fix me, she didn’t try to, you know, make parallels and say, “Oh, I know, because this happened to me.” And that’s very meaningful to me.  So those are the two things that I am very grateful for that I learned from her.

Q:  What are some of your favorite aspects of stepping outside of the football arena?

CT:  Well, my first favorite is what happens in the second episode. Or maybe it’s the third. They get tangled. But it’s the roller derby, so for several reasons…I was really excited that we were focusing on a female athlete, and then roller derby’s something that I’ve always loved watching. There was this girl I met three or four years ago, and she was an actress who on her off time was this very famous…I think they’re really called the New York Dolls. I’m not even sure. But she was a very famous New York roller derby girl, and she had stories that blew my mind, so that was very exciting to me. They created for the show a roller derby arena, but they did it very beautifully, and they got a real team together. That was (director) Rob Morrow’s episode, and I think also, because he’s an actor, they got a little bit more into that sort of stuff. And the actress that they cast as the girl with the issue was a real tough little cookie, and she was getting really involved in it.  So that was fun for me, because I got to go and sort of be in there and meet all these incredible women, these tough women. I think that’s what I’m very excited about in regards to the second season.  There will be way more leaving the football stadium. Although, obviously, I love going to the football stadium.  [Laughs.] But that just makes it more exciting for me.

Q: So we’ll maybe get to know more about Nico this season?

Scott Cohen: A little bit. A little bit, yes. (But) he remains a mystery.

Q: Is everything over between Gabriel and Nico? And if so, will there be an appearance of a love interest for you?

SC: That’s really a question for the writers. But it’s not over over, and I hear that there is love to come.

Q: Would you like to see Nico together with Dr. Dani?

SC: With Dr. Dani? Uh, yes and no. I mean, I think it’d be a really interesting dynamic. I want it to happen, if it’s ever going to happen, much later, ‘cause I want it to be teased for years to come.

Q: (Because) it’ll get really awkward at work?

SC: Yeah, well, it already has. It’s kind of weird. I mean, it’s, like, the tension between him and Matt, he knows what’s going on, so he’s very protective of Dr. Dani, so I think it’s…it just kind of stays interesting. And keeps us going for a while.

Q: Is there anything that Nico doesn’t know?

SC: There’s nothing Nico doesn’t know.

Q: He knows everything.

SC: Yeah, the episode we’re shooting now, actually, you’re, like, “How did Nico do that?”

Q: So you were behind the scenes today…

SC: Yes, I’m trailing Andy Wolf, the director, to try to get experience in directing.

Q: Is that where you see yourself going?

SC: Yeah, I’d love to. It’s very fun.

Q: Would you want to direct an episode?

SC: I would love to. Yeah, love to.

Q: Does it give you a different window into the acting side of things?

SC: It does. It completely gives you a different point of view, and it’s a much more relaxed point of view. First of all, it takes away the pressure. When you’re an actor, you’re always under pressure just about you and your character, and you don’t see the big picture. So, you know, you’re just kind of focused in, you’re very myopic. And reading the script for this episode, knowing that I was going to do this, it kind of allowed me to see everybody and just be aware of everybody’s situation and have a very kind of equal balanced view of it. As opposed to, “Wait, I should have that line, wait, I should be in that scene…” You know, like that. Which is usually what an actor does. It’s, like, you know, “How come I’m not in that scene? How come I’m not doing that?”

Q: What kind of preparation did you go for the role? Did you actually talk to any Navy SEALs?

SC: Yeah, I talked to two Navy SEALs that I’m connected to, actually. Via Facebook, interestingly enough. I talked…well, not so in depth, but I got some information from them. I talked more to NFL security people, who exist and who are very present in players’ lives, and I kind of got a sense of what their backgrounds might be, who they are and where they come from and things like that. That’s basically what I did. I mean, for Nico…from the very beginning, what was interesting to me…‘cause I think I’ve always played characters that are a lot more talkative, a lot more energetic, a lot more involved. What attracted me to him in the beginning was how quietly energetic he was. I mean, he was so quiet but so intense, and that to me was always interesting. To be able to play that… at least for me, it’s so difficult to actually just shut up and trust that your power is in your silence or in your eyes or whatever it may be.

Q: What kind of input do you have into creating and shaping the character of Nico?

SC: A lot. Not his story arcs. I mean, they’ll take a phone call and I’ll pitch an idea very easily. It might not happen. They might say, “Oh, that’s really interesting…” But they’re very open to ideas, they’re very open to very free interpretations of a scene. Not that things will necessarily be used, but, you know, I can say, “Oh, I read this article and this looks like a really interesting thing for Nico,” or, “You know, I thought about this,” and they would totally hear it and try to, you know, put it into the fray.

