Awake Q&A With Jason Isaacs: The Best of Both Worlds

If you are going to watch any of the new shows premiering this mid-season you need to make sure Awake is on your must-see list. It’s one of the best new shows this year and I hope it finds an audience because I would like to enjoy it for a handful of seasons if I could. Awake is a new drama centered on detective Michael Britten, played by Jason Isaacs (aka Lucius Malfoy), who finds he is living a dream-fueled double life.

Trying to explain the show’s concept can be tricky, so here’s how NBC does it.

Following a tragic car accident, detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs) finds himself awake in two separate realities: one where his teen son, Rex (Dylan Minnette), died in the crash and his wife, Hannah (Laura Allen), survived and another where Hannah has perished, leaving Michael and Rex to pick up the pieces. In order to keep both of his loved ones alive, Michael begins living in two dueling realities, churning up confusion.

During a recent Q&A actor Jason Isaacs took the description a step further. “People have only seen the pilot,” Isaacs began. “If they think the show will be about guessing which world is real or not then they’re being slightly misled. That’s sleight of hand anyway, that’s setting out the premise. It’s what is called a premise pilot and our show is not like that every week.”

Isaacs then adds, “In fact, to tell the truth our show is not like itself every week.”

This was worrisome to me because I really liked the pilot and I’m afraid that people won’t watch because it might be too confusing for most mainstream audiences, an issue Isaacs actually brought up.

“A lot of critics and journalists I have spoken to have said, ‘Well I really like it, I love it, but, you know, do you think the American public will understand it?’”

That’s exactly what I’m talking about!

“And I just think that’s an insult to American audiences who are very sophisticated.”

Oh, I guess I stepped in that one. Anyway, he continued, “This is a really simple concept…which of my worlds is real and what would you do if you didn’t know which world was real.”

I was happy to find out even the creators had their doubts, but Isaacs was able to convince them in the most adorable way ever. “First of all, the creators themselves were nervous about, you know, ‘Do we need to make it clearer which world we are in and was it too complicated?’ And I have two daughters, and one of whom was five when I was making the pilot. And I was with her and she was explaining the story to her friend in the park and I shot it on my iPhone and I came back and I showed Howard and Kyle and various other people my five-year-old explaining the story in two sentences. And I said it’s incredibly simple. I don’t know who it is you’re worrying about watching it out there but you’re wrong.”

After the car crash Isaac’s character Michael returns to solving crimes in both worlds and is assigned a different case in each reality. He quickly discovers that his dual existence is actually helpful in solving crimes by using his two realities to gain unique perspective and link clues that cross over from world to world (a lot of this is from the NBC site; seriously, his 5-year-old might be able to explain it but I can’t). He even has two different partners who he has to work with, Detective Isaiah “Bird” Freeman (Steve Harris) and Detective Efrem Vega (Wilmer Valderrama). In the actual “real world” there are two separate casts on the show that never work together, the only connection is Isaacs.

“I feel like I’m the hub,” he says. “There’s a cast that normally feels like a family but most of them only have scenes with me and I’m the only common thread. Laura Innes, who plays a police captain in both, is the only person that overlaps.” Isaacs adds, “Although as the season goes on the writers started to be slightly more insane and very imaginative things happen where people cross over.”

I can’t wait.

If I felt like nitpicking, which I do, I also wonder if the subject matter is too heavy for people, where each episode has to address the fact that he split in a reality where either his wife or son are dead. This is not happy TV fare. But because he’s a bright guy, Isaacs also has a response for that.

“No one ever buys a ticket to watch the village of the happy people. Howard Gordon, who ran 24 for a long time, said if Kiefer woke up in the morning and the president was having a good day, his daughter was playing on the lawn, I don’t think many people would have tuned in. So we send Michael on some adventures, and hopefully they’re entertaining adventures.”

Interestingly, Isaacs says there are clues in the show that can help an observant viewer tell which reality Michael is in. “You’ll see that Rex’s world is a green world. Very subtly, there are hints of green everywhere. They are more in the set decoration than in the, you know, a wash of color. And in Hannah’s world you’ll see red everywhere. Not so much that it will be, you know, nauseating, but if you look very carefully, the detail on people’s desks and the background and paintings on the wall and stuff have red themes in them.”

Let’s say someone watching the show is still lost and confused about what’s going on despite understanding the plot and watching out to visual clues. Isaacs thinks that could still be a good thing and it’s all part of the ride.

“If at any point the viewer goes, ‘Wait a second, I’m not quite sure what’s going on,’ that should be exactly the same point that Michael Britten goes, ‘Wait a second, I’m not sure what’s going on,’” Isaac said. “And instead of that being a drawback, that’s part of the fun of watching the show.”

I’m going to stress it again. Watch the show. Give it shot. It’s an excellent and entertaining drama. If you don’t believe me, maybe the handsome and charming Jason Isaacs can convince you.

“It is what it is. It’s Awake and we would love it if everyone who likes sci-fi loved it and everyone who liked police procedurals loved it and anyone who liked emotional psychological dramas loved it. But it wasn’t designed to fit demographics, it was designed to be a great story,” Isaacs said. “And hopefully it’s universally acceptable.”

I couldn’t say it any better myself.

Keep your eyes open for Awake, Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC

Check out more Poptimal television reviews here.

 

Images courtesy of Lewis Jacobs and Michael Desmond for NBCUniversal and IMDbPro