We’re in for a real treat in the next episode of Haven, “Audrey Parker’s Day Off”, when the latest Trouble seems to have Audrey reliving the same tragic day over and over again, and everyone around her is oblivious to it. It’s one of her most difficult cases to solve, especially since she’s on her own in finding a way to stop the day from repeating itself.
Earlier this week, we were able to chat with Emily Rose on a conference call discussing this episode, which is one of her most challenging to date.
Given the nature of this episode, with Audrey repeating the same scenes, what was it like to prepare for and film “Audrey Parker’s Day Off”?
It was just really a challenge for me. I remember going through the script and writing the timeline out of what was occurring. Our ADs and our producer set up the best they could to start at the earlier stage and then to slowly kind of fall apart, but what’s tricky is how do you make some of these tragic events throughout the day seem different, and how do you let them effect you even more each time, and how do you step the urgency up each time.
It was a great, wonderful on camera acting exercise for me and one I was really, really excited about. It was really challenging. I knew that when I was walking into that episode I just knew that it was going to be one of the biggest, emotionally challenging episodes I’ve done because from a technical standpoint, not only do you have to make it seem real in the wide shot but the tight shot and the close-up and then also on the reverse for the other actors.
So you’re doing a scene that’s really, really emotional probably 12 to 15 times and then on top of that, you need to have the technical, you know, DP or focus puller or grip or director talk to you through the scene in a technical way just to pull it off, but yet you still have to be freaking out and even though your brain knows that it’s not really happening, at the end of that week my body was so tense and so drained because [it] thought that I had been through those traumas multiple times. And so it was a real challenge but a real reward and I really hope people are affected by it as much as I was when I played it.
A really interesting thing about Episode 6 – that chronologically what’s coming up – it was really all about different emotional levels and kind of all existing in what was very a similar timeframe, trying to make those things different, and trying to track the story well. I remember when I saw an early cut of six, I was really, really excited because everything tracked pretty well and it’s such an interesting, fast paced, awesome story.
This season, will we learn why Audrey is sort of immune to The Troubles?
I don’t know if we’re really going to find out why that is as much as we’re going to find Audrey searching for her identity and clinging onto that as being something that’s really unique to who she is. I think that’s more in the long term mystery of the mythology of the show, but it’s definitely something that we really cling to as part of her identity for sure.
How does Audrey’s relationship with Chris and Nathan’s feelings for her factor into this episode?
Last year, we were able to establish the world in which we want to live and so in order to do that, we need to serve up those relationships and Season 2 is about vetting that stuff and stretching it and creating tensions. The great thing to me about this next episode that’s coming is it tests our boundaries on all of those fronts relationally.
She’s jumping into this relationship with Chris I think out of a dysfunctional sort of sense of feeling like who is she and if this other Audrey could have a relationship, why can’t she? I think you sort of test those boundaries out on people that you feel safe to kind of be “testers” – that’s not in a cruel way – and I think her and Nathan have something really special and I feel like maybe that’s not the proper testing grounds.
Do you draw from Haven‘s actual small-town location to help bring your character to life?
Hands down. It is a major character of our show. I always say it should be number one on the call sheet. You know when we moved here and we were from L.A., the way that you felt in a small town that everybody was sort of aware of who you were. Also, having the stigma of being an actor and what everybody thinks you are or how much money they think you have or what they think your life might be.
You absorb all of that and … I said okay, Audrey definitely feels under the microscope as well, she definitely isn’t sure of where to go to get certain food, she definitely doesn’t know how to really get settled and she definitely feels like a fish out of water. She has her work, which she finds comfortable and homey, and she knows how to do that, but other than that, she feels definitely under the microscope.
And it was really kind of great … to come back the second year, and the warm reception we had from the town and everybody being so excited about Haven and so enthusiastic about wanting to help and loving watching us film. It’s sort of similar parallel lives with Audrey about being there still, and now having everybody accept her more and know who she is and be excited about who she is. I think that if I was doing on the WB lot in L.A., I wouldn’t have the feeling of getting pouring down slanting rain on me while I’m doing a scene, and being on a boat rolling up and down, the hard rocks and the beach, and just the grittiness of finding a body on the beach, all these things help us in [a] scene. It would definitely be lacking if we weren’t here.
In terms of location, next episode – Episode Six, we shoot pretty much the entire episode in this town that we haven’t really shot in yet called Mahone Bay, north of Chester. It’s absolutely stunning and beautiful and it’s really neat because I think that we see another different side of Haven and a different street. We usually shoot in Chester and Lunenberg, but this whole episode takes place in the Mahone Bay area. It’s one of my favorite places to film, [the] most scenic, picturesque, three churches on this little bay, and it’s beautiful. So I think they’re in for some major eye candy in the next episode in that way.
Catch “Audrey Parker’s Day Off” tonight at 10/9c on Syfy, and Monday night at 10 on Showcase.
Photo Courtesy of Syfy
