Wednesday, May 9, 2001

Ralph Hemecker Talks Witchblade TV Series

After directing the Witchblade pilot movie, Ralph Hemecker is now executive producing the series for TNT. Following is an interview with Hemecker, in which he discusses many aspects of the show.

QUESTION: What is the driving force behind the show? What makes it so compelling?

HEMECKER: Witchblade is compelling for a variety of reasons, but I think there is a veil of mystery with a very primal energy over the show that is played out through the characters. You never quite know what's around the corner.

QUESTION: Who are some of the guest stars going to be on the series?

HEMECKER: We've got several really great guest stars. Roger Daltrey gives a performance that will blow a lot of people away. People obviously know him as a rock star, but he's actually an incredibly talented and intense actor. Kim De Lury plays Sara Pezzini's love interest, Conchobar, an Irish rocker. His singing voice is the vocals of talented Grant Lee, former frontman of Grant Lee Buffalo. We launched an extensive casting search for the role of Conchobar in London, Dublin, Melbourne, Sidney, L.A., Toronto and New York. We needed a great actor -- someone who could hold their own with Yancy Butler in a very intense relationship and also someone who could pull off the musician part of the role.

QUESTION: Why did you choose Roger Daltrey to play a Catholic Priest?

HEMECKER: I'd seen a lot of his other acting work and I was really impressed by it. When this role came up it was an easy decision. We needed somebody with a real intense energy. We needed somebody who was very powerful.

QUESTION: What about casting Yancy Butler for the role of Sara Pezzini?

HEMECKER: Yancy has that incredible combination of toughness and vulnerability that I think is very compelling and very appealing. She's also very real. She's accessible and she's also tough. When Yancy throws a punch, it's believable. She is a physical, strong person. She IS Sara Pezzini.

QUESTION: Is the Sara Pezzini character someone most people can relate to?

HEMECKER: She's real. She has a good heart. Her pain in the show is very dramatic but very believable.

QUESTION: Why is the bearing the blade such a struggle for her?

HEMECKER: The Witchblade is a struggle for Sara Pezzini for a variety of reasons. The first is that it's very unpredictable. She can't always get it to work when she wants it to. It's lethal. But what may be even a bigger part of the struggle is the fact that the Witchblade alters the way that Sara sees and perceives the world around her. Because of this expanded perception, she often questions her own sanity. I think that's a big part of the struggle that she goes through. She talks to a ghost. She can see her ex-partner and have conversations with him. When you see this on screen, it bring some of the drama to a different level by the way this makes people around her perceive her at times.

QUESTION: Is the blade a living thing?

HEMECKER: I would say that the Witchblade is a sentient artifact. You know, it changes shapes and it interacts with Sara ultimately on some sort of biological level.

QUESTION: Could you walk us through a typical transformation?

HEMECKER: Usually the Witchblade kicks in when Sara needs it. It usually appears in a situation where Sara's in jeopardy or when somebody that she cares about is in jeopardy and it manifests itself in a variety of different forms. Sometimes it's a metal gauntlet that looks like the gauntlet Joan of Arc used to wear. That gauntlet sometimes has a blade that comes out of it, which sometimes metamorphoses into what is basically an iron fist with a longer sword that she can punch and stab people with. The final manifestation of the Witchblade is a full suit of armor, and there are several variations of that suit.

QUESTION: What are some of her other struggles with the blade?

HEMECKER: Part of the struggle for Sara is trying to figure out why she's been chosen. Part of it is figuring out how to use it. Part of dealing with the Witchblade is learning more about previous wielders and what her connection is to them. And that's something that you find out in the series, that there have been a lot of other wielders throughout history -- a lot of women warriors. And Sara is indeed linked to these earlier women warriors.

QUESTION: How do you see her curiosity building as the episodes progress?

HEMECKER: I see Sara becoming more and more curious about the Witchblade as she gets more information about it. It kind of whets her appetite, and as she gains a little more mastery of it she yearns for even more.

QUESTION: What does a show like this say about strong female leads?

HEMECKER: I think what a show like this says about strong female leads is "look out fellas."

QUESTION: What's a pretender?

HEMECKER: A pretender is someone who feels entitled to the Witchblade or feels that they deserve it, but who really is not worthy of being a wielder. A pretender is someone who doesn't have the necessary warrior mindset and mentality.

QUESTION: Each individual episode is in itself a criminal justice story. What are the advantages of that?

HEMECKER: One of the advantages of having self contained episodes is that the audience gets a sense of closure at the end of each one. However, the mythology of the Witchblade will evolve throughout all of the episodes. In each one, people will learn more about the Witchblade, Sara's destiny and her past. But they also get a story that comes to an end.

QUESTION: Did you make a conscious decision to shoot each episode as an individual feature?

HEMECKER: We pretty much decided that we'd like to make each episode stand alone so that someone who didn't see the first two or three could turn it on and follow it.

QUESTION: And finally, how closely will this show follow the comic book?

HEMECKER: I think that we've tried to stay true to the essence of the comic book. The guys at Top Cow really created an intriguing, bizarre world, and we're trying to plume that world as much as we can within the context of dealing in real time and space with real people, which is different than doing it on a flat page. I think that the comic book offers a lot -- it's a very rich broth to draw upon. I think that we're staying true to the essence of it, while changing it in some ways to make it work for television.

QUESTION: What most excites you about the show?

HEMECKER: One of the things that excites me about the show is that it really is unique. The combination of the subject matter, the characters, and the way the stories are told will really give audiences a different kind of episodic television experience. We've got great stories and a great cast. It's a very strange, very cool show.