J.J Abrams is on the Fringe

Crave Online: First off, why didn’t you take Star Trek to Comic Con?

J.J. Abrams: Well, they said they’re not going to take anything. "G.I. Joe’s not going. Transformers 2′s not going."

Crave Online: Did you have stuff ready to show?

J.J. Abrams: Well, we don’t. We have well over 1000 visual effects shots. It’s a huge thing so I’m very disappointed because the characters are so good, the actors are so good that I would have been psyched just to show some of the stuff that’s about the people because it’s not really about the visual effects. But with so little done, and this is a big strategic decision on their part so I was disappointed.

Crave Online: What is the biggest challenge of taking on that franchise?

J.J. Abrams: I think the biggest challenge was trying to make it relevant to now, to do it despite it being Star Trek. I don’t think it’s enough to say, "Oh, it’s Star Trek." It’s a question of how do you make it something that would be what it wants to be, even if it hadn’t been a series before.

Crave Online: And how do you?

J.J. Abrams: Well, you invest completely in the characters and you tell a story that is good regardless of the setting in a weird way. I think that what we found, with Alex and Bob’s script, and the cast was so good, you love these people so you’d go with them anywhere.

Crave Online: Where do you want to maintain the spirit of the show vs. update it?

J.J. Abrams: I think what’s so funny is these devices that everyone’s holding, in the show would have been insane fantasy. Now everyone’s got them. We all have the iPhone that does more than the communicator. I feel like there’s a certain thing that you can’t really hold onto which is a kind of kitschy quality that must go if it’s going to be something that you believe is real. Our Star Trek is not parody so the idea of maintaining character relationships, the dynamic between the characters. I never saw how Kirk and Spock became so connected and that’s what this movie does. It does it with the entire family of the enterprise.

Crave Online: What led you to Zachary Quinto for Spock?

J.J. Abrams: Fringe, we’re here for Fringe. Zachary brought a gravity and an incredible sense of humor which is a wonderful combination because Spock’s character is deceivingly complicated. The revelation for me watching the movie, when I finally got to watch the whole thing after working on sequences, was that he is extraordinary. He was doing things I didn’t even realize while we were shooting, these amazing things to track his story.

Crave Online: You have Lance Reddick on Fringe. Will he still be on Lost?

J.J. Abrams: It’s funny, when we were casting this and Lance was one of the available actors, we hesitated because of his Lost character. Then I realized if he goes and does another show, he’ll be less likely to do Lost, so let’s get him on this one because I know the producer.

Crave Online: Is he a different character or could these shows take place in different universes?

J.J. Abrams: They do not take place in the same universe but they, I hope, sort of have a resonant connection but not a character or story specific one.

Crave Online: Does the current political climate influence the show?

J.J. Abrams: I’ll try to answer quickly in a non-political mode, which is the show is obviously coming out at a time when every week we read or hear or see about some kind of potentially horrifying scientific breakthrough. The reality is that we are in a time, whatever party is leading the country, where science is out of control. Having said that, maybe everything is out of control. It wasn’t created to mirror the election, all I’ll say is hope is a good thing. 

Crave Online: How far can you push the sci-fi before it become unbelievable?

J.J. Abrams: The truth is that when we did the pilot for Lost, we had the monster appear at the end of the first act. We did that very consciously because we wanted to say to the audience, “We’re jumping the shark now. We’re doing crazy stuff from the beginning. We’re not going to wait." On Fringe, we very consciously did what is in many ways a preposterous, out there, far-fetched scientific story point in order to say to the audience, “This is what you’re going to be getting on the show.” Now it may be more extreme in some cases, less so in others. Some shows, I think, as we’re writing scripts will deal with science very much as it exists. But I think for the most part the fun about it for me with movies and TV shows, especially in the genre of either horror of sci-fi is that pushing of the envelope and going further than you might otherwise. I think the show will definitely be pushing the edge of the envelope, but I don’t think it’s going to be about that. I don’t think we’re going to be trying to top ourselves every week because then we’ll just be in a race against ourselves and then there’s no way to win that one. So I feel like the key is to tell stories that are as compelling, as emotional, as funny and certainly as weird and out there as possible, but not to try and have it be exploiting that aspect of the show. I would rather be delving into who these people are and what makes them tick than doing something just for shock value. 

Crave Online: So will you just give us a romance between Anna Torv and Josh Jackson right away?

J.J. Abrams: There’s no doubt going to be a sort of slow burn relationship that develops between the two of them. I don’t think it will happen exactly as you might think but there obviously will be a dynamic there that we will play up. It needs to be earned and it needs to be done right. There’s a lot going on their lives on the show that are more urgent issues, but there’s definitely going to be over time a relationship between the Peter and Olivia characters. 

Crave Online: Are you making any point about corporations in Fringe? 

