ALMOST HUMAN: Karl Urban on the Appeal of the Show, Working with Michael Ealy, and More

ALMOST HUMAN star Karl Urban has spent most of the last decade of his career working on movies (he previously was Caesar on XENA and HERCULES), so it took a very special project to draw him back into the television world.

“It was obviously, firstly, having the opportunity to work with J.J. [Abrams, Urban’s STAR TREK director and ALMOST HUMAN executive producer] again, whom I absolutely adore,” Urban told me of deciding to take the role of John Kennex on the Fox series, a futuristic buddy-cop drama. “I think he’s one of the most talented artists currently working in film and television. [And ALMOST HUMAN creator,] Joel Wyman, I was a huge fan of [his work on] FRINGE, so that was a huge draw.”

“And then it was, quite simply, reading the script and getting drawn into this world and getting drawn into the character of Kennex,” he continued. “A character who is damaged goods, a character who is trying to reclaim his life; a life that was stolen from him…living in a coma for two years [after an injury sustained during an ambush], and then coming back from that, trying to pick up the pieces. For me, that’s a really interesting starting point.”

And while ALMOST HUMAN is getting the latest start of all the new network fall dramas, Urban was gratified by the response the show’s first episode got at this summer’s Comic-Con panel.

Read more

ALMOST HUMAN: Watch 8 Minutes of the Pilot

ALMOST HUMAN — the new futuristic cop drama from FRINGE boss J.H. Wyman and uber producer J.J. Abrams — is getting a big launch post-football on November 17th, but if you can’t wait until then, Fox and Hulu have released