Thanks to SciFiFan for this.<\/p>\n
IT’S LIFE, JIM
\n(BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT)
\nBy Ian Spelling<\/p>\nYou might think he’s the \u2018old man’ of the series, but
\nWilliam Sadler’s alien-hunter-turned-helper is one of
\nRoswell’s biggest assets. They’ve even taken his hat
\naway and sexed him up.<\/p>\nUnlike his boss Jonathan Frakes, William Sadler was
\nworried that Roswell might get the axe; that the WB
\nmight not renew the show for a second season.
\n“I was a little concerned,” admits Sadler, who
\nco-stars on the Sci-Fi series as Sheriff Jim Valenti,
\nwho began as the show’s main villain. Relentlessly
\nchasing Max, Isabel and Michael, and looking on as his
\nson Kyle lost his girlfriend Liz to Max – he soon
\nemerged as one of its unlikely heroes. “It was
\nnail-biting time. We weren’t clobbering anyone with
\nthe numbers. I guess there was a real possibility, or
\nso it seemed, that we might not be asked to return. I
\nwas very happy and relieved when we were picked up. In
\nterms of the back nine for the second season [which
\nRoswell earned after posting solid ratings during its
\n13-episode reprieve], I wasn’t really surprised that
\nwe got that. Once we came back on, the numbers went
\nup. In fact, if the numbers continue the way they’ve
\nbeen going, I wouldn’t be surprised if Roswell got
\npicked up for a third year. That would be lovely.”
\nThe ratings rise can no doubt be attributed to the
\ntinkering done to the show. Where once it moved slowly
\nand focused on the romance with the Sci-Fi elements in
\nthe background, it now zips by and centres on the
\nSci-Fi elements, with the romantic entanglements
\nshifted somewhat to the rear. Those changes came about
\nnear the end of the first season, in the last
\nhalf-dozen or so episodes, and they’ve been carried
\nthrough into year two. “I think we’ve cranked up the
\npace,” says Sadler, whose genre credits range from The
\nGreen Mile, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, Disturbing
\nBehavior (which was directed by frequent Roswell
\nhelmer David Nutter), Tales from the Crypt Presents:
\nDemon Knight, Tales from the Crypt the TV show, Rocket
\nMan, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Outer Limits and
\nPoltergeist: The Legacy. “We’ve sort of tightened the
\nscrews. That’s my impression of it, but the show’s not
\nso much about \u2018Does he love me? Doesn’t he love me?’
\nand long, longing gazes. There’s a lot more at stake
\nin these episodes. The one I’m shooting right now is
\nterrific. They are thrillers with romantic overtones,
\nrather than romantic stories with a couple of tense
\ntwists and turns. I think that makes it a lot more fun
\nto watch. I think it’s a little more engaging. We have
\nnot thrown away the romance, though. All of those
\naspects are still there. What we’ve done is we’ve
\nratcheted up what’s at stake. I think they’re just
\nmore interesting shows for people. They’re more
\nengaging for people, like myself, who enjoy a good
\nthriller.”
\nAnd what do all the changes mean for Sadler as an
\nactor?
\n“I think Valenti’s more fun to play now,” he replies
\ninstantly. “One of the things that I worried about
\nwhen we first started the show was that we’d find
\nValenti at the end of every episode standing in the
\nstreet, saying, \u2018Curses! Missed them again! Those darn
\nkids!'” he notes. “That’s not as interesting, somehow.
\nI know we started the season that way last year, but I
\nwas assured early on that Valenti would evolve. And he
\nhas, which I think makes him more fascinating as a
\ncharacter. He is alive. I think it would have gotten
\nold very quickly if he were always chasing them. If
\nthey did that and the show continued, he would always
\nhave to lose. He’d always have to miss. Instead, he
\nlearned and he grew. His understanding of the
\nsituation grew over the year, until he could do a
\nwhole 180 degree turn and land on the other side at
\nsome considerable risk to himself. So I find it much
\nmore interesting to play him this way.
\n“Right now, I think he is to be trusted. His heart is
\nin the right place. I think he’s demonstrated that
\ntime and again. When the chips are down, he weighs in
\nto the fight on the side of the kids. I think what
\nyou’re going to see is more and more of that. He’ll
\nweigh in on the side of the kids, as I say, at his own
\nexpense. It’s going to cost him to have taken that
\nroute. It would have been safer and easier to remain
\npart of mainstream America. But he can’t anymore. He’s
\nmade himself their protector and it’s causing
\nconflicts in his life. It’s hard to be the sheriff of
\nRoswell and the keeper of lay and order and so on and
\nto also be burying bodies out in the desert and hiding
\nevidence. Valenti is breaking laws all over the place
\nin order to protect the kids. And I think it’s going
\nto get him in trouble.”
