THE ARK – Season 2 Key Art | ©2024 Syfy//Electric Entertainment
Now in its second season, Wednesday nights on Syfy, THE ARK takes its name from a spacecraft. Set 100 years from now, THE ARK, created by Dean Devlin, posits that Earth will become so uninhabitable that humanity is seeking refuge on other planets.
To reach these promising new worlds, a fleet of Ark ships have been sent forth. However, Ark One has experienced a catastrophe mid-journey that kills all of the senior crew and most of the specialists aboard. The survivors have to step up to get the ship back in motion and to keep themselves and each other alive.
Stacey Read plays Alicia Nevins, a technically-skilled waste management engineer who is promoted to Chief of Life Support.
Ryan Adams plays Angus Medford, a young horticulturalist who is supposed to help grow crops when and if they ever reach their destination.
Read was born and raised in Zimbabwe. Prior to attending drama school, she was a gymnast. She made her film debut in ZIM HIGH, a high school drama set in Zimbabwe.
Adams, who is British (and not to be confused with the American singer-songwriter of the same name), has appeared in a variety of stage productions. He has done several short films, but THE ARK’s Angus is his first major screen role.
Ryan Adams as Angus Medford, Stacey Read as Alicia Nevins in THE ARK – Season 2 – “Anomaly” | ©2024 Syfy/Ark TV Holdings, Inc./Aleksandar Letic/Electric Entertainment
Adams and Read get on the same Zoom call separately to discuss their voyage on THE ARK.
For starters, how did they come to be involved with the series?
Adams says, “We auditioned like everyone else. Through our agents, we got sent an audition for this new sci-fi show by Dean and [showrunner] Jonathan [Glassner]. Immediately, from reading that, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I want to be part of this show.’ Yeah, and then we just went on an audition process and we’re the lucky ones.” He emits a triumphant laugh.
Read adds that they didn’t know much about their characters when they began, and had no idea what they’d be like by second season.
“I think when we auditioned, we got sent the first episode for Season 1, and when we started filming, we’d start getting the [scripts for upcoming] episodes as we were shooting, and I didn’t really know where the character was going, I didn’t really know where the story was going, and I think it’s the same thing that’s in Season 2. We get the episodes as we were shooting.”
“Just couldn’t guess where the story was going at all,” Adams agrees. “Could be anything.”
Angus spends the Season 2 premiere laying flat in a hospital bed. Was that difficult for Adams?
“I’ll tell you what, it is,” Adams confirms. “No one would believe me, but it really is. To be fair, I had an easy first couple of [Season 2] episodes. Everyone would be running about and saving everyone, and come up to me, and be like, ‘You, you have such an easy job. You’re just laying there.’ Honestly, there were days where I wasn’t really even talking in a scene, I was just in the background of the scenes, but I have to be in from 7 AM to 7 PM, just laying in the bed the whole day, and it could be so, ‘Oh, wow, woe is me, I’m laying down all day.’ But my body gets so stiff. And the hospital bed, they’re not the comfiest. But I guess the positive is, I had a nice, easy way into Season 2.”
Ryan Adams as Angus Medford in THE ARK – Season 2 – “Failed Experiment” | ©2024 Syfy/Ark TV Holdings, Inc./Electric Entertainment
Read says she learned how to deal with Alicia’s techno-speak back in Season 1, and the character has fewer bouts of overall social discomfort.
“Alicia is still very much Alicia, and you’ll see that throughout the episodes, but I think there’s a lot less of the nervous scientific babble as she goes on, because she is becoming a more mature and confident person, but yeah, she’s still very technie, [speaks in] technobabble,” Read laughs.
She continues, “It’s easier for me to learn now. Because of Season 1, I know the rhythms of it. I think the hard part is the pace of trying to get all this technical information out really quickly. It’s just sometimes very, very difficult. There was one scene in this season, I couldn’t get this one word. And we had to film so many takes, and it just took me ages to even get it, and even then, it was really difficult.”
Ark One is largely a physical construction, although there are some VFX enhancements, Read explains. “What’s really nice about this set is, a lot of it is practical. It’s built there for you, so you can interact with it, you know how to interact with it. But then, some of the things, it’s just imagination. So, suddenly, you’ll be like, ‘Oh!’ There’s this thing coming towards you, and you just have to imagine it.”
When the hull is being breached, the actors don’t have to imagine when cables are whipping off the ceiling, Read reveals. “That was all practical. That was literally right there – they got somebody to put in some sparks, there was smoke everywhere. That was real. And we just had to not get hit.”
While both Alicia and Angus are normally two of THE ARK’s more benevolent characters, both of them begin Season 2 in a state of mind that could accurately be described as homicidally enraged.
“I think it was interesting to explore a different mindset entirely for both of our characters,” Adams offers. “Angus is super-different this season. And yeah, that involved me sort of going back – not stripping it all back, but going back to my prep, and thinking, ‘Okay, how can we bring an essence of who he is into the performance?’, but also, something new and something that Angus probably has seen before, but the audience hasn’t seen before, and at the end of the day, I think it all comes down to maturing and growing up, obviously, with the added element of, this poor kid going through a billion life or death situations.
Stacey Read as Alicia Nevins in THE ARK – Season 2 – “Failed Experiment” | ©2024 Syfy/Ark TV Holdings, Inc./Electric Entertainment
“He literally should have died – to put it bluntly, Angus should be dead. So, yeah, it’s trying to deal with that as well, and the only reason I’m alive is because my worst enemy, the person I hate the most, their blood is flowing through my veins, and it’s awful, and I hate that, and I should be dead. So, yeah. It was exciting to experience a new sort of mindset for Angus, and I’m just excited to see what everyone thinks.”
And what do Adams and Read both most want the audience to know going into THE ARK Season 2?
“Not to expect anything, honestly,” Read advises.
“I was going to say, expect the unexpected,” Adams contributes. “I think just to know that there’s a lot of fun to be had as well. We talk a lot about plot twists, and twists and turns, and, ‘Oh, my God, this happened,’ and ‘Oh, my God,’ but I think there’s a lot of fun to be had in Season 2.”
He concludes, ‘There are some episodes in particular – once they air, you’ll know what I mean – where it’s just a whole roller-coaster of, ‘Oh, my God, this is crazy, this is insane, I can’t believe this is happening.’ It’s so cool.”
Related: THE ARK: – Actress Christie Burke gives the scoop on Season 2 – Exclusive Interview
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Article: THE ARK: Actors Stacey Read and Ryan Adams give the scoop on Season 2 of the Syfy series – Exclusive Interview
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