Exclusive Interview: Amanda Schull on 12 Monkeys

“12 Monkeys” is coming to TV this January in a Syfy channel series. The cast stopped by the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills to preview the show before returning to production. I saw the pilot, which stars Aaron Stanford as time traveler James Cole, and Amanda Schull as Dr. Cassandra Railly.

Amanda Schull looks quite different from Madeleine Stowe. Superficially, Schull is blonde and they’ve changed the character’s first name from Kathryn to Cassandra. In the pilot, Cole disappears before Cassandra’s eyes in 2013, only to reappear as promised on New Year’s Eve 2014. I got to speak with Schull about her take on Dr. Railly and the new directions in which the Syfy series will take “12 Monkeys.”

ComingSoon.net: When you auditioned for “12 Monkeys” or it was offered, did they tell you it was “12 Monkeys” or was it even more secretive than that?

Amanda Schull:
No, it was straightforward from the very beginning. The script was “12 Monkeys” so there was definitely no guise that it was under anything else. But, full disclosure, I did not re-watch the film until after we had shot the pilot.

CS: That’s a valid choice. Did it give you any concern that they were remaking the movie?

Schull:
Well, the film came out in 1995, so at least the film wasn’t made last year. We’re not delving into something that is that fresh. It’s also the same producers as the film, so it didn’t give me so much pause as it was excitement. We’re going to be doing it as much justice as I think can be done because we have all the right players involved to do it justice.

CS: Are you the type of actor, when you find out you’re going to be playing a doctor, you’d like to do seven years of medical school as research?

Schull:
[Laughs] I do try to do as much research as possible. I think some people like flying by the seat of their pants and some people like being a little more prepared, and I’m of the latter.

CS: So how much can you do for not only a doctor, but a doctor dealing with these extraordinary circumstances?

Schull:
Right, well the extraordinary circumstances aren’t something you can necessarily manufacture and get involved in, so I can only do as much research as I can find myself. With the exception of hopping on a plane and going to some war torn, plague riddled area, I did not do that.

CS: Once she makes the leap trusts Cole and follows him, do a lot of people in Railly’s life abandon her?

Schull:
I think it’s not just that she makes the leap to trust Cole. It’s that nobody else experienced her situation and knows what she’s talking about, so nobody believes what she has now invested and is dedicating her life to do. I think it’s sort of like if somebody were to tell you, “No, I really did see that UFO. I guarantee you.” And it’s somebody who you trust who’s an intelligent, strong person, you want to believe them but at a certain point, you weren’t there. You didn’t experience what that person experienced and you can’t go along for the ride with the same intensity.

CS: The end of the pilot already gives us a big twist on the movie’s characters. Where does episode two pick up?

Schull:
Five minutes later. Five minutes later our time though, which is what Cassandra considers to be the present. That’s not necessarily Cole’s present. So it’s five minutes later from her perspective and who knows how long for them and what’s happened and transpired in the future?

CS: Is moving forward completely uncharted territory, or are there still elements from the movie that could appear on the show?

Schull:
Oh, hopefully so many episodes to come, there are definitely nods to the film, but because it’s a series, we have so many opportunities to take moments and expand on them and go down rabbit holes and what ifs and certain scenarios. So the difference between having the luxury of all the time and having a finite amount of time with the film I think gives us this wonderful opportunity to investigate a little more fully some of the ideas that were mentioned and touched on in the film.

CS: The show takes place between time periods, but is the present day the base?

Schull:
No. Her reality is 2015, is the present, so that’s her reality. Cole’s primary focus is the future, 2043. So there are two separate worlds but also Cole is able to travel back and forth between those two worlds.

CS: We find out he’s gone back to 1987 at one point. Are we going to see Railly in 1987?

Schull:
I’m not sure yet. I don’t know. We definitely are going to see what Cassie went through in the two years between when she first met Cole [and now], but as far as 1987, I’m not positive about that.

CS: It would have to be a little girl.

Schull:
Yeah, I don’t know if they’d be able to use me for that. We could use some scotch tape, but I don’t know how much we could actually do.

CS: Between 2013 and New Year’s Eve 2014, we’ll see what she went through?

Schull:
Yeah, we’ll see some of what went into her committing herself to this journey and also just what it means for her personally, professionally, relationship-wise and what she’s going to do to save the world basically from this virus, this plague.

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