must-see tv
The Innocentsw w w. s c i fi n ow.co.u kHow does Guy Pearce’s
scientist fit in to it all?Shapeshifting comes
with its problems...
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people often ask themselves.”
But with such mature themes being woven in
and out of the story, what made the creators
want to have it all revolve around a teenage
couple, as opposed to an adult one? “A lot of
broadcasters had the same question,” Elkington
laughs. “I think it’s an unusual thing to have two
young leads, and then a fairly expansive cast of
adult characters and very adult stories around
them. I think it created a lot of nervousness, but
that was met with excitement at the potential,
of how the innocence of Harry and June could
affect all of our characters. It’s about innocence.
It’s about growing up and going into this world
of dark forces, and all these people who might
want different things from you, want you to be
different people or perform different roles. It’s a
story about that first hope and innocence, and
about true love. We’ve got true love as a really
good common denominator across our cast,
and across our audience. The great majority
of people remember first love, they know how
it’s all-consuming.”
“We all change as we continue moving
through our lives,” says Duric. “I mean, even
now, I’m 39 years old, and I’m still discovering
things about myself and seeing new perspectives
on things, but in that age of 15, 16, 17, I think
you feel that change a bit more powerfully. Who
you meet and who you fall in love with is so
much more explosive when you’re at that age,
because you’re still discovering so many things
about yourself. To pick Harry and June up at
that key point in their lives, it felt like a great
opportunity, tying in with the shapeshifting, to
really get into: who am I? What am I going to
do? Where do I fit? Who do I fit with? How do
I fit with that person six months into the future?
How does that change? That hotspot, the mid-
teens was just a great place to do that.”
Though most of the cast is made up of either
younger or lesser known actors, The Innocents
still has a token A-lister, a staple for a Netflix
series. The show really delivers on that front
too, bringing in Guy Pearce as Halvorson, asoft-spoken doctor-type who only pops up every
once in a while. Even several episodes into the
show he’s still practically unreadable, but in a
captivating way.
“Guy Pearce is absolutely lovely,” says Duric.
“I think I’m speaking for H here too, we were
absolutely beside ourselves when he said he
was going to do the show. I’m not saying this
because we’re talking about him, but he is
literally one of my top ten working actors today.
You see Guy Pearce and you just go, yeah, that’s
totally unattainable. And then when he says: ‘I
really respond to the material, I know the show’s
not about my character, but I really want to be
involved.’ That’s something you take away with
you. Even though he read the full script and
knew he didn’t reappear for a while, he got to
episode two and said: ‘I know this is not my
story, it’s not about my character, but I’m in, I
get it, I want to be involved with it.’ We were just
like: ‘Oh, fuck yes,’” he laughs.
“He’s got that amazing thing where he pops
up and you remember he popped up, but you
can’t quite get a read on him,” says Elkington.
“He’s doing so many interesting things. Guy’s
like that in real life. He’s a little bit enigmatic, in
a very nice way. He brings that to the screen,
and just the things he was doing with the
character, the choices he was making, we were
very like: ‘Ooooh, he’s doing that with it, that’s