Highlander
Transcripts:
DVD Extras

SEASON TWO:
Interviews with Adrian Paul, Stan Kirsch and Alexandra Vandernoot

(from 2003 U.S./Canada DVD set)

This special feature was re-used on the 2004 French Season 1 DVD set, where the various Season 2 episode clips were replaced with Season 1 clips. Interview portions that focused on Season 2 recollections were not included, and one portion of Alexandra's interview was added to that version (see the Season 1 Feature).


Various clips from Season 2

[Loreena McKennitt - "Bonny Portmore"

Oh, Bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many's the long day
'Til the long boats from Antrim came to float it away

All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying, "Where shall we shelter, where shall we sleep?"


Adrian Paul:

The first time I ever got-- and I don't want to say 'get involved in Highlander'. The first time I ever saw anything on Highlander, I saw the first movie which I loved, I loved it, and I remember seeing the poster in a casting studio and it had Highlander up there, and I looked at that and I went, you know, I'm gonna do something with that. And I swear to God, I just looked at it and I went, you know, I know I'm going to be doing something with that. So about a year or so later, the casting came around for Highlander: The Series. And I was the first one to go and meet with them. I was the first one to walk into the hotel which was happened to be the Four Seasons on Burton Way in Beverly Hills. And I remember there was Bill Panzer sitting there. There was Marla Ginsburg who was pregnant at the time with her feet up on the couch. There were the writers there and the producers. And I walked in and I said, 'look guys, you know, don't-- Forget it, you don't need to look any further. You know, I'm here.' And they went, 'oh God, this guy's really full of himself.' Which I was. But so I walked in and I said, you know, so I walked away and they went, 'hey, he's interesting, but not the first person we see.' So they went to New York, they went to London. They saw people there. Then I went in and met them again. I read for them about a month later. I read for them or three weeks later, read for them. They kind of liked me, I guess. And then they had more people from London and New York to see and then they brought us all in for a test. And there were I think five of us that were brought in for a test and we went on screen test and apparently half the people liked me and half the people liked this other guy. I don't know what the difference was between what they chose from me and what they chose from the other guy. It's interesting. I think things happen for fate anyway. I think, you know, there's a reason you're supposed to do something. And, you know, I brought certain things to Highlander or Duncan MacLeod that other actors probably would not have. And yet they would have brought something different to the part that I wouldn't have brought. My thing would probably be part of the physicality that Duncan brought. Plus, you know, I was always a history buff. So it was a very interesting thing for me because every script we worked on was something to do about history. And it was really fun to actually work on it because I was learning stuff. And it was stuff I was interested in at the same time. So I was even more into doing the role and working on these scripts.

First of all, they weren't sure whether or not it was going to be just me. And it wasn't sure whether my name is going to be Duncan MacLeod or whether it was going to be Connor MacLeod, but I'm like, wait a minute. No, no, no. I want it to be another name. And we came up with different names. We came up with Ian. I think Malcolm was another one. I think Duncan was another one. But Duncan was a really good Scottish name. So, you know, Duncan MacLeod was finally chosen. And that's when they found that Christoph was available to do the pilot.

Stan Kirsch:

I hadn't even seen the film until I actually got the show. And then I rented the first movie. I think it was the only one available at the time. And I was astounded by how good it was and how impactful it was. I thought my perception of it, not knowing what it was, was that it was just sort of an action and not terribly deep. And I was very moved by Christopher's performance. And I was thrilled to be able to go off and do this thing. I was very excited.

I just came in for the audition. At the time, the casting director's Mark Tillman and Russell Gray had just seen me for, uh, they were looking for a kid to play MacGyver's son in the final couple episodes of MacGyver. And I went in on that and didn't get it. But they kind of liked me and they brought me in for this. And I was not at all what they were looking for on paper. I think on paper, it was more sort of like what Johnny Depp was on Jump Street and like long dark hair. And they told me, "Oh, you brought a sense of humor to the role. Keep that, keep that, keep that." And as far as I know, as the story goes, Marla Ginsburg claims that she was the one who pressed to keep my audition tape on the tape. And I believe that. And then I met with Bill Panzer, just on a one-on-one meeting. And at that time, I knew the stakes were high. I knew I was close. I knew it was a nine-month job. And I pleaded with him. I said, "Please tell me what it is you want me to do. I will do it." And he gave me some very good tips and pointers there and offered me the role the same day. And we hit it off. So I was thrilled.

