By: Lynn Barker
We rely on all things electric: computers, cellphones, iPods, Nooks and Kindles etc. What if one day everything just stopped working? Zero electricity. The world is off the grid. You would be pissed. You would try to get the power back on. If you couldn’t, you would figure out how to live without it. How would you operate in such extreme circumstances?
After a while, would you even want the lights back on?
We asked stars Tracy Spiridakos (Charlie) and Billy Burke (Bella’s dad in the Twilight movies) to give us an early heads up on the new NBC series "Revolution". Tracy plays teen Charlie, a girl who is good with a crossbow and lives in a tiny settlement 15 years post blackout. She wants to know what else is still out there. Are there still cities?
Tracy as Charlie
Kidzworld: What is your character Charlie like?
- Tracy: Charlie was born with a sense of adventure and she really doesn’t understand the dangers that come along with the things outside of her area. She’s eager to see it all but has no idea what is coming her way. She goes on a quest to rescue her brother Danny who has been kidnapped.
Kidzworld: Who took him? Who are the enemies?
- Tracy: The Militia. They are the army for the new Republic of Monroe (that took over the U.S. after the big blackout) and they are hunting for my dad and my uncle looking for the answers to why the power went out. Now Charlie is on a quest to Chicago to find her uncle (played by Bella’s dad in the Twilight movies, Billy Burke) to help find Danny. This is a quest, a constantly moving adventure (across the U.S.).
Kidzworld: What is at the heart of this new show?
- Tracy: I feel like it’s about family and love and compassion.Everyone is put into these extreme situations and it’s about what we do for each other when put in an extremely hard place…but with a lot of adventure and fun, fun stuff.We’re trekking through the woods and abandoned cities to see what we find. Crazy and scary things happen but overall, it’s a fun adventure show.
Tracy and Billy as Charlie and Miles
Kidzworld: Did you guys do any fight training for this? There is a lot of action with crossbows, knives and swords.. old weapons.
- Billy: Yeah, first, we got our a**es kicked trying to do it, and then it’s evolving as we go. We have a guy Jeff Wolfe who did a lot of “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies. He’s an amazing stunt coordinator and choreographer, and he’s been there shepherding us throughout the process. And the good thing about it is it’s fun.
- Tracy: Yeah, I have to do kickboxing on my own. I did about a year’s worth of it. And I’ve grown up with guys my whole life, always kind of in the rumble of it all. So the action part and the stunts part of it really excites me.
Kidzworld: Was showing the producers you could do action part of the audition process to get the part?
- Tracy: We didn’t do any of the action stuff in the room. It was more kind of getting into the nitty gritty of the character and where she comes from. And they made it such a comfortable environment for me because they were so lovely and so welcoming that I was able to dip into wherever I was going. It was overall a really positive process because casting is terrifying sometimes for an actor.
Running from the Militia
Kidzworld: Billy you are kind of an anti-hero in this. Not at all like Bella’s dad.
- Billy: Well, this is one of those roles, when I saw it on the page, I immediately went back to my childhood and said, as I was growing up watching movies and television, that’s what I wanted to do. I have never been given the opportunity to do things like that. I mean, I’ve been hanging around a long time, doing a lot of stuff, and I’ve been very grateful for it. But presented with this, it was the biggest gift I’d been given in a very long time. So couldn’t be happier about it.
Kidzworld: Is there some electronic gadget that you would have trouble living without?
- Billy: You know, I consider myself old school. I could probably get along without a cell phone, but I feel like that’s evolving at such a rapid pace now that even phone calls are old school now and texting is what’s next? It’s just going to keep getting shorter and faster and quicker. So I’m going with the answer of the electric razor that keeps my face like this (no beard).
Revolution Poster
Check out the new series “Revolution” on NBC starting Sept 17th a 10/9 central time.
