INTERVIEW (VIDEO): The Geek Report (April 19, 2014) Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014

Geek Report interviews the Chief!

YouTube: The Geek Report
Video Description: Battlestar Galactica fans rejoice, as the Geek Report catches up with Aaron Douglas, the Chief from the popular series and finds out how the show became such a phenomenon!

INTERVIEW (AUDIO): Hello, Sweetie! (April 17, 2014) Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014

Bonus Content!!! Interview with Aaron Douglas at FanX 2014!!!
By: Cherri, Kristal, Rebecca and Danielle
Convention: Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014
Source: Hello, Sweetie!

 

Here is an audio interview that Aaron did with Hello, Sweetie! at Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014.
http://www.hellosweetiepodcast.com/bonus-content-interview-with-aaron-douglas-at-fanx-2014-2/

Description: Can’t get the smile after FanX off your face?? We relate!!! We recorded some great interviews during FanX, and we will be popping them into a few of the next episodes to keep the FanX glow alive! For your Friday listening pleasure, here’s a sneak peek! Our interview with Galen Tyrol himself, Aaron Douglas of Battlestar Galactica, Hemlock Grove, The Killing, and much more!!! Enjoy!

INTERVIEW (AUDIO): Schott Happens! (April 17, 2014) Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014

A Conversation with Battlestar Galactica’s Aaron Douglas
By: Bryan Schott
Convention: Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014
Source: Schott Happens!

Here is an audio interview that Aaron did with Bryan Schott at Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014.
Go to the audio player at the link below and click on the 4th one, that’s Aaron’s interview.

http://www.schotthappens.com/2014/04/20/podcast-conversation-battlestar-galacticas-aaron-douglas/

INTERVIEW (VIDEO): Stolendroids (April 17, 2014) Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014

Aaron Douglas Interview – 2014 FanX

YouTube: Stolendroids
Video Description: Zohner interviews Aaron Douglas at FanX 2014

INTERVIEW (VIDEO): UGeek Media (April 17, 2014) Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014

Aaron Douglas Interview @ Salt Lake Comic Con FanX 2014 – UGeekTV S03E01c

YouTube: UGeekTV
Video Description: This is our quick interview with Aaron Douglas, most recently from Battlestar Galactica Hemlock Grove. This was done April 17 at Salt Lake Comic Con FanX 2014. If you’re wondering, yes I had a brain fart and forgot his name just as I started talking to him. I tried to cover it up, but I think he caught on. Lesson learned; know the interviewee’s name and how to pronounce it before hitting the record button.

INTERVIEW (VIDEO): Entertainment Minute (April 17, 2014) Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014

Entertainment Minute: Cate Allen interviews Aaron Douglas Episode 18

YouTube: Entertainment Minute
Video Description: Entertainment Minute is the show interviews those working in the entertainment industry. In this episode, Cate Allen, host interviews Aaron Douglas, actor, Battlestar Galatica, X-Men 2, The Mentor, The Killing.
Director of Photography: Chris Fox
Sound: Kagan Eden
Editor: Robyn Adamson
Graphics: Robyn Adamson
Wardrobe: Rebekah McKinney
https://www.facebook.com/entertainmentminute
First airing: July 24, 2014
Season 1, Episode 18

INTERVIEW (VIDEO): Dungeon Crawlers Radio (April 17, 2014) Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014

SLC Comic Con FanX – Aaron Douglas Interview

YouTube: Dungeon Crawlers Radio
Video Description: While at Salt Lake Comic Con FanX. The DCR team had the chance to speak with actor Aaron Douglas who played Chief Tyrol on Battlestar Galactica.

INTERVIEW: WatchPlayRead (April 17, 2014) Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014

A Very Brief Interview With Aaron Douglas at SLCC FanX
By: Adrienne Fox
Convention: Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014
Source: WatchPlayRead

 

Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience was my first event as a writer with WatchPlayRead and my fist ever press pass for an event. As a member of the press, I was able to attend a press conference to kick off the event. After opening speeches and recognition of local heroes, organizer Dan Farr introduced some of the special guests that were kind enough to get up early and participate in interviews. The group of guests represented a variety of interests and notoriety from Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees to Kelly Hu of more sci-fi, fantasy, and comic-inspired movies and TV shows than I can count.

