When Matthew Ewald showed up the day before filming in North Carolina, he showed up quite prepared ~ His script had more notes than Judy and mine’s combined!
I was, to say the least, impressed. Matthew was quite focused on his character’s backstory, presumably to have the subtext to play a humanoid character.
Now, as the creator of his character, later modified by Judy to give “Thoreau” a character arc, we were more interested in his motivations and personality traits, we really didn’t give too much thought to backstory. (Although act 3 touches on his planet’s violent history)
So, here we were, a day before the shoot, and Matthew had all these questions, for which I had no answers. Despite that, the conversation was exhilarating – to hear an actor bring your character to life and discuss Thoreau as he understood him.
Which made me think about aliens in more depth that day. We discussed: would an alien, humanoid in design, have a planet similar to Earth? Would it have oceans, similar weather, a similar evolutionary pattern of life required that would lead to humanoid development? Would the family structure be the same or would it be more like our primate relatives, or be tribal? These were just a few of the questions and ideas we kicked around that day.
I didn’t know, but definitely looking forward to answering these questions in the sequel!