KILLJOYS Scoop: Hannah John-Kamen, Aaron Ashmore, and Luke Macfarlane Interview

Syfy’s new space drama series KILLJOYS delves into the world of intergalactic bounty hunters whose mission it is to bring back people – dead or alive.  KILLJOYS offers an interesting array of characters as it initially features a two-person team of Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen) and Johnny (Aaron Ashmore), which quickly expands to a trio when Johnny’s brother D’avin (Luke Macfarlane) appears on the scene and complicates their lives.  Dutch and Johnny are precision Killjoys employed to track down fugitives wanted by the Company, an entity which runs the entire Quad within which they all live and operate in a remote region of space.  But D’avin’s unexpected appearance upsets that balance and poses the dilemma of how to extricate him from his sticky situation with the Company and keep their own lives in the process.  Dutch also has a dark, murky history where she was ex-assassin for hire and she seems to have fled that life without her mysterious benefactor’s consent.  So D’avin may not be the only one who is being hunted and looking for a way to dodge his past.  Regardless of what past sins may haunt them, Dutch and D’avin have to find a way to work together and it puts Johnny in the middle of a potentially dangerous game of politics which he may not be aware of.

In a recent press call, stars Hannah John-Kamen, Aaron Ashmore, and Luke Macfarlane talked about their characters and the interesting dynamics that arise amongst them in KILLJOYS.

You all have really great chemistry together. Did it happen right away?  Can you talk about the first time you met and worked together as a group?
LUKE: So much of it is credit due to the casting process; we had a really great casting director that took the time to really kind of do mix and matches.  So as we’re sort of slowly assembling this group, we kind of auditioned with like various people and that’s always terribly nerve-wracking as an actor, but I think ultimately it’s really a useful sort of thing to do because we got along from the beginning almost immediately with a very similar sense of humor.
AARON: I think that as far as chemistry and stuff like that you either have it or you don’t.  That is something that obviously due to casting process and when they’re doing a show like this that obviously revolves around the characters having sort of dynamic chemistry, it’s really important.  But sometimes you just really luck out and I think the three of us have become really good friends. We got along so, so well, and it’s kind of rare.  So I think it’s special and I think that we all appreciate it and it’s kind of lucky that you get three people that just get along so well.
HANNAH: I think it’s a great, but it’s important to like have the chemistry on the screen and off.  And I think that we all have the same sense of humor which really helps.
LUKE: (Laughs) Weird, weird.  I think we’re all weird.
HANNAH: Much fun.  And we sing a lot too.
LUKE: Yes, we do, we make up songs on the set all the time.

These characters don’t tend to always follow that rules that are set forth. Is that going to become a problem or does the Company not care as long as they get what they’re after?
LUKE: It’s a good question.  I think what is interesting with KILLJOYS is like there’s been a lot of comparisons to FIREFLY and what I think makes KILLJOYS really different as an entity and as a show is that we do have to abide by those rules.  So the tension exists within that sort is about  how far can you bend the rules.  I think that makes for an interesting thing show.  It’s not like we’re just rogue cowboys.  We really do have to operate with inside the system so that it becomes a sort of like doubly-complicated way of sort of bending the things as far as we can — of course it becomes complicated because we don’t always abide by the rules.
HANNAH: Like saying is:  Take no bribes, take no sides, to one is all.  But it’s really hard when you’re put in a situation like Dutch in the first episode with John and D’avin and taking on that warrant and basically kind of saving people’s asses and having those morals as well.  It kind of gives that kind of dilemma and that conflict with the characters, which I think is more interesting.
AARON: Yes, and I think it shows their sort of intelligence and their creativity and their knowledge of this world and how to circumvent some of these things and make it work and I think that that’s kind of interesting, as well to see us doing those things.