I was excited. I didn't know sort of... I was still trying to figure out sort of what all of this was. And I think was more focused on the fact that I had a series, as opposed to so much what it was. Looking back, I think I would have put more thought and asked more questions of the production, like, where is this character going? But I think at the time, and maybe it served me well, I just thought it was best to keep my mouth shut and just accept the work and go. But these questions that we've discussed as to, like, what's the device of this guy? Is he supposed to be this tough kid? Is he supposed to be just this comic relief? I don't think quite got answered right at the beginning. And it was something that we sort of were always on both sides of the fence on. And on one hand, it was fun because we could do episodes like "Richard Redstone", which were complete comedies. And then do other things that were very serious. But sometimes I would look at a script on paper and think, "Where am I going with this now?" Because now I've taken this journey and the character has gotten deeper, or this or that, and why are we going back to that? But David Abramowitz was fairly open to phone calls and discussing things and reworking things. And keeping-- Adrian and I were very into the continuity of the whole thing, not backtracking, not keeping it constant, but evolving the series and the relationships. And I think that my character, I think, grew more than anybody over the course of the series. I mean, everybody was a more experienced television film actor than I was when I got the thing. And so I think that my growth as an actor was exponential at that time and as a person as well. And they allowed me to not be a kid for a long time on screen, which was nice.

Alexandra Vandernoot:

I was playing a play, a theatrical play by Marguerite Yourcenar, which is a very intellectual French writer. And the casting director came the last night we played and she came backstage afterwards and she asked me, "Okay, who are you? Who is your agent? And who are you?" Because I came from Brussels, Belgium, to Paris, France. And it took me two years to get into the business because I was playing and working a lot in Brussels, but not in Paris. And anyway, she came to me after the play and she asked me to audition for Highlander. And it was very funny because it was from a very intellectual play to Highlander, it was a huge gap between the two. And my career is a little bit like that, going from one thing to the other.

She was very well-written. I mean, her character was very nice. She was understanding, generous, supportive. And so that was very easy to play. And I wish I was like that. I'm not sure I'm totally like that. But it was very nice to play a character with nice feelings and nice emotions. And so I think there was a big part which was common with Tessa and myself.

Adrian Paul:

I think she knew me better than most people. And she was really the second love of my life as we find out through the series. I had one other, one other significant other that was my first love. But she was really the one that I wanted to spend a lot of time with, and the problem with Duncan was the fact that he's going to live forever; she's not.

Alexandra Vandernoot:

Well, I think the relationship between Tessa and MacLeod was very deep because very soon he told her about himself, about who he was, he trusted her. And I think trust is a very good definition of their relationship. She trusted him entirely and he trusted her. And so that was very powerful and very unique in their relationship.

Adrian Paul:

So much history for a guy, especially this guy who's four hundred years old, there's so much things that he has to build on as a character, that you sometimes get-- you don't know where to start. And this was, I was really, you know, in the spot of, okay, I'm doing this and this is who I think he is, but, you know, as it went along, he did change and he did mature and I think he became Duncan MacLeod over the period of the first year, I think. And I think some of the things I did in the first season were a little stereotypical. And whereas in the second or third season I didn't play as much as that, I played more the relationships rather than what the lines were giving me. And I think I found more as a person, as a character, in doing it, playing it that way. And I think the benefits were much better.

Everybody was on my back. You can't do this. You shouldn't do that. You wouldn't be doing this. And so every time you're kind of trying to readjust to what people are giving you input to. So you-- It doesn't make you secure. You haven't put your stamp on it saying this is what it is. Everybody's giving an input one way or another and you're trying to please everybody, which you shouldn't do necessarily. And sometimes you have to stand up for certain things that you believe in. And sometimes you give. And that's what I was doing in the first season was trying to find that out. If I'd had a month or so beforehand, I could have been very solid on who he was and discussed that beforehand before actually doing it on paper. And I think the turning point for us was "Band of Brothers" in the first season.