Lucky for me, Aaron Douglas signed on as a last minute guest for the event and he was available after the press conference for interviews. I was able to speak with Douglas for a few minutes. As you may know, (and I certainly hope you do), Douglas portrayed Chief Tyrol on Battlestar Galactica (BSG) and recently appeared on the Netflix original series Hemlock Grove. My chat with Douglas was just that, more a casual (and awkward on my part) chat than a formal interview.

I asked Douglas about his role on The Strain, an upcoming horror TV show on FOX based on the story by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro. Douglas told me that two BSG writers, Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, wrote a part for him in one episode. Although, he wasn’t able to meet Hogan or del Toro on set he hopes to have an opportunity to do so in the future. (I will look forward to seeing him in episode 7 of The Strain!)

Douglas is an NHL fan. I asked how he felt about the season and mentioned that I grew up a Flyers fan. He mentioned his team [Vancouver Canucks] is not in the playoffs. But that the Flyers are looking decent if they can get past the NY Rangers. (I wish they would! But the Flyers lose to the Rangers all too often and are losing in the series.)

What could he tell me about his upcoming project, Infrared, which he wrote and acted will act in as well? Douglas said he didn’t have too many details to share except that Infrared is a thriller about a group of friends who go hunting and then VERY BAD THINGS HAPPEN. (That is enough to get me out to see it!)

I followed up the Infrared inquiry by asking if horror and sci-fi genres are what he is drawn to. He said that his work varies and upcoming work will include a law enforcement based story, a speculative work taking place 100 years in our future, and then a heartwarming tale about a disabled child.

And that was that! There were lots of others waiting to talk to him. I love seeing the BSG cast getting recognition for those roles and their new work. Thank you Aaron Douglas for being patient during my first attempt at in-person interviews. I hope I see him at Emerald City Comicon sometime soon because I have Chief Tyrol props that need autographed!

 

INTERVIEW (VIDEO): GamerHubTV (April 17, 2014) Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2014

Watch Dogs Actor Aaron Douglas Interview

YouTube: GamerHubTV
Video Description: The Battlestar Galactica and Falling Skies actor is also starring in the new Ubisoft Watch Dogs game as Jordi Chin. He talks about gaming and acting in this exclusive interview from Salt Lake Comic Con.

INTERVIEW (VIDEO): CBS Dallas/Fort Worth (February 9, 2014) Dallas Comic Con Sci-Fi Expo 2014

Sci-Fi Expo Brings Diehard Fans To Irving
Interview With Aaron Douglas From “Battlestar Galactica”

Source: CBS Dallas/Fort Worth

INTERVIEW (VIDEO): Fangirls DOTRT (February 9, 2014) Dallas Comic Con Sci-Fi Expo 2014

Here is an interview that Fangirls: Dames of the Round Table did with Aaron at Dallas Comic Con Sci-Fi Expo 2014.

Aaron Douglas SciFi 2014

YouTube: Fangirls DOTRT
Video Description: no description available

INTERVIEW (VIDEO): Bigfanboy (February 9, 2014) Dallas Comic Con Sci-Fi Expo 2014

Here is an interview that Marc Ciafardin from bigfanboy.com did with Aaron at Dallas Comic Con Sci-Fi Expo 2014. Aaron’s interview is on at time stamp 00:12 – 03:14.

Dallas Comic Con’s SCI-FI EXPO 2014 interviews with Aaron Douglas, Nakia Burrise and Sylvester McCoy

YouTube: bigfanboy
Video Description: Marc Ciafardini of http://bigfanboy.com tackles the Dallas Comic Con’s SCI-FI EXPO 2014 at the Irving Convention Center, where he interviews Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica), Nakia Burrise (Power Rangers Zeo) and Sylvester McCoy (The Hobbit Trilogy and Doctor Who).
Editor: Grady May

INTERVIEW: Aaron Douglas comes to Lethbridge

Aaron Douglas comes to Lethbridge
By: Carey Rutherford & Rob Diaz-Marino
Date: December 2013 (Issue 122)
Source: GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine

 

 

 

 

 

In the last decade, Aaron Douglas has been in feature films, TV movies, web movies, several different television series (both as mainstays and not), visited David Letterman more than once, and is now starting to write scripts himself.

