Sci-Fi Talk – A rare audio interview with Sarah-Jane, conducted by Sci-Fi Talk in March 2007. Sarah-Jane discusses amongst other topics her roles in the thrillers The Entrance and Case 39.

On today’s edition of Sci Fi Talk. We have Sarah Jane Redmand. She’s appearing in the film recently. The Entrance and Case 39. Would Renee Zellweger and actor Ian McShane, she’s known, is playing Aunt Nell on the television series Smallville. She’s also appeared on television series like Kyle XY, The X-Files, Millennium and also Harsh Realm.

Here’s my conversation with Sarah Jane Redmond here on sci fi talk.

Thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate you doing this. Um, I think the thing that I really want to start off with is a project that sounds pretty exciting and kind of up my alley is a film that you did, that I understand, is going to the Brussels Film Festival. The Entrance.

It is. Yeah, it is. How much do you know about it?

Well, I do know that it’s a detective which you play, and she’s a good officer, and then she runs across some things that might lean a little bit on the occult side, and hence the tale, as Sherlock Holmes would say.

Yeah, it’s kind of like a sci-fi thriller. It was a script that was only 60 pages long, which is, uh, really unusual for a feature film script, but the director really wanted us to improvise and sort of find a way through the scenes and create that dramatic tension. It was just a fantastic, fantastic project to work on.

There’s a great, great, great fight scene in there. We, we both myself and Michael, Michael Eklund the gentleman who plays opposite me, we went to this fight school a couple of weeks before we shot that.

Did you get a chance to work with Colin Cunningham in the film?

I did. Yes.

I know, Colin. I’ve actually interviewed him in the past at a convention a few years back. He’s great. He’s a terrific actor.

He is fantastic. He also worked with me on Da Vinci’s Inquest.

Yes. Yes, I actually, I actually spoke to a few people that have worked on that show in the past.

Oh great.

Yeah, we don’t get that here in the States, but it’s certainly something that I’m aware of.

You do actually.

Oh we do now? Wow.

Yeah. You’ve had it for the past couple of years.

Oh really? Maybe hopefully it will be on DVD too, so we can watch a whole bunch of them in a row. That’s the way I like to watch them these days.

Yeah, yeah! I think they just released them in January on DVD.

Okay, well, very cool. Very cool.
Uh, in this particular film, you know, you play a police detective, can you kind of give us a thumbnail sketch as to the kind of person that she is?

I think she’s the kind of cop… that’s very tied up in what’s happened to her, in the past. She’s become a cop to sort of subconsciously find some sort of redemption, for… for some sort of dark demons that she had in the past.

Thus, she gets taken on this night of sort of wild adventure, and she’s given a choice, of which direction to go, whether to find a way through that or or to be, I guess, to be controlled by the past.

She’s an extremely, um, she’s new at a job. That was really interesting, because when you play a cop, you wanna look like you know what you’re doing…

Right.

… but then you also have to take that into consideration, you know, somebody whose sort of new on the job, and so there’s kind of a fine line between that. But my brother is a private detective…

Oh there you go.

… So he really helped me out with a lot of the stuff.

So you had kind of like a little built in technical adviser.

I did!

Now will you be going to the Brussels Film Festival to promote the movie?
Or how is that gonna work for you?

You know, I’m just waiting to hear from Damon, the director, if we’re heading down for that, I’d love to go.

Yeah.

It’s kind of, we set out to have a great time. And that’s what made the film so great, we just set out, you know, it’s not the end result. If we had a great film, fantastic but we’re doing it because we love to do it. And that’s what made it so great!
And so now, we’re thinking, “Well, okay, next step would be fantastic, to go to a film festival with it.” But we’ll see. So I’m waiting to hear from Damon on that.

There’s another movie that you worked on, Case 39. You actually play Mrs Barron and, talk about some nice people in that, Renée Zellweger and Ian McShane, an actor who I’ve admired for years and years, and that Renée plays a social worker and that she gets a case that’s also more than she bargained for.
How do you kind of fit into the whole plot?

