Season Two Interviews and Reviews - SPOILERS

[Jan]

I'm likely to be moving a number of things from the Gearing Up to Season Three thread to this one since most of them don't have much to do with the third season.

To start, though, here's a brief interview with Brian Smith:

http://popculture.com/2017/05/08/sen...rview-trump/#2

[sense8ional]

Thanks Jan for making this thread.

Let me repost here and delete the ones that don't fit in the other thread later today, if that's ok! I also have some interviews bookmarked that I haven't yet posted because I wasn't sure where to - now I know!

I also suggest you put in the thread title there could be spoilers, as some interviews can be discussing the finale, or anything else.

Also the new making of video that you posted can be pretty spoilery as it shows many scenes throughout the whole season, so perhaps it fits better here.

[Jan]

That would be a big help if you could do that, thanks. Never enough hours in the day.

Added the Spoiler warning to the thread title.

BTW, anybody is welcome to start new threads. Every once in a while I might tidy things up if something's repetitive but that's about it.

[Jan]

This is fun. Not quite a 'making of' but it has some of that sort of shots:
http://www.ign.com/videos/2017/05/16...he-shows-scope

ETA: JMS posted this link with a comment:

https://moviepilot.com/p/sense8-scie...-story/4265257

Originally Posted by JMichael Straczynski

Great article catching the science we put behind #sense8. (One key sentence hints at the future of the story.)

[sense8ional]

Complimentary YouTube link for the promo / bts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XurWEXHbydg

I think at 01:00 it might be Aml Ameen along with the rest.

1) It kind of maybe sort of looks like him if you squint.

2) That scene looks like a deleted scene from the special, as that shot in the special of Wolfgang lighting his cigarette is from the side and we don't see the other 7 behind him, while they presumably filmed some interaction there. Why it was cut.. probably because Ameen was in it.

And 3) because Ameen himself posted pictures of the exact same spot when they filmed there: https://www.instagram.com/p/_9SbcbRLvC/ and video: https://www.instagram.com/p/_7ggwprdhR/

So, I strongly believe that's Ameen and not a reshoot with Onwumere when they went to Berlin again.

As for the key sentence in that article? Dunno. The astral projection bit?

edit The following two posts are reposts from the other thread. I just deleted from there, so now we're good.

[sense8ional]

REPOSTS FROM THE OTHER THREAD:

Interview with Desai and Riemelt: http://collider.com/sense8-max-rieme...sai-interview/

Riemelt on their determination:

Also, the work itself just got more. I felt like we tried to reach even higher and they tried to challenge us more, and pushed the boundaries, in every way. When we started the second season, we had to jump off of a platform on a rig, just to show our will to cross a certain line or to overcome our fears. That represents how committed we had to be, in the second season.

Ok, so that explains those early March 2016 videos, remember?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BCdTzigxLlv/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BCdh-TvHEGG/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BCdoncGxtfY/

Lana's less strict direction this time:

TINA DESAI: For me, it was easier to go back into the second season because you’ve played the character through a season, and then when you watch how it actually comes out in the edit, my understanding of the character improves. That’s why I always like shooting a film, after I shoot the film. There’s a deeper understanding of what your director and writer, and in this case they’re the same people, expect of you from the character, and there’s a better understanding within you, for what you want to do with the character. There’s a comfort that comes into it. And then, with this season, Lana [Wachowski] gave us more freedom to do what we wanted to do within the scenes. In the first season, she directed us more and tried different tones, in performing each scene. With this season, she gave us the liberty to use whatever tone we wanted. It was nice because you had that creative freedom, going into playing the character again.

How Riemelt got the job in the first place:

I went to London for that audition. I was in the middle of another project, and it was so exciting just to talk to them. I was so nervous, but somehow I could concentrate in that very moment, and Lana directed me and we tried some stuff. After that, I waited for a couple of week, and then I received a call and my agent told me that they’d like to work with me. That was so exciting! After that, I found out that Tom Tykwer was the reason why I got this job. He had wanted to work with me, for a long time. That was also a really good introduction, for me, to that world. I’m not a native speaker. For me, sometimes it was hard to think and speak that fast in English, so Tom made it possible and more accessible for me to play these English scenes. I had to find my own voice and my own English.