Q: What kind of stories would you want to see for Nico?

SC: Traveling to foreign countries. Tropical islands. [Laughs.] That’s an interesting question. I mean, I would love to see a little bit more of his background as time goes on. I mean, I think it’s too early now, but people that were in his life…I really would enjoy that, if they were kind of coming back into his life. That would kind of interest me. And I’d love to see him…like, the whole idea of him having a daughter last season was very interesting to me, ‘cause I love the idea of a man his age…I mean, does he have a family? Does he not have a family? Did he have a family? That’s interesting to me.

Q: Are we going to see anymore of Nico’s vulnerable side?

SC: Vulnerable? Yeah, you see a bunch in the first four episodes. Him dealing with (Evan Handler’s character), it gets nasty. It really gets nasty, and Evan Handler, who is superb, plays someone you believe is an evil human being, and Nico has to kind of keep it at bay. And he’s having trouble doing it.

Q: Life-and-death stakes, or more emotional?

SC: I think it’s more emotional, I think it’s life and death in terms of the stakes of the money that’s involved, and the team and how many lives are at stake. It’s more like that.

Q: What’s the weapon in Nico’s arsenal that he is going to be really employing this season? He’s got a lot of different tools to control things.

SC: Nico’s main power is his information, his knowledge, and he’s capable of using it at lightning speeds. So I think that’s his greatest weapon. If you’re talking about, like, guns and knives and things like that…is that what you’re talking about?

Q: Tools of the trade.

SC: Negotiation, manipulation, and threat. [Laughs.]

Q: Willingness to carry through?

SC: Absolutely. No question. Which he does.

Q: He can acquire information, but does he utilize it?

SC: In this season, he utilizes quite a lot of things that we just did not mention. But, you know, his threats get carried out, so…

Q: Is there any limit that he will not cross?

SC: No, I don’t think so. I mean, I think that if he’s confronted with having to make a decision, that somebody that he needs to protect is in trouble, then he’s willing to go the distance. He’s willing to take a bullet for somebody. That’s his mentality.

Q: But he’ll never lie.

SC: Never, ever, ever. As opposed to Scott Cohen, who is one big fat liar. [Laughs.]

Q: Isn’t lying the act of omission? He controls information, he doesn’t reveal it.

SC: Yeah, I think that’s pretty accurate.

Q: He holds and manipulates information that way.

SC: Yep. That’s very accurate.

Q: So in that sense, he’s not lying.

SC: He doesn’t lie about things about himself. So, I mean, if you ask him a question about him, he’ll be honest with you. There’s nothing he needs to hide. Nothing. But in terms of a negotiation or in terms of a manipulation, or in terms of just trying to get somebody to do what he needs them to do, he will manipulate information in order to get what he wants. But I don’t think that’s in the context of lying. Lying is more about him. He just has nothing to hide. He has no regrets, he’s very satisfied and content with who he is, which might be his flaw. He’s happy where he is. Nothing will affect him that much. But things do affect him that much. That’s what we see in this season, I think.

Q: Do you feel that the writers are writing more towards you?

SC: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think they were surprised in the beginning of last season how Nico…just kind of how he panned out. They’re not modeling it after me by any stretch of the imagination. But trying to infuse everything that they’ve created last season with mystery, and him knowing everything that’s underground…they’re utilizing that. I think that’s definitely happening. But they’re really trying to keep it him mystery at the same time. You learn tiny, tiny pieces of the mystery.

Q: You mention you talked with these NFL security guys. Were there any parts of the show ripped from the NFL security guard headlines?

SC: Not that I’m aware of. No. Except, you know, just in how much trouble TK is in.

Q: Mark Blukas’s character…Matt and Nico are vying for the alpha dog position. Will we see that tension develop?

SC: You do, yeah. It reaches a head in the second episode, . And it’s very tense between the two of them mainly because of TK, not because of Dr. Dani. But I think Dr. Dani’s playing a major role in it. It’s funny you say that, because I don’t really see it like we’re, you know, ‘vying for the alpha dog position,” but that’s probably what it is, really. It’s definitely very present. But something happens to him and…I’ll let him tell you, maybe, if he wants to spoil it. But he’s going places. [Laughs.]

Q: What do you think Nico’s motivation is in what he does? Is he trying to help people?

