am 23. Februar, 22.15 Uhr startet die erfolgreiche US-Serie „The Blacklist“ bei RTL in die dritte Staffel (22 neue Folgen). Zum US-Start der dritten Staffel im Oktober 2015, haben die beiden Hauptdarsteller, „Emmy“-Gewinner James Spader (Rolle: Raymond „Red“ Reddington) und Megan Boone (Rolle: Elizabeth Keen) im September 2015 für ausführliche Interviews zur Verfügung gestanden.
Hier das transkribierte Interview von Megan Boone für Euch…
Megan Boone plays FBI agent Elizabeth Keen in Sony Pictures Television’s action thriller The Blacklist. Boone’s movie career includes My Bloody Valentine, Sex and the City 2 and Step Up Revolution. Her TV CV includes DDA Lauren Stanton in Law & Order: Los Angeles and Candice McElroy in Blue Bloods. Her directorial debut, Eggshells for Soil, is a vivid account of the challenges of childhood. As FBI agent Elizabeth Keen, Boone was selected – for reasons still not entirely clear – by master criminal Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington (James Spader) as his sole point of contact with the FBI when he began turning over his former associates. By the end of season two, Keen has uncovered a shadowy organisation known as the Cabal, been accused of poisoning a US senator and killed the Attorney General. We asked her how season three could follow that…?
MB: There’s a lot at stake now and in an interesting way, because she’s not just on the run from the law. She’s on the run from her former partners in the FBI, so her dynamic and relationship with them has altered drastically. I think that there are some really interesting moral dilemmas there. Ressler and Cooper – well, everybody grapples with the issue of someone they love who they know has the best of intentions having committed a very serious crime, one that’s being perceived as an act of terror. So yeah, we start off with a little bit of drama, believe it or not.
I: How do you feel being framed for murder affected her?
MB: Liz has gone from being a naive idealistic young woman with great ambitions and a very clear moral agenda to a woman who is jaded and she doesn’t trust anyone very easily anymore. She also knows a lot about herself that changes her perception of who she is, what the world around her is and what she’s capable of doing. Therefore her actions under this immense pressure become a little bit more erratic. It’s almost like the returning memory of what she did to her father and her capacity to kill the US Attorney General broke open this side of her that was just more erratic, more compulsive and more violent.
I: Are you big on social media?
MB: I’ve tried. I’m still trying. It’s just not inherent in who I am. I’m an introvert extrovert. I need people in my life and I need to relate to them, but just there’s a group of four or five of us. I don’t want a whole world stage to talk to about my personal business so that’s been a journey for me, just trying to figure out what is this device of social media? How do I use it in a way that I’m comfortable with but in a way that still serves the fans? It’s a way of lifting a curtain that the fans are really desirous of seeing behind.
I try and find a way to do that but then when I’m on set I’m so focussed on what I’m doing that getting a behind the scenes picture or anything isn’t something that comes to mind – and there’s such high confidentiality that comes along with the show. For instance, I couldn’t post a selfie, so how do you engage if you can’t take a selfie? I don’t know exactly what to do for people on there but I still try. I try to post something every three days.
I: You did that funny The Keens: A Brief History on Instagram?
MB: Yeah (laughter). Ryan and I did that – you can only make15-second videos on Instagram, so we did an in camera edit going back and forth saying these quirky little things to one another that was like a brief history of the Keens’. Then we did a Brief History Part 2. That was so fun and it went over really well. It ended up going viral – something like 3,000,000 people saw it. For me that’s a huge number – because I don’t hang out with celebrities and do all that self-publicity stuff. I’m not on social media showing off all my famous friends or what dress you’re wearing and how you’re engaging in consumer culture. I just don’t think it’s fun. But I’m not really engaged in consumer culture. I consume, obviously, but I really have a hard time figuring it out. But Ryan and I had no problem getting down and having a good time. Then I tried to encourage Diego and Mozhan to do it with me but they don’t like to be silly… So I was unable to produce those segments (laughter).
I: You’ve dyed your hair blonde as a disguise – do you enjoy being a blonde?
MB: It doesn’t affect me so much. I really don’t like maintenance. I like hygiene but I’d never wear makeup when I’m not working and I don’t go to salons. I don’t even have other people do my nails. I have a pair of nail clippers and that’s all you need. People say blondes have more fun but they actually just have more salon appointments. I’m really glad I landed with the good people – Ted Gibson, this guy Jason who’s doing my hair – but I just have a really hard time sitting for two and a half hours and not doing anything.
I: What if they had asked you to shave your hair off?
MB: Oh, I’d be so relieved. It would cut like 30 or 40 minutes off of my prep time in the morning. I would get so much more sleep.
I: What is the energy like shooting on location New York?
MB: I try to take myself back to when I was just out of school and first came to New York and how much a dream it would have been to be in New York shooting a hit TV show with James Spader. But to be honest, working on location with people walking by and taking pictures with their phones can be just a little bit overwhelming for me. I was eating yogurt yesterday and someone took a picture of me eating my yogurt. I was like – ‘give me your phone and let me take a picture of you when you eat…’ (laughter).
I: That must be so strange.
M1: You have to be of service to the fans and you have to be appreciative and that’s important to me. I always stop for a picture and I always give an autograph. I don’t have a problem with that. I think it’s just an added obstacle when you’re actually shooting a scene and people are in your eye line. I mean, these days celebrity is a totally different career path to just being an actor. So I can be on this show and people can like it and I can make a living doing what I feel proud of myself for doing but then I don’t really have to do all that celebrity stuff because the Kardashians are already doing it.