That show really just, I don't know what it was. It was the last show of the Vancouver part going into the Paris part. And it just kind of jelled there and then after going into Paris, things just settled out. I don't know what-- I can't explain it. It was like, either we'd gone through a certain period of time, I was like, okay, we've been through that. Okay, great. Now we're together, we're going on to another step, but now we're together going into this step. We're not all new. So there was a relationship already. So that may have had something to do with it. But it felt like the second half of the first season got a lot better.

Alexandra Vandernoot:

With Adrian, we rehearsed a lot outside of the set. We did readings. We did cold readings of the shows. And even with Stan in the beginning of the show. We were, everybody was staying at the same hotel. So we would meet in the hotel rooms and work, go through the lines and go through the situations and discuss about them. And so we would agree among us about the sense of the scenes. And we had big discussions with Adrian about what was exactly the purpose of the scene. Because when you shoot, you are in a hurry. Everything has to be done quickly. We have no time. So the time to think and to discuss is not on the set. Definitely. It has to be done prior to that.

I remember the first show. There was a lot of tension. Even you were tense. [cut to shot of Bill Panzer laughing] Everybody was tense. I remember we were shooting one scene in the mountains. Christopher was there. And Adrian, of course, and myself. And there was a row of seats. And it was all the producers sitting there, being like on the show and watching and not saying anything. And we would-- I mean, I don't know how Adrian felt, but I remember I was kind of-- I was so scared because, you know, it was very hard.

Stan Kirsch:

Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare. I literally got the show on a Friday and they said can you be in Vancouver on Monday. And I rented the film. And I was informed that the film's not going to help you so much because you don't come from that world. So where do I come from? You know, you've grown up on the streets and whatnot. And I just, I grew up in my first few years in Queens, in New York. And in kind of a rougher neighborhood. And then when I was six, we moved to Manhattan. That was a little bit more successful. And I think that I tried to draw on those earlier years when quite honestly we lived in *beep*tty neighborhoods. And I had gone, you know, to visit my grandparents, my mother grew up in the Bronx, and my dad grew up in Brooklyn. And it was this kind of streety, very blue collar background in my family. And I was able to tap into that because personally I had gone to a boarding school and Duke University. And that was not really aiding me in that role. So I had to dig a bit deeper. But I didn't have a lot of time and a lot of it was just really winging it and going for it. Christopher Lambert was very helpful on the set during that first episode, because as a young actor, I was very concerned with am I too big? Am I too small? And little did I know I would be thinking about that for years to come too.

I thought that when my character became Immortal, that that was the end of me. And I think, on one hand, the production was trying to figure out what to do with the show and would they marry themselves to this one character or did they need this little ensemble that we had in the first season, but now without Tessa, what do we do with Richie? And I kind of saw it as the end. I thought, when I went to go do those first, I think it was eight episodes in Vancouver, I thought that was the end, and I thought, "Well, this has been a nice job for a year and a half and now I'll move on to something else." And I do remember we had our first Highlander convention in Denver that fall. And the fans were very supportive of me and of my character and the relationship between Adrian and I and they loved the interplay between us on the stage and whatnot. And Bill and David said to me at the convention, "How do you feel about coming to Paris?" And I honestly think that that convention was a turn. And that was where they really decided to stick with the character. I think that they didn't, and nor did I, realize a) that people were really watching it, that we were really affecting people. And we were all pretty much blown away by that convention. And the fans were extremely welcoming. And I think that it was because of them and the letters and whatnot, that I came back. So at the time, I didn't even see it as something that was going to go beyond that. I thought that my becoming an Immortal was the beginning of the end. And I think if you really look closely at that scene in "Under Color of Authority" at the end there, um, I saw it as my goodbye. I thought it was over.