How do you describe your characters?
HANNAH: Dutch is a Level 5 Killjoy, which means she’s a top Killjoy, which means that she can kill for a warrant.  She lives with John, and she’s known John the character for seven years. And Dutch has a really, really complicated past that is catching up with her in the current moment of when you start watching KILLJOYS.  Dutch is also really, really badass, she’s very loyal, and she feels for the other characters within the show. She’s very respected, and that kind of comes with her loyalty as well.
LUKE: And she’s the leader, I think that’s important too.
HANNAH: And the leader, yes, the leader, as a leader.
AARON: Most definitely our fearless leaders.  I play John Jaqobis who’s a Level 3 Killjoy, which basically means he’s not as sort of skilled and dangerous as Dutch in sort of the tactical and combat aspects of things.  But I think John would lean towards more of a pacifist in this group where he is a little bit more willing to talk things through instead of shooting and asking questions later.  There’s also I think a really strong loyalty that lies in John and he’s completely dedicated to Dutch, they’re partners.  But as we sort of said that Dutch is definitely the leader.  And also that loyalty sort of we get to see with his brother as well.  D’avin and John have been sort of estranged for eight or nine years and in the first episode we see them comeback together.  But loyalty is still really there with his brother. He wants to work things out. He wants to figure things out. And I think John sort of role in this team that we’re forming as the sort of hold it all together, I think he’s sort of the glue that’s trying to hold this team together.
LUKE: I play D’avin, who is John’s older brother and he doesn’t join as a Killjoy. He sort of bumps into John in the kind of weird sort of way and then ends up kind of sticking along with them for a ride.   So as the show progresses he gets very intrigued with the Killjoy world.  My character is a former military man who tends to be a bit of a rogue kind of guy, probably less the military under sort of bad circumstances.  And he’s immediately taken with Dutch and kind of the power that she possesses and her fight skills.  I like D’avin a lot.  He’s not very similar to me and that he is like kind of a bit of a super cocky bro I wish I had more that in me, but I’m not really like that.

You mentioned how the ship is pretty much another character on this series.  How does each of you interact with the ship?
AARON: Well, I would say that John does most of the work with Lucy although we all interact with her, in all the episodes we all sort of talked to her and stuff.  But I think John is Lucy’s favorite and I think that’s sort of addressed at times, even though John denies that.  But he definitely works with her the most and fixes her and he’s definitely more of a tech guy.  So it’s really interesting to have a character that we work with so closely in such a big part of the show, but we don’t’ really get to see her or her voice until the final product.  So it’s really cool to see that character come alive when an actor is finally voicing it.  And I think that you’re really going to enjoy it because it just is that really cool A.I. and she has a real sense of humor too, a real personality.
HANNAH: Yes, she’s got a real personality.
LUKE: I think it’s really telling the way we all decide to interact with Lucy too.  I don’t even bother to learn Lucy’s name until the seventh episode. I just call her “ship,” which I think is sort of funny.   But like kind of speak to I think our character’s ability to emphasize and John being sort of really good at that and being able to understand people a little bit better.
HANNAH: I think Lucy kind of sets the team — well as well, she’s so professional and that there’s situations in the show where even though Lucy is a machine she’s a ship, she really helps us gets out of our own help our characters get out of a situation as much as she can.  And there’s a sense of humor as well and it’s really cool because it’s just supposing seeing that with her voice, but with what she says is very, very humorous.  So it’s a really cool character, really cool.
AARON: Yes, I think fans will really like Lucy.

Will we see a balance of that through the course of the first season where D’avin and Dutch have to address the parts of their past that are still lingering for them?
HANNAH: The relationship between Dutch and D’avin is very interesting because it’s starts off –she’s very, very, weary of this intruder coming into her situation with her and John.  But then they see that they both have similarity and I think that gets her to a point where they have to address that.  And you don’t have to wait too much, but there is a bit to unravel with that.
LUKE: I think like any two people who have to sort of reconcile their pasts, they sort of clumsily reached for each other in a way because they identified a sort of thing in their past that they need to reconcile.  And even though ultimately they might not be the best sort to kind of get to whatever it is that sort of troubles their brains, they sort of reach out to each other in a way.  We do see a certain level of conclusion or reconciliation, I think more on D’avin’s part as far as this thing that happened to him in his past and how he tries try to take care of it.
HANNAH: They are not very good at talking about their feelings.
LUKE: Yes, exactly.
HANNAH: So they kind clumsy reach and kind of solve it in their own way.
LUKE: Right.  Yes.