GayCalgary Magazine had the pleasure of interviewing him for a third time as he was out for the Lethbridge Comic & Entertainment Expo, after hosting a hilarious discussion panel and signing autographs for adoring (and sometimes intimidating) fans.

While he is probably best known for his role in Battlestar Galactica, we caught him a bit off guard by bringing up the campy series Hemlock Grove as one of his credits.

“Did you like it? I liked it too. I liked working on it. They’re doing season 2 and I’m not back, so I don’t like it as much any more. …They’re going in a different direction, I’m sure it’s going to be great. …I would have liked to come back but they went another way.”

So what else has he been up to since he last spoke with us? He was able to rattle off a whole list of projects, and a few new updates:

“This year I did season 3 of The Killing. I did an episode of Falling Skies about a month ago. I did one of those Scifi movies of the week, Zodiac… I’ve been writing for the last few years, and I’ve got a feature script that I’ve been meeting with a studio in LA for the last couple of weeks and it looks like they’re going to make it! So, we’re going to be somewhere filming a movie I wrote, in the spring, which will be very cool. I got a call last night from my agent saying there’s a movie shooting in Salt Lake City that has offered me their bad guy role – you’re the first to find out about that! It’s not sealed, contract isn’t closed, but the offer’s there and I said yeah, I’d love to do it, sounds like fun. …So next year is either going to be profoundly busy or it’s all going to fall apart and I’m gonna come work for you guys!”

So dibs are called on the position for secretary. Aaron does like to tease – this was apparent for many who attended The Aaron Douglas Meet & Greet at Telegraph Tap House, where he got slightly drunk, pitted geek against geek with a trivia contest, and allowed the sexual innuendo to flow freely.

“I was a maniac… They asked me to come up early and do a meet and greet at a pub. Everybody has a couple of drinks and I get a beer…or 17. We just tell funny stories and just hang out. I really enjoyed that night, it was a lot of fun, other than the fact that the bar didn’t have the hockey game that I wanted – which is odd being in Canada. …When you’re in a pub there’s no kids, and when it’s late enough all the ‘churchies’ have gone to bed so I get to do whatever I want. That’s very exciting for me!”

It’s no secret that the man is good friends with Star Trek TNG celebrity Wil Wheaton, from the multitude of anecdotes he has about their experiences together, and the friendly behind-the-back insults.

“Will and I met at a Con in Sacramento years ago. I remember walking in and seeing him sitting there and going Geez: that’s Will Wheaton! Wow! That’s really cool! …Later, he was doing a panel, and was coming off the stage as I was going on, and as he was passing by me, we were both doing the Hey!, and then we both turned and said I’ve just gotta tell you I’m a huge fan. We both had a fanboy moment, and I started talking about his work and he started talking about my work, and was in the middle of watching Battlestar with his son, so it was a really unique moment. …Wil and I have become really good friends. He’s a wonderful man, remarkable human being, sweet guy…FRACK YOU WIL WHEATON!”

Considering how spontaneously funny he is, one has to wonder if he would be open to doing comedy instead of his increasingly frequent role as a bad guy.

“I’d love to do some comedy. Problem is…I just do dark show after dark show, so nobody sees me being funny other than my friends and people that attend cons. …Nobody sees me as the funny guy. In the industry it’s just like he’s dark, he’s big, I’m not Mike & Molly.”

We threw around some hyphoteticals, such as an appearance on Big Bang Theory where Wheaton regularly guest stars.

“Yes! Yes! I should do Big Bang Theory! Yes, somebody listen! I would love to do a little stint on that, or Modern Family. Or Archer! …Somehow I could be on Sheldon’s bowling team. If I showed up, and Wheaton’s bowling, he’s going to beat him, and then I show and he’s really going to get his ass kicked. It writes itself!”

Aaron Douglas is well aware that the bear community loves him, so we asked whether he would ever be willing to make an appearance at a gay bear event.

“Of course I would! Any excuse to hang out with fun people and have a drink, tell some stories, and just be an idiot. Life is too short to be so serious. Invite me, bears, invite me! …I love the fact that you don’t make me go to the gym. I love you for it, I really do!”