Adrian Paul:

Jim Byrnes was chosen by them to do the Watcher part, but I remember talking to Bill Panzer and Ken Gord after I saw Jim Byrnes perform in a blues club. I said, "You've got to use him in the show like this." They went, "No, you can't do this. No, no, I mean, how are we going to get a blues guitar in Highlander, for goodness' sake?" And I said, "He's great! I mean, the guy is awesome at doing this somehow." Second year, we get Joe's Bar. And it was there. I did do Joe's Bar, I'll always tell you that. "Won't you, Bill? You'll tell them that, won't you? It was always your idea." Um, but it came from something I told them, and I truly believe, somebody has a certain talent, you've got to use it.

Alexandra Vandernoot:

I think MacLeod opened that part of his secret world to Tessa and let her see what his real life was about. He opened the curtain and she saw and she accepted it. She knew what it meant that she couldn't have children with him. She knew that she would get old and he not, and she would die and he would stay forever. She knew all that and she accepted it. And in that way, she was exceptional, Tessa. That made their relationship unique. Because of course with other-- when he met or saw again other Immortals, they knew what it was about because those women were Immortals themselves. So they knew.

Adrian Paul:

I think sometimes you get kind of like into somebody and-- you know, they say that when you cross people in the street, if you nod down to them like this, then you've known them before. If you like that to them, [raises his chin] you're guarded. You know, I think Lizzy and I connected in some way. It was a mutual connection and it was-- The characters were fun and I guess that's where it was, you know, it wasn't the relationship. It was the dangerous and that was fun. And so therefore it was, it was that ability to be able to play the danger and that was-- and so both of us were into that. I think that's where it sparked.

Stan Kirsch:

I was always athletic, I was very energetic, and I played sports when I was younger, but I hadn't really been terribly serious about weight training and any kind of martial arts like that, and when the character-- when my character became Immortal, I was specifically told, the more work that you do on yourself at this point, the more we will write to you. And I went out and I got a trainer, and I went to a nutritionist, and I started to take the physical aspect of the role, and of myself, much more seriously.

I also realized the importance-- I think that I had skated so much into my work as a guy right out of college when I was twenty-one, that I hadn't-- and I was putting all the work in here [motions to his head] and I didn't realize how much of your physical presence manifests itself on film, too, and I started to take that much more seriously.

Adrian Paul:

Well, physical challenge is a really-- I mean, the show was physically demanding. I mean, I had a lot to do, but I had a lot of great people around me. I mean, Bob Anderson, who was the swordmaster in the first year, and I had my teacher, who I was studying Hung Gar Kung Fu with, came onto the show and I was working with him in between seasons a lot of the time to actually improve my look and the things that I was able to do. Those people helped me kind of form who Duncan MacLeod was physically. Now, it's a daunting thing because his style, he's using a katana, which is a Japanese very straight-edged, very linear type of style. However, this guy's lived for four hundred years. Anybody that's lived that long and anybody that fights for a lot adapts off of the people that they're fighting off of. So he's going to take different things from them. And that's what my style developed. As you watch the series unfold, as year three, four, five gets along, you'll see my style has really developed into a Chinese, Korean, Japanese kind of style free-for-all, my style, that is what he would have done anyhow. That allowed me to actually really look at that from that point of view. Then there's the physical challenge of dealing with other actors who have to come in and do sword fights with you or physical fights within that. That's a challenge because everybody's timing is different. And sometimes when you work on a show like this-- That first year I remember we went down to six days sometimes and shooting-- and the second year we went down to six-days shows, and six days shooting an action show is tough to do. So, you know, that's when you get accidents happening because preparation hasn't been done correctly. Actors come in and they've only had a few days' rehearsal and they're swinging some piece of metal at you and you've got to go, [dodges sideways] I've got to miss this part. But I got better at missing. You know, I got better at seeing it coming, better than I did before, because, you know, as it comes, you can see what somebody's going to do just before they do it as you get more experience. It's like anything. You do anything. I mean, I did-- I was playing with the sword every day. I mean, you're playing with that sword every single day. There are benefits and downfalls to that, you know, because, you know, anybody that used to sword fight, back in the old days, they wouldn't be doing quite as much as I did. I was doing it every single day and you're doing it for hours a day. And when you're doing a sword fight, it takes you three or four hours to do it. So, it's not just one take that you see, it's this angle, that angle, another angle. So, you're constantly doing it over and over and over again. Plus, it's all the rehearsal times. So, you've got all that stuff to do. So, all the time, the more you do it, the more you learn about it, the more you learn about how what a parry does, you know, how to deflect, how to hold. And some of those things I didn't know when I first started. And it was interesting, although Bob Anderson always said that I was very fluid with the sword, you know, he complimented me, which was very nice, I mean, coming from a, you know, such a guy as him who taught so many people. But I remember one time he gave me a parry to do against Rowdy Roddy Piper. And this parry, my parry was this way, like this. [holds hand vertical, fingers pointing up] or, no, it was this way, [makes a fist, thumb down] like that. And it felt weak to me, just in feeling it, it felt weak. And the way he was swinging the sword, he had this huge sword, he was just swinging this thing. And I went, I said, "Bob, this doesn't--" He said, "No, no, it's fine, it'll work." Well, Rowdy, this one particular take, swung really, really hard. And he pushed deep into it, broke the tsuba on my sword, which is the guard, and cut right into my finger. And I got like three stitches in my finger. And it was at that point, I suddenly started feeling what it was like to actually be in a fight as to what the right parry would be and what the right technique would be to utilize against a man. And that then went on and on and on as I developed my own style, if you like, you kind of get to feel-- look at who's fighting you. You go, okay, I'd do this with this person, because they're bigger or I'd want to go faster with them or I'd want to go harder with them or I'd want to go more defensive with them, it depended on who it was. So that taught me a lot. And that's how you get to learn. And that's I guess how I got better at it and more fluid with it, was repetition and the people that came up against me.

