Send to KindleInterview with Noah Wyle
(Tom Mason on TNT’s Falling Skies)
There’s a John Carter of Mars, or at least Nearby Planets pun waiting to be made about Noah Wyle. The Hollywood-born actor spent the best part of fifteen years playing Dr. John Carter on NBC’s medical drama E.R. Now he’s in his fourth season as Tom Mason on TNT’s science-fiction series FALLING SKIES, where his character contends with invaders from another planet, albeit not Mars.
Wyle, who is also now reprising his role as Flynn Carsen in episodes of TNT’s THE LIBRARIANS – spun off from the trio of THE LIBRARIAN telefilms – is at a party TNT throws for the Television Critics Association. He makes himself available to talk about FALLING SKIES and other current projects.
With FALLING SKIES now in Season Four, has the series gone in the direction Wyle expected it would when he started?
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“Yes and no,” Wyle replies. “There are a lot of course corrections over the course of the season, but ultimately we get to the direction that we want it to go to.”
Would Wyle describe what he does in THE LIBRARIAN as derring-do? “No. I think of it as Indiana Jones, if Indiana Jones was played by Don Knotts.”
FALLING SKIES’ Tom, on the other hand, has gone from being a history teacher to a guerilla fighter. “He’s grown into being a physically dynamic character, for sure,” Wyle agrees. “I think that there’s some learning curve left to being a true leader and a real statesman, but he’s certainly thrown off the vestiges of his academic background pretty fully.”
If Tom ever entirely arrives at being a military man, will he be as much fun to play? “That’s part of the arrival,” Wyle explains. “The journey to get there should be fun to play, as long as we keep taking him through some twists and turns.”
Without giving spoilers for Season Four, does Wyle have a favorite episode that we’ve seen so far? “I was really into the show [‘Strange Brew’],” Wyle replies. “It was a little bit of a stylistic departure for us. It’s the first time we’ve ever really played with our narrative structure. I thought it was very clever, a very good script, and everybody was really on top of their game.”
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With the introduction of apparently friendly aliens who oppose the invaders, Wyle has scenes with a character called Cochise, played by Doug Jones, who is known for his creature work (Pan and the Pale Man in PAN’S LABYRINTH, Abe Sapien in the HELLBOY films, etc.). Wyle has a lot of praise for his co-star. “Well, Doug, just on a professional level, is an amazing addition to our cast. That was a character that was initially going to be completely [done as a computer-generated effect], and then the producer thought that they’d do me a solid, just because I have so many scenes with him, that they hired an actor just so that I wouldn’t have to act with a tennis ball on a stick. And then they went all the way and hired Doug Jones. There are only a handful of guys who can really convey complex emotion or humor with pure body language through eighteen layers of latex, and Doug is one of them. We only benefit from having him in the ensemble.”
Wyle doesn’t have wear latex and play an alien, but he says he’s still had some physical challenges on FALLING SKIES. “I had to learn how to ride a motorcycle, which I was forbidden to do by my mother, who’s an orthopedic nurse, who called them ‘donor cycles’ most of my life. I never really got comfortable to the point of enjoying myself on them, but we have started using horses on the show, and I really do enjoy riding, so I’ve had a lot of fun with that.”
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Tom has an on-again, off-again romance with Moon Bloodgood’s character Anne Glass, who has given birth to Tom’s daughter – who apparently is part alien. Does Wyle have a preference for the love scenes, or for the yearning scenes when Tom and Anne are separated?
“I learned a long time ago that in television, the consummation of a relationship is never as exciting as the aftermath of a breakup or the ramp-up to a consummation,” Wyle says.
Wyle continues as the artistic producer for the Blank Theatre in Los Angeles, which produces an annual Young Playwrights Festival. He also appears in the upcoming feature film THE WORLD MADE STRAIGHT. When asked if the title refers to “straight” as opposed to “gay” or “straight” in the linear sense, Wyle laughs. “It’s straight in the linear sense, which is an answer that I’m now going to have to be very comfortable giving, because it never even occurred to me until I started saying it out loud. It’s based on a book by a Southern writer named Ron Rash, a crooked world made straight, not a gay world made straight.”
What would Wyle most like people to know about the new season of FALLING SKIES? “Sunday nights, ten o’clock, TNT!”
Written by Abbie Bernstein