 

[click thumbnails to enlarge images]


NOTE: You can watch the video that accompanied this interview at http://www.aarondouglasfans.com/?p=15985

INTERVIEW: ‘Battlestar Galactica’ actor enjoys interaction with fans

‘Battlestar Galactica’ actor enjoys interaction with fans
By: Garrett Simmons
Date: November 23, 2013
Source: Lethbridge Herald

Aaron Douglas can hardly remember the last time he made a visit to our fair city.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Lethbridge – probably since I was a kid playing hockey.”

Speaking in Lethbridge Friday morning, as he prepared for the Evening With Aaron Douglas event Friday night at The Telegraph Taphouse, the former “Battlestar Galactica” star spoke with excitement about his other appearances today and Sunday at the Lethbridge Entertainment Expo.

“I do these things all over the world but it’s always great to do them in Canada,” said Douglas, who is from British Columbia and is living in Vancouver.

The man commonly known simply at The Chief, for his portrayal of Chief Galen Tyrol in “Battlestar Galactica,” added he enjoys the friendly nature of Canadian fans, as he picks his appearances wisely now, and he only attends one or two conventions a year. “They’re quite fun. It’s a great way to meet people.”

His Friday-night appearance will be followed up by a slate of autograph signings and photo opportunities today at the expo at Exhibition Park, where Douglas will be stationed from 10:30 a.m.-7 p.m. He will sign more autographs Sunday from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 3-5 p.m., with photos from 2-3 p.m. and participation in a panel discussion from 12:30-1:30 p.m. squeezed in between.

It’s all in a day’s work for the actor who has made his fair share of convention appearances over the years.

“I like traveling and I like to see other parts of the world and cities I wouldn’t otherwise go to.”

Speaking of new experiences, Douglas, who had been recently filming season three of “The Killing,” which followed a guest spot on “Falling Skies” and a role in the Science Fiction Channel movie “Zodiac,” will head back to Hollywood after his Alberta trip to get back to work on a project of his own.

“It’s an idea I had a couple of years ago,” said Douglas, of the project he is producing. “It’s about hunters and a group of guys who go into the woods on an annual trip and things go sideways.”

He put pen to paper in 2011 and has been working to see it come to fruition.

“For this one, I wanted to be part of it personally, and produce it and be on that side of the camera,” said Douglas, who added he has several other ideas which he hopes other studios will take the ball and run with. “It’s a long, glacial process.”

His current project is one Douglas would like to see ramp up with filming in March or April, which would lead to a late-2014 or early-2015 release.

But for this weekend, Douglas will look back on his acting career and will face a barrage of questions from “Battlestar Galactica” fans.

“They want to talk about the show,” said Douglas, who added topics like the set, working with other cast members and what it’s like to make a television show are often hot topics. “The typical fan in general will come to things and have no idea how TV is made.”

How Douglas witnessed his career being made included a number of small roles in 1999 and 2000.

“I started late,” he said of acting. He was 28 when he got his start, his big break coming in 2003 with “Battlestar Galactica.” “From then on I was able to take off, and I’ve been very fortunate since then.”

He’s appeared in “The Bridge” and “Hemlock Grove,” and said he now has about 72 film and television roles to his credit.

Douglas will be just one part of this weekend’s expo, which goes from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. today and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sunday at Exhibition Park.

INTERVIEW (VIDEO): GayCalgary Magazine (November 23 – 24, 2013) Lethbridge Entertainment Expo 2013

Aaron Douglas comes to Lethbridge
By: Carey Rutherford & Rob Diaz-Marino
Date: December 2013 (Issue 122)
Source: GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine

 

 

 

 

 


NOTE: You can read the interview that accompanied this video at http://www.aarondouglasfans.com/?p=16023

INTERVIEW: Q&A – Aaron Douglas (Evan Henderson)

Q&A – Aaron Douglas (Evan Henderson)
By: Eli Rosenberg
Date: July 7, 2013
Source: AMC

 

Actor Aaron Douglas, who plays prison guard Evan Henderson on AMC’s The Killing, discusses his character’s backstory and how his background in sports translates to acting.

Did you do any research into the world of prisons in preparation for your role?

I watched a documentary about life on death row. One of my best friends from high school is a prison guard and my wife is a probation officer, so I had hands-on accounts from people that are very close to me. My buddy tells me a lot of interesting stories about what goes on in prison – it just makes my head spin about what they deal with on a day-to-day basis.