He's not judge and jury. To a degree, he has to be, and with the, um, Quentin Barnes episode, it was a question of, the guy was going through torture, and it was, to a degree, he wanted it or he would kill more people and damage more people, so it was the lesser of two evils. And that's where I saw MacLeod's decision. He didn't want to do this. It was his friend. But this guy was like, "I'm in pain, I'm in torture here. Don't let him win this, please. You've got to do this." And it's almost as if, you know, somebody needs to be put out of their misery. And that's where that was. Whereas the other one was this guy was misguided, and he was -- MacGregor (sic) was at the end, he was misguided, and it was a question of, like, "I don't deserve to kill him just because he's an Immortal. He's a kid." And he deals with this and he's done these things, but "I'm giving you another chance," because that's what we need in life, is another chance.: And that's where I think he stood, and that's what MacLeod was great about. I mean, there were times where he wouldn't take somebody's head, and he would let somebody go. He would say, "Look, it's not my job to do this. I'm an Immortal, I don't want to play this Game that these Immortals are playing. I just want to live my life. And if I come up against somebody, then we should deal with each other as humans." They were Immortals, but they're still humans. They still feel the same as humans do; they feel pain, joy, love, and everything else. So really, your-- his decision was really based on a human emotion as to who this person was and what he could be. Because he was somebody that had gone down the wrong path.

Think about it -- somebody you've loved for many, many, many, many years is gonna die, and it didn't matter whether she was old or young, it's somebody that you loved, whether it's your mother, whether it's your sister, whether it's your father, whether-- whoever it is, in that particular moment. And dealing with her was-- She was-- She gave so much, she was a fabulous actress and she gave so much. And it was such an intimate moment that there wasn't really any-- it didn't really-- It wasn't difficult. Let's put it like that. It wasn't difficult to be in that moment and allow that-- those circumstances to really be-- to uphold what that moment was all about. Doesn't matter how old we get, there's always still that young person inside us. Whether we're male of female, we always think-- you know, we're seventy years old, we still feel like we're twenty inside, but outside our bodies have told us that we're seventy years old. Same with her. She's still the person I knew sixty years ago or fifty years ago. And yet, what I saw was an older version of her. And, again, the other thing is, you know, it was like Tessa. I mean, it was the relationship I was gonna have with Tessa. Tessa was human, I wasn't. That's where Tessa was going to go, and that's heartbreaking.

Bill Panzer - What was it like when you met Adrian Paul for the first time?