I know FIREFLY already has been mentioned and you’re an original show but I believe any comparisons are really intended to be a complimentary.  What do you guys think about the inevitable comparison that will come up along the way?
AARON: I think its fine because until people really get the personality of our show, it’s like that’s the easiest way to sort of understand something or put it out there as to sort of compare it with something.  So I think that that’s totally fine.  I think that people who are fans of FIREFLY, I think there are definitely some similarities just in the genre of the show, so I think that that’s great.  But I also think that Michelle Lovretta, our creator, and the whole creative team have also created their own unique world. And as much as there may be some similarities in a broad sense I think the specifics of the show and characters and details are definitely going to become something all to themselves.  So I think the comparison are like totally cool, I think it’s flattering too because as genre fan myself like FIREFLY is obviously one of the biggest shows, one of the most beloved shows so any comparison to that are cool.
LUKE: Yes, I definitely think about that.  That’s the way we understand things is by comparing them to each other. I mean it really is.  My hope is that eventually it steps into its own unique thing and then one day they’ll compare us to something that we haven’t yet seen around the set.
HANNAH: Yes, exactly.
LUKE: But I would also say and I think I said this before but FIREFLY was essentially a rouge group of individuals.  The KILLJOYS operate within a system and I think to that is very, very deeply sort of what makes this different.  We can’t do whatever we want whenever we want, we have to operate with inside the system called the (R.A.C.).  And I think that’s really fundamental difference that makes the world actually fundamentally different.

One of the interesting things about Dutch is that she’s got a mysterious background.  Is that mysterious background going to be a large part of the story as it unfolds throughout the season?
HANNAH: Yes, you see hints of it at the beginning of the season, of kind of how tough it is with all of these catching up with her.  As the show goes on it kind of seems more like a massive change.  And absolutely you’re going to expect a lot of unraveling of Dutch, and her character, and her past, and why she is where she is now.  There’s going to be a lot of question after so there’s going to be more questions even as the show goes on.

It is great that it is back to back on the schedule with DARK MATTER with two ship-based space shows together in one night. What do you think about the possibility of a crossover in the future?
AARON: Crossovers would be cool, but I don’t know if they could handle us because we’re pretty dangerous so if we had to go head to head…
HANNAH: Yes, we’re pretty badass.
AARON: Of course anything like that would be really exciting actually, the crossing into another show — even if it’s sort of like a minor sort of thing.
HANNAH: Mega cool.
LUKE: I would also though think it would be that funny thing of all of our characters kind of have big sense of humor and personality.  And from my understanding of DARK MATTER they are a little bit more sort of cold killer like, I don’t know if they’re funny.  So I think they might look at us like we’re a bunch of clowns.  But then we beat them up.
AARON: Dangerous killer clowns, that’s what we are.
HANNAH: We’re clowns, but then we’d beat them up, definitely.
LUKE: But then we beat them up and we steal their ship.
AARON: (Laughs) How funny are we now?
HANNAH: Exactly.
LUKE: Go back in your cryo freeze.
AARON: But it would totally be fun probably to do crossovers.
LUKE: Very fun.

You have all these cool gadgets on the show.  Do you have any favorite gadget that you work with or that you would like to have in real life?
HANNAH: My guns, I felt like my guns was part of my limbs.  I don’t know why, I just had this bond with my gun. I fell in love with my laser gun.
AARON: I think we all had unhealthy attachments to our weapons by the time we’re done.
HANNAH: Yes.  And beautiful custom-like leather leg harnesses were something I’ll wear as well.
AARON: I think at a certain point the props guys would start asking us if they wanted us to take the guns off us between scenes and it sort of happen at a certain point where all of us were like, “No, no, no. We prefer hanging on to them.”  And we’re very adamant about that so, yes, it was kind of that weird.
LUKE: Yes, very cool.
HANNAH: Yes, they were like, “Alright then, OK.”
LUKE:  Of course they can shoot lasers.

What is with the green juice that your characters drink, what is it?
HANNAH: Algae beer.
AARON: Algae beer which sort of took a backseat after the first episode because it’s so gross.
HANNAH: It was so gross.
AARON: What it though?  It’s like coconut water mixed with something else, it was kind of lumpy.
LUKE: They blended…
AARON: Spinach, I think.
HANNAH: I think it’s like a really healthy like L.A. smoothie or something but to be honest, I’m like mad on it.  Then we have like algae buns, as well.  You guys got but I never got to eat it.  It was made up like beans, isn’t it?
AARON: Yes, some sort of bean curd. But I think that the spinach started to get stuck in our teeth from the algae beer and you just couldn’t have that in scenes so they’re like, “Yes, we’re going to lose that because you guys are all smiling with those green gunks.”
HANNAH: So it was pumpkin beers.  So we kind of changed it to pumpkin instead of algae.
AARON: Yes.
LUKE: I’m glad you asked about that.  I actually asked the writers a similar question, “Where did the algae beer go?” It’s stuck in his teeth.
HANNAH: Where the L.A. smoothie has gone.

