During New York Comic Con, I sat in on the audience Q & A panel with Maggie Q, Shane West and Albert Kim. Check back later for the post containing the actual interviews.
Nikita’s first season, for those who don’t know, followed the protagonist’s mission to avenge her fiancee’s wrongful death, prevent her former employer’s immoral practices, and bring its leader, Percy (Xander Berkeley), to justice. Season two opens with a slightly different game changer and a re-positioning of the characters.
During the audience Q & A panel, Maggie Q (Nikita), Shane West (Michael) and Albert Kim (kickass producer) discussed season two’s initial six episodes. According to the group “it’s a show on the run.” While “it’s more work,” that doesn’t mean it’s less fun. Compared to last season’s re-boot of the series, season two is a completely different show and Maggie believes people will be shocked at what they see. I know the show has veered away from season one territory, but the cast seemed incredibly enthusiastic and urged everyone to trust the writers.
The three had incredible chemistry typical of a year-long working history. Both Maggie and Albert discussed what I sensed was an ongoing conversation topic regarding doing more character backstories. Although both saw the creative potential, Albert feared just writing stories without anchoring them in the overarching Division plot.
However, he would love to do Amanda’s backstory even though the less you know about her, the scarier she is. Regarding Percy’s backstory, he hinted the latter was probably good at division in school. Get it? If you do, groan good-naturedly.
As colleagues, both Maggie and Shane exhibited the playfulness that develops between two dramatic leads by sharing the same coffee cup and casually touching each other. I once had a director who literally outlawed the cast from sharing cups, so I kept waiting for his specter to jump on stage and knock the cup out of their hands. During the Q & A, Maggie mocked Shane’s “perfect body” and his discomfort with the ill-fitting flashback wardrobe to display early Michael’s uncertainty.
Most of the panel focused on the characters’ relationships and their season two progression.
Albert described Nikita and Alex’s relationship as a natural back and forth where, like adults, the two gradually come together and occasionally fall apart.
On “Mikita,” AKA Michael and Nikita, Albert admits the relationship happened sooner than they planned during season one. However, the producers accelerated it based on Maggie and Shane’s on screen interaction and the audience’s response. They decided to use their season two interaction to define Michael as a character. Although both exhibited great chemistry during season one, both actors feel their increasing comfort with each other enabled even more natural on-screen intimacy. Remember the backrub scene? So, do Maggie and Shane. Maggie laughingly stated they’re initially “pretending to be boring.”
However, “Mikita” will ebb and flow, just like Nikita and Alex. If you watched the recent episodes, you know what’s going on. Both Albert and Maggie used “adult” to describe Michael and Nikita’s increasingly complicated relationship.
Outside of “Mikita,” Albert is convinced that no matter what story lines appear people will try to pair characters and relationships he never saw coming.
Shane feels Michael branching out is more fun and likes the contrast of Michael on the outside compared to last season.
Maggie loves Nikita’s development and any episode investigating her backstory, like “343 Walnut Lane,” incorporating Nikita’s father and Michael’s initial relationship with Percy. For Maggie, Nikita’s not knowing her origins remains one of the character’s driving forces and “big things.” We all know that Maggie Q isn’t a teenager anymore, but she looks it. However, remember the 80s glamour photography and the Vaseline lens tricks? Maggie does. She pretended they applied Vaseline to the cameras to make her look like “young” Nikita during the flashbacks, covertly addressing fan comments and showing her self-effacing sense of humor.
Will Nikita continue to rock awesome stunts? I sure hope so. The one thing I loved last year surrounded Nikita’s imaginative stunts with thermoses, towels and vacuum cleaners. Maggie mentioned a couple this season featuring running on the ceiling and fighting on tables in Euro-heels.
Will Percy come out of the box? Eventually, but not yet. Everyone loves Percy’s tiger in the box. Albert feels Percy channeling Hannibal Lector is the coolest thing ever and revealed all the directors wanted to film on that set. Because it’s no fun to have him locked up forever, we might eventually see him pop out.
During the roundtable interviews, I asked Maggie if we’d ever see Nikita return to her living chess match with Percy. She admitted his staying in the box made him more fearsome. After all, the more items he accumulates the more our fear grows. But, she hinted that when he breaks out we might find him in a more terrifying and powerful position than Division head.
Regarding the other characters/actors, Albert loved Alicia, her Birkhoff connection, and wanted to do more for both characters individually. He also hinted that Shawn’s fine moral code, which draws Alex, will eventually find itself infected by Division.
Check back later for the interview post and its video.
Clacked by An Nicholson 
on Nov 04, 2011 @ 09:55 EST5EDT
It is true An…your job is cool…but not as cool as your interesting posts!
Lol. Thanks, Tim-1 :)