J.J. Abrams: The show doesn’t quite hit on the corporate conspiracy aspect, as the pilot might suggest, but there definitely is an ambiguous role that is played by Blair Brown. She works for a company that it’s much more important, the relationship between her boss, who we have yet to meet, and Walter, John Noble’s character. Their back story, how they ended up where they are, these are things that are much more about the characters than about a sort of cliché, cynical look at corporate culture. Having said that, I don’t trust corporate culture at all. 

Crave Online: Corporations also come up in Lost and Cloverfield though.

J.J. Abrams: It probably comes from, I feel like there are so many entities that are powerful and far reaching. It’s funny, the descriptors of many large corporations could be applied to countries and when you have such a large presence, it’s hard to look at those companies and not at least ask the kind of questions, at least dramatically, that make that kind of institution interesting. So while it’d be easy to not ask those questions and not scrutinize, to me there have been a few instances where I’ve looked at things that certain corporations have done and I just can’t help myself and think, “Okay, wait a minute. What’s the real agenda there? What’s really going on?” because there’s got to be something more. Having said that, it’s also been overplayed and done a million times so if you don’t have something interesting to say about a corporate culture conspiracy, you probably should say nothing. For whatever reason, it is interesting to me.

Crave Online: With hits like Lost and Alias, do you know what it takes to make a hit show now?

J.J. Abrams: I never really know what to expect. You can never guess or assume what anyone is going to think. I can say that it’s one of those shows that if I had nothing to do with it and saw it coming out, I’d want to kill myself. I’d be so miserable because it is so the show that I’d want to watch. That doesn’t mean that anyone else will. That doesn’t mean that it’s good or bad. It just means it is so the kind of the show that I am excited to see. In terms of the other series, I don’t know how to compare. Fringe is a very different show, but I would say that one of the experiments that we’re doing on Fringe is writing the show so that it is not as overtly serialized as certainly Alias and Lost are or were. So how that translates, I don’t know. What it will mean, I’m not sure, but because I’m so drawn to overarching and sort of long-term stories, there will still be the mythology, the evolution of characters, the revelations of their story and what “The Pattern” means and what they’re doing and how they connect to that. So there’s all the stuff that’s happening but we’re doing it in a way that is much less week to week installments of that story, which then requires you to reset things every time you do an episode that is a mythology episode, which makes it, I hope, something you can watch without feeling like you’re not in the club if you’ve missed an episode.

Crave Online: With Lost and Heroes and Battlestar and the potential of Fringe could potentially do, do you consider this to be almost the golden age of sci-fi?

J.J. Abrams: It’s funny because Lost was always a sci-fi show that was kind of secretly a sci-fi show, and something like Battlestar Galactica is obviously much more overtly science fiction. The weird thing about Fringe is that although you can say it’s science fiction, a lot of what we’re talking about is stuff that is at least in the realm of possibility, even though we’re definitely pushing it. So some of the stuff that we’re talking about now is not as much sci-fi as much as it is just sci. So when we’re working on an episode and we read as we did a week ago, that invisibility is coming, they think we’ve cracked invisibility and you’re like, “Okay.” Like the stuff that you just would never in a million years think is actually possible is happening every day. So I think we may be living in the golden age of sci-fi for the TV, but I think it’s partially because we’re living in an incredibly advanced, and almost uncontrollably so, period of scientific achievement. It’s pushing that comfortable almost quaint version of what sci-fi is to a very different place, and that’s where Fringe lives.

Crave Online: You have a really great track record with your leading ladies. How did you find Anna Torv? 

J.J. Abrams: Our incredibly talented casting director showed us a video audition that Anna did for another show, a movie. We were trying to see as many people as we could and I saw this audition. It’s just that feeling that you have where you just immediately know that’s the person. I wish there was some really cool, clever technique that we use to do this, but the truth is whether it’s Keri Russell walking through the door, Jennifer Garner, who I’d gotten to work with on Felicity and who my wife was insistent was going to be a star, or Evangeline Lilly, who I got a video of her audition, or now Anna, it’s simply the fact that when you see the right person, the first thing you’re concerned about is, “Oh my God, can we actually get her? Is she really available?” Like it’s no longer about giving her the part, it’s just we have to make this work. When I saw Anna, I just knew that she had a quality that was unique and smart, and she was beautiful, but not in a way that felt like she was phony. She seemed tough and sophisticated. I just felt like she was the right one. 

Crave Online: When did you find out the pilot got leaked?

J.J. Abrams: Someone e-mailed me and said they’d seen it was online and I went to go check. I saw that it was on the peer to peer thing and I realized it was all over.

Crave Online: So what’s different in the premiere airing Monday?

J.J. Abrams: We cut like five minutes from the show before the interrogation scenes in there. The ending wasn’t done yet, so it was about tightening and moving some moments here and there.

Crave Online: Do you have that problem more than other people because you do mystery shows?