Desai on Lana's daily(!) rewrites:

You just try to grapple with whatever information you have in the script, and even that isn’t cast in stone. On the day, Lana rewrites stuff so much, and you don’t even know why the rewrite is happening. I had no idea why I was shooting a scene. I just blindly shot stuff and hoped I was doing a decent job. So, there’s no chance of being wise and saying, “I think my character has reached this state of being.”

Riemelt on their chemistry:

You only can work with what’s there, in the room and on the day. Thank god that Tina and I really like each other. We have a certain chemistry, which is important. It’s nothing that we have to fake.

Iiiinteresting!

Desai:

In my life, I naturally gravitate towards the bad boy and it’s similar with Kala.

There goes my chance! Bah!

DESAI: Sitting in India and living the sheltered life that I have, there were so many things that I was not exposed to, at all. A lot of people in my country are that way. There are so many people that come up to me and ask me basic questions like, “What is a transgender?” That’s something that I didn’t even know until Season 1. So, it’s basically spreading awareness, as well.

I also remember an interview in which she said she didn't know what a Pride parade was, until they shot in SF for season 1.

--

The first part of their interview with Malerba is: http://newsflix.altervista.org/sense...berto-malerba/

In 2004 I met the Wachowskis, then Larry and Andy, and my first collaboration with them was V for Vendetta . Then Speed ​​Racer , Ninja Assassin , Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending . I set up Sense8 's first season, but I did not turn it on for health reasons.

He indeed is not credited in the first season.

Also, the second season has a bigger budget and you can see how it was shot, for the size of the project and the addition of many cities. The locations are larger, the action scenes are more extensive, but the original concept of a story about the behavior of humans and their relationships is always maintained. It has evolved and expanded, but it is always Sense8 .

Was it difficult to follow such a complex production as Sense8 ?

It is definitely the largest pseudo-television company ever made. Especially with Season 2. We've been shooting in 16 cities, meaning that every time you have to do something you have to do it 16 times because the characters are located in several parts of the world. We had two sets of everything other than the actors and the costumes. The first set of cameras are in the place where they run, the second set in the second city. After finishing the first set, this is sent to the third city and so on. Fortunately, the crew is made up of professional A series, like the director of photography John Toll (three Oscars); The same goes for production, people who usually work on James Bond's movies or with Ridley Scott. The group of actors and actors is like a family, they are united in all the difficulties and somehow have overcome everything, including fatigue.

Do you have any curiosity about the actors?

Miguel (Lito) is a macho, but he is always with his mom. When he is not with her he makes the latin lover with the girls (laughs, ndr); Tina (Kala) is very kind and confidential, she is very much in her culture; Tuppence (Riley) works with the Wachowski by Jupiter Ascending ; Doona (Sun) has known them for a long time, from Cloud Atlas . At the time she did not speak English, today she is the representative for Asia of Louis Vuitton; Brian (Will) is the real spokesman for the group; Toby was doing the waiter two weeks before replacing the old Capheus; Max (Wolfgang) super calm and cute, it's really a love; Instead Jamie (Nomi) is a very lively girl.

Haha. Yeah, this stuff checks out!

Desai is responsible for filming in Positano!

You have traveled virtually anywhere in the world. What was the location that you preferred?

Oddly enough the place everyone's favorite was Positano, then Amsterdam. And to think that it was not expected we would come to Italy. Goa was chosen, but then Tina said to Lana that Indians would never go there on holiday, which is a place for foreigners. So they decided for the Mediterranean. It was thought in Portofino, but then chose Positano.

Goa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa

It is a stimulating challenge for an actor.

Definitely, but sometimes [Lana] went crazy (laughs). Considering what she had to pass before and during the transition from man to woman, she also wanted to send a message to the actors: "I had to overcome my fear, do it too." And so knowing that Tuppence suffers from dizziness, Iceland wanted to put it on top of a mountain. Brian can not swim, he almost drowned. She said: "He had 7 months before shooting to learn how to swim, the scene will turn him to sea. Point". Apart from this, she is a generous person and extreme goodness.

Sense8's origins might be going even further in time, than this iteration with JMS:

Is it true that Sense8 was initially a cinematic project, perhaps in a Matrix style?