Alexandra Vandernoot - I left to Vancouver without having seen Adrian. I just knew there was a guy, probably good looking, playing Highlander. And I remember my boyfriend, which is -- I'm still with the same man; it's been, like, a long time -- but I remember he was a little worried, me living for six months and shooting with this unknown Adrian Paul. And I remember I was-- the first time I met Adrian, I was in the lobby of the hotel, the Meridian. And I saw this gorgeous man. He had long hair, because he started the show with long hair, you remember, with a ponytail. And I was kind of stunned. I mean, I was amazed. And he came to me and said, "Hi, I'm Adrian, I'm going to play..." And I was speechless. And then I had my friend on the phone just like five minutes after. And he asked me, "So, have you met him? How is he?" And I said, "Average."

Alexandra Vandernoot:

Somehow he was getting all the action, all the fun, all the disguisement. He would travel in time and have different costumes. And I was always Tessa, and Tessa was very nice, but some-- you know, I lacked something. I wanted to, you know, to get more... There were one or two shows where I had to fight and stuff, and that was very exciting. Sometimes I thought, "Tessa is too quiet, you know, I want her to be wilder."

Adrian Paul:

One of the great things about Highlander, it wasn't always, you know, the black and white, it was always gray. It was always, as Ken Gord used to say, you know, it was like the characters here are not just black and white, they're gray characters. Sometimes you love them, but they might be a bad guy, but you understand why they're going through the things that they're going through. Same thing with Tessa and Duncan. I mean, some of the things were great, but, you know, they had arguments because there was a difference between them.

Alexandra Vandernoot:

I was very happy for the show and I was very happy for Adrian and for all the crew and all the people who worked for that show, but I didn't feel like going on because it's not very French to commit for six or seven years, you know, to do something, to do the same thing. And it really took me a long time to decide whether I would stay on the show or leave, and it was a very painful and hard decision to make, because I liked Tessa and I liked Adrian and I liked the show, I liked the concept of Highlander but I didn't feel like, for my career, it was a good idea to stay. Plus, for my private life, I had my boyfriend who was in Paris, and it was very hard for him to have me gone more than half of the time. It was very, very hard. So he was very happy, of course, that I didn't go on with the show. But for me it was a very, very difficult decision to make. Really very hard. Very hard.

Adrian Paul:

I thought, you know, it's a good relationship, but I didn't see how good it was until three, four years later when I was watching back, and I kind of went, "Wow, there's a good chemistry there." And I tell you, up until this day, everybody talks to me about her, not about all the other people that were in the show as much, but her, and it was because of that chemistry. And I think it was unfortunate that she left as early as she did. I think it was probably beneficial in some bizarre way that it happened, because it allowed him to be, you know, searching, and more solitary. But, you know, that said, I think the relationship was amazing. I think it had a great chemistry to it. And it allowed the first season and part of the second season -- and sometimes within the second season itself, because we did a couple of flashbacks with her -- to have that relationship stay alive. And, you know, she was, she was, uh-- She was fabulous. It was funny because, you know, you don't see eye to eye with everybody, and we didn't see eye to eye in the middle of the first season, it was a big conflict between me and Alex, and I think it was partly because she was away from home, away from her family and boyfriend, and we got back to Paris and the relationship changed, and it was great. And then she decided, because she needed to-- she didn't want to become Duncan MacLeod's girlfriend on a series anymore, she decided she wanted to go and do film, so she said, "I need to be out of the contract." And so they wrote her out in "The Darkness", and I think afterwards she said to me, "I never realized how big this got." She said, "I can't tell you how many people, to this day, come up to me and tell me about, you know, you were-- Duncan MacLeod, you were great in that." And she said, "I miss it. And somehow I miss it." But I think all good things come to an end and there's a reason for it. And I think it probably came to an end at the right time.

