Stacey Read and Ryan Adams had to learn how to act with glasses on as part of their roles in Syfy’s upcoming The Ark. Ahead of the series release on February 1, ComingSoon spoke with the up-and-coming actors about their preparation for the roles, their favorite sci-fi series, and more.
“The Ark takes place 100 years in the future when planetary colonization missions have begun as a necessity to help secure the survival of the human race. The first of these missions on a spacecraft known as Ark One encounters a catastrophic event causing massive destruction and loss of life. With more than a year left to go before reaching their target planet, a lack of life-sustaining supplies and loss of leadership, the remaining crew must become the best versions of themselves to stay on course and survive.”
Tudor Leonte: Stacy, let’s start with you. You portray Alicia, a very brilliant young woman. In general, how did you prepare for the role?
Stacey Read: I would say I took a lot of myself, I think, into the character. I like to think I’m quite optimistic and Alicia’s quite positive and optimistic, so I really liked that about her. The other side to preparation is… she knows a lot of information, so if something would come up in the script about something that she would know, I would honestly spend hours just researching things. I know random facts about things now that I didn’t think I would ever know.
How is it to portray one of the most knowledgeable people in the galaxy?
Read: It’s great. It’s nerve-wracking ’cause I’m like, ‘I hope everything I’m saying is correct, that I’m not messing up my lines.’ I love her so much. I love that she uses her knowledge to help people.
Ryan, your character is pretty brilliant too. Where does the green thumb come from in Angus Medford?
Ryan Adams: I personally have never really done any gardening or anything like that in my life, although my mom, she’s a big fan of planting flowers. Our garden is super beautiful all down to her. She loves that kind of thing. When it came to like researching for the role, I did a lot of reading about horse culture, a lot of YouTube videos, just to see how it all works really. Like with Alicia, Angus has a lot of dialogue where he is just explaining his job and explaining a lot of difficult words and stuff like that, which I would never have known unless playing this role. A lot of research, and just trying to get into the mind of Angus for sure.
And your character, of course, comes up with the solution in a very, very sticky moment for the spaceship when he comes up with a way to make some gardening on the spaceship. How was it to be the genius of the situation and the men of the hour?
Adams: It was great, bro. It was great to be the man of the hour, the genius. Everyone’s character has their moment, I mean, Stacey knows Alicia’s always saving the day. For Angus especially, it was big for him because he’s just a kid. He’s recently done high school, university and like, and now all the lives on the ship sort of rely on him and whether this plan to grow food on the ship is gonna work or not. There was a lot of pressure, but he really tries to pull it off. I mean, these people are geniuses, these are the smartest people on earth. He really does know what he’s doing.
This one is for both of you. What’s the most difficult part of working on a sci-fi series?
Read: I don’t know if this is the answer you’re looking for, but Alicia wears glasses. I mean, I wear glasses also in real life. Wearing glasses on set, never did I ever realize that there’s all that glare. You have to position your head, position your glasses in a certain way and act in a certain way so that the glare doesn’t hit your glasses. For me, I found that to be one of the hardest things throughout the whole season.
Welcome to my world!
Adams: We both had to do a lot of glasses acting. I remember the camera crew were constantly having to be like, ‘Hey, can you like tilt your head down a tiny bit? Thank you so much,’ and then it feel like we’d just be acting like this kind of thing, but yeah, it looks a lot better for camera. It’s a big thing to be part of a sci-fi show. I’m a huge sci-fi fan, so it’s a huge honor to be part of this world and be part of a world Jonathan Glassner and Dean Devlin have created. It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s very exciting. I’m super proud of it.
What’s your favorite sci-fi movie or series?
Adams: Star Wars. Star Wars, for sure. I’m a big Star Wars fan. I love it. I’d kill to be in one of those films or TV shows one day like. That’s the goal. I love it.
What about you, Stacey? Were you into the sci-fi genre at all before landing this job?
Read: I’d say my favorite sci-fi series would have to be Dr. Who. Loved it ever since I first watched it when I was younger. Love it now.