The stunts and the fighting are great. Did you have any special training going in or how did that work?
HANNAH: Yes, we all had stunt training, military training, and physical training as well.  The stunt coordinator wanted to see kind of what we can. So during the week before and off the scenes, we kind of plan out with that stunt double, the fight sequence. It was so much fun, it was so much fun.
LUKE: It really was.
HANNAH: One of my favorite parts.
LUKE: When I first got into the business there is a sort of mythological idea that you have like an action show, that you have a trainer. And I remember hearing that thinking that was cool.  This is actually the first time I ever got a trainer.  We worked out and they took pictures of our shortlist which they sent to the producers.  It’s always like this badass thing that I like wanted to have and they did it, and it was great.  It was really great. It was a great excuse to sort of workout.
AARON: And the physical stuff that we got to do at the beginning, the military stuff, the working out, the fight training is really kind of neat because the three of us didn’t know each other so we’re sort of thrown into all these really intense training together.   I think that it’s kind of fun when you start on it and it’s a good way to sort of bond with your fellow actors through all this training and physical stuff.  And we really get to know each other.  Everybody was sort of slightly out of their elements because none of us are martial artist or anything like that.  So you’re all thrown into this new experience in doing it together and it was actually a lot of fun.
HANNAH: We bonded pretty violently.
LUKE: (Laughs) Yes.  Oh, my goodness.

Do you guys get to do a lot of your stunts?
HANNAH: Yes, I think we all did them, didn’t we?
AARON: Yes.
LUKE: Yes.
AARON: For sure.  Obviously there’s stunt doubles for stuff that they don’t want you to get hurt and all that but they actually let us do a lot of it ourselves.
LUKE: Yes, they did.  We had amazing stunt doubles.  My mother came to set one day when my stunt double was acting.  My stunt double does the scene, and then actors do the scene.  And obviously the camera operators are a little more inclined to show your faces.  My mother says in front of the stunt double, “I think you did a much better job than he did.”  And I said, “Mom, that’s absolutely incorrect, he’s amazing.”  But moms will be moms.
AARON: She’s just so proud of her boy.
LUKE: She was so proud of ass-kicking boy.

Can you tell us something about your character that may be only you know about your character?
LUKE: Well, not to get too dark but I think that I think that John and D’avin’s father, used to beat up D’avin.
AARON: That’s interesting too because like we’d never discussed anything like that and there’s nothing in the show like that.  But I had thought of similar things like with John and D’avin’s background.  You know, we don’t really get into the details of it in the show but it was very, very difficult. So I sort of thought of things like that too. I sort of pictured that too that D’avin was the older brother and so he probably took a brunt of a lot of that growing up and probably was protecting John. So for me there’s slightly guilt-tripping in some of those potential scenes.  It’s kind of dark.  But I thought a lot of those things too. But we didn’t really discuss that stuff and it’s not on the page.
LUKE: Yes, in season one.
AARON: Bu,  hey, the show is still fun, it’s not all dark!

Is there a really funny scene that stands out in your mind that we would be looking for?
HANNAH: That’s very much the stuff that happened kind of on camera that makes me laugh. Funny scenes.
LUKE: Gosh. Oh, I know something to look that I think is very funny.  In a much later episode, John comes in contact with a super-computer and he gets really excited about that super-computer.  So I’m just going say that much, I laughed really hard when I saw that.
AARON: Good, I’m so glad.  So John’s nerdiness that you find – that’s good.  I like that. I think the show is not necessarily like always “ha, ha” funny like knee-slapper. I think it’s sort of subtle and it’s really in the sort of way that these characters sort of tease each other or interact with each other.  So I think it’s just so peppered throughout the show this sort of current of humor on the way that they sort of gab at each other.   So I think to me that’s really where the humor lies, it’s not like, “Oh my God, there’s this one hilarious like comic scene.”  It’s really the tone of the way these people rib each other and tease each other that to me is where the sense of humor really lies.

