Ariyon Bakare co-stars in sci-fi horror film ‘Life,’ which hits theaters Friday, March 24th.
Tell me about your character and what attracted you to the project.
AB: I play a character called Hugh Derry who’s a microbiologist, and basically he’s in charge of creating the atmosphere for the specimen. He’s like the opposite of Miranda—he kind of takes risks. What attracted me to it? Well I read the script when I was in L.A., and I was invited to go to an audition. And when I read the script I just thought it was one of the most exciting scripts I’ve ever read—I had this visceral kind of reaction to it—screaming and shouting, going, “Oh no no no!” But yea, it was a part that you couldn’t really say no to.
How would you describe your character?
AB: He’s very dedicated to his work, passionate, quite steely, but with a kind heart. He believes that there’re always answers out there, and he will search for them as much as he can.
What sets ‘Life’ apart from other sci-fi films?
AB: This is a horror space movie. It’s kinda like going back to the days of this whole kind of lagoon and monsters and—you never know what the ending’s going to be, and it’s never what we expect. Every time I watch it I’m glued to the edge of my seat; it’s that fast and that furious and that exciting. I think that’s what people are going to expect from this. The answer we always get is that, “I didn’t know the ending could be so good.”
What kind of preparation did you have to do?
AB: I had a lot of training; I came on a lot earlier than most of the actors because my character has an ailment—he’s paraplegic. Basically I did two weeks with a young man called Steve who lost his legs when he was twenty-five, and we would literally go around every day in a wheelchair. I played tennis with him in a wheelchair. I just wanted to kind of embody the character in a deeper way—now I understand science a lot more, and I understand microbiology a bit more as well. I found myself in a microscope looking at cell formations, and understanding the periodic table. And I was absolutely awful at science in school, so it was like going back to school again.
Tell us a little about your characters relationship to the specimen.
AB: My relationship with the specimen is almost like as if—it’s like having your first born. You know when you see a child—do you have any children?—remember that feeling you had when you saw on the scanner the first time? That’s exactly what it’s like. And then it’s like, wow, I’m the person that’s going to bring this little thing up, and I’m going to have to control it, tame it, teach it stuff. That’s what my reaction is to it. And then like everything else it’s like you have a baby that cries all the time that you look after, and then it becomes a teenager and it’s throwing things out, and yet you still love it.
I imagine you were suspended from wires for most of the film.
AB: All the time, all the way through the film. It was continuous suspension on wires. It was a lot to deal with; it was really painful. The great thing about this film is that there are only six people in the film, and so it’s a small cast, so we all were very supportive of each other, and everybody kind of could see if someone was ever finding something a bit uncomfortable with the wires, and would take time to work through it. It took time, you know? That’s why a lot of the preparation beforehand was about us finding ways to be relaxed so you can’t tell that we are on wires.
Tell me about a favorite moment on set.
AB: There was one day I was on wires and we all had to have these earpieces, these comms that we all talked to each other through. And I was doing mine, and Ryan puts his iPod onto his microphone, and I could here “Let’s get it ooooon,” and so next thing you know the whole crew—all of us—are singing “Let’s Get It On” on the ISS, and it was so cool.
What are some of your favorite sci-fi films?
AB: One of my favorite sci-fi films is ‘Metropolis.’ It’s an amazing film. I love Solaris; I think Solaris is just genius. And I was thinking about it last night—do you know which one I really like? ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers.’ Both versions. Come on! It’s so classic in a really kind of—I don’t know. When you see the one with Donald Sutherland, you kind of say, ”Wow,” you know? It’s such a great remake of the original. But the original was so good.