You’ve previously played a sheriff, an FBI agent, and a police union leader. What makes you so well-suited for law enforcement roles?

I’m a chubby middle-aged white guy with short hair. I think that’s it really. I kind of have a look. Right now, I’m not fat enough to be the fat friend, but I’m not thin enough to be the leading man, so I look like a cop. I was going to get fit and try and expand my universe, but then when I got the part as a sheriff on Hemlock Grove, they said, “No, no. You are where we want you to be.” And I said to myself, “Now I have to go to the bar instead – damn it!”

You also played Chief Galen Tyrol on Battlestar Galactica. Is being a chief on a Battlestar at all similar to being a corrections officer on death row?

In Battlestar, somebody was always about to die, you just didn’t know. The chief is a little more of a Becker-type character, running around screaming at people, except that he wasn’t a jerk, he was just sort of, “This is what we need to do.” It’s the authority thing, and you have to keep people in line and the train on the tracks and the machine moving forward – otherwise, if it stalls, then everything goes to hell. And that’s certainly the case on death row: You give these guys an inch, and you get in trouble.

 

Inside Episode 304 The Killing: Headshots

 

How much have you thought about Henderson’s backstory?

I kept going back to that idea that he was just a regular guy who was working on a mill, and the economy turned and he lost his job. As an actor we’re unemployed a lot, so I’m familiar with the stress of trying to get a gig, and sometimes you take shows that you don’t really want to do to keep the money coming in. I thought about Henderson, who is trying to provide for his family, applying for jobs everywhere: The local garage, the local home improvement store, and then finally he takes a job for which he has no sociological training. Prisons are always hiring because there is a lot of burnout and they’re being built all the time. And now he’s guarding the worst of the worst, and he doesn’t necessarily understand the manipulation and the head games. So I just tried to keep him as simple and wide-eyed as possible.

As a hockey player, does your background in sports translate to acting at all?

I grew up playing hockey and some football, and I always think about the first time you walk into the locker room on a new team. The cliques are looking at you funny, and you make one friend, but then they’re trying to stab you in the back. I was trying to keep all of that in my brain to play Henderson. But I’m not the kind of actor who reads scripts and breaks them down. I go to rehearsal and I give what I get from the other actors. I would be the worst acting coach ever, because I have no idea what I’m doing.

Did the role allow you to gain any insights into the lives of death row inmates?

In Canada, we don’t have the death penalty. Even though we’re making believe, Peter [Sarsgaard] is such a phenomenal actor that you really just have this moment of actually believing this guy is going through this. I could not imagine being the guy being walked to the gallows, or even the guy taking somebody by the arm and having to walk him there. No matter how heinous the crime that is committed, it’s still the most intimate and horrifying thing you’re going to do to somebody. The lethal injection is one thing, but it’s the lead up – the weeks and months, and then standing there waiting for it to happen – that is so incredibly profound. I think when people watch the rest of this season, they’re not going to be able to help being challenged, one way or the other, about whether capital punishment is a good thing or a bad thing.

INTERVIEW: Battlestar Galactica’s Douglas and McClure Talk Sci-Fi, Hemlock Grove

Battlestar Galactica’s Douglas and McClure Talk Sci-Fi, Hemlock Grove
By: Terri Schwartz
Date: April 26, 2013
Interviewees: Aaron Douglas, Kandyse McClure and Mark Verheiden
Source: Spinoff Online

Note: This is a snippet of an interview cast members from HEMLOCK GROVE during WonderCon 2013 (March 29, 2013). I have included the parts of the interview with AARON DOUGLAS below. To read the full interview, click HERE.


Photo by Caitlin Holland


Battlestar Galactica alums Kandyse McClure and Aaron Douglas are reunited for the first time on the small screen in Netflix’s new horror series Hemlock Grove, although according to McClure, “if you hang out in hotel bars you’ll see us together all the time.” They team with former BSG producer and writer Mark Verheiden on the new show, and said during a roundtable interview at WonderCon Anaheim that there are a lot of similarities between the two projects.

