Last season after the first episode, I immediately liked everyone on the Raza except for Three. I didn’t warm up to him until several episodes later when he showed a vulnerability in the loss of Sarah, who was in the stasis pod stashed on the ship. Anthony Lemke, who plays the character, brings a charisma to the character where you don’t mind his abrasiveness and selfishness now. I think because the writers have shown us that despite the hard shell, Three possibly has a gooey center and humor makes him endearing to fans of the show. In talking to Lemke, I see a lot of the good things I like about Three in him and it was fun to chat about the last several episodes, especially about his closeness with Five (Jodelle Ferland) and Two (Melissa O’Neil). This upcoming double episode, there is definitely some moments between Five and Three where I’m like “Awww” episode 6 was like a tease man!
TNE: How do you feel about Five? Because episode seven, you work with each other on a mission. Is it kinda like a brother/sister feeling, or is it more like you see yourself in Five? How is that relationship, do you think?
Anthony Lemke: Yeah, I love that relationship between Five and Three. There’s just a really neat relationship that’s involving these two where – I think you put your finger right on it. What exactly is it? Is it brother/sister? Is it father/daughter? Is it the crazy uncle? What exactly is it? I’ll be honest, what’s fun about it is it’s not clear. It should be, probably, something closer to father/daughter or older brother or uncle or whatever, except for the fact that it just isn’t.
There’s something a lot more equal about that relationship where – I’ve thought a lot about it, and I think it’s partially because we have a very similar past, Three and Five, and that he parents were killed, and she ended up on the streets, and life took a really south turn for her at some moment in time, and it did for me. Of course, she’s got all the computer smarts and whatever else, but we’re also – we understand what it’s like to live by our own wits and to have a really crappy upbringing. I think we also have a very similar outlook on life.
Three’s an incredibly loyal character in a lot of ways. That is Ruthie’s empathetic loyal character with a lot of stuff layered on top, and I feel like Five and Three have that in common where she wears her empathy on her sleeve and makes her decisions emotionally almost always, and so does Three – almost always, and there’s not a strong analytical filter that Three has, and I don’t below that Five does either, even though he is very heady and intelligent.
She almost always shoots from the heart. So I think, in that way, they really respect each other, but they’d never show it because you don’t on the street. It’s that whole thing where there’s always this fun teasing each other and one upmanship and totally like brother/sister, or almost even like he’s the mothering figure to Three in a way. It’s almost a role reversal that happens at times between Five and Three, but then he’ll come back and end up being a really strong father figure as well, and that you’ll see coming up in future episodes. I just love that relationship so, so much.
TNE: How did it feel working with your pre -memory self (As Marcus Boone) and then your past memory self (Three)?
Anthony Lemke: Playing Marcus Boone was so much fun! We played that a little bit earlier in this season where we got to play our pre mind wiped selves because we got our memories back. It wasn’t quite the same because we were also the people that we had been since we had the memories wiped, so we were everything. It was all when we started to play those characters that I realized how much Three had really changed. When he found out [he] was a criminal and a badass, and me, myself, and I first, he was like, “Great, perfect. All right, I’m not gonna change a thing. I’m just gonna go ahead with that MO.” So, yeah, that’s always there, and that’s never changed. He sees himself that way and still kinda does. It was only in returning back to that character that I realized, “Oh, geez, Three’s really changed in a season and a half,” because playing his character feels entirely different, and the decisions that he makes are very different as well. It was actually a lot of fun, and I hope we get a chance to do it again. I don’t think it’ll be the last, too, that we have seen of alt Raza.
TNE: Oh, yes, for sure, because now the blink technology is coming into play here, especially episode eight. Are we going to, maybe, see the alternate version of the Raza again this season, or, maybe, is that opened up for next season?
Anthony Lemke: Well, I’m not gonna say whether we see them again this season. I’ll just let the audience try to figure that one out, but I think it’s fairly safe to say that with that technology sticking around and at the very end, you see the little shuttle taking off there. Clearly, the writers are intending for that to ripple forward. Joe and Paul pretty much don’t do anything without it rippling forward at some point in time – planting a seed for something in future episodes or subsequent seasons. I’ve heard his stories about where he wants to take season three, if we’re lucky enough to get one, and when you hear those stories and you know where you’ve gone in season two, you’re like, “Oh, I see. That’s what you were planting here, and that’s how it ripples forward.” So just be cognizant of that, that if you like the alternate reality Raza, there’s probably a good chance that you’ll get a chance to like him again.
TNE: Sweet! So episode nine you got a chance to interact with an alien. Is that the alien that you were hinting at (in a previous interview and at the SDCC panel)?
Anthony Lemke: Bingo! Yeah, I was hinting at the fact that there are aliens, and that, in fact, technically, it’s an alien that we had seen in season one, but we didn’t realize we’d seen it. Now, we actually see the form of that alien, and we learn a lot more about it. Again, Joe and Paul, not to do things without them playing forward and paying off in future episodes and seasons. Yeah, I’ll just leave it there with that one. It is a fairly contained episode, and that alien disappears at the end of that episode, but it’s a sci-fi. Things come back.
TNE: Yeah. It’s in space right now, and who knows who’s gonna pick that up!
Anthony Lemke: Yeah, and of course, there’s probably others. We know there are others. We’ve seen others in the first season. Yeah, it’s pretty interesting. I don’t know because I haven’t read the scripts and I haven’t written them, but I do know – I’ve heard how they plan on having that ripple forward, and it’s pretty freaking cool, so I’m excited to see that unfold if we get a season three.
