(energetic music)
- Hey everyone, welcome to In Studio
and today we have the cast of Roswell,
New Mexico, in the house.
We have Jeanine Mason and Nathan Dean Parsons.
How's it going guys?
- So happy to be here.
- Really, really happy to be here.
- We've actually been looking forward to this one all day.
(laughing)
We're like oh god, Hollywood Reporter, that'll be nice.
- We love to hear that.
Guys, it's premiere week, excitement in the air.
Tell me, what has the reaction been?
- It's been so positive.
That was I think everyone kind of had that moment of okay,
what's it like to be a part
of a property that's being redone?
And the lovely thing about this one
is that the original series is so beloved,
a book series that it's all based on is so beloved.
And I don't think there's anyone
who is against the alien genre
and getting into cheesy, kitschy alien stuff ever.
So the sci-fi element too brought with it a whole fan base
and everyone's just pumped to be playing
around with aliens in a small town.
It's really fun.
- It's been super fun.
We were been able to air,
kind of preview it at Comic-Con last year
and it was so great sitting in the audience
with them and watching for the first time.
'cause all the gasps are in the right spot
and the laughs or the jokes.
And it was just great to experience
that with a big audience.
- Oh god, yeah.
- And get just the positive feedback and it was fun.
- You can almost just like exhale, like okay,
they got what we were trying to do.
- It worked, it worked.
- The joke landed.
(laughing)
- You bring out the sci-fi genre,
why do you feel like this is so,
it really resonates with people
and people actually come back no matter when it is,
like 20 years ago when the original series was 20 years ago.
That's crazy.
Or now, people are always coming back
to this sci-fi kind of romance thing.
What's so enticing about it?
- I think it's this property in particular,
I think it's just a great story.
And it pulls you in immediately
how deep their connection is.
It's really just beautiful,
'cause I think, correct me if I'm wrong,
but I feel like Max is just a simple man
and he's just a lovely man.
(Nathan laughs)
And I mean it like a--
- I know what you--
- You would never think he's an alien kind of way
and he's just like pure goodness.
And he's a protector, he's still loyal.
And Liz is like so messed up.
she's been abandoned so much,
she has her walls up so high.
So I think like the actual property
it's just fun to love Liz and Max
and watch their journey.
- Yeah, and sci-fi too,
the great thing about it is the possibilities are endless.
- Totally, the curiosity.
- Exactly, you can make up anything
and it's just your imagination and let it run wild.
And I think that encourages a lot of people to stick around,
'cause then they're thinking of things--
- Right.
- They're imaging all kinds of crazy stuff too,
so they get to come on out with us.
- Oh man.
Now I have to admit, I didn't watch the original series,
but I watched the first few episodes and I got hooked.
I was like reeled in,
'cause I was trying to figure out what's going on here
and then wait a minute, you're complicated.
- Yes.
- And then you got issues.
- I got issues.
(laughing)
She's got some stuff to work through people.
It's going to be fun.
- Have you guys heard from the original cast at all?
- Yeah, Shiri Appleby came and directed for us.
She directed episode nine.
And it was so special having her there,
she loves this property so much.
And that's what you always want in a director,
someone whose just in love with what we're doing
and is so attentive and every moment is possibility.
It's like what can we pull from it
and what can we make it?
And she had her phone out trying
to copy shots that Jason Behr and her
had done in the original that we could you know what,
I think I could squeeze this shot into this scene.
Let's make that work.
And just so much enthusiasm, it was wonderful.
- So that episode in particular
is probably going to have a little bit
more Easter eggs for the old Roswell fans.
- Oh my god, it's a big episode.
She was so funny.
It was around Halloween that we shot that episode
and she was like could I not do later in the season?
I got the kids (mumbles),
and they were like this is why you need to do this episode.
And she's got it, I'll be there.
(laughing)
There's a specific reason she's directing that episode.
So it was great, I think fans are going to love it, yeah.
- Now can you talk a little bit about
the differences between this series and the old series?
Like this one I know when I was doing my research
I saw that you guys were really making an effort
both in front of and behind the camera,
diversity with the crew and the writers' room,
and even in the first episode it was like oh,
they're going their with the politics
and just the current state.
Was that a conscious decision, does that excite you?
- Absolutely, it was a return to the book series.
