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SciFi Talk: John Shea
John Shea Leads Mutant X
The words consummate professional come to mind when I think of Actor John Shea. The New England native has established himself with a solid career on stage, movies and television. His new role is Adam, who guides and shapes his team of mutant superheroes. We spoke one night via phone as he visited New York City.
The interview airs on Sci-Fi Talk's page at Live 365.Com on Tuesdays & Wednesdays. This is a transcript of the highlights of that conversation.
Tony Tellado: Adam keeps the young mutants grounded and helps them develop. Is that what attracted you to play him ?
John Shea: I figured that at this point in my life, if you are going to surround me with a lot of young actors, the one thing that I could bring to it would be the ability to be a coach. To lead, be a coach or team captain. I feel like I have been out there for a long time now. Done so many things. When I read a role, I try to find something that I can bring to the role and something that the role brings to me. Something that I don't know anything about and that the character can teach me. What I felt I could bring to Adam was to be the leader of the team or the director of a team. I had directed a film, and when you're a film director it's like leading a group of people for a cause. You have a goal in mind. You have to be really motivated. You have to motivate other people. You take ideas from them and you try to decide what the best ideas are. I thought that I could use some of those things I learned being a film director as Adam. Even though we're not making a film, we're creating a fighting unit with a goal in mind which is survival and rescue.What I didn't know about life that Adam is teaching me is about is the world of science. I don't know much about genetics. I don't know much about genetic engineering or this whole world of scientific possibilities. That's what Adam has given to me.
Tony: You're a hero now but you had the experience of playing a villain in Lex Luthor in Lois And Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman.
John: That was a blast. I loved playing Lex Luthor and that was also coming out of a comic book world. What we tried to do in Lois and Clark was to make these comic book characters three dimensional, to make them human beings. And not to give them that one dimensionality which would wear very thin very quickly in a television series. It would be Ok in a movie but when you're dealing with twenty-two, now forty-four episodes that we're going to make, you want the characters to be as real as possible so that the audience can relate to them. So what we share in common with Lois And Clark is this effort to make the Mutant X characters three dimensional human beings. What is different is the tone. Lois And Clark was treated more like a romantic comedy. Ours is much more of a cross genre piece. Ours is action adventure, science fiction, drama. It takes a little bit from each of those genres.
Tony: I saw an interview where you said that you based Lex Luthor on Richard III from Shakespeare. My thought was that's the right approach.
John: Thanks. I based him on Richard III and Donald Trump. A really cool billionaire in a tuxedo living in a penthouse lording over his empire, but inside he'd be a twisted and wounded in a funny way. You know sociopathic driven by appetite the way Richard III is. I haven't figured out who Adam is yet in the Shakespearean mode. He's certainly not a Richard III like character. He's almost more like Othello in the sense that he has been betrayed. And he's also something like a general. He's leading a team. He's leading his men into battle constantly to save them. But the betrayal that he has suffered is like the betrayal that Othello has. By that I mean that he has a friend that turned on him, Eckhart, the character that Tom McCamus plays in the series. He was my former partner and associate at Genomex. He is the one who co-opted my scientific inventions over there and has now used them against me. He has become my enemy. That was a betrayal that has wounded Adam. It has made him very wary. Who do you trust? As I was looking at Mutant X and trying to figure out even recently in light of recent events like September 11th, How does Mutant X fit into the zeitgeist? How does it work in the world? It is a paranoid universe in particular since our enemy has been living with us..our next door neighbors. We've all suffered a kind of national betrayal. The best thing that Mutant X has to offer is pure escapism.
Tony: I like your Headquarters.
John: We call it the Sanctuary. Everybody needs a sanctuary because with the world as insane as it is. I just spent the day down at Ground Zero. I spent all morning there. I was breathing in that smoke and walking around. I was stunned by what I saw. Then I ducked into a chapel for a little while and said a couple of prayers. I realized what I had done. I had sought sanctuary. I realized that's what we do on Mutant X every week. We go out there and do battle in the real world and all this stuff is happening. There's a kind of terrorism that happens every week as they try to hunt us down and kill us and we find sanctuary among ourselves.
Tony: There's another theme that I like in this series. It's acceptance of people's differences. That runs the core of the series. Accepting people for what they are.
John: Being down in New York today and walking around in the city, it just reminded me of how astounding this city is and how great it is. And what makes it great is that you have all these human beings from all over the earth, every nation, every color and every creed. And everyone feels a little bit like an outsider. Mutant means to change, right? To mutate. And everyone has been mutated by the events of September 11th. We've all changed. Everyone is looking at the outside world slight;y different. The secret here is to feel tolerance and come to understand the differences among us. One of the most amazing things about September 11th is that we all feel closer to one another. The thing that I also feel about this Mutant X team is that these people have these powers that were hoisted upon them. They really didn't ask for them. They find themselves growing up with these powers that make them feel different and make them feel like outcasts. Our job is to make them feel that everyone feels that way at first. Everyone feels that way at first. But the secret is to find out what your talents are and what your gifts are and use them the best way you can.
Tony: What can we expect coming up on Mutant X ?
John: I just finished up two really cool fight sequences. I had some martial arts when I was younger. So now I'm getting a chance to really use them. I'll quote one of the great American playwrights named Wallace Stevens from Hartford, Connecticut who said, "That we climb to heaven on the stairway of surprise."
Tony: That says it all.
John: All I can tell Mutant X fans is that there are surprises in store. The writing has all kinds of twists and turns coming up. We'll also see the dark side of Adam emerge. It's going to be very very weird. I won't tell you how or why but just that there are many cool surprises coming up.
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