J.J. Abrams: I don’t know. Honestly, because I don’t know what other people are going through. I don’t know what else gets leaked but it’s funny because I’m the person who would want to download it. I’d want to see it so I get the desire. On something like Trek, it’s very specific to wanting to preserve the experience so that someone doesn’t judge. Like I was working on Superman for a couple years and the script got reviewed on Aintitcool, and they trashed it. People just despised it and hated the review. It was like an early draft of a script getting reviewed, it was just a disaster. Then Warner Brothers were like, "Uhh, we’re not making this movie."

Crave Online: Just because of that?

J.J. Abrams: Not specifically, though I’m sure it had something to do with that. I feel like on a TV show, at least what got leaked was close enough to what we were airing but it’s annoying, but I also sympathize.

Crave Online: But you invited Ainticool to the editing room on Trek.

J.J. Abrams: Well, Harry showed up in a wheelchair. What am I going to do?

Crave Online: You weren’t worried how that would come out?

J.J. Abrams: You always worry about everything but I also feel like what happened was, Paramount said Harry was going to be coming by so I saw him, he came in and I showed him a couple moments but it was very limited. Part of it was I’ve known that guy for years so I figured that on some level, he represents a very, very important part of the audience. I also know that if he hated it, I’d rather hear what someone like Harry, who’s a fan of Trek, doesn’t like about it. I’d rather know now than after the movie’s locked. So it was selfish, completely selfish for me to try to hear him.

Crave Online: What keeps you doing TV when you can do movies now?

J.J. Abrams: It’s a funny question to me because I love it. I feel so lucky to get to do it. Working on movies and Star Trek is coming along, almost done with that, but the draw to do TV is simply the opportunity to do it. I just feel like for this moment that we can, we would be crazy not to. It’s such an amazing medium. It’s such an interesting process. Even now as the episodes are being filmed, there’s this really weird thing when you’re lucky enough to get a pilot done and you’ve lived with that for a little while and then a lot of talk about getting to do the shows, then you start to see the characters again, it’s just a bizarre thing. It’s this organic, ongoing thing and when you have actors as good as we have and you’ve got a story that I’m really excited that we’re telling over a long term, and also episode to episode, for me it’s a funny question because I just feel lucky enough to be doing this.

Crave Online: Do you have any regrets about letting other show runners take the reigns of shows like Alias?

J.J. Abrams: It’s a weird thing. At a certain point, being lucky enough to direct a movie or something where you’re controlling what it is and how it looks, is a very different thing when you do a show when you create the show and all of a sudden, episodes six, seven, eight it’s its own thing. If you, and I am, comfortable with working with incredibly talented people who deserve a shot and who are really good at what they do, who even kind of help launch a certain story, a project and then work with, then it’s incredibly fun. It’s never exactly how you’d want it to be. If you were working with someone who’s writing a story for a newspaper or online whatever, and you say, "Well, here’s the kind of thing I want you to go do," and they went off and did it, it would never be what you would do. But if they were good, they’ll do things that you would never come up with and they would elevate certain aspects of it and maybe not get certain things as well but to me, it’s a collaboration. The question is, are you excited, do I like having the collaboration? Again, I feel blessed to work with people like this and Jeff and Brian. It’s a great group.

Crave Online: How have you felt to see Lost ramp up now that the end date is set?

J.J. Abrams: Well, I obviously know what the story is but what’s amazing is to watch the work that not just Damon and Carlton but the whole writing staff and cast and crew, to see the work that they do from the outside. It’s weird. It’s a little bit like seeing your kid in college or graduating or working or whatever. Literally, that feeling of watching your kid playing baseball and you’re like, "Oh my God, look, he’s out there. I have nothing to do with it. Yeah, he’s my kid and I threw around with him but that’s what he or she is doing." I feel like to watch the show, I feel completely connected to it and yet I’m not working on that show week to week, so to see what they’re doing, I’m amazed at the work that they do. I call Damon and I’m just blown away by how good he is.

Crave Online: What’s the status on Invisible Woman and Cloverfield 2?

J.J. Abrams: Invisible woman, we’re still trying to find the right place to make it because it’s a very specific, small, niche movie but Matt Reeves wrote an incredible script that is such a wonderful role for an actress. We have a lot of people in mind but we’re meeting a number of people. But Cloverfield 2, we’re still talking about it but the fact is, I just didn’t want to do a sequel, but there’s another idea that’s going around that could be kind of cool.

Crave Online: Could it be a different city?

J.J. Abrams: It would be a totally different kind of thing but it’s too early to talk about.

Crave Online: Have you brainstormed any non sci-fi ideas?

J.J. Abrams: Yeah, sure. I have actually. Nothing yet and I don’t want to bore you. There are certain ideas that I’ve been thinking about. My wife and I have been talking a lot about that. Katy’s always saying, she always remembers when I wrote the Felicity pilot. I would love to do something else like that. It just hasn’t happened.

Crave Online: What do you watch?

J.J. Abrams: I love Mad Men. I just love it. I can’t stand how much I love it.