She is Lix Ortecho and she is Mexican-American
and we're acknowledging our day and age
and that this is a border state
and the political climate right now.
And Liz is so ignited (laughs)
about everything she cares about.
But she is an activist and she is the most
intelligent person in most rooms that she's in.
And so she is down to have the roundabout
conversation to prove to you that she's right.
And she's right,
(laughs) so it's like she's so fun to play in that sense
because she comes with all her feelings
and all her activism with such knowledge to back it all up.
She's like I'm going to tell you exactly how it is,
so it was exciting for me to feel
so safe around her in that way
and have my own personal activism emboldened by her.
- Also having jumped 10 years ahead,
now that we are adults, we can have these discussions.
You aren't really talking about this
stuff when you're in high school.
So now that we are adults
and we have regular jobs and just kind of normal people,
we can have these conversations actively
and it not feel forced in any way.
- What I thought was really interesting
about your character in particular
is you say in the first episode just I don't agree with it,
this is what my job is making me do.
And I don't think we see that on TV,
we see very polarizing characters.
It's one side or the other.
And then what I thought was interesting
about your character is you're kind of hey,
I'm just doing what they're telling me to do,
I don't agree with it.
- Right.
And I like that aspect of what
I've been able to bring to the conversation
is just the sort of a little bit more of the middle ground,
like I'm not going to pick one side or the other.
But I'm going to have to do what I have to do,
it's part of my job.
But I'll keep my beliefs to myself and yeah,
that's been fun to play with.
- There's so many twists and turns.
By the time you get two and three
I was having hard keeping track
kind of like whoa, where are they going now?
So tell me the reaction when you
get a script and you're reading it,
are you shocked usually?
What's your initial reaction when you get a script?
- Oh man, yeah, this was my first time
being the number one of a TV show.
And I come from theater and I love having information,
I share that with Liz.
So that was a challenge for me
to get new information every episode and go okay,
how does this play into what I've already built for her
and how will this track?
And the cool thing about the show is that we jump,
we jump to 1947 sometimes,
we jump to a timeline of their emerging out of the pods.
- 2008, we jumped--
- We jump back to our high school time in 2008.
So we're using that way of storytelling
of unveiling information throughout the whole series
and it's really fun.
So far I feel like we've been able to handle it,
but also what is Liz hiding?
What has she been running,
what has she been up to the last 10 years?
Really quickly, she starts to lay the foundation for that
and there's a lot that she's hiding.
So it's been super fun,
it's been really fun to try to stay on the train
and ride the unraveling,
especially when it's a sci-fi show,
the conspiracy, the levels of everything.
That's been really fun to try to keep up with.
- Now, for the audience at home,
explain do you get the script sent to you beforehand,
are you getting it at a table read first?
- We get it before.
I just worked on Grey's Anatomy, glorious Shondaland,
and that it was like you sat down
at the table read and they handed you the scripts and okay.
So you don't really have it as,
we had it a little earlier.
So we were able--
- Had a couple days, yeah. - Several days.
- Yeah, we had a couple days. - It varies.
- Yeah, it was sometimes--
- We were running a little behind every now and then.
(laughing)
- Sometimes we can the night before even.
- Yeah, but it is nice.
That's nice and our writers were gracious,
especially with the two of us and sort of cluing us in
to big things that were coming up,
Which I appreciate.
At the end of the day everyone is on
the side of making this thing great.
And knowledge is,
the information is wonderful in that way.
- Do you find yourself,
you're getting to know these characters so well
and you guys are done filming the first season,
am I correct?
- Yeah, we just finished. - Yeah.
- So you kind of really know your characters,
do you find yourself reading the script
thinking I don't think Liz would say that?
- For sure. - Or Max?
- Absolutely. - Absolutely.
- And that's the best,
'cause our writers are wonderful in that way
where they were vocal about that off the top.
They said you are the guardians of your characters
and when something doesn't feel right, be vocal about that.
And it's yeah, sometimes towards the end
when we were running really late it would be like
writing an email of these are the lines
I just need these little tweaks sort of feel more natural.
And so fun.
- Yeah, they were really good about
having those conversations with us, responding too.
When we had concerns we'd bring to them
and say I don't know that this is really
how this conversation would go down, I don't.