Well, I was hoping to fit in, another way than I did. There’s a part of, ah, a mother who has had a child who turned out to be, the devil, and I was sort of up to play that role, of the mother, which was just a fantastic role, and what happens a lot in Canada is, they cast a lot of the leads down in the States, so that’s what happened with that. But they offered me a smaller role, which was great, because soon as I heard it was with Ian McShane that, that’s what made it, you know, really appealing to me.

The biggest thing that I got out of that with how sweet Renée Zellweger was, you can’t fake that, and she was so genuine and sincere and generous. Yeah, it’s not that I have a stereotype of people that were in that position at all, but it was just… It was so it was so overwhelming. She was just lovely.

That’s great. And Ian McShane, you know, he seems like a pretty intense actor.

Yeah, yes. He was very subdued. Very nice. I think, he, he’s pretty private in terms of his work. You know, I’d just watch his work, and it’s incredible. I mean, I just sort of brushed the surface with him. I mean, not even that. So I’d really love to get down and dirty with Ian McShane!

Oh, there you go! It seems like, uh, like, you know, like a lot of actors who have been in Canada, you know, since you are Canadian, essentially you kind of worked your way through The X Files and a lot of Chris Carter shows, uh, starting with the The X-Files and Harsh Realm, of course. And then, Millennium, of course. And, boy, I mean, talk about, you know, your role as Lucy Butler on Millennium, that was just an amazing part.

It was.

And, uh, and then you went through the makeup part of it too, which is, you know, quite a chore, too. And then you actually again worked with Lance, in a movie, it was a movie called The Invitation that Lance was in.

Yeah, it’s so funny because I’m sitting with another actress who was in The Invitation, right now.

Oh yeah? Thats funny. That’s really funny!

Lance Henriksen… When I first got into film work, after I went to theater school, I was gonna quit because it just, I wasn’t getting the, um, the juice, the vibe, the energy, the creativity. I thought, well, maybe you can’t. Maybe you can’t get it, in television I’m talking about. You know when you first start out, you do the smaller parts. And then I met Lance Henriksen, and he just ignited that and he was just so full of life and passion, and so generous as an actor, and he really sort of inspired me, to see what it could be like?

Yeah, that’s awesome. And what are your memories of playing Lucy Butler on Millennium? She had an interesting art, to say the least.

Dark and wonderful.

Oh yes! And the makeup process, how was that for you?

It’s so much fun, so much fun. I mean, it’s just, you’re doing what you love to do. You’re working with people for the most part who are loving what they do. It’s absolutely fantastic, that the makeup was you know, it’s like being a kid in a sandbox. You’re just playing, but especially when you put on that kind of prosthetics with people that talented, that they spend that much time on with you, you actually, you put that on and it’s kind of freaky, because you really get to explore, that part of you, you have freedom, you have permission to do that. So it’s quite cathartic.

That’s cool. You know, of course, people also know you as Aunt Nell from Smallville. And, uh, actually, I thought she kind of kind of got a little bit of a raw deal on the show.

I know!

And I’ll tell you why. I just, I thought they kind of portrayed her kind of in a bad way towards the end, that she was pulling, you know, Lana, away from Smallville, but, it turns out to me, you know, that I could see that she was also finding her own happiness. And she was entitled to that.

Yeah, you know, I just think that, the way they put it, they just needed to shake up Lana’s world a little bit. The thing is, you never know in this business. I mean… it could be they just had to take a different story direction.

Right.

It could be they didn’t like your work, and they wanted to write you out of the show.
I mean, who knows what the reason is?

The great thing was, that you know, I was part of a legend, you know. Superman!

Absolutely. Yeah.

That was really, really cool.

Yeah, that was fun. I got to go back, this season on it.