“I saw Battlestar Galactica as a ground-floor show on how TV is made and consumed and bringing over people who weren’t traditionally sci-fi fans to the sci-fi medium,” Douglas said. “I see that this show hopefully will do the same and bring some more people over — because sci-fi is not all green and orange monsters. Netflix is doing this thing where it’s how people want to watch TV. To be on two shows in one career that are the ground floor is an incredible thing and you really couldn’t say no to that.”

In many ways Hemlock Grove is more a 13-hour movie than a 13 episode show and, because it’s being released all at once, its characters can be explored in long arcs without having to catch up an audience. That’s something McClure and Douglas feel BSG struggled with during its four-season run.

“I feel like in Battlestar they still struggled with the idea [that they need to pander],” McClure said. “They were still running up against that idea, ‘Oh, you have to include the audience, you have to fill them in on things.’ There were all these devices they started coming up with: recaps in the beginning of the show and replaying episodes, because you really had to watch it from the beginning to get involved in the story in any great depth. We weren’t given those constraints on this show.”

Douglas added, “Today’s television viewer is savvy enough to understand and you don’t have to spoon-feed them with extraneous dialogue explaining every little thing. … NBC Universal treated the sci-fi Battlestar Galactica audience like they were the regular Law & Order audience, but that’s not the case at all. Sci-fi audiences, they’re much brighter.”

That said, Douglas believes Hemlock Grove will “absolutely” challenge its audience. It’s not that he thinks the show is difficult to follow, but rather that it might make viewers uncomfortable with the subject matter it deals with.


Photo by Caitlin Holland


“It’s the best thing I’ve done since Battlestar, and that’s saying a lot,” he said. “It will challenge them in terms of what they believe. It’s similar to the ‘who’s the bad guy, who’s the good guy?’ The people in Battlestar, you always switched between the humans and the Cylons.”

As Hemlock Grove is a story-based show, it remains to be seen how many seasons it will have. Producer Eli Roth told Spinoff Online during a group interview that writer Brian McGreevy has three seasons mapped out, but Verheiden said it might be too early determine how long Hemlock Grove will run.

“I worked on Battlestar and we decided to kill it with Season 4, but in hindsight we could have found a Season 5,” Verheiden said. “Those questions are hard to answer, because in the moment you think, ‘We should wrap it up,’ but then you think, ‘Well, I might add a little something.'”

Hopefully McClure’s character has a less tragic storyline in Hemlock Grove than she did in Battlestar Galactica. She and Douglas, who played Lt. Anastasia Dualla and Chief Galen Tyrol in the Syfy series, recalled Dualla’s very emotional death scene during the Hemlock Grove interview.

“People were very affected by it,” McClure remembered. Douglas added, “Wasn’t it beautiful, though? She was unbelievable.” “It was Mark Verheiden,” McClure explained of the scene. “Mark wrote that for me.”

It turns out that watching Dualla die was a bit emotional for Douglas.

“I knew it was coming but had completely forgotten because I was so lost in that scene, and then she’s humming and she’s singing and she pulls the gun out and does that and I went, ‘Gah, what?’ And it freaked me out and then I started crying. I never told you that, I started crying,” he said. “We were best friends on Battlestar. She’d come to my trailer and watch Family Guy and hang out because we never had scenes together but we were buddies. We’d go to the craft table and we’d load up on snacks and then we’d watch Family Guy and Arrested Development and cuddle.”

“I was the only one who understood him,” McClure said jokingly. “Everyone else thought he was a jerk.”

Hemlock Grove is available now on Netflix.

INTERVIEW: Aaron Douglas on ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ ‘The Killing’

Aaron Douglas on ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ ‘The Killing’
By: Maggie Asfahani Hajj
Date: April 24, 2013
Source: What’s Up : Entertainment and lifestyle news for El Paso, Las Cruces and Juarez

 

In-demand actor Aaron Douglas currently is best known for playing The Chief on “Battlestar Galactica,” but with his new Netflix-only series “Hemlock Grove,” things are bound to change. What’s Up chats with Aaron ahead of his visit to the Sun City Scifi convention and picks his brain about human nature, hockey and what keeps him up late at night.

 

So what are you working on that’s keeping you so busy these days?

