Hello, my lovely Collective family! Long time no post but I am BACK today to share my interview with Anthony Lemke. Lemke plays Three on the hit SyFy show, Dark Matter, which began its third season on June 9th. For all my Dark Matter fans, you’re going to want to read what he had to say about season three, and also when he gave me a mini heart attack at the beginning of the interview and made me think I had the wrong notes. #NeverADullMoment

Katie Green: So, the cliffhanger at the end of the second season.

Anthony Lemke: What cliffhanger? What?

KG: Yeah, there was a cliffhanger, was there not?

AL: That wasn’t a cliffhanger.

KG: Are you lying to me? Yes, there was!

AL: What are you talking about? We all blew up and died, that’s not a cliffhanger!

KG: Yeah, it is! OKAY, did you know you were getting a third season when that happened or not?

AL: We did not know there was going to be a third season. Uh, we never know. We’re not picked up for like two, three, four seasons at a time, so now we don’t know about season four. So, write lots of great things and get one million of your friends to watch the show. But no, we never know, it’s totally brand new every single time.

KG: So, what can viewers look forward to in the third season of Dark Matter?

AL: Oh! Mayhem, sex, rock and roll, drugs, lots of those things…..no. Not of that. Mayhem, for sure. Um, they can look forward to the culmination obviously of the corporate war story, how that all plays out. They can look forward to revenge on all sides. They can look forward to more Sarah/Three story lines. They can forward to a pretty cool unfolding of Android’s backstory, or we’ll call it pieces of the puzzle of Android’s back story, Two’s back story, Five’s back story. I think the biggest thing to look forward to is by the….about two-thirds of the way through season three, they start planting seeds for season four. AND you can also look forward to comedy. We have two episodes that are like just pretty much straight up comedies which is very different. I mean obviously they’ve written it in the same frame of some sort of episodic mission that we have to complete, which is the DNA of the show. However, in tone, they’re totally different than anything we’ve shot before. So, lot’s of fun to shoot as an actor and I hope the audience will respond to them as a welcome sort of change from the regular kind of show we put on.

KG: Speaking of characters, what’s your favourite part of playing Three?

AL: Complexity. The fact that he has many, many notes to play, and all of them are sincere and come from who he is. He’s a character with a complicated past and he’s a little unpredictable because of it. You don’t know which side of the line he’s going to fall down on, and now you’re pretty clear when it comes to Sarah, you know exactly what side of like he’s going to come down on. When it comes to anything else, you’re still not 100% sure because of this duality between this kind of perfect idyllic upbringing he had of the first 8-10 years of his life and then the total crap afterwards. And they’re both who he is, and more than any other character, he seems fine with that. He seems to embrace both those sides. You know, the father he ends up killing in season two, who wasn’t his real father, it was the guy who killed his father. That character is very much still within him, you know, that life is very much still within him. THAT person taught him, and he still was his father from the age of 8 onwards. I didn’t even know, as my character, I didn’t even know that guy was not my real father.

KG: And on the complete other side, the biggest challenge? And what’s different about playing Three than any other character you’ve played before?

AL: I’d say biggest challenge is related to complexity but I think it has to do with the comedy in that character. Where you’ve got to be really careful that you don’t gloss over beats in the search for comedy. Because it’s clear that my job on the show is to provide comedy, to inject comedy. I’m not the only one, especially as we’ve grown, there’s a lot more characters that provide that as well. Almost every character, really. Some a little more than others, obviously Five, and the Android, and myself tend to provide more comedic beats than Two or Six….or Four. With my character the challenge is, he’s flippant all the time and his first instinct is to be comedic but you’ve got to be careful as an actor that you’re not glossing over beats where it should land for him. Especially because he is complex, and I’ve missed a couple. You know, where you fall into that one voice and by the time you’ve done your coverage and you see the other person and you’re like “I missed that, that beat that I’m feeling on their coverage, I should’ve played that differently on my side and it’s too late” That’s hard, that’s the hardest part of this character.

KG: For those who haven’t seen Dark Matter, why should they catch up and start watching now? Besides the obvious reason of like THEY JUST SHOULD, but why? If you’re trying to pitch it to them.

AL: Yeah sure, I’d say it’s a fun hour of television that is at once suspenseful and heartfelt and it has just about the right amount of philosophical questioning. I mean, serious questions about the state of humanity, about what is the human condition, what it means to be human, what a soul is, what it is to be a family or to be outside a family, belonging. All that stuff, we do deal with just enough, it’s not a preachy show. But mostly, I think it’s just a fun show to watch. It’s a fun show that doesn’t take itself too seriously and when you come home on a Friday night and you’re bagged, click it on, and I think you’re going to be rewarded with a pretty fun hour.

KG: Awesome! Well, is there anything else you’d like to add?

AL: I don’t have to add anything more other than WATCH OUR SHOW! Watch it live!

KG: Okay!

AL: Live matters. I know that the world has changed and folks watch across all manner of devices but the folks who count numbers have a difficult time counting all the various different ways that we watch and they seem to care A LOT still about the old television box. Watch it live! Make it event!

That’s it, loves! If you enjoyed this interview, give this post a like and share it on all the social media websites. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram (@katiealayagreen), and keep up with Anthony Lemke by following him on Twitter (@ranthonylemke). Till next time!

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Katie is a makeup artist/blogger from the Great White North (AKA, good ol’ Canada). She spends her time creating YouTube videos, writing about anything that crosses her mind, and living vicariously through episodes How I Met Your Mother. You can check out her videos here. Or follow Katie on Twitter and at her Blog.