SC: I think he’s just doing his job. He’s just doing his job. I mean, I think it’s really plain and simple for him. If this job left, if this ended today, then he’d be okay. I mean, that would be how he acts, but he would hopefully be friends with people. Who knows? Maybe nobody likes him. [Laughs.] I think he just does his job. I think it’s really just that his job is so intense…it’s, like, what he does involves so many people and involves such high level personality that…well, it’s not the same story, but you know “The Bodyguard,” with Kevin Costner? I mean, it’s similar type of, y’know, you do what you have to do to get the job done. That’s simply what has to be done. He’s very loyal.

Q: TK’s your Whitney.

SC: TK’s my Whitney. Exactly. That’s going on Twitter tonight. [Laughs.]

Q: Kevin was telling us when you came back for this season you were in better shape than you were in the first season. Did you do something different in your time off?

Mehcad Brooks: Yeah, well, I mean, last season was kind of unfair to me, because I couldn’t work out ’cause I got in a really bad car accident. So I did the best that I could, but, you know, I was on a lot of medication, so there wasn’t a lot I could do. So this year…oh, my goodness. [Laughs.] About two months out, I worked out with some pro guys who train Olympians, and I just took it really seriously. Now that I have the physical opportunity to do so, I’m not playing around.

Q: We were told you’d have more scenes with Terrell Owens this year. Does that relationship get ramped up?

MB: You know what? It…yes, it gets ramped up a lot, and then what happens is, it sort of gets rectified, all in the same swoop. So it’s kind of nice. He becomes likable all of a sudden. I think it’s good for TO. I mean that in a nice way, actually, because he’s a nice guy. But his public persona, you know, is what it is. But if you know him, if you meet him, he’s actually very misunderstood. I think he’s very shy, and what happens is he comes off in a protective way, and it’s unbefitting of his personality, because he’s actually a really nice guy. Believe it or not.

Q: Vivica was missing from episode one. Is that the last of her?

MB: Yes, I’m afraid so. Her body floats up soon. [Laughs.] I’m kidding!

Q: Scott said that the relationship between Nico and TK is going to evolve into something like a father figure.

MB: Yeah, I call it Teko. TK and Nico. You know what I’m saying, like Brangelina, but without the sex. [Laughs.] I think it’s cool, because it’s, like, TK finally has a paternal figure in his life, and he’s never had that. You know, he does need a positive male figure in his life. And Nico is the only guy with the patience and probably the training to handle someone’s attitude as large as TK’s. I mean, the guy doesn’t listen to anybody but Nico, really, so…there you go.

Q: Did you do any research into PTSD for the new season?

MB: Yes, I did. I did a lot, actually. I got a couple friends who’ve come back from Afghanistan and Iraq with some issues. One guy was actually blown up by a grenade and…we knew each other for 16 years, 17 years. He’s one of my best friends, he’s like a brother to me, we worked together, I got him a job on “My Generation” as our military coordinator, and…he’s just a great guy, just a fantastic guy. 13 surgeries later, to make a long story short, he’s walking, he’s running, he’s back, you know, as part of the population physically. And that’s a great phone call to get. So I’ve seen it first-hand, and I’ve been able to talk to him about it, he’s been strong enough to open up to me about it, and…you know, I want to portray it as seriously as possible.

Q: And as accurately?

MB: And as accurately as possible, because it’s an under-discussed subject and it’s something that two million Americans are going to have to deal with actively themselves, not to mention the toll it’s going to take on families and friends and relationships and jobs and so on and so forth. I think no one really wants to see soldiers going through it, because we have this sort of war fatigue and we have this insulation. We haven’t even paid for the war, you know. Taxes like we have, we’re completely insulated from it, and I think when it’s coming from an athlete or a football player, somebody that we see every day and that we allow into our home every day, it’s different. And so I hope that maybe…you know, I have athletes who come up to me and say, “Hey, what you did was realistic.” And I hope that one of these days I’ll have a soldier come up to me and say, “You know what? I went through that, my family went through that, and thank you for taking it seriously, because it really affected us.” So it’s not something that I make light of. Not that part of it.

Q: Thank you for that. I love the way it’s being portrayed.

MB: Thank you. Thank you very…I just got goose bumps. Thank you very much. ‘Cause that’s one part of TK that I can’t laugh at. I’ve seen it first hand and, you know, I’ve been there for guys who have gone through it. And I went through it in some ways in my life. You know, you don’t have to go to war to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ve lost a family member, I lost my brother when I was19 and he was 17, and, you know, you react in the way that you do. You just react in the way that you do. And there’s no wrong answer for it, there’s no right answer for it, but there’s ways of healing holistically that I think that we as a nation, we can embrace our sons and daughters that way, and have them know that they’re welcome to come back. That’s what they need, they just need love. And understanding and patience. So I hope that we can touch on it a little bit.

