drian Paul leaves his sword behind as he takes on bad guys once again in his new syndicated series, Tracker, which premieres the week of Oct. 15. This time Paul plays an alien named Cole who is hunting down 218 convicts who have escaped from an interplanetary prison by using a wormhole to get to Earth. Now, they've taken over human bodies and begun to blend in with the locals, and it's up to Paul's character to stop them.
The British-born Paul started his career as a model, dancer and choreographer in Europe before winning his first role in The Colbys playing a Russian expatriate ballet dancer. Paul has appeared in a variety of television series, plays and films since then, including a recurring role in the science-fiction series War of the Worlds. His biggest role was a starring turn as the immortal swordfighter Duncan MacLeod in Highlander: The Series, a role which lasted for six seasons and led to the film Highlander: Endgame.
Paul recently chatted with Science Fiction Weekly about Tracker, Highlander and letting fans see a whole lot more of him in his new series.
When we interviewed you last year while you were promoting Highlander: Endgame, you said, "If I got back into series television I think it would be under an entirely different genre." But now you're here with another science-fiction series.
Paul: Yeah, I know. Since I'm executive producer, this one actually allows me to do something a little different. This character is someone who's learning, and he's a very different type of character than I've ever played before. He's not the normal action hero. The series is really about
character development. I think if this series succeeds, it's not going to be on the action and it's not going to be on the special effects. It's going to be on the relationships and the character development. So, that interested me.
Tell us about Tracker.
Paul: The premise is that in a far galaxy there's a wormhole that hits Earth. A convict comes down here and the Tracker comes down here to catch him. [The Tracker has] done this because of personal reasons. Then at the end of the first episode you realize that the reason that wormhole was created
was to bring down another 218 prisoners that have escaped a maximum security prison. The aliens, you'll never really see them. All you'll see is they've taken over human bodies. They basically are everyday people. They could be anybody that you meet on the street, except they come from six different planets. The premise of my character is that he is from an enlightened planet. He does his job because his wife and daughter were killed by a certain convict and he decided to become a prison guard. When this thing happened he tracked them down here. The way he actually takes his image is from a billboard on the side of the road. The first one he finds is a guy in briefs, like a Calvin Klein type of ad. He's in Cole Briefs.
So we literally get to see a lot of you in the first episode?
Paul: Yeah, you do, and the next three or four actually. He doesn't like wearing clothes. So it allows for a lot of humor. I think the show is very funny. Amy Price-Francis plays Mel. Mel is the person he meets on the side of the road and she kinds of feels sorry for him, and brings him back
to her bar in Chicago. She starts to help him out, and she kind of realizes she has a connection with this guy. She doesn't know why. She's constantly helping him out. He's staying in her spare room upstairs and he's created a war room where he tracks these other aliens. The way he tracks them is through things that he finds on Earth. We go into different areas where he's able to find this information, like [someone missing] on the side of a milk carton, or he might find some clue in police databanks. He's able to utilize humor materials and adjust them slightly to make them a little bit more beneficial to him.
In one show we have what we call an echo retractor. A retractor takes sounds out of paintings. When a painting is drying in the room, any conversations that have gone on get trapped in the painting. And what he uses is an iron. So he's ironing a painting. It's stuff like that that we've gone for rather than high-tech stuff. He's using a mismatch of stuff he accumulates and makes on Earth. Things he uses to track. But the problem is he's got to relearn a lot of things. He doesn't know what a telephone is. He doesn't know what a lot of things are. So it allows us to see human beings in action from a different perspective.
How is your character, Cole, different than Duncan, the character you played in Highlander?
Paul: Oh, he's very different. Cole is very innocent. He doesn't have a past that really haunts him. He's not as aggressive as Duncan was. He's like a fish out of water. He's the consummate 10-year-old. He's always asking questions. But he does things that Duncan would have done in that he helps people who need to be helped and he deals with human issues too.
What's going to surprise us most about this new character of yours?
