Fans of TNT’s “Falling Skies” are eagerly awaiting what the second season will have in store for them. The premiere is hours away now, but if you can’t wait until 9 p.m. ET tonight, the scoop from Connor Jessup is that the second season of “Falling Skies” will be more intense than last season.
“Last season, were were primarily in one location, and we were establishing characters and the mythology,” he said. “This season is faster, grittier, we’re moving around to more settings…It’s more frenetic. It’s bigger and better than last season.”
Jessup, who plays Ben Mason, also said there’s a new outlook in store for his character. “In the first season, he was optimistic and smiley; now that his dad [played by Noah Wyle] is presumed dead, he’s become darker. He’s become a fighter now. He’s a little bit colder, a little bit harder and tougher, but because of this being the result of trauma and confusion all in a short amount of time, this is just a surface coating. There’s still that optimistic, naive persona under there.”
Even though Jessup’s character holds his own on the show, Jessup himself doesn’t think he’d survive an alien occupation if one ever occurred on Earth.
“I think I would probably be one of the first to die,” he said. “After the alien takeover on the show, most of the people on earth have died. You have to be really lucky or ingenious or tough to have survived. I’m graceless. I have no survival skills. I’d be useless to anybody in a post-apocalyptic environment.”
Also, if you think Jessup would be sympathetic to someone who said they have been abducted by aliens just because he plays an abducted person on television, think again.
“No,” he plainly said when asked about believing someone who claimed to be abducted. “A lot of people have said that [they were abducted]…It would be much more probable that it was some sort of lie or self-delusion. Now, if it was like the context of the show, where aliens have taken over and someone said they were abducted, then I’d believe them.”
Outside of the post-apocalyptic world of “Falling Skies,” Jessup has acted as executive producer and camera assistant for indie film “Amy George,” which tells the story of a 13-year-old boy whom Jessup describes as being part of the “liberal middle class” going on a journey in order to gain enough suffering to become what he considers a true artist to be.
“I’m friends with some film school graduates, and they had this script,” he said. “I read it and I fell for the script. I was just getting into becoming obsessed with movies at that time, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to learn about movies behind the scenes. It was an amazing experience. It was a huge benefit to me.”
The film has been screened at several film festivals, including TIFF and the Brooklyn International Film Festival, where it won a Spirit Award.
Also, Jessup will be starring in “Bye Bye Blackbird” as Sean Randall, an angry and troubled teen who, while struggling to change his ways, lands in a juvenile facility.
Fighting aliens, producing films and landing in juvie; all in a day’s work for Jessup.
(Photo Credit: Benny Haddad)