I’m doing season three of “The Killing,” and I’m doing a videogame for Ubisoft called “Watchdogs,” which takes me out to Montreal once a month for a little bit, so there’s a lot of traveling involved. I’m doing a lot of press for “Hemlock Grove” (a Netflix exclusive series). Just meetings and developing and writing my own show and a movie.

 

A big part of your resume has been sci-fi stuff, but it seems like you’re moving in a different direction right now.

I haven’t thought about that. I don’t think it’s a conscious choice. I do live in Vancouver. Vancouver is where they shoot a lot of sci-fi stuff, but after “Battlestar Galactica,” my last few jobs have been in Toronto and Los Angeles, so there’s less of that shot there and more sort of standard fare. When I came back to Vancouver, it’s “The Killing,” which is definitely not a sci-fi show. I don’t care about the genre of the show; I just like it to be good stuff.

 

Do you do a lot of sci-fi conventions?

I do. I’ve been doing them since about 2006. I’ve been all around the world talking about “Battlestar Galactica” and the things that I’m doing and having a beer with some very cool and interesting people. I love doing them. I think they’re a lot of fun. Sci-fi fans are the best fans in the world. They’re intelligent and articulate and just fascinating, and they delve into the shows a lot more than I ever do, so I get really interesting questions and comments and perspectives that make it even more rewarding.

 

Sci-fi is just so universal. It shows you that all these themes are similar, whatever part of the galaxy you’re in.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the plains in Africa or the highest peaks in Peru or in outer space or at the bottom of the ocean. People are people, and how they deal with each other and how they interact with each other is what’s compelling and interesting, because everybody identifies with either a specific character or pieces of different characters. In every situation everybody has a different opinion. I think when you hit that on the nose, and get people caring about the characters, caring about what the situation is, that makes really great television. I literally got home from work last night and told my wife, “Let’s start a new show.” We have all these backups of shows we haven’t gotten to yet, and I said, “What’s this ‘Downton Abbey’ I keep hearing about?” And we watched the entire thing until 4 a.m. I just can’t stop. It was so compelling and so interesting and so amazing.

 

OK. Because you’re Canadian, we have to talk about hockey. Does every Canadian play hockey? Do they kick you out of Canada if you don’t?

Well, I’d like to think so. I ostracize as many friends as possible for not playing. (Laughs) No, we actually don’t.

INTERVIEW: Inside HEMLOCK GROVE: Scoop from stars

Inside HEMLOCK GROVE: Scoop from stars Dougray Scott, Famke Janssen, Aaron Douglas and Kandyse McClure
By: Tiffany Vogt
Date: April 19, 2013
Source: The TV Addict

Note: This is a snippet of an interview cast members from HEMLOCK GROVE during WonderCon 2013 (March 29, 2013). I have included the parts of the interview with AARON DOUGLAS below. To read the full interview, click HERE.

During press interviews at WonderCon in Anaheim, stars Dougray Scott, Famke Janssen, Aaron Douglas, and Kandyse McClure provided some insight into murder, mystery and intrigue that layer HEMLOCK GROVE.

 

Do you see your characters Sheriff Sworn and Dr. Chausseur as the bad guys on the show? They are investigating a beast attack and yet they have fixated on Peter pretty fast. What’s up with that?

AARON: My character doesn’t think there’s anything supernatural to these attacks. But Kandyse’s character comes at it differently. That’s a different story.

KANDYSE: For as long as it is necessary, she certainly plays along with that reasoning. She’s also certainly obsessive. She has her own ideas about things. She struggles with her own intuition, whether to believe it or whether to follow the status-quo line of reasoning. She’s a scientist on one hand and tortured on the other. I think that constantly interweaves in how she approaches this case and how she interacts with Sheriff Sworn.

 

What motivates her to come at this case so hard?

KANDYSE: I think she is a deeply troubled soul. I think she was somehow wronged in her life and she wants justice for everyone else and she thinks it’s her duty to simultaneously atone for the hurt she’s caused or the hurt that’s been caused her — and to make someone pay.

AARON: But there is also a very specific reason, that I’m not sure we’re allowed to talk about.

KANDYSE: (Laughs) I think “atone” is a good word.

 

How did you hear about and get involved with HEMLOCK GROVE?

