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'The Ark's young stars on challenge of playing nerd super-geniuses in SYFY's new space thriller
SYFY WIRE talked with The Ark actors Stacey Read and Ryan Adams about their characters on the show.
SYFY’s The Ark, the new show from Stargate alums Dean Devlin and Jonathan Glassner, involves a small group of survivors trying to, well, survive on a damaged ship after a cataclysmic event. Two of those survivors are the loquacious Alicia Nevins and the agriculturally-minded Angus Medford.
RELATED: Watch the series premiere of SYFY's The Ark right here.
Those two characters, played by Stacey Read and Ryan Adams respectively, are arguably two of the most endearing (and nerdy) characters on the ship. SYFY WIRE had the chance to talk with Read and Adams about their characters on the show, including how their fictional nerd qualities informed their performances.
One of the first things you might notice about Read’s Alicia is that she’s very talkative (Read herself describes her character's monologues sometimes as “word vomit”) and often gives lengthy monologues that irritate her fellow survivors to varying degrees. “The difficult part was trying to say all of that but really quickly,” Read told SYFY WIRE. “There were times, especially if I'd had to say something quite technical, I’d get tongue-tied and I'd be like, ‘so sorry.’ And then we'd have to take it again. That happened quite frequently, but I had very lovely actors [to work with].”
Read is quick to point out, however, that Alicia is more than just talkative: “I think, with her, she’s a bit more driven. She knew that she needed to get on to The Ark for her family … I’d probably say she’s just one of those nerdy kids who does push themselves a lot, but she’s also a girl who wants to make friends. And she finds those friends on The Ark — she builds those relationships with people that she’s never actually built before in her life. And it’s a really nice character progression, as well as seeing her grow into herself and become a bit more confident.”
Like Alicia, Angus is also super nerdy, with his expertise in the realm of planting crops rather than astrophysics. Adams told SYFY WIRE that he watched several YouTube videos to give himself a crash course on agricultural practices and that he didn’t have to look far to channel Angus’ inner nerdiness.
“Angus is no different to any other kids you’ll meet,” he told SYFY WIRE. “I knew so many Anguses at school — people who obsess over nerdy things like video games and stuff. I mean, I was one of them … but he’s just a kid, he’s just a normal guy who one minute was hanging out with friends on Earth and now he’s battling for his life every day in space. I think that’s just a really cool concept to have someone completely like a fish out of water who doesn’t know what he’s doing but trying to survive every single day.”
You can watch Read and Adams’ characters use their nerd superpowers to try to survive when new episode of The Ark air every Wednesday on SYFY.