\nAsked if there’s one scene, one moment, even one line
\nof dialogue that sums up all Valenti can be, Sadler
\npauses for a moment. “God, that’s a hard one,” he
\nsays. “Let me think about that. I liked the last
\nepisode of last season [Destiny], the scene in which
\nValenti has shot his son, he’s dying and Valenti turns
\nto Max for help. That was a moment that kind of
\ncrystallized Valenti’s new position. That whole scene
\n– where he asks Max to help him and then what follows
\nafter Max saves Kyle, which is Valenti pledging his
\nsupport: \u2018Anything you need, anywhere, I’m there’ –
\nwas kind of a defining moment. Everything that
\nhappened during the whole season had been building up
\nand it came to pass in that one scene. His life has
\nchanged forever now.”
\nAs for what Sadler’s not yet gotten to do as Valenti,
\nthat’s an easy one. He’s pining for the writers to
\nwhip up some more romance. “I’d love to explore the
\nrelationship with Amy DeLuca [Diane Farr],” he says.
\n“It’s a selfish, personal thing. But I like her so
\nmuch, the actress. Every time I’ve gotten to play
\nscenes where Valenti has explored the romantic side of
\nhimself it’s been great, great fun. And I understand
\nthat she’s coming back in a couple of weeks, so I’m
\nexcited.”
\nMost of the time of the Roswell set, however, Sadler
\nfinds himself surrounded by Behr, Fehr, Appleby,
\nWechsler, Majandra Delfino, Colin Hanks and Emilie de
\nRavin. They’re all actors who are far younger. And
\nthat, for lack of a more eloquent term, makes him the
\nold man of the show. “I don’t think of myself as the
\nold man of the show,” he says, laughing. “First of
\nall, that’s not a fun way to look at yourself. We’re
\nall professionals in a working arrangement, in a
\nworking situation. Every once in a while I’m reminded
\nof the fact that I’ve been doing this longer than
\nanyone else on the show. But I like to have fun. And,
\nby the way, for the most part I’m very pleased with
\nthe amount of talent and professionalism and the
\nquality of what everyone brings to the table on
\nRoswell. Every once in a while I see their youth
\npopping up. It’ll be late at night and you’ll realize
\nyou’re working with younger people. We come to it from
\nvery, very different backgrounds. For some of them,
\nthis is the first job they’ve ever held. And I come to
\nit from 11 years in New York City, on Broadway, and
\nanother 12 years of making pictures. I look at this
\njob from a different point of view. I look at acting
\nin general with different eyes. It’s kind of
\nunavoidable.”
\nUnavoidable, too, is the urge to compare Roswell to
\nhis many previous genre experiences. “I think that the
\nmain difference between what I’m doing on Roswell, and
\nall of the other Sci-Fi and genre work that I’ve ever
\ndone, is that this is a character that keeps
\nchanging,” he says. “Every week you get the next
\nchapter in this big, long novel. I’ve never played a
\ncharacter for so long. If I think of The Grim Reaper
\nin Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, or Brayker in Demon
\nKnight or Luther Sloan from Deep Space Nine, none of
\nthem really changed. They were there for that one time
\nor, in the case of Deep Space Nine, those three times.
\nThere wasn’t any time for evolution. You are there to
\nserve a purpose when it’s a one-time thing. You are
\nthe threat. You are the hero and you have this task.
\nWhen you’re doing a series like Roswell, the tasks
\nkeep changing. Sometimes you’re the comic relief.
\nSometimes you’re the chorus. You have to deliver the
\nexposition that allows the audience to enjoy the story
\nthat you’re otherwise not in. Or you inadvertently
\nbring the villains right into the heart fo the show –
\nas I do in the Dupes episodes of Roswell – and the
\nstep back and watch the fun. So that’s the biggest
\ndifference between what I do on Roswell and my
\nexperience with the other genre work that I’ve done.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to SciFiFan for this. IT’S LIFE, JIM (BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT) By Ian Spelling You might think<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roswell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1296"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}