Could each of you share something about each of your co-stars that surprised you the most?
AARON: Oh, telling tales on each other, oh my goodness.  I was very pleasantly surprised at how sort of funny and not just funny, but weird, both Luke and Hannah’s sense of humor is.
HANNAH: I think yes, yes
AARON: Because I think that’s one of the really unique things about the three of us together is that we’re just so weird.  And our sense of humor is just kin of rip off each other. So I was really pleasantly surprised to see how strange their sense of humor were and then how as a whole we bonded together.
LUKE: Yes, definitely.
HANNAH: It’s the sense of humor.  Because on set, like one of us is like saying something and then without even any questions, the other one would join in.
AARON: In harmony, nonetheless.
HANNAH: In harmony.  That was like surprise to me is kind of like similar to Aaron– this kind of crazy sense of humor, no questions asked just really join in.
AARON: Yes.  And that’s not always the case right the way — the things that you think are funnier, the things that really sort of tickle you have other people that you’re working with and it’s flows, that was sort of really surprising and lucky I think.

For action-oriented show sometimes actors will conjure up certain mental queues to kind of inspire them to kind of pump them up for the intense action scenes.  Do either of you have device that you utilize?
LUKE: Cool.  I didn’t use any of that, not for myself.
HANNAH:   No.
AARON: I find emotional scenes sometimes that works better like to set the mood if it’s sad or angry or something.  But the action stuff is sort of like you’re just thrown in and you got to run or you got to kick butt.  That’s not the hardest thing to sort of motivate you into.  But sometimes for emotional scenes that works a little bit better to just kind of put you in a place emotionally.
LUKE: Yes, definitely.  In fact thinking about thinking about the first fight scene that we filmed, which is John and I in the cage fight right at the beginning, it was so amazing to have that whole crowd of people around us yelling just that was sort of enough to get us into the mood.  Like it was really cool to have 100 or whatever extras all screaming, they don’t know what the show is, they don’t know what they’re screaming for.  But still…
AARON:  It was interesting too I remember we did a first take right after lunch and everybody was still kind of coming back from lunch, they just had something to eat and everybody was kind of quite.  Then Chris Grismer, our director, was like, “OK, guys we’re back from lunch, I need you to like screen and yell.”  And then when we did another take it sort of changed everything because when you have like a 100 people sort of like screaming and like beating on the cage like that sort of energy really amp everything up for us.  And yes, that was really cool actually.
HANNAH: I think for me, I just literally went in there and just basically kick some butt in the scenes.

Once you realized that you had gotten the job that you’re going to play a bounty hunter, did you do any research and perhaps find that you had a favorite real life fictional bounty hunter that you might have drawn inspiration from?
AARON: My dad is a big Dog, The Bounty Hunter fan so I already watched a ton of Dog.  But that’s really what we’re going for here for, so I kind of did the opposite in that I strip away anything that I’d seen from Dog and decided to just go off the script.
LUKE: That was wise.
HANNAH: I don’t know. I think for me I just basically did like character research and building on more of this character building with Michelle and Chris Grismer where we had meeting.  And the skills come with the training and within the character.  But for me it was kind of who is Dutch first before what does that do.
AARON: Totally.
LUKE: I remember feeling very centered going to this. I think both Hannah and Aaron had experience in sci-fi world, but I was like intimated. I’ve never done anything in the sci-fi world, so I actually watched a lot of sci-fi programming thinking that like “Oh, I’m going to be interacting with these people and fans that know kind of the sci-fi world much more deeply than I do and I don’t want to look like irreverent to their genre.”

What would be your kind of space dream job, like could you be a pilot, or a bounty hunter, or an explorer or what would you like to do if we live in space?
HANNAH: For me, I just love to be like a ship like engineer so I actually get to go out in space with my space suit.
AARON: Yes, do the space walk.
HANNAH: Actually something to do with being completely in space, in space.
LUKE: I would like to be like the curator of like a space museum.  And like I would like to talk to people about the history of space.  I’d have this like really cool like museum, and say things like, “Many years ago we have the Challenger disaster and that was a terrible thing,” and it would have like a tutorial to teach the people the history of space.