Paul: I think it's his innocence. I think it's his humor too. He's a lot funnier. That's what I'm really hoping will come across. The things we take for granted are seen by him as ludicrous.
Once Cole tracks down the bad guys, what does he do with them?
Paul: The one thing I always said was that I don't want to be violent in this show. Cole doesn't use a gun. He doesn't trap people by knocking them senseless. He subdues them, whether it's with a rope or a curtain. Anything. And then he takes what we call a collector, which takes the life force or the soul of this alien who has come here and taken over this human body, and extracts it. Cole puts it into this collector, which he then downloads, like downloading a program into a mini-prison, which is comprised of small receptacles that he keeps these alien life forces in.
So does the person who's been taken over survive?
Paul: No. That's the problem. It's like, if I went into your body, that's my life force and there's not room for two. There's just room for one. So it kills off the other one and the alien takes over.
Why does your character morph into human form while the criminals take over human bodies?
Paul: Because I come from a planet, Cirron, that is on the high evolution scale. They are, if you like, the seventh chakra. They are the cocoon beings who are more enlightened and basically trying to get the other planets to live a more peaceful existence and not kill and not maim. However, there is a job to do to stop the people that do that from achieving their goal. So he doesn't decide to take over a human life form, although he could. Instead he decides to go the harder route, which is producing one from an image and then learning about it as he goes.
So that's why it takes him longer to get up to speed than the criminals.
Paul: Exactly.
How is Tracker different than anything else you've done before?
Paul: I think it's different. Well, it's a lot more work [laughs]. So much more work. I'm executive producer, so I'm dealing with special effects. I'm dealing with the logos. I'm dealing with the wardrobe, the costumes. I'm dealing with the lighting, the camera work, everything, anything. The
entire shebang. And I like to get involved in that, because I have an idea as to what I'm trying to push across. I didn't want it to be hokey. We've really tried to stay away from a lot of large visual effects and made them very subtle.
We're working on those as we go along to see how we really make them a very slight thing where you go, "There's something different about this person." Rather than, "Well, look at that. Isn't that a cool visual effect?" We have the effects of taking the life force. Originally we wanted to show what
the alien was. But I think it's actually more interesting to just suck that spirit out and see this thing happen. It allows more to your imagination, which then will bring on the idea for people, "What do they look like? Are they this or are they that?" We really went into each of the different planets and decided what do they do physically. How do they walk? How do they talk? How do they fight? Those things will evolve and be displayed over several episodes. And as you go along the episodes, you'll realize that each of the different forms has a similarity as to how they move and how they actually fight.
Do the aliens have any special powers?
Paul: They don't have powers and stuff. The only real powers anybody has are the Vardians. The Vardians are basically the large manic wrestlers, if you like. The large terminator type of people. They have a telekinesis power, and it's not unusual for even humans to have that power, but they have it to a greater extent. The only other ability these guys have is their movement. They're a little faster and they can do things a little stronger than most humans can. But that's the only real power that they have.
What about your character?
Paul: We have something that really I think is our signature that I came up with originally in discussing this with Gil Grant, which is hyperspeed. It came from something I saw which I always really liked. We created this feeling of entering a different dimension where he is able to move at the speed of light for a brief time. Everything else around him stops for a moment, so you have some very interesting visuals when that happens.
What are Highlander fans going to like most about this series?
Paul: I think the relationships. What they found in Highlander was that they were constantly brought in by what the relationships were between the characters, between the guest stars,
between the reoccurring characters, between the leads. I think we've tried to really continue to do that. People that work for us [on Tracker] in the production office are like, "We have more rewrites on scripts than any other show a lot of the time." Well, what we do is we read [the script], and we go, "This doesn't work." So we take it back to the writers. We'll find scenes that have to be redone because of character choices or objectives or obstacles were not correct, so we have them written again. We're constantly trying to work the relationships that go on between people.
And you're going to get to do some romantic comedy?