Alexandra Vandernoot:

I remember when I said-- I gave my answer about leaving the show, and I was really very sad and I questioned myself, is it a good decision? And who knows? I mean, no one can tell. Now it's done, it's done. And I remember when I came back to Paris after, after we would shoot in Paris, but when it was done, done, done, Christian Charret, the French producer sent me, like, a huge, huge pack of letters, because the show where I died just aired in the States. And people wrote me so many letters. I was so moved. I remember, because I got everything at once, everything at the same time, all those letters, and I sat on my bed and I read all the letters. And they were very nice letters. And I started to cry, and I remember I called Christian Charret and I said, "I'm so sad. People are sad because I left the show, and I'm so sad." And he told me, "Alex, that's what you wanted."

The letters were very moving, very moving. And I remember also, when I-- We were shooting the scene where I was killed... Prior to that, the crew didn't really know how long I would stay on the show, but when they got the script, of course they saw that's the end of Tessa. You know what? Everybody came on the set to me and shook my hand, like, you know-- And I said, "Come on, stop it. I'm not dying for true." I mean, "This is a show. You know. You're in the business. This is all fake." But you know, everybody came to me and, like, they shook my hand and said, "Oh, Alex, we're so sorry." And of course it moved me, because working with people for six months, it's an experience. You share life with them. I mean, you get to know them very well. And so it was moving, yeah.

My family, they're artists and family, my mother was a dancer, classical dancer, she was a star, she was Ballet Béjart, Ballet du Vingtième Siècle, which is very famous here in Europe, and my father was a classical music conductor, so I was raised in kind of an artistic background, and I think I chose to be an actress because it wasn't dance, and it wasn't music, it was something I did on my own, so I didn't have to compare with either of my parents.

Stan Kirsch:

I think doing the show as a whole and having that experience in my life, those five and a half years, affected me greatly. I don't know that it was the role so much per se that affected me as the ability to work with really, really good people, and to do these-- As a guy who wants to work as an actor, and you're this young-- Thomas Wright, who directed the pilot, sat me down, we had dinner right before we started shooting, and he said, "You're entering a paid film school, and you're a very lucky young man," and that's sort of what it was for me, it was a chance to really get a sense of what this business was all about, how to make movies. And when you come out of that -- and I think I did about seventy or eighty episodes -- you look at it, you've done seventy or eighty movies. I think that I didn't realize even coming out of it, how well-equipped I was to go work on other sets, to go work with other people, to work in episodic television, to work in independent film, where things move very quickly, and I learned a tremendous amount.

Adrian Paul:

I got into acting because I was a dancer, and I did these, like, Vaudevillian type of mime shows, and people said, "You know, you kind of have something, why don't you do theater, why don't you do stage, why don't you become an actor?" And I'm "All right." And so I started taking lessons, although I had done that when I was younger at school, I actually did school plays, I studied at Shakespeare, I'd done, you know, a lot of productions in school, and that was kind of fun, but at that time I was a guy, so I was always wanted to do soccer, and I played soccer, I played rugby, I played every sport I could, I played semi-pro soccer for a while, which I loved, and then after that I sort of went into modeling and dancing, and this stage presentation stuff that I traveled through France and through Europe, and that sort of took me back to England, and then when I started studying there, then I got the opportunity to come to the States, went to Los Angeles, and I started studying in Los Angeles, and after about a year, I didn't have an agent, I didn't have anybody, I was just getting a headshot, and I was putting a headshot in a printer's, and this girl looked to me and went, "Are you an actor?" I said, "Yeah, I'm an actor." She goes, "Do you have an agent?" I said, "No, I don't have any." She's "Oh, I've got a great agent for you." She says, "You know, you should go up for the new James Bond stuff." And I'm like, "Oh yeah, right, yeah, sure." And she said, "No, no, no, no," and I said, "Well, you know, give me your number." And at that time I was like, "Well, you know, when I'm ready, I'll..." I get home that evening, and she's taken my telephone number off the form for my headshot. And so I call her back, and I'm like, "Excuse me, but, you know, where'd you get my number from?" She says, "Oh, well, I get your number because I really thought that, you know, there's an agent that I think would be really good for you." And so anyway, I thought, "Well, I guess Fate's telling me I should actually go and get an agent." So, I went and got an agent, I found this agent, and she was good, and she got me a role within, like, I don't know, about three months, two months, and I did my first series, which was The Colbys.

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