Q: Is your character going to face this head on or fight longer with it in the background?

MB: Well, in real PTSD, you don’t know you have it. So you deny, you go through withdrawal of what the situation was, you have nightmares about it, you start to beat yourself up, you become a hermit. There’s all types of different things that happen, these sort of several different stages, and there’s a lot of debate on it clinically what those stages are. But a lot of it has to do with manic depression and bipolar and all these things that start to open up in your brain. So, yeah, he goes through the same stages that most people would, I think, if they come to this near death experience and they come to terms with their own mortality. Which we don’t on a day to day basis, thank God. I mean, most of us don’t, anyway.

Q: How is it for you to portray such a serious arc, for an actor who was normally playing such an upbeat character last season?

MB: Challenging. But that’s what I got into this business for, is to be challenged. I love this job because it’s varied in that way. You know, and one minute…which is great about CK…one minute you can have him in a scene where he’s on the verge of tears and not knowing what’s going on in his life, and then really sort of losing grip of who he is. And then the next moment he’s having a Twitter war. Like he’s a 12 year old. And that’s fun to play, but sometimes when you’re shooting both scenes in the same day, it’s, you know, “Can you put that one first, please?” [Laughs.] So it’s interesting, but it’s a lot of fun. It is. It’s fun to be challenged.

Q: Are we going to see any new love interests?

MB: You know what? To quote Sammy Davis, Jr., “You must love yourself first.” You know, to quote another black Jew. [Laughs.]

Q: Will you go into TK’s past and some of his family members while he goes through this?

MB: We, we do go back to his old neighborhood. You know, he doesn’t really know his family. He was a foster kid at nine years old, only child, mom’s passed on, father he doesn’t know, so you see the closest thing to family that he has. I think it’s Episode 203, 204, or something like that, but it’s great, he goes back to his old neighborhood and hides out for a couple episodes and, you know, gets into some shenanigans, some funny stuff…and some not so funny stuff, actually. And it’s weird because, especially after almost losing his life, he kind of doesn’t know where he belongs, you know, professionally. It’s almost as if, “Wow, you know, I catch a ball for a living. Is that important? I don’t know.” He starts to question everything. “Maybe I just want to go home and just be around people who love me for being Terry King. Not the King.” So he’s kind of doesn’t fit into either world and doesn’t really know where to go. So he goes through that for a little while as well. So that’s when you kind of meet the people who are in his past.

Q: Are we going to see more fun stuff with Terrance and Dr. Dani’s kids?

MB: I hope so. I really enjoy working with them, I think they’re so talented. They’re really, really talented, hard-working kids and…I shouldn’t even call them kids. They’re adults. They’ll hate me for calling them kids. I don’t think I would’ve been ready for what they’re doing at 18, 19, 20. So I have a lot of respect for them. Yeah, actually, I know I wasn’t ready. [Laughs.] I know I wasn’t.

Q: Do you base the TK antics on anybody in particular? It reminds me of TO.

MB: Okay. [Laughs.]

Q: Was that informed by the script?

MB: I can talk about who it’s actually based on, right? [Waits for a response from the publicist.] Okay, so it’s actually based on Keyshawn Johnson. Who I don’t know from a can of paint. So I based it on other guys that I know in the league, TO not being one of them. ‘Cause I didn’t know TO all that well before we started working together. And I based it on my dad, who was a wide receiver in the 70’s and 80’s when, you know, cocaine was a performance enhancing drug and it was okay. [Laughs.] You know, those were wild times and different times in the NFL. I got to see some of it first hand as a kid. And then I also based some of it on myself in my young 20’s. Like, you know, but what if I had 85 million dollars and I was that stupid? [Laughs.] In some ways, it’s like I’m coming into work and just being a dick and getting away with it. ‘Cause I’m actually kind of nice in person, I think. At least to myself.

Q: You love yourself?

MB: Not really. Mostly. [Laughs.]

Q: How do you get into that mindset of being so arrogant?