Oh, great. That’s cool! That’s awesome. That’s a

That’s a funny thing. It’s like, you know, you’re like, one degree next to Superman. You know Lana Lang, his childhood sweetheart from Smallville. I mean, how how much closer can you be?

Laughs…

You know, to the man of steel, other than that, So that’s pretty cool.

Laughs.I have a man of steel in my life.

Oh, there you go. There, you go.

Laughs.

One other thing is you know, you will be appearing in Timeless Destination, this coming summer, and that’s a great convention. Have you done conventions before this one?

I’ve done one. Not Timeless Destination. I’ve done one, and it was the weirdest, wildest experience, (laughs), but I think it was unusual for a for a convention. Um, yeah. It was a small bill convention, in Coventry, in England.

Oh right. Yes, of course, of course.

But it was put on by this very, very young guy who just had a lot of money and liked Smallville and managed to get four of us, together.

Yeah, it was strange. But Margot Kidder was there!

Yes, that’s right.

She was a blast. Yeah, she was a blast. I had a night I’ll never forget with her.
She took me to the theater in London, and I went to see an amazing show, and she was just full of stories.

Oh I bet!

And just, just taking the subway into London with her, was just fantastic.

That’s awesome. Sounds like a lot of fun.
I think you’ll like Timeless, because it’s a very intimate convention. I don’t know if you did it in the Smallville convention, in the UK, but here you’ll have the chance to do panels, and things like that. And I think you’ll really enjoy the questions, people really watch a lot of the stuff that you’re in and that will be surprising, if it wasn’t that way in England, That’s cool.

Fantastic!

Uh, and its funny because some of the guests that are going to Timeless, you’ve actually worked with.

You worked with Dan Payne on Alice, I Think. He’s going to be there.

He’s a really, really sweet, lovely guy.

Yeah, he’s very much a fan favorite there. And also, you’ve been on The Collector, so I don’t know, did you work when Ellen was she on the show when she was doing it?

I didn’t work with her, but I definitely know her.

Okay.

Yeah, you were actually, we’re also in A Wrinkle In Time with her, even thoug, not at the same time, because she was in that hairy costume.

Uh, but she did a great job there, too.

That was so much fun.

Yeah, actually, I want to talk about your website because you mentioned, uh, Smallville and the Smallville Convention. There’s a great shot of you and Margo there, and also some other shots of you just throughout your career, including some great make up shots for Lucy Butler.

Yeah!

You know, so people can, you know, can visit that and check out, what’s going on in your career, and your news is great, because it updates you on everything. And there’s stuff from the, you know, also from The Entrance there as well, so people could see that. There’s a lot of good things that people have on your site that they can visit.

There’s tons of stuff. Tons of stuff.

Yeah!

The guy who runs my website, he’s just putting together some signed autographs from Millennium, and sells them on the site, and we raised money for charities and yeah, it’s great. He actually does it for free. He’s a fan of Millennium.

Well, that’s great. That’s great.
Another actor is going to be at Timeless, you worked with in the same episode of The Outer Limits, Nicholas Lea is going to be there, too.

Oh great!

Yeah, and it also has an X-Files connection, of course.

You know we work on Kyle XY together.

Oh, there you go! That’s right. That’s right.

There’s some great shots of you on your site. And there’s a shot of you in Falcon Beach and you thank your trainer on there too, on the caption, and as one who has seen the picture, I thank your trainer also. She did a good job.

Yeah! It was fun to watch too,

That’s great. Laughing. I thank her big time!

You’ve had, you know, an interesting career, so far, and actually, in Da Vinci’s Inquest, you also went on to Da Vinci’s City Hall, as well, playing the same character., Sheila Kurtz. What’s it like to kind of play a character, the same character, but in two different shows?

Well, I mean, you’re playing the same, basically, just carry it over.