If you could travel anywhere in outer space where would you want to go?
AARON: To a planet where there’s alien life maybe.  Wherever is that, I don’t know the name of it. Unfortunately, I can’t be that specific.
LUKE: If you could I would be …
AARON: Very impressed.  I would be wasting my skills as an actor if I could tell you where that is.
LUKE: Yes, it’s hard, there’s not a lot of places that you could go.

Do you guys have any favorite lines that you said in the show?
HANNAH: Mine is the Qreshy two-hander.
LUKE: Oh the old Qreshy two-hander.
HANNAH: It’s the Qreshy two-hander line, for me because I think it’s just cool.
AARON: In the first scene of the first episode there’s a great line where one of the characters asked me if it’s if it’s uncomfortable walking around because I have such big balls and I’m like, “Yes there’s some chaffing.”  I think that was kind of funny and like that’s sort of a tone of the show, the subtlety of the humor sometimes, I just think that’s kind of quite humor.
LUKE: Yes, that was very funny.
HANNAH: That was wonderful.
LUKE: Oh gosh, I don’t know. I mean I’m not sure if this was in the episode that you saw but we needed some nuns and they have done what I thought was very funny.
AARON: I know a line, Luke, of yours that I really like and it sort of speaks to the character, the difference in the characters and stuff like that.  John is trying to do something in a scientific sort of way and he gets himself in trouble and Luke’s character, I can’t remember the exact lines but he’s like, “See what I did? I tell you, like science is dumb with these sorts of characters.”
LUKE: I remember being very concerned about that line because I was afraid I was going alienate our audience.  Like I think these people that watch the show are going to like science and they’re going to hate me.
AARON: No, no because it’s like very funny.  But you don’t come across as dumb; it’s a really funny sort of character I think.
HANNAH: It’s funny.
AARON: Yes, it’s funny.

Obviously Dutch has a lot of secrets and Luke also kind of about what’s happened in his past in the war and everything, so Aaron my question is does John have any kind of
AARON: In this first season not really.  And I think that that’s kind of that sort of needs to be that way because the whole thing is that Dutch and D’avin have these two secrets that are sort of holding the team apart because they’re not really wanting to share those and trying to deal with all these things by themselves.  And it causes a lot of strain on the team and I think John’s position in this first season is to like his main purpose in the show and his goal is to keep the team together because they’re sort of just ripping each other apart.  So I think if you then throw John into the mix where he got things, I think it would be a bit convoluted and a bit sort of like you needed somebody who was just not being torn apart by all these stuff to kind of keep it together.  So I hope that in if we get other season that we’ll get to start to see a little bit of John’s past and the things that he had to go through, the difficulties and stuff.  So I really hope that we will get to do that but I think in this season it would have been a bit much to sort of have all three of them really trying to explore these dark secret and stuff.

What has been your favorite part about working on KILLJOYS so far?
HANNAH: To me honestly, I think the amount of fun I had on-screen and off.  I mean the sets have been amazing, I think the fighting, as well for me, has been so cool.  But I think with like Aaron and Luke, they’re just so amazing to work with.  They just made the whole time and experience just injected with fun.
LUKE: Yes, it’s really true.  You often hear actors talking about, “Oh we all like so much.”  But really legitimately it was like a really great group, like I love showing up to work. It was wonderful.
HANNAH: Yes.
LUKE: And just to use your imagination in a really profound way.  You know, it’s not often that you get to in kind of scripts where you’re required to imagine so much and that it makes you feel like a kid again, like when you’re looking out the window of your spaceship and you see a green screen having to imagine what’s on that? Often your job is sort of entering into a living room with cup of tea.  So just using your imagination in that massive way is super fun.
AARON: Yes, I agree. I think first and foremost, not just like as the actors, but the whole creative team and the whole crew, I think everybody really, really enjoyed themselves.  And again that’s not we’re working in such a fun business and that, but the experiences are not always amazing.  I think like on a personal level, the fun of working with everybody was way, way up there.  I think another thing for me was getting to start on a show, I’ve done lots of shows where I kind of come into them while they’re already been successful and then become a lead on the show or reoccurring.  But to come in to a show from the very start and feel like you’re really part of something. And like Luke was saying, it’s just not really part of something where it set in New York or wherever where we know everything but we’re really getting to explore and create the world and this characters that nobody seen before, coming from Michelle’s imagination and the writer. We really get to inhabit these places that don’t exist, and these societies, these cultural levels and stuff that are not real in real life.  So who gets to do that? Some people get to fantasize and get to think about those things, but we actually get to sort of act them out and create them.  And that’s been the really, really exciting thing that very few people get to do.  So it’s a lot of fun.
LUKE: I remember the first time we all were on the cockpit together and we’d been watching the ships get built because we’re filming on our station and we see them and like, “Cool, that’s our spaceship.”  And then all the sudden we were on the spaceship. They build this beautiful thing but nobody knew how to drive it and we got to make up how to drive the ship and we got to imagine what button to your press to try to make it go up and make it go round — and that’s like thrilling.