They were really responsive in terms
of just coming back and saying all right,
try this instead, maybe this'll work.
- Yeah.
- Can you give me a specific example?
Put you on the spot.
- Yeah, well one that I just thought of right now
which less to do with the lines,
but we were in Liz's bedroom and the Crashdown Cafe,
the background of the Crashdown, sorry,
the backroom, like the kitchen at the Crashdown
was our like family hub.
And we have a mural up with a bunch
of pictures of my sister whose passed away 10 years prior
and it just feels lived in, there's a lot of bright colors,
it feels Mexican to me
and it feels like a family is there.
When I walked into Liz's room for the first time,
it felt a bit bare to me like it didn't
have enough of her personality in it.
And so I asked for those (speaking foreign language),
the tall candles that have
the (speaking foreign language) on it.
And we showed up to do the scene
the next day and it was like 40,
they're like which ones do you want
and how many do we scatter?
And so stuff like that where they were just,
yeah, our set dec was so lovely in that way.
- Yeah, they were awesome.
- Where they wanted us to feel good in the spaces.
- Well, we thought we want to take advantage
of having you guys here,
we have a signature game called fishing for answers.
And so we have some questions in this fishbowl
and you guys are going to go fishing
and we're going to hear some answers out of you guys.
I'm going to give you this.
- Okay, go fishin', let's do it.
- Am I going first?
- You fish first.
- Okay.
(Jeanine laughs)
- Let's see.
Name an actor's career you'd like to emulate.
Oh, there's so many.
I think let's just start with Robert Downey Jr.
- Yeah, that's fun times.
- He's had such a wonderful resurgence with Marvel
and everything he's been able to do with them.
That character is just so much fun.
Every time I watch him I'm just like ah,
he was having a blast right now
just messing around, it's great.
- Is that something you'd like to explore?
- Oh, yeah, for sure.
- What actor would say no to that?
(laughing) - Wouldn't everybody?
- No, please don't call.
(Nathan laughs)
I'm fine without a superhero franchise.
(laughing)
- How about you?
- It's so funny, I was just sitting in your green room
looking at the cover with Olivia Colman
and Rachel Weisz and Emma,
and Rachel Weisz, she's amazing.
Her and Daniel Craig, like goals,
let's talk about that for a minute.
But just everything she does I want to see, I will see.
Because I am fascinated by the choices she makes.
And yeah, I just really admire her.
I love what she's crafted, she just seems wonderful.
So maybe I should never meet her
so that I could keep that.
I'm sure she's great.
- [Laela] I'm sure she's lovely.
- Okay, this is me breaking the bowl.
- I got it.
- Thank you, sir.
What is a popular film you're embarrassed
to admit you haven't seen?
Oh, this is good.
Oh, what's that, Taxi Driver?
- Taxi Driver.
- Yeah, haven't seen that yet.
- Okay.
- It's like taxi man?
Taxi man, I think it's taxi man.
- The taxi man movie.
(laughing)
- Taxi Driver, haven't seen it yet.
I'm going to go home and watch it now
'cause I'm so embarrassed.
- We had to shame you, sorry about that.
- Sorry, guys. - Mine's worse.
- What is it? - oh, gosh.
- Titanic.
- What? - Wow.
- Never seen Titanic.
- Wow.
- And now it's too late for me,
I can't watch it now.
- No, I think you should--
- It's too late.
- But just you're going to cry for a long time.
It's surprisingly hard.
- No, I think I'm okay.
I know how it ends, so.
- Got it.
(laughing)
Get on that fish, fish away.
- All righty, let's see.
Best thing about shooting in New Mexico.
- Oh, man, we can talk about this all day.
- Oh my goodness, yeah, we can.
- If you don't know, the show is filmed there.
- For sure. - On location.
- On location in New Mexico. - Roswell, New Mexico.
- God bless CW, we in New Mexico.
- I'm just trying to pick which one.
- Right?
- I would say best part about shooting there specifically
would be just the vistas and the environment,
the way that the light hits everywhere all the time.
It's stunning.
The sky is huge.
I grew up in Texas and it's very similar to that,
just enormous sky and these sweeping valleys and mesas.
And I think we tried to capture
as much of that as we could while we were there.
And you look over at one of our camera operators, Todd,
was always like filming something off in the distance.
