It's not easy being blue -or eating refried alien food. But the women of Farscape don't mind. They're having a blast.
Claudia Black, Virginia Hey and Gigi Edgley are science-fiction superstars. Not that they would know. While the popularity of their Sci Fi Channel series, Farscape, has risen in the US faster than a space shuttle (the series began its second season in March), their home filming ground of Sydney, Australia, doesn't even air the show. So what is it that their fellow Aussies (all three women hail from Down Under) are missing every week. Lots, actually. Farscape brings us on board the living ship Moya -in a present-day parallel universe- where a band of escaped renegades, are eternally searching for the path home. As Officer Aeryn Sun, a humanoid Sebacean peacekeeper, Black often finds her character romantically drawn to American astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder); Hey, a former fashion model, plays Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan, a Delvian priestess with mystical powers (she also happens to be blue); and Edgley is Chiana, whose grey colouring is at odds with her impetuous thievery. TV Guide sat down with the three sci-fi sirens on their far-out set and discovered that when these surprisingly down-to-earth women get together, they can take on any cosmic challenge -even three gruelling hours in the makeup chair.
TV Guide: How do you handle the long makeup process every day?
Gig Edgley: A lot of the time you can learn your lines.
Virginia Hey: I bring in meditation tapes, and the rest of the time we just chat. It's the only time you can really be social, because the rest of the day we focus on what we do.
TV Guide: Is it annoying being under that paint all day?
Virginia Hey: Well, I haven't blown my nose for two years.
TV Guide: What if you have to sneeze?
Claudia Black: You just have to make a general announcement and say, "I'm about to do something that defies grace and manners, and I apologise."
TV Guide: What aspect of the show poses the biggest challenge?
Gig Edgley: Coming up with a good performance with the long hours is a bit tricky.
Claudia Black: And the general deprivation of working in an environment with lots of special effects.
TV Guide: Are the effects hard to work with?
Claudia Black: Visual effects are often placed in later with computers. We have to facilitate the process by performing and saying, "Oh, look at that big, scary, green monster," and there's actually nothing there.
TV Guide: Is there anything your characters have to do that grosses you out?
Claudia Black: Yeah, I kiss Ben!
Gig Edgley: Some days we shoot a scene with a smorgasbord of alien food. Two days later you're still shooting the same scene, and you have to eat the exact same food, and everything seems to be slightly deep-fried.
Virginia Hey: I had to kiss a prosthetic-clad creature last year. The poor actors have to wear these heavy foam headpieces and sweat profusely under them. The perspiration goes sour, and you really feel for them. But when you have to kiss them, often the perspiration is pouring out of the holes of the mask.
Claudia Black: You win, baby! That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard!
Gig Edgley: That's always fun, though, when you do scenes with aliens that do have a lot of prosthetics. We'll do rehearsals, but it's always in our plain clothes. Then we'll get together on the day and they'll have one extra head, three extra noses.
TV Guide: Virginia, you worked with Mel Gibson on The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2). How does working with aliens compare to working with Mel?
Virginia Hey: It's always harder to work with something that doesn't have natural facial expressions.
TV Guide: Claudia, how do you get in the mind-set to play warrior-like Aeryn?
Claudia Black: It takes me back to being a tomboy. I was the dork at school whose father used to laugh when she ran on Sports Day.
TV Guide: Does your tough-girl role make you want to go home and do sensitive things like knit or bake banana bread?
Claudia Black: Yeah, I am actually quite a home-body. I love to cook. But in terms of being on set, it's not a great mind-set for me to be Aeryn all the time.
TV Guide: Gigi, how did you prepare to play mischievous Chiana?
Gig Edgley: This has been my first chance out of Queensland University to just play. I'm still learning how to hit my mark and simple stuff like that. But playing an alien, you have no limits.
TV Guide: If Chiana ducked it out with Xena the Warrior Princess, would she win?
Gig Edgley: I don't know about her, but she'd beat Buffy the Vampire Slayer, hands down!
TV Guide: As women among the renegades on the ship, do your characters get to express their femininity?
Claudia Black: Aeryn's starting to find her sensitive side; she's been crying at the drop of a hat.
Virginia Hey: Zhaan is 800 years old, so she's very secure in her femininity. Delvians are a very sensual race, anyway.
TV Guide: If the first person on the moon had been female, what do you think her first words might have been?
Gig Edgley: "Oh, I left my Epilady!"
Virginia Hey: "Where are the restrooms?"
TV Guide: Do you think your characters will ever see Earth?
Claudia Black: That would be like Gilligan's Island -we'd go back for a day. Crichton would finally be able to go home, but just pops into the module to get something and accidentally presses the wrong button and gets whisked back through the wormhole again.
Virginia Hey: Well that would be the end of the series. It's like the Nanny finally marrying Mr Sheffield!