MB: I wake up. [Laughs.] I like to pretend that I’m arrogant. I don’t think I am, really. How do you get into that mindset? You know what it is? It’s that TK and I are really different. He’s not even a dude I would hang out with, tell you the truth, but I’ve known guys like that and it’s just about really you know, taking five minutes to believe your hype. If you thought you were God’s gift to insert noun, you know, then that’s how you act. There’s no boundaries, you’re put on a pedestal by society, so that means you’re above the societal mirror, which means you can’t even really look at yourself in a realistic light. I know people who are this famous, and they read the tabloids and they obsess about what people are saying about them, and I’m just, like, “God, that is tough.” That’s got to be really, really tough. You just have to accept them. So, y’know, it’s weird. It’s just taking my personality, a piece of it, and just…I don’t know, injecting it with anabolic steroids. Uh, not literally. [Laughs.]

Q: Can you talk about actually playing the football scenes? How did you prepare for that and how did you feel about those scenes?

MB: Well, I pulled my hamstring in the pilot, which means I was, like, “Man, I am such an actor. This is crazy.” Like, I’m just Hollywood as hell. [Laughs.] So there I was sitting on the sidelines rubbing my leg, I couldn’t even do all the stuff that I wanted to do, so then I came back and I got in the car accident, which was bad, so I couldn’t really do a lot. So this year when I came back, I was, like, “You know what? I’m going to do all my stuff. I’m going to make my stunt doubles look bad. “ And I’ve done my best. Like I said, I kind of had my training camp in LA, and then every chance I get, I go up to some surrounding states, I work out with some pro-bowlers, and I know what I’m doing now. And it’s fun. It’s really fun. Sometimes they take the stunt double out and put me in. Except when I get hit. I mean, I ain’t doing that. [Laughs.]

Q: For TO’s returning role, is he going to act more like a catalyst of change to get TK back on track or just dance on his grave?

MB: That’s a good question. He does a little bit of both, actually. I don’t want to get too much into it, but there’s a Twitter war, and there’s some really awful things, at least in TK’s world, said about him. And TK, like a grown man, goes to handle it, and…shenanigans ensue. [Laughs.]

Q: There’s been some pretty great guest stars on there. Is there anybody you would love to see on the show?

MB: Anybody I’d like to see? I mean, there’s just so many good actors…

Q: Any pro football players?

MB: I mean, I would love Aaron Rodgers on the show. I met Aaron at the Super Bowl, we hung out for a couple days. He’s a good dude. Awesome dude, and loves the USA, so Aaron, if you’re reading this, if you scouring the blogs for your name, come on down. [Laughs.]

Q: Have you gotten feedback from NFL players about this?

MB: I have. I have. And not always positive. Some are, like, “Man, your stance is horrible. Come on, dog.” I’m, like, “Let’s see how you can do a monologue, fool. I barely understand what you saying right now. And take that HGH out of your mouth!” [Laughs.] Something’s wrong with me. But I’ve had a lot of positive feedback and I’ve had some really helpful criticism, actually, too. There was actually a conversation with… [Hesitates.] With a very well known wide receiver. [Laughs.] In a nightclub, and he was helping me with my stance. Everybody’s dancing around us like we’re in New York, and I’m, like, “All right…” He’s, like, “No, the problem is, your form is down perfect, but you look like a Poindexter.” So TK has a new stance now. [Laughs.]

Q: Do you think that TK because he believes his own hype, he’d ever want to branch out into something else, like another pro sport?

MB: I think TK thinks he can be an astronaut. [Laughs.]

Q: Would he actually go do it?

MB: All right, here’s the funny thing about playing a guy like this: when everything that you’ve done in your life has led up to achieving this dream, and then you believe that hype, it is hard to even tell yourself “no.” That, like, “You can’t do something.” And maybe that’s true, I don’t know. Like, I mean, Jordan did it with baseball, and he was actually pretty good. Maybe if he had stuck with it, he probably could’ve went pro. Like, pro pro. I don’t know, I think his reality is so surreal that, yeah, I could imagine him quitting everything and going to be a photographer. Or quitting everything and trying to be an astronaut, or quitting everything and, y’know, looking for treasure in the Pacific Ocean. [Laughs.] I mean, he’s crazy. Make no mistake about that, he’s crazy. It’s so fun to play.

Q: Where do you get your inspiration from for this role?

