TakeFiveGal : I like to hear when a cast is excited to talk about their show!
Jasika Nicole : I am, I think it’s fantastic!
My first question, and I’m very interested, because the character of Astrid doesn’t have a back story, what drew you to wanting to play that?
It would be the invitation to play it [laughs]. I’m not gonna lie, ha, I didn’t really know anything about her, I just knew that it was for a sci-fi show, and that JJ Abrams was doing it, and that she was supposed to be really, really tech smart, and savvy, and I thought, I know how to google. I was happy to be a part of an awesome show!
Is it harder or easier to play a character that has so little back story, or do you build one for yourself?
I would say it’s kind of hard, because you don’t want, you can definitely come up with back story, but it can’t be anything that reads so obviously, that something that goes against it comes up later, you know what I mean? You kind of have to play it safe, and be open to anything. The only thing I can really do, is give her specific personality qualities, and just work on the fact that she’s stuck in this new place that’s completely unfamiliar territory to her, and she’s trying to find her way around. As I get more information, then I use it. It wasn’t until half way through the season that I found that I was into computer science and that I knew how to take computers apart and put them back together. So, you know, once I had that information, I could take it and go with it. It’s a little tough, I gotta say, because I don’t know all the little things about her, like if there’s something really big about her, that I just don’t know yet. As soon as I find it, I’ll be able to fly!
That’s true to, with other characters, you slowly learn that Olivia was a part of this childhood experiment, Peter had things, we just found out that Kirk’s character has a wife!
The other cool thing about it, too, is that it makes that other stuff a little less important. It becomes important once you see it, but prior to that, the main priority is to work on this Fringe team of people that are trying to stop these catastrophic events. All the other stuff is kind of secondary, so you start getting little peeks of it, and seeing the bigger pictures, and that part is kind of cool, so it makes the focus really singular.
I talked to Kirk a few weeks ago about how different he is from Charlie – I’m wondering how different you are from Astrid!
She is much calmer than I am. If I was in a room with all that…she really, really is, [calm all the time]. She needs to be able to respond quickly, and I of course, would start crying. She uses the other side of her brain. It’s kind of nice to be a foil with that. At the same time, we’re both in the same position where we’ve been put in this new position and we’re trying to find ourselves, and have a great role on a television show. I’ve never done this before, it’s scary and exciting. Same with her, she’s gotten out of Quantico, and this is her first job, and now she’s with this crazy lab, doctor, who is teaching her all this scientific stuff, and she’s having to find her bearings around him and Peter.
What can you tease is coming up as the season heads toward the end?
Oh the finale, you will finally get some really big answers to some questions that have been posed regularly throughout the season. Of course, when you get those answers, and I’m thinking of 2 answers in particular, you’re going to have like 30 more questions. It’s definitely satisfying, because it’s something that we keep touching on and we never fully delve into. That door closes, but it opens up a mansion of other doors. It’s pretty much Fringe fashion. It’s definitely a nice cliffhanger.
Ooh that was my next question – is there a big cliffhanger to keep us on edge until next year?
Oh yes! They totally do, it’s fantastic.
What are your thoughts on [the now official] next season?
I think everybody is a little bit anxious about the move to Vancouver, but we’re also hoping that when we go there, all the kinks that we had during the first season will have worked itself out. It’s a new show, it’s a really complicated show. I think the fact that we’ve done so well under the circumstances is really telling about how hard working everybody is, the crew, the writers, the actors, and everything. I don’t know, plot wise, anything that’s going to be important in the next season, but I do know that we’re anxious but excited to move forward. The nature of the whole business is to keep moving forward while finding new ways to do old things.
I hear that a lot – you never want to get stuck doing the same thing day in and day out.
Exactly! The way I think about it, is it’s room for growth. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye, but it’s probably important that we do that at this time! We’ll see!
What else do you have coming up?
I’m not working on anything performance related over the hiatus, but I will be finishing up my website, I have a website with my illustrations on it.
You are a ridiculously good illustrator – I’m jealous of the fact that you can draw a person and it looks like a person ha!
You are so sweet, I really appreciate that, thank you so much! I will have my new updated website, it will have a lot of new artwork on it, it will have my comic on there, it will have the link to the bags that I’m designing, they’re eco-friendly bags that I did the artwork for. I’ll just be concentrating for the next month on getting my art stuff together, and writing new pages of the comic. Taking a breather, relaxing, preparing for the big journey to another country.
Vancouver is like another world!
I hear people go to it all the time, and every time I say we’re going to Vancouver, the first thing I hear is “it is so beautiful, you’re going to love it.” It’s going to be great, it’s just the actual process of packing up, and saying goodbye, literally starting a new chapter, in a new place. I have to be really thankful that I have the opportunity to do this. It’s pretty amazing!
Photo: FOX