Yes, we can say that the initial idea was a movie. Lana began writing the story about 15 years ago for cinema, but everything remained in standby. Then an Indian company bought an American company connected to Netflix and slowly it turned into what we are seeing today, a series in all respects.

Reliance is indeed an Indian company. http://variety.com/2012/tv/columns/r...le-1118057244/

The Indian conglom that has seeded a lot of high-profile investments in the film biz during the past few years has turned its attention to the smallscreen.

Reliance Entertainment is behind the launch of Georgeville Television, the shingle headed by film and TV vet Marc Rosen [...]

Although it surely must have had very little to do with the current iteration.

[sense8ional]

REPOSTS FROM THE OTHER THREAD:

EP Grant Hill on Sense8: http://ew.com/tv/2017/05/15/sense8-g...-2-postmortem/

(No JMS interviews this time, and naturally no Lana either).

How far ahead do you have the mythology of the sensates fleshed out? Or is that on a season-to-season basis?

You know, it’s sort of largely fleshed out, but inevitably it keeps changing. What we’ve found is, because there are so many movable pieces, it’s not really practical to have a hard line for anything, whether it be relationship [stuff] or BPO because there are so many moving pieces. That, by definition, means the script is always changing. The characters are always changing. When you shoot a sequence you’ll all have that sequence written, but we or Lana will make changes as she shoots, to make sure it incorporates any changes in it or things surrounding it since the script was written. Again, I don’t know how she does it. A lot of it’s written, but a lot of it’s in her mind. That’s the engine that keeps it all together.

On how BPO's true goal remains uncertain or unknown to the viewers:

At the moment it’s still unclear what the BPO ultimately seeks to do, or whether it even has a very direct plan. Are they seeking to completely eradicate the sensates? Or do they just want to use them as anything from basic slaves to these weird killing machines? I don’t think we’ve really found out where on the scale that’s going to land. Can it be brought back to something that’s ultimately beneficial or have they totally gone rogue?

You tell me!

Do they have access to the Archipelago network or is that something only the other clusters or sensates know about?

The other clusters know about it or are aware or have heard of it. The thing with the clusters is, none of them know how many other clusters there are. And all of those clusters aren’t necessarily at the same state of evolution. At the moment it’s an awareness thing that there are other people out there that you don’t recognize as sensate or cluster members, but as they evolve, people in clusters sort of have the ability to sense that somebody is there; usually it’s in a quick flash and they develop this knowledge and the awareness that there are these other people.

On whether they knew the season was going to end with the characters meeting:

This is sort of a Lana question. She always felt that would be an appropriate place to end the season. When you start, things do evolve. You don’t end up where you think you would. In this case, it’s where she had in mind as being an obvious or strong point to end. And I think as we were shooting it, everybody realized that this was the way to end it as it was both strong for the story, the fans, and whatever comes after.

On Season 3:

It was such a rush to get this finished, and it’s the only quiet weekend I’ve had for a while. I suppose we’ll start talking now to see where we go.

--

Ethan Stoller on season 2's music: https://blog.tunefind.com/2017/05/be...nse8-season-2/

Director/showrunner/creator Lana Wachowski selects much of the source (licensed) music. She and the picture editors work closely together to choose most of the prominent songs you hear in the show. Sometimes they’ll ask for my input, especially if a song they’ve selected is too expensive. I also work closely with the associate producer and our music clearance guru (Jennifer Reeve, a prominent Music Supervisor on many other shows) to help secure the music Lana wants.

How did you approach the music in season 2? Anything different?

My approach stayed the same, but we did end up experimenting more with original music combining with source music. Lana was in (mixer/composer) Gabriel Mounsey’s room more frequently and they created a lot of interesting score/source marriages.

Many of those have been really popular with the viewers. Are there any plans to release the special recordings and remixes made exclusively for the show?

There have been discussions about it, but I don’t have the details yet. I’m hoping it will get done quicker than the Season 1 soundtrack, which just came out.

Can you share a band or artist you’re most excited to feature this season?

Stella Rhymes, a super talented singer from Australia. She was a fan of the show and reached out to me between seasons, just to share her tunes in case I was looking. I loved her music and I nabbed the perfect opportunity to feature her song, “Escalate” at the beginning of the Pride scene. We’ve talked about collaborating on a new song or two in the future.