I: Did you expect the show to be such a huge hit?
MB: It took me a long time to realise how big it was. Even now it doesn’t register all the time. Someone will say – oh, it’s big in Australia or France or Sky Living… I don’t think you can really grasp that.
I: You’ve been to Comic-Con – that must be intense.
MB: Comic-Con is actually way better than Fashion Week. I’d rather be there every time. Fashion Week people are just as nerdy as people at Comic-Con – the costumes they wear are weirder and so much more expensive. Give me a Wonder Woman costume at Comic-Con every time.
I: Do people dress as Agent Liz?
MB: Not that much. In fact, in this season Liz doesn’t wear that agent gear so much. She’s wearing a lot of comfortable worn in jeans and cool leather jackets. Stuff that I never really have the guts to wear in my personal life. I don’t ride a motorcycle. There’s no reason for it – but I get to wear them at work and it’s really fun.
I: Do you enjoy the action scenes?
MB: Yes. And I am such a good shot. I’m the best shot on the show and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. When I’m shooting the target I’m always getting the kill shot. I started the show with almost no gun training. My character did her basic gun training at Quantico, but she was trained to be behind a desk doing psychological analysis. And then the more I used the gun on set and the more I was able to make it to the ranges around the city I just got so good at it. Don’t let Diego come over here and say he’s a better shot than me ‘cause I know for a fact he isn’t.
I: What’s it like working with James Spader?
MB: He’s unique. I’ve never met anyone like him. He possesses traits as a human being that I didn’t even really know existed on the spectrum of human personality traits. He’s endlessly and extraordinarily patient. He’s not an emotional person. He would never get upset about anything but he is cognisant and aware of everything that’s going on around him, including the dynamics of people. He uses it all to get the scene to work. I think he takes a lot on that he doesn’t need to take on. I want to help him try to let go a little bit – and he has throughout the series. He’s started to trust the process a little bit more but the show is so important to him because it’s this flagship show. He puts a tremendous amount of work and effort into every aspect. He walks on set to make sure the set looks the right way, moves the right way. He adjusts the scripts the way that he needs to to make it work. He’s very involved.
I: Is he quite paternal towards you on set?
MB: No, I don’t feel a paternal relationship with him. It is a profound work relationship. The scene work that we do together is very heightened and intense. It requires a lot of trust but it also requires a very strict amount of diligence in maintaining the correct off-screen relationship to make sure that we are able to facilitate what we do on screen. I’m fortunate that he has done a show before and knows the way to approach these things. He was my guide in the beginning. After this I probably won’t do another show of this magnitude again – because I don’t know that I have the energy, or the life force, to build a relationship that is this intense again.
I: You are in every scene and you have intense relationships with everybody in the show. It’s not just him. You’re the person that connects every story.
MB: I know! You’re telling me. I’m like George Costanza in Seinfeld and James is Jerry. Everybody thinks it’s the Seinfeld show but Larry’s writing it and George Costanza’s is one going through all the crazy stuff.
I: Has the show opened up new opportunities?
MB: (Laughs). I work ten months a year so this is all I have the energy do. If a big director called me up to do a scene in his movie over the summer I’d do it but so far that kind of opportunity is very unlikely.
I: What sort of roles would attract you?
MB: I want to play really strange, off the spectrum roles. Like, I love rom-coms but I’d probably choose a Nancy Meyers one. I’m really looking for things that push the boundaries of our perception of women and I want to make sure that I’m working with an ensemble of talented people. It’s important to me to work with good people. For the rest of my career the first question out of my mouth when I’m approaching a project will be, “is this director a good person? Do they have a family? Do they have other interests? Can I sit down and talk to them and have a dynamic conversation?”
I: Liz is a good role model character – she doesn’t take anyone’s crap.
MB: I’d like her to be. I’d love to be putting all of my life effort into creating a good role model for young girls so I’m definitely putting all of my force behind that.
That’s my main agenda with Liz – to try to make sure we’re eking out that potential and making her more definitive in her decision making, making her more autonomous. For the first season she did a lot of listening and asking questions and responding to things, which made a lot of sense because she was in such overwhelming circumstances. I had a dialogue with the writers about how this character has to want something and go after that thing in a real way. The process will continue to develop but she’s definitely become a character that is more decisive in her actions and that’s an important step.
I: Certainly this season it feels like it’s you that has the strongest arc.
MB: The show’s always been about Liz. Red is the fun character that everybody loves to see come on screen – this smart ass morally ambiguous iconically silhouetted man who is very clearly the image of the show. People like it. But if you’re a fan of the show, you’re always following Liz and Red, Liz and Tom, Liz and Ressler… This is a story about a young woman, which is timely because we want more stories about woman. I don’t want to become an angry feminist. It’s all about trying to identify my responsibility in this gender dynamic. That’s all we can do as women I think. Men don’t mean to discriminate against women so I deal with it in a way that is not going to affect my dynamic with men negatively.
I: But do you think things are changing or do we still have a very long way to go?
MB: The fact that we’re even talking about this right now is partly due to the fact we have this big hit show with a strong woman but that’s quite rare. There’s a fire under this issue – and that’s the first step in the whole house burning down, which is what needs to be done. I’ve been told the whole gamut of things about my body and myself and then when you get put in a position of power the need is taken away. I’m lucky to be in the position now where I don’t need anything from anybody so when when someone says something like that to me I’m no longer okay with it.
