V: Sit Down with Visitors’ Leader Morena Baccarin
by Natalie Abrams (Source)
ABC’s V has finally arrived and, boy, did the Visitors make one heck of a first impression. While most of the world puts their faith in these new alien friends, Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) and others come to find out that they’re not all they’re “cracked up to be.” Pulling the strings to keep their dirty little secret is Anna (Morena Baccarin), the Vs fearless and seemingly ruthless leader.
TVGuide.com sat down with Baccarin to get the info on all things V, including the cliff-hanger in Episode 4, the last episode until 2010. She also teases the relationship between Anna and Chad (Scott Wolf), the natural occurrence of deaths on the new ABC series, and why Erica should be keeping an eye on Tyler (Logan Huffman).
TVGuide.com: V doesn’t seem to be your typical sci-fi show, though it boasts many actors who’ve been in the genre before.
Morena Baccarin: We don’t see ourselves as sci-fi people for the most part. It’s not like we’re talking a different language, like an alien language. Elizabeth was on a sci-fi show and [Alan Tudyk] was on Firefly with me, but I don’t feel like V is a sci-fi show. There’s not one big sci-fi fiasco. It’s a show about heart and people and relationships. There’s some spaceships thrown in there, sure, but the sci-fi element is evened out with other things.
TVGuide.com: What is the Visitors’ ultimate goal?
Baccarin: You’ll have to watch to see, but by Episode 4 you get a very good idea that we’re not what we’re all cracked up to be. There’s more to it than we’re saying. We are here for more than just a short while, and we’re here for additional reasons than just water and minerals.
TVGuide.com: Are there any good qualities in the Visitors?
Baccarin: Yes, absolutely. Anna is very loyal to her people; that’s a good quality. I think there are Vs that have been living among humanity, so they take on some human qualities. There are parts of Anna that, depending on who you ask, can be seen as good.
TVGuide.com: Is Anna the type of leader to get her hands dirty?
Baccarin: You mean like fighting? Not initially. I think Anna is very capable of throwing down with the best of them, but I think we want to keep her more elevated, more political, more presidential than getting down and dirty right now.
TVGuide.com: Will people start to discover that the Visitors are bad or do they hide it pretty well?
Baccarin: I don’t know what you’re talking about [Laughs]. I think that the Vs are pretty good at masking to the masses, but I think that humans are very smart and they have instincts. You can tell right away there’s something going on behind the surface, and it becomes more public knowledge.
TVGuide.com: When do we get to see an unmasking?
Baccarin: It’s throughout the series in different people. I don’t have a big peel-off-my-face moment, but I’ve been told that there may be some effects in that direction.
TVGuide.com: The Ambassador program feels like an homage to Hitler Youth. How does that develop?
Baccarin: It grows quite a bit actually. It’s very smart of the Vs to invest in the youth of the world. One of their plans is to get the young people really excited about the Vs, so they can influence other people. As the generations change, they will be present. It definitely gets out there a lot.
TVGuide.com: Who would win in a fight between Anna and Erica?
Baccarin: I’m going to have to go with Anna, because I need some loyalty to my character, but I think it’d be a good fight. [A fight between Anna and Erica] could happen. I do meet Tyler, so maybe there’s something there she needs to be protective of.
TVGuide.com: What precarious positions is Anna going to put Chad in?
Baccarin: It’s going to get really interesting because he’s very ambitious, and he really wants to succeed at what he does. By the end of the four episodes, he’s going to find himself in a real decision spot of not knowing which way to go, and maybe their relationship will progress into something else. The power shifts back and forth a bit, so he doesn’t just fold like a cheap suit [again].
TVGuide.com: Could there be something more to their relationship?
Baccarin: There definitely could be, and I think that that’s what we’re laying the ground work for. But we’ll see how it plays out.
TVGuide.com: Have you seen anything in the scripts that really surprised you?
Baccarin: Yeah, a lot of things. There are some great plot turns and character twists that I love. I love that every character has a good and a bad side. I love that Elizabeth’s character is struggling with being a good mom and saving the world. She’s got some faults when it comes to her family and I think that’s a wonderful thing.
TVGuide.com: What can we look forward to in future episodes?
Baccarin: We get to see more about how the Vs live. There are more hints at how they do certain things and there’s some really great plot twists. [There are] characters’ worlds that collide that you wouldn’t expect.
TVGuide.com: What can we expect in the cliff-hanger of Episode 4?
Baccarin: Some relationships get explored, and you’ll want to come back to find out. We’ve laid some groundwork for some V things, and you’ll want to come back to find out what exactly they were.
TVGuide.com: Will deaths be a natural occurrence on this show?
Baccarin: As in life, there’s death, so probably. There’s not an intense amount of it, but nobody is safe. Everybody on the show — things can happen. We live in a very dangerous area with Vs and humans. At any moment something can happen.
TVGuide.com: What is your one little pitch to fans to come in and watch the show?
Baccarin: It is not only a show that has all the exciting stuff you want to see on TV when you want to veg out. There’s cool effects and action. That aside, the creep factor of a huge spaceship hovering over our major cities, gives me goose bumps when I think about it. That element and the element that anything can happen and there’s characters that are all people you can relate to. On some levels you relate to Elizabeth, we all relate to Tyler, we relate to all these people who are having struggles with their lives in addition to an alien invasion. It’s a show that has a little bit of everything for everybody.