Yeah, yeah,

They sort of had the same feel to it. So there really wasn’t that much difference. you want,

You know, it’s funny, they become like family to you, because we worked on that show for 8 years together. But, you always. I mean, I always, go back and look at things, and I think, you know, there’s so much more that I could have done with it.

That was definitely the style of the show. They really, really, really loved letting the audience think for themselves, not having to explain everything, not having to spell everything out. And and it was much more about the story than, you know, the drama of the personal characters.

What are your memories of working on Kyle XY? That’s certainly a very fascinating show, an interesting concept.

Yeah, you know, the young, the young kid, he’s, you know, he’s fantastic. And so I think they’ve got a great person leading their show.
The producers are all really excited about it, and I hope it goes well.
You get to a point where you work, where you’ve worked for a while and you hope for the best, for a show.

Sure.

… and you just take it day by day.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Would you be up to be doing a series? You know, like a regular in a series again?

That’s what I’m going down to California for.

Oh, cool. Cool. Are we still in pilot season?

It’s the way that it works in Canada. I have a green card, and basically, you really have to be in the States still, to get the leads.

Sure.

They cast all the leads down there, and then they come up here and cast the principles, so that’s what I’m going for.

But, can you say what kind of show it is, or you don’t want to jinx anything?

Oh, no, I’m just, I’m just putting it out there.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. Is it like something like sci-fi or in the horror vein, something that you’re interested in doing again?

You know, it seems to follow me. I just wanna have fun, work with people who are loving what they’re doing, work on something that has great writing and that inspires people when they watch it, and that sends out good, positive vibes, and that’s interesting and challenging and intellectual. And that’s what I’d like to do.

Yeah, well, I mean you’ve worked on a movie that actually had a couple of, you know, Golden Globe winners, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
You played Amber Tamblyn’s mom, and actually she’s, you know, went on to do a horror show and then America Ferrara was in the show, too. And now doing great but Ugly Betty.

What was it like in that experience? Working with those actors on that project?

Uh, Amber was, you know, you could tell she was, she was, she really cared about her craft. She really cared about what she was doing. And, uh, she was the one that I worked with most on. It’s always so interesting, big budget features are so different to work on, than independents, obviously, just such a different energy. She was great to work with. Obviously she took it very seriously. Um, that’s what I love about the business. You work with such different people.

Any stories about working in Smallville? With Kristen et all?

No, but I have one about Michael Rosenbaum.

Okay, Great.

I don’t really have a story about him, you know, but he’s very charismatic, charming.

Oh, yeah.

He’s very, very charismatic, and he always makes it fun to work around him.

You know, it’s really funny in our shows with the listeners briefly, but, he does a lot of cartoon voices. He’s the voice of The Flash on the Justice League, and they needed a villain. There’s one episode, so he does essentially an impression of Kevin Spacey playing, doing the villain. And, of course, Superman Returns comes along and who plays Lex Luther? Kevin Spacey. It’s really a strange twist of fate, but he did amazing, right on impersonation of him. You’re I’m watching the animated series, and I’m saying “That’s Kevin Spacey! It can’t be Kevin Spacey!” And it was actually Michael Rosenbaum doing the voice, because apparently he does do a lot of different voices very well. So…

Yeah, he’s extremely talented.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I really want to thank you for taking the time and certainly wish you the best and look forward to actually meeting you at Timeless. And I think you’ll have a great time there on you know, a lot of your fans will be able to, you know, to meet you there. It’s also nice to have it up in beautiful Vancouver, which is just gorgeous place. And so I think, will be a lot of fun for you. I’m looking forward to that. I think there will be a really nice thing.

Great.

So thanks for taking the time out.

Absolutely.

Outro.

Look for Sarah-Jane Redmond at Tmeless Destinations. Check out timelessdestinations.com for more information on Sarah and other Timeless guests plus, check out her official site at SarahJaneRedmond.com. Until next time, on Sci-fi Talk.

This is Tony Tellado. Thanks for listening.