They're like what are you looking at, man?
He's like b-roll, b-roll. - B-roll.
- Ah, Todd.
Todd from Florida
as we call him. - Todd from Florida.
(laughing)
- Oh gosh, I have to also say the crew.
It's so quickly become a place that has so much work
and so much grade A work being done in.
Godless was shot there,
Breaking Bad sort of started the train,
Netflix just bought Albuquerque Studios.
And I am so happy for that film community
'cause they are so gracious
and so happy to have us and such loyalists.
Longmire was there for forever and that show just ended
and most of the crew and our hair and makeup department
came on to us. - Oh, that's great.
- So it's just like a family.
It really feels like that.
The crew's been just the loveliest.
Our last day on set were just like honestly,
we're just excited for your work to be shared,
for their work to be shared.
'cause some of the shots they got are just so beautiful.
- Yeah, they work so hard.
- Fishing, fishing.
Okay, we're primed for this one.
Favorite alien from film or TV.
Predator.
(laughing)
- Terrifying.
- ET. - ET.
- There we go, I was waiting for that.
That or ALF.
- Yes.
- We talked about this today.
- Just were talking about ALF.
- I don't know why the first time
we got asked this question we were
kind of like not ready for it.
And he was like,
he answered first and he was like oh,
ET. - ET.
- And I was like well, it's Predator.
And the journalist was like--
- Rob's like what?
- What the hell is wrong with this girl.
(laughing)
- Predator. - It was awesome.
(laughing)
- Pretty great.
- Thank you, sir.
- USC or UCLA?
(Jeanine laughs)
Okay.
- Let's talk about this one.
- Let's talk about this.
- Now if you don't know,
we have one that went to USC and that went to UCLA.
- Bruins, go Bruins.
- Actually, truthfully,
I'm going to take the third option.
I grew up in Austin, so.
- He's going to go with UT. - How did I know that?
- Hook 'em, hook 'em.
- Oh my gosh.
Yeah, no, go Bruins.
Go Bruins.
- Did the Bruins have a thing?
- We have the eight clap and it's a thing, okay?
It's a longer thing than this.
Is it this or?
I don't even know.
Super.
(laughing)
- And last question.
- Last, first gig in Hollywood.
(cheers) In the town of Hollywood?
- In Hollywood, in the industry.
Let's just say in the industry.
What was your first gig?
- My first job ever was a one-off
random commercial I did when I was a little wee baby
because my parents' office building
happened to have in the elevator
an ad for an audition for Latin America Disney.
It was a House of Mouse commercial.
And so I auditioned for the House of Mouse
commercial and I got the job.
And they wouldn't let me audition
for anything until I was 18
and I begged them to let me
audition for that one commercial.
- [Laela] Wow, okay.
- Booked it, 100% success rate, people.
(laughing)
But I didn't have another audition till I was 18
'cause they were like yeah, you're never doing that again.
(laughing)
- That's amazing.
So yeah, my first job in Hollywood in Hollywood
was So You Think You Can Dance?
My first gig, four days out of high school,
I came out here for that.
How about you?
You worked when you were a baby too.
- And you took it all. - Yeah.
- Jump on it. - Thank you, darling.
- Yeah, I guess it's not really in,
it's when I was still living in Texas.
First professional,
well, paid professional gig was a cartoon.
- [Jeanine] That's right.
- Was 11 years old.
- [Jeanine] You did a lot of that.
- I did a lot of that,
that's how I started was called
Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water.
Good luck finding it.
- [Laela] (laughs) People are on YouTube right now.
- [Jeanine] Get to work.
- It's somewhere.
Yeah, I did that show, dubbed that.
It's a anime show and it's fun
'cause you're 11 years old and you go into a little box
and it's just like you and the sound guy.
Then you just start playing around
trying to match the little mouth up on the TV.
- [Jeanine] That's so fun.
- It's ridiculous.
- That's so fun.
- That's how I started.
- Speaking of, we unfortunately are out of time.
- This was so lovely.
- It was wonderful. - We have to wrap it up.
- Thank you.
- So sorry. - Thank you for having us.
- But thank you so much for joining us.
- Thank you. - Absolutely.
- And be sure to check Roswell, New Mexico,
on the CW on Tuesdays.
Thanks so much guys.