MB: Well, like I said, it started off with my dad. My biological father, I should call him. I call my stepdad my dad. I started off with him, and then it kind of had to take its own life on after that, because that only gives you so much information and so much to start with. But it was rooted in that and then kind of sprouted its own life from there. So where do I get my inspiration? You know what? Kanye West actually is somebody that I looked to. I mean, I admire Kanye West, period, because I think that he’s brilliant. His brilliance can’t be denied. But I think he’s also been brilliant in business, in the fact that he puts up a public persona for everybody to attack while he’s just kind of under the radar living his life the way he wants to while you’re attacking his persona. So you have no clue who this guy is. Which I think is amazing. I think it’s really, really smart. I mean, you may not like it, but you got to kind of respect how smart that is. Like, you never are actually criticizing Kanye West. You’re criticizing the persona he’s allowing you to, and I thought that was brilliant. And I thought that TK, who’s probably not as smart as Kanye West, is trying to do something like that. But he’s failing. So he’s just kind of an asshole. [Laughs.]

As such, Bullz-Eye is going to try to tackle more stories from the medium…and when I was sent a copy of “Ides of Blood,” a new series from DC / WildStorm which is – at least according to the press release – not entirely unlike a blend of “True Blood” and “Rome,” it certainly seemed like something that our readership might be interested in learning more about.

God bless DC’s publicity department: they quickly put me in touch with series creator Stuart Paul, who gladly answered a few questions for us about his own introduction to comic books, the origins of “Ides of Blood,” his semi-controversial decision to have characters in ancient Rome use modern colloquialisms, which of DC’s stable of superheroes he’d like to take a shot at writing, and much much more.

Since I’ve seen the phrase “new to comic books” used in conjunction with your history of writing for the medium, what’s your personal background with comics? And don’t be shy: if your memory stretches back that far, feel free to offer up the very first comic you remember buying.

My childhood experience with comics was pretty limited. Other than reading the occasional issue of Moon Knight or X-Men at my friend’s house, the only comics I personally bought were “Star Trek” comics—mostly “Next Generation” and some of the original crew that took place in the post-”Wrath of Khan” time period. It wasn’t until college that my girlfriend reintroduced me to comics through Sandman. Once I realized there were comics for adults out there, I started reading them more and more. Initially, I stuck with the superstars—Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Brian K. Vaughan, Garth Ennis. I was kind of a Vertigo whore at first. I guess I still kind of am, but not as much. I have to hear a lot of good buzz about something before I’ll invest in a whole series like Walking Dead, but I’ve definitely branched out. Once I discovered Urasawa’s Pluto, I started getting into manga more. Right now, I’ve got 20th Century Boys, Basilisk and Lone Wolf and Cub to read. I also went through a period of reading a lot of DC superheroes. Jeph Loeb’s Batman stuff is my favorite. Sometimes I’ll still read X-Men, but it’s pretty rare for me to read superheroes these days. My favorite series right now is probably Okko. I think Archaia is doing some of the most creative and well-made comics today. Also, Chew is the only series I read on a monthly basis. Everything else is TPB’s, although the iPad is kind of changing that.

There’s been much talk about how fans of both “True Blood” and “Rome” will find much to enjoy in Ides of Blood. Is that combination what led to the concept for this series? If not, what were its origins, and how do you feel about those points of comparison?

No, neither show existed when I originally came up with the idea and wrote the first draft. I mean, I don’t have a problem with people using those as points of reference. It’s an effective shorthand, but it’s the type of thing you’d bring up in a Hollywood pitch meeting. The problem is that you don’t necessarily know what connotations those shows have for the reader and also, they’re such current references that it makes the comic sound like it’s just trying to exploit the zeitgeist. I mean, if you said it’s “Gladiator” meets… well, actually, “Dracula” might have too much baggage attached to the name, so I guess “True Blood” probably is a good descriptor. The point is, I don’t mind the comparison, but I do think it has as much potential to put-off readers as it does to draw them in. Anyway, the concept for the series came out of boredom. I don’t really like vampires, so it started as a challenge to myself to figure out what I’d have to do to make vampires interesting to me. Julius Caesar just popped into my head.

Are you at all concerned about a possible vampire backlash, given how many of these bloodsuckers are popping up in pop culture nowadays, or do you think the creative setting of ancient Rome will be enough for vampire enthusiasts to grant you some leeway? (i.e., “Okay, I thought he was just a bandwagon jumper, but I have to admit, this is something we haven’t seen before.”)