My favorite song of the season as Sun does her tai chi:

Good For Me
by Above & Beyond

Ethan: Lana picked this song. She is a big fan of Above & Beyond. I originally made a thumping beat to match the song for the cuts to the Berlin nightclub, but it was distracting. The song is strong enough to score the scene without it.

Another choice by Lana:

Painting Greys
by Emmit Fenn

from Season 2 - Episode 7 - I Have No Room in My Heart for Hate
Riley orders a malt.

Ethan: I’ve seen on social media that this was a new discovery for lots of fans. Lana found this one too – it was new to me also. I like it very much.

[Jan]

Nice interview with Jamie Clayton. I particularly like the discussion of how the show portrays that the 'old' lives of the cluster continue amid all the chaos.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...gement-1004484

ETA: LOVE this!!!!

When the human body fits together however you want it to fit together with whoever you want it to fit together with, it’s a miraculous, messy, fun, sloppy game of Tetris that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy if they want.

[sense8ional]

Why do you think people react to the sex in the show, instead of the violence?

It surprises me. I don’t understand why people have such an issue with sex. I don’t know that I’ll ever get it. But no one has an issue with violence. I’ve seen shows on network television that are so violent in a 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. timeslot and they never show sex. The sex that we’re showing, those people aren’t actually there. You’re seeing the bodies, but the fans understand it’s this emotional connection. There’s that really cool conversation between Nomi and Amanita while they’re on their little sex-nic when Amanita says, “I can feel these other parts of you." She says, "Sometimes you’re really sensitive.” And Nomi says, “That’s Kala.” And she says, “Other times you get really aggressive." And she says, “Oh, that’s Wolfgang (Max Riemelt).” These are parts of her personality that we all have living inside of us, and when you’re with someone that you love and that loves you and that you are safe with and when it’s consensual, you can explore these parts of your personality, there’s nothing wrong with that. Sex between consenting adults is an amazing, beautiful thing. But nobody consents to violence. Nobody wants violence. When the human body fits together however you want it to fit together with whoever you want it to fit together with, it’s a miraculous, messy, fun, sloppy game of Tetris that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy if they want. I don’t know about you, but I never want to get into a gun fight or a knife fight.

The only sexnic I remember was in the Christmas Special, and I don't think there was any dialogue there.. just sex Is this a deleted scene, or am I not remembering well?

Also LMAO at the sex (orgy) / Tetris analogy!!!

I am under no illusion that I did not have to do any fight scenes but our schedule was insane. Everyone was in every city, every minute. Lana wants us there all the time and sometimes we don’t even talk in the scene. Nomi is the only one missing from the restaurant fight scene, it was rewritten that way at the last minute. She hits her head and loses her ability to visit and share, temporarily, because she’s knocked out. I’m curious if the fans are going to pick up on that that’s a thing that can happen.

I knew it!! I wonder why though? I doubt it's for story purposes, Clayton was probably unavailable for some reason.

After Nomi hacks Sun out of jail and they escape and she steals the bus in the parking lot. They were filming that particular scene at sunrise to get that really beautiful light and then we all show up and we all have one line! We were all waiting probably 15 or 16 hours. Sometimes we're held at basecamp while Lana is rewriting and rejiggering scenes. But we are all in every city all the time.

This is what Riemelt was talking about, the "what am I even waiting for, here?" frustration.

It echoes the season one finale in that it was a visiting moment in the boat, and now we’re all physically there in the back of a van. Maybe if there is a season three we’ll all end up in the back of a train or plane! Seems to be a theme. But whatever they want, that’s what I want.

Season 5 ending is going to be a spaceship ..to Babylon 5!

edit

It’s this very intimate set of Nomi’s apartment in San Francisco, which is actually in Chicago, and it was the last scene we were doing that day.

Interesting.