Paul: This is much more romantic comedy in its feel. And between me and Amy, it's a very good relationship in that respect. It's the Moonlighting type of feel that we have in this relationship. That is not what Highlander was about. Highlander was much more about a love story in the first year and then the quest for justice and love after that. This has romantic comedy elements to it. I think there's a lot of humor that we've really implanted in this and that's where we want to go. We don't want it to be quite so heady. We're taking the tongue-in-cheek approach
to a lot of things.
Are there plans for any of the Highlander gang to drop by for a guest shot?
Paul: There are ideas of it. It depends on when and where [we'd be able to do it]. I'm actually talking right now to see if I can get Peter Wingfield in the next episode. He was up to play Zin as the big bad guy, but then we have Geraint Wyn Davies from Forever Knight in that part.
So we have a good cast. We have good guest stars. And some great actors from Toronto that we've used. We have another young girl who is one of the recurring characters by the name of Leanne Wilson, who plays Jess. And then there's Richard Yearwood, who we have as a new character in show four who's like
an Eddie Murphy type. He's very funny.
Are you going to be directing any of the episodes, like you did in Highlander?
Paul: It's possible. I'm kind of directing a lot of the ideas on set because I know what the shots are and I know what techniques we've used. Right now it's a little hard because executive producing is taking up so much of my time.
What are your hopes for this series?
Paul: I don't know [laughs]. I don't know. The one ability that this character has which is interesting for me as an actor is that he has the ability to change into any other actor he wants to be. So if I have a film that has to be done and I have to go off for two or three shows, I can do bookends on certain shows and have somebody else we utilize to take over that role for a certain period of time. We have installed that in a couple episodes already where I've changed. Out of the first seven or eight shows, we see him do it two or three times.
That could be very interesting for you as an actor to try and make that work.
Paul: Yeah, absolutely. It allows us to bring in really interesting people to actually play me. It's almost like The Outer Limits, where they have a different guest star every week. I don't know whether it will go that far, but who knows?
Are there any other interesting things you can tell us about Tracker?
Paul: We'll we will be doing one of the largest behind-the-scenes Web sites that will go from not only what happens on set, but will detail entirely different parts of the production. [There will be] interviews with the guest stars, what happens with post-production in editing, in sound mixing, camera work. All this type of stuff. Things which I think the fans will really eat up. You can get to it through www.trackertv.com and I have a new Web site that will be going up shortly called www.adrianpaul.net. Dot com somebody has and we're having legal battles over that right now. It will be linked to a lot of my other projects. Those things will blossom, I believe, because I think the Internet is a fantastic tool for keeping people online and getting involved in shows and getting a following for a show. So we're excited about what's going to happen with the behind-the-scenes site.
Now that you've had some time to reflect on Highlander, what are your thoughts about the show?
Paul: I loved Highlander. Highlander was a great part of my learning experience and I loved Duncan MacLeod. I loved playing him. In a way I kind of miss him, but then I don't because it was time to move on. I think looking back, sometimes I catch a show or I'll look at an episode
and I'll say, "Oh that was really good." I thought we did some really good work on that. I don't think Highlander in the United States got the credit it deserved. It was what we used to call the best-kept secret in Hollywood, at least for the first three or four years, which is really the years where
it was formed. But so many more people actually got into it afterward because of that.
Is there the possibility of another Highlander movie?
Paul: I have no idea.
Is that something you'd like to revisit at a certain point?
Paul: Maybe [laughs]. It depends on a lot of things. It depends on what the script is and who's involved with it and etc., etc.
What do we have to look forward to from Adrian Paul in the future?
Paul: I have a couple of films with Lions Gate I'll be doing next year. I'll be directing hopefully with Lions Gate also. It just depends on time. We'll just have to see how this progresses as to what I can do and when I can do it. I think my whole premise of doing the series was to have the
ability to do films and other things not only to heighten my acting persona, but also to increase the queue and the show's queue. I think Lions Gate really understands that and they're working toward that.
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Also in this issue: Ronald D. Moore
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