The backlash has definitely been a factor, and I think it probably has somewhat hurt the comic’s reception. I’m just as sick of vampire stuff as the rest of you. And it’s easy for people to assume, especially when you’re dealing with a genre-mash-up like this, that the idea came out of some douchebag who was, like, “What’s hot these days? Vampires! What else is hot these days? Ancient Rome! What if we put them together?” But like I said, I started working on this idea five years ago, long before anyone had even heard of “Twilight.” That being said, I think that a lot of people have kept an open mind and thought the concept was cool enough that they’d give it a try. By the end of the first issue, I feel like we proved that we weren’t just in it for the quick buck, but that this is a fully-realized world that is truly trying to do something original. A couple of reviewers have even said that they picked up the book not expecting to like it but the comic changed their mind. It won’t work for everybody, and there’s some people who won’t let their mind be changed no matter what, but I am very grateful to those who came to Ides with an open mind and let themselves buy into the world.

Speaking of vampires, I’d be curious about some of your favorites, especially if your list contains any obscurities that you’re particularly proud of and would like to trumpet.

There aren’t many. There really are only two I can actually list as favorites. The first is “Let the Right One In.” It’s just brilliant filmmaking. The mood is so powerful, and the relationship between the kids is unique. I’d never seen a story like it before. The other is “Martin.” This is a George Romero movie about a kid who thinks he’s a vampire but doesn’t actually have supernatural powers. He goes around drugging women with hypodermic needles and drinking their blood. It’s very 70’s and sexual and psychological and it has a fantastic ending. The same girlfriend who introduced me to Sandman showed me this movie. I ended up marrying her, which I think was a wise choice.

I like Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire and Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, but neither of them to a fantastic degree. “True Blood” has some boring characters, but it just got awesome with the King of Mississippi. I like Murnau’s “Nosferatu” better than Tod Browning’s “Dracula.” It’s a shame “Shadow of the Vampire” didn’t live up to its potential.

One of the things about the miniseries that threw me at first was the characters’ usage of modern colloquialisms. Was there any point when you considered using some semblance of era-accuracy with their dialogue? And what would you say to those who might find themselves disconnected from the concept because of the decision to go this route?

It’s been a very divisive choice, and I totally get why it might not work for everyone, but there’s a couple reasons I went this way with it. At first the book was going to be a “For Mature Readers” title, so I was going to have people use profanity, much like “Rome.” But when Wildstorm told me I couldn’t do that, I changed all the curses to Latin. This actually worked fantastically, and I was happy I took out the modern profanity. But apparently this didn’t fly either ‘cause they didn’t want kids Googling Latin curse words. Personally, I think anything that educates kids about foreign languages is a good thing, but so be it. So when I needed another way to express things, I decided to go colloquial with it. It’s how the characters would have sounded to each other.

Plus, I thought it fit the genre. As the story became more of a noir, I though it would be cool to give it a bit of a pulp, Mickey Spillane flavor. More importantly, we’ve seen attempts at realistic dialogue before. It usually ends up with everyone sounding like the Royal Shakespeare Company. I also feel that the idea of realism or accuracy in dialogue in period pieces is a fallacy. First off, these people didn’t speak English—they spoke Latin. So already by translating it, you’ve altered everything. A lot of nuance of specific concepts is immediately gone. If you accurately translated what these characters actually said, it wouldn’t sound right to our ears. A lot of people also seem to think that simply using more formalized dialogue and adding “fuck,” that somehow you’ve reinvented the wheel. I disagree. That’s one of the reasons I think “Deadwood” was brilliant. It was not historically accurate. It was David Milch’s version of the Old West—and not just regarding curse words. Those were the most eloquent *********** I’ve ever met. I mean, you’ve got these uneducated miners and tinhorns who speak better than most college professors with their ditchwater Victorian monologues. The thing is, he was expressing an aspect of the Old West and interpreting it in his own way. The words weren’t authentic, but the interactions and spirit were.

Look, man, everything should be tried at least once. Would I want all period pieces written with modernized dialogue? Of course not. That would be terrible. But if it’s not appropriate for an alternate-history pulp-noir swords-and-sandals yarn where Julius Caesar has conquered Transylvania and made vampires into slaves, when is it appropriate?

How did you and Christian Duce first cross paths? Did DC / Wildstorm put the two of you together, or had you already known him? And how did your vision of what the characters would look like evolve after he came onto the project?

Shannon Eric Denton at Wildstorm put us together. We didn’t really have any direct interaction until after Christian had penciled the first couple issues, so there weren’t any discussions about the character designs. Fortunately, Christian is a brilliant artist who has an uncanny, almost telepathic ability to visualize what I’m trying to express in my scripts, so he pretty much nailed the characters.

Actually, my favorite character design he came up with is for one of the minor characters, Cassius. I wanted Cassius to be a sort of blowhard puppet who follows whatever Brutus says, since Cassius has traditionally been more of a Lucifer figure, and there’s just something about Christian’s character design (it may be the mutton chops) that fills me with glee.

