Tag Archives: Zak Penn

This is part 3 of our Q&As with Ryan Cartwright, Azita Ghanizada, Warren Christie, and Exectuve Producers Zak Penn & Ira Steven Behr from Alphas. If you missed parts 1 & 2, check them out HERE & HERE.
 

On his character, Cameron Hicks

Warren Christie: Cameron is a guy who we meet in the pilot, he’s had a bit of run of bad luck and he’s divorced, his son doesn’t really want to spend much time with him. He’s a recovering alcoholic and through a chain of events is brought into this group run by Dr. Rosen who wants to help him while at the same time using the ability that is just new to him that he is just figuring out that he has to help him investigate other alpha abilities.

So I think Cameron is interesting because I think in the pilot specifically he’s kind of the eyes for the audience because as he is brought into this group of individuals who have been together for a short amount of time, he doesn’t just jump right in with both feet.

He’s very skeptical, he doesn’t understand what these abilities are. He doesn’t necessarily believe in them. And so it’s not like a type of thing where he’s just all gung ho and sign me up and let’s do this. He’s very resistant to the whole thing. And by the end of the pilot he’s almost forced to choose to work along with them.

And so he’s spent a lot of time as a loner and he has had a really bad run of luck and so he’s got trust issues and used to being alone. So immersing himself into a group is not the first thing that he is looking to do.

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This is part 2 of our Q&As with Ryan Cartwright, Azita Ghanizada, Warren Christie, and Exectuve Producers Zak Penn & Ira Steven Behr from Alphas. If you missed part 1, check it out HERE.
 

On what alpha power they would choose if they could

Azita Ghanizada: Well, here’s the thing. Rachel has sensory overload. So when she like even kisses somebody it’s a good time. So I don’t know. I think it would stick to Rachel’s powers.

No. I’m kidding. No, I’m dead serious. I think what she does is super cool, the fact that she can hear and see. I think it also makes her extremely sensitive and human and I love all those aspects. It makes her precious here in a way that I think is really interesting and can’t always happen in real life because we build up all these barriers to deal with the world and to shut ourselves down from certain things.

And she feels everything and I think that that’s kind of a very special thing to have, kind of walk around and have to see and hear and taste and touch everything and really feel it to 150,000%. So I would kind of stick with that. I mean I think that what Nina does, Nina Theroux played by Laura Mennell, her ability to push people, kind of just to be able to look at people and tell them what to do and they do it.

I would like to maybe have that ability at some moments in my life. I’d like to be able to look at people and I don’t know, tell them to take their pants off or something like that and just see if they would do it. I mean I would just kind of walk around all day and just make people do random, crazy sh*t. I think that would be awesome. And Laura does it really well and so that could be a lot of fun.

Jump with us to see Ryan’s answer to this and all the other great Q&As. Continue reading →

Ryan Cartwright, Azita Ghanizada, Warren Christie, and Exectuve Producers Zak Penn (he is the creator, too!) & Ira Steven Behr from Alphas recently spoke with the press about the new drama series on Syfy, which premieres tonight at 10/9c. There was a lot of information given in the great Q&As, so I’ll post it in 3 parts. If you haven’t seen the show, check out the blurb below, and then see what the stars & showrunners had to say.

Alphas follows a clandestine group of average everyday citizens with amazing abilities operating within the U.S. Department of Defense. Led by preeminent neurologist and psychiatrist Dr. Lee Rosen (David Strathairn), the team investigates cases that point to others with abilities like theirs, and as they work against the clock to solve this new brand of crime, they must prevent their own personality differences and disparate backgrounds from interfering with their missions. The show also stars Azita Ghanizada, Laura Mennell, Malik Yoba, Ryan Cartwright, & Warren Christie.

On how they became involved with Alphas

Ryan Cartwright: I think I was the first actor on board. I was having another fun horrible pilot season in LA running around doing my monkey showings trying to get a job and then this really good script turned up and I just wanted to be a part of it immediately.

[I] went into the audition and it was a tricky role for me because the character has autism and it was a bit intimidating. But then once I’d signed on one good piece after another fell into place and everyone that got on board after that and that was already on board that I met was fantastic and smart. So I was super happy to get it.

Jump with us to see how the others answered this and to see what else they talked about. Continue reading →