The Challenges of Warehouse 13
by Warehouse-13 on Jun.25, 2009, under Interviews
Last week, I was on a very lengthy conference call with the people behind Warehouse 13. Lengthy, because these guys bantered like brothers and sisters. There were so many jokes and barbs flying between Exec Producers Jack Kenny and David Simpkins and stars Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly, I don’t know how the transcriptionist kept it all straight! They were a delight to listen to and I’ll be giving you the highlights as we head toward the premiere of Warehouse 13 on July 7.
First up, producer Jack Kenny talks about the challenges of breathing life into Warehouse 13.
“Any new series involves similar challenges, you know, where are we going to go, are we going to arc out the first season or is each episode going to be individual? What [are we] learning about these characters and these people.
One of the things we did was we brought Saul and Jo and Eddie into the writer’s room and we all sat together and we had a session. And we talked about the characters and let them talk about the characters, we talked about them personally, what do they like, what do they do, what are their hobbies, do any of them speak languages or play instruments. You know, what are their relationships with family members and things so that we could sort of mine who they were as individuals.
My approach has always been that – every show I’ve ever done is a family show whether it’s a workplace comedy or an actual family show. And so in building this family of this brother and sister and father team that we’ve got going we wanted to sort of bring who they were to the roles.
Because, once an actor takes on a role, they bring who they are to it so you want to mold that role to them. And we were all very fortunate in that these guys were so much like these characters to start with and David in crafting the pilot I think really made it a nice fit for Jo and Eddie to slip into these parts and Saul as well.
So our challenges were finding the directions to take these characters in where they could grow and learn about each other and the relationships could deepen. I’m starting to call this show so many things. Now I think I’m calling it an action adventure proceduromedy.”