TNE: Alright, so is Three off in his own world, so he’s not really noticing what’s happening with Two, or even Four and Nyx? Is he just in his own little world?
Anthony Lemke: Three’s not stupid; he’s just not intellectual, and he’s aware. He just doesn’t care. The whole thing with Two is – it’s interesting because you see in the alt Raza that, obviously, they got a thing going on, and there was some sort of alluding to that in season one as well. He cut that short for other reasons, and then he found out about Sara and that whole thing happened. I think that informs the way he sees Two and the way he sees Nyx. It’s interesting.
I don’t know exactly what’s in Paul and Joe’s mind, but I can tell you what’s in my mind when I’m playing that. I think he still has that whole womanizing thing and that, but I think the need – Three versus Marcus Boone, the post mind like character and really post Sara, I think he has a different opinion, a different view of women, and it starts closest to home.
So Two is on his team. Two becomes almost like his sister, in a way. He becomes part of the inner circle that you don’t mess with, and in Three’s mind, messing with and popping on a space station and finding some redhead for some fun, which we heard in the first season. He doesn’t see Two in the same boat as that redhead on the station. Whereas previous, pre mind wipe Marcus Boone, probably would’ve been just like, “Hey, let’s throw down with anybody, man. Let’s go.” But that’s not who Three has become.
TNE: Alright, so Three finds out what’s going on with Two in episode nine, and, in fact, she actually dies very briefly. Six saved the day there, but what was going through Three’s mind as all of that was happening? You see it in the way that you acted out those scenes, but in way, I still wanna see what, literally, were you thinking?
Anthony Lemke: Being an actor is an interesting kind of thing because you develop relationships from character to character, but you also develop them from person to person. So when you’re looking into Melissa O’Neil’s eyes, and you’re thinking, “She’s gonna die,” or whatever. You know it’s a character. It’s not like you’re in some other kind of weird world; but yet, I’m looking into a person’s eyes. I’m looking into Melissa, a person who I really respect and I think is a wonderful colleague, and a really great person, and that stuff leads in.
You’re looking at someone, and you’re pretending that that person’s gone, and she means a lot to me as a person. It’s the same way when Mark’s character disappeared. It actually affected me as a person, not just as a character. So I would say that when you’re looking at stuff going through my eyes, you’re seeing both. You’re seeing Three reacting to someone he cares a hell of a lot about, probably more than he’d ever really admit, to be honest, and I think you also see a little bit of what it might be like to lose Mel on the show because that’s what you’re being asked to play. Oh, you’re gonna lose this person. They’re gonna go.
That’s the storyline, and it’s gonna be another Mark Bendavid situation where One is off the ship. It’s still Mark Bendavid and you go there. That’s your job as an actor to go there, to play that, and I think you see it in both. Then, of course, you know where it’s going. You know she’s not going anywhere because you’ve read the script! The truth is, you’re not playing that in the moment. You’re playing this idea of this person’s not coming back, and that’s what you’re seeing.
TNE: One last question. Milo told Four during episode six that there is gonna be another betrayal, and I’m like, “Are you kidding me? Again?!” So are we going to find that out this season, or are you gonna leave that open until next season?
Anthony Lemke: Yeah, we answer questions fast in the show, so look for it this season. The truth is, when I read that, I was like, “Oh, I wonder if he’s talking about….does that payoff in the very same episode?” And it might, right?
It depends what you think about the whole, “Here’s a knife. Why don’t you do the hari kari thing.” Whose responsibility was that? Nyx brings her brother on board to save him and make [their] life better, and in the end, kind of the exact opposite happens, and pretty central in that entire thing is Four. Has the betrayal already happened? But when I read the script, I was kinda like, “Oh, my god, is he predicting what’s gonna happen? Is that it? Is that the payoff?” And that’s a pretty big answer for betrayal. It’s a huge one. I’m sure that everybody when they saw Nyx walk into Four at the end was like, “Oh, my god, now what?” Yeah, I helped your brother commit suicide. I know it’s supposed to help him, but it’s pretty big wedge in a relationship, so is that the betrayal he’s talking about? You’re gonna find out.
TNE: Or it could be something completely different!
Anthony Lemke: Or it could be both. That absolutely is one of the possibilities that was going through my mind when I read that script, and I bet you it’s going through the folks’ minds who were watching the episode as well. Is this the betrayal? So I don’t know. We’ll see. It wasn’t like he went and killed him, but boy.
TNE: It’s almost the same right?
Anthony Lemke: Yeah, yeah.
TNE: For sure. Well, thank you, Anthony, hopefully we’ll get to talk again soon!
Anthony Lemke: I do hope we get to chat again as well, and maybe it’s the point of season three now, so who knows.
TNE: Oh, fingers crossed for that because I’m loving Three this season! I couldn’t stand him in season one initially, but then you grew on me. You kinda grew on me, Anthony, and that’s all you and the writers!
Anthony Lemke: Honestly, when I knew that was the trajectory of the character, that he was supposed to be a total dick who sort of has this awakening, I was like, “This is gonna be so much fun because everyone’s gonna just hate on Three.” I just relish that, and then to know that he gets to be something more, and yet, without converting entirely to a nice empathetic guy. He’s still the jerk that you hate, but every once in awhile, he does things, and you’re like, “Oh, I can’t hate him anymore!” It’s been a lot of fun.
Thank you again Anthony for chatting with me and this week’s double episode are some humdingers. For a preview here is one of the episode photos that really caught my eye because I was so glad that this character was coming back! Stay tuned for my recap!