[sense8ional]

Another short BTS promo, this time from Netflix Brazil about the Sao Paolo Gay Parade: https://twitter.com/NetflixBrasil/st...58286675427328

edit Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/netflixbras...67723973284391

edit YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXTAH_Nvx28

[chromate]

Originally Posted by sense8ional

Another short BTS promo, this time from Netflix Brazil about the Sao Paolo Gay Parade: https://twitter.com/NetflixBrasil/st...58286675427328

Looks like they're doing one for every location possibly? I'd rather much just have them release the entire BTS video(s) all in one go!!! Here's the one for Amsterdam, which for some reason was only posted to the Netflix Netherlands page on facebook (not on twitter or anywhere else I believe): https://www.facebook.com/NetflixNede...3305746110952/

[sense8ional]

Great find! Keep them coming! I checked a few localized Netflix social media accounts, but didn't find anything new.

[chromate]

Interview with Miguel and Alfonso (mostly Miguel): http://metrosource.com/2017/05/10/se...eyond-borders/

I really like what Miguel quotes when talking about Lito's sexuality/playing Lito

"What matters here is love," Silvestre says. "One of my favorite Spanish writers — who was gay and died during the Spanish dictatorship — wrote a play called Bodas de Sangre. In it, there is a line that says, 'Cuando el amor llega a los centros, no hay quien lo arranque.' That means, 'When desire gets into your guts, nobody can take it away.' I love that. He is saying that desire is a force of nature stronger than our own will. As you can’t change the rain, and you don’t argue with the sun, you cannot change or fight against love, desire, or your own nature."

[sense8ional]

Very cool!

“Lana explained it like this: She said, ‘Miguel, we all we have a certain energy that we bring into intimacy,’” Silvestre remembers. “She really wanted to explore that in every way possible. That’s why you see those scenes the way you do. You see the group of us open and close like a flower. You see someone kiss someone in a dominant way, and you see someone surrender to that, and then pass it on. There are moments where you’re soft and delicate, and then others that are more about action — from the ability to be strong to the ability to accept a caress. When you’re watching it, you can see it moving like a wave, each person taking something and changing it and then passing it off to someone else in an exchange of energies that reminds us that we all carry a certain poetry that is uniquely our own.”

This reminds me of the season 1 orgy moment at 02:37 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9f7ymhg3mo

Regarding the "Art is love made public" speech by Hernando:

Herrera remembers the scene well. “I knew that speech from the Berlin table read,” he says. “When were shooting, Lana was constantly giving me the direction to let go and relax; don’t push. ‘Let the words be the way,’ she said, ‘and walk through that.’ I see now that it was very much like her saying not to push or pull — just to ride the wave of the speech. After the fifth or sixth take, I understood that. It all became very clear once I got out of the way and let the words do the work.”

His performance was great there!

very late edit New link: https://metrosource.com/sense8/

[sense8ional]

Some stuff that I have bookmarked:

Interview with Naveen Andrews: http://collider.com/sense8-season-2-...ews-interview/

NAVEEN ANDREWS: There was a whole new set of challenges, but at the same time, it was tempered by the fact that we were used to the schedule, in terms of its unpredictability. You have to memorize dialogue very, very quickly sometimes because Lana [Wachowski] is constantly rewriting. We had that in the first season, but it continued in Season 2. You just have to be ready for it, be malleable, and be able to adapt. And we’re all involved. We bonded in San Francisco, before we started the first season, and that’s still all there.

Lana "has drawn elements from our personal lives", and he auditioned specifically for Jonas.

Lana's directing informing the actors:

For me, I began to get a sense of the character from actually working with Lana on set and how she chooses to work with actors. In this case, she literally will be talking to you, as you’re shooting the scene, right behind the cameraman. As the camera moves, she’ll ask you to say lines, as a different character or in a different voice, all of which might be disconcerting, if you had a very set or fixed idea of how you wanted to render a character. With Lana, you have to be open because then you can discover things that are deeply buried and that people don’t really show, in everyday life. I think that’s what she’s trying to do. That’s when I started to have a sense of the character, actually working on set.

The shooting in two different stations (which in the show is the old and modern versions of the same) wasn't in the script and was thought up later:

In terms of locations, I remember being in Amsterdam and we ended up shooting in The Hague, in a very modern station because Lana wanted to have a contrast between the modern station and an older location, and to cut between the two. I had no idea that was going to happen because it wasn’t in the script, so you have to be ready for just about anything.

Mini-interview with Mann and Hannah: http://www.mycentraloregon.com/2017/...emieres-today/

Article with the titles of some of the featured music: https://mic.com/articles/176900/sens...e-new-episodes

I have more to post later