What challenges did you face when filming the first season?
LUKE: I was just going to say it’s a small cast and we all worked a lot. It was really long hours.  You know, sometimes when cast of shows are bigger and there’s more sort of screen time to go around, but this is very equality spread among three people, so we had really long days.
HANNAH: To me I think like the challenges at the begging, I remember when we had this gun and it was so heavy.  And I think it took getting to use to it, the equipment and the armor, and making it look like I’ve been carrying this gun for years.  I mean I think for me it was really like embodying a killer, as a bounty hunter, and getting used to the kind of physical way of that.
AARON: I think for me, and even up until very recently I felt this way throughout the whole season, you’re really excited to do this, this is an amazing opportunity.  I just hope that we do all of this justice. I hope that all this hard work that we do and that we have put in pays off, and that people really enjoy it.  Because like again, we’re not just doing a cop show where we’re emulating something that’s already out there and people will buy into it.  We’re creating a whole new world. So like the tone of things, you really want to get it right and you really wanted to create something that people are going to enjoy and that we have created characters and a world that’s believable and people are going to buy into.  That’s just comes with the genre. I think that that’s there’s a lot of actual work that you have to do and pressure that’s sort of put on you because it’s like people have to buy into this.  It’s not easy as thing to buy into and the sci-fi audience is very discerning.  They’re very intelligent, and you want them to like it.  You want them to really buy into this world that you’re inhabiting and creating.  So that’s there’s some pressure in that and that doesn’t just fall on us obviously as the actors, that’s sort of as  production what we all have to accomplish together.  But after seeing the show I feel very confident and very proud of the work that everybody did and I’m really hoping that everybody is going to enjoy it.
LUKE: That’s really good point, and specially being aware of — I think there is more reverence sort of the intelligence of the audience in this genre than any other genre I think I’ve worked in and wanting to do them right.

KILLJOYS is created by the creator of LOST GIRL Michelle Lovretta and it’s produced by the producers of ORPHAN BLACK (Temple Street).  What do you think fans of those shows would like about KILLJOYS?
AARON: Well, obviously they’re coming from the same sensibility, the same minds, so I think obviously our show is going to be very different because the content and the world and stuff that we’re in but it’s still coming from the people who have the same sensibility who make those other shows that obviously tons and tons of people enjoyed.  So it’s kind of hard to say exactly what it is but I think that the sensibility is going to be the same.  So hopefully that the things that you enjoy about those other shows, they’ll be assembled in our show as well.
LUKE: Speaking a little bit about LOST GIRL, I think there’s a sort of sense of female empowerment. I think that is definitely something that’s there.  Those really strong female characters that aren’t just strong for the sake that they beat people up, but they also they’re very comfortable with their sexuality.  Michelle writes a lot about sexuality in a really unique way that sort of very different than most TV, like characters have sex and do not feel ashamed about it.
HANNAH: Wow, there’s not really kind of a big thing about sex/sexuality.  I think the thing is any women can do anything a man can.
LUKE: Yes.
HANNAH: It’s kind of like there’s this massive freedom there.

What can you tell us a little bit about D’avin’s search for the military doctor and whether his search will come to a resolution this season?
LUKE: Well, he’s definitely looking for this person all the way through the show — gosh, I don’t know how much I should tease — but he finds her.  I think it’s really interesting because there are sort of a lot of comparisons of how a lot of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are encountering like sort of how to reconcile with their sort of violent past and I think it’s a great story line we have on the show.  But he does more completion and closure than Dutch does.

To see how the rich and intriguing characters come together and the mysteries they encounter all season, be sure to tune in for all new episodes of KILLJOYS starting Friday, June 19th at 9:00 p.m. on Syfy.