AARON: Netflix/Gaumont, they could not be more supportive and more excited to do things out of the box. To start things off in their own way. I was excited to do this show, first of all because it’s Mark Verheiden (he ran the writer’s room for BATTLESTAR GALACTICA for the last few seasons, and he and I are really great friends), and he read the book and when they called him to do the show, he said, “Aaron, I read the book and I thought of you for the sheriff. So will you come and do the show?” And I said, “Absolutely.” What I love about it is this is how I consume TV. I’m a Netflix subscriber. My family all subscribes to Netflix. I watch things when they are done and I just power all the way through them. As I saw BATTLESTAR as a ground-floor show of how TV is made and consumed, this is going to be the same thing. Netflix is changing how TV is made and how it is consumed. So the idea of going and being a part of that, as opposed to going and working for the traditional network and waiting week to week and you’ve got 42 minutes to tell a story, but you’re not really telling anybody’s story, other than the story of the week. It is so much more compelling to be a part of this. I mean, what would you rather do: LAW & ORDER or THE SOPRANOS? For me, it’s that. DEADWOOD is the greatest show in the history of TV and to be able to build something that is serialized as a 75-hour movie is genius, and working with incredible people. It’s going to be a difficult show to watch in the sense that it’s going to be very challenging, and that is so much better than HAWAII Five-O. (Sorry, Grace!)

 

Have you read the book which the series is based on?

AARON: It’s the first thing I did after Mark called me ’cause I read a lot. So as soon as I rewired my brain on how to read — ’cause it’s like reading if Yoda wrote a book. So the first thing I did was read the book and then I called Mark and said, “That’s unbelievable. It should be a show.” And he said, “You know, we’re making a show, why don’t you come and do it with us.”

KANDYSE: I read the book as well. It was Mark again. He thought of me — I learned that afterwards. It came as a regular audition and I immediately fell in love with it. I was obsessed with the sides. I got them 4-5 days before the audition and I could not put them down. I think I was driving my boyfriend crazy ’cause I kept saying the monologue as I was in the shower and I was walking around. He was like, “What are you doing?” and I was like, “I love this woman. There’s something about her.” It’s a different kind of role for me as well. I’m always excited when it’s a person. She could be a “he.” It could be so many things, but she happens to be this doctor, this personality, this role in the group of players. That’s always interesting to me. And it’s not an opportunity I get all the time. I felt like there was room for quirkiness. And that’s what they were looking for.

AARON: For me, it’s Mark Verheiden and Deran Sarafian, who is really the reason the show looks the way it does. In terms of directing it was Fernando Arguelles. Together they built this unbelievably beautiful world.

 

Will we be seeing Dr. Chausseur and Sheriff Sworn interact with Dr. Pryce at the Institute?

KANDYSE: My character interacts with everyone. She gets under everyone’s skin. There isn’t a rock she leaves unturned or no nook and cranny she doesn’t look into.

INTERVIEW: On the Set of Hemlock Grove: Interviews With the Cast & Crew

On the Set of Hemlock Grove: Interviews With the Cast & Crew
By: Bryan Cairns
Date: April 19, 2013
Source: Shock Till You Drop (New Link)

Note: This is a snippet of an interview with the cast and crew of HEMLOCK GROVE during a press set tour on December 12, 2012 in Toronto. I have included the parts of the interview with AARON DOUGLAS below. To read the full interview, click HERE.

Also on hand was Battlestar Galactica’s Aaron Douglas, who had already wrapped his role of Sheriff Tom Sworn for the season. Nonetheless, the Canadian actor, who specifically came in to speak with us, was obviously fracking excited to be a part of such a ground-breaking show.

“I’m the Sheriff of a small town and I’m holding on to 10,000 kite strings in a hurricane,” reports Douglas. “As things spiral out of control, I try to figure out what’s going on, how it’s going on and who is making it go on. I’m sort of the Columbo, but with both good eyes. He’s really kind of the heart of the show.”

“Tom has a good relationship with everybody,” he adds a few minutes later. “He’s the Sheriff, so he has to be that politician. There’s no mayor, so he’s sort of the leader of the town, or at least a political-type figure. The Godfreys tend to run things otherwise. I would say if he had a best friend, it would probably be Norman Godfrey, who is played by Dougray Scott, and who is absolutely phenomenal.”