Ides of Blood is a creator-owned series, of course, but given the chance, which of DC’s established heroes would you be interested at taking a crack at one of these days?

That’s a tough question. I have a great idea for a Flash limited series that also plays around with ancient history that I would love to do. That being said, I really like Batman. It would be a really enjoyable challenge to find new ground to cover for his character. Green Lantern would be fun just because I could do lots of stuff in outer space. But really, other than the Flash idea, if I had my pick of the litter, I’d probably have to go with Superman just because he’s Superman. You can create such amazing images with his powers, I’d love to see what unique situations I could put him in. Also, I feel that unlike Batman, there’s a lot more to his character that hasn’t been mined yet.

I’ve seen the trailer for “Orion Slave Girls Must Die,” so it’s clear you’ve got more than a little bit of a “Star Trek” background as well. What’s your favorite memory (or memories, if you can’t narrow it down) of attending either a “Trek” or comic convention? And feel free to divide it into “fan” and “creator” memories, if you need to do so.

Ha! Yeah, man. I loves me some Star Trek. DS9 is my favorite TV show of all time. I guess my favorite Trek convention memory is when my parents and I went to my first convention in Pasadena and John DeLancie, who played Q, was speaking. Instead of telling old Trek anecdotes or a Q and A, he read a short story he wrote. I don’t remember the title, but it was about a guy who is playing dice with the devil for his soul. At the end, a fly lands on the die and takes a shit, changing the number so that the guy loses. Being a story about demons and fly-shitting, my parents were mildly scandalized, but I was totally enraptured by the story when he was telling it. In fact, he’s the only speaker whose presentation at all stuck with me.

Looking back, how much growth do you see in your work as a screenwriter between “Confessions of a Late Bloomer” and “Orion Slave Girls”?

Man, someone’s been using IMBD! Well, they were both student projects I wrote while in film school, and the first things I’d written that I didn’t direct myself (and had actual budgets). “Confessions of a Late Bloomer” was really a reflection on my high school experience. I think it’s well-made and director Jen McGowan did a great job with it, but it’s not really told in my voice. It’s pretty conventional. I feel it was less about expressing my POV as a writer and more about proving to myself that I could apply the things I was learning in school and make a basic 3-act movie (albeit a short one). “Orion Slave Girls” definitely had more of myself in it. Whenever I’m strapped for ideas, I usually end up coming back to “Star Trek” in one way or another. It was more inspired by that thing in college where you realize you and your high school friend are going down different paths in life. I think the gags are more clever in “Orion,” and obviously the style and subject matter are more up my alley, but I’m not sure how much actual growth you can see between the two projects, particularly since the final product was the director’s creation as well as mine, but I definitely think I felt more comfortable with playing around with the narrative structure in “Orion.”

And, lastly, are you keeping your fingers crossed that “Ides of Blood” might serve as the kickstart for a gig as a screenwriter? Also, given how quickly Hollywood is snapping up comic projects for development, I’m curious if you’d even finished punctuating your pitch for DC / Wildstorm before you’d been approached by a studio. Mind you, I’m not necessarily asking for specific details. I’m just wondering if indeed there’s been movement on that front for “Ides of Blood” already.

(Sighing) It’s a pretty common Hollywood story. I write film and TV as well, so the way this all started was that I wrote Ides of Blood as a screenplay. I got it to DC’s film people, and they thought it would make a great movie, so I wrote up a pitch for the comic series that we sent to Wildstorm. So we were doing the whole reverse-engineering thing. Afterwards, we started prepping the film pitch. Then DC went through this reshaping, which put a halt to the project, so right now the prospects of a film are in limbo until the new guard decides what to do. These things happen all the time, though. I’ve learned not to believe anything is a sure thing in Hollywood because it can all fall through up until the last possible moment. Hopefully DC will pick the project up again and indeed hire me to write the screenplay, but really there’s no guarantee. I wish every comic creator had right of first refusal to write the screenplay. I find it somewhat heinous that the WGA offers no protection to screenwriters who became comic writers and now face the prospect of getting bumped off their own creation. But, when you’re a young writer, you just have to go in, pitch the hell out of yourself and hope for the best.

Closing note: Paul dropped a line a few minutes after answering the last question, clarifying, “I hold no grudges against any of the staff at DC. They were nothing but supportive of me and Ides.” I hadn’t got the impression that he might’ve felt otherwise, so maybe you didn’t, either, but I figured he’d still prefer it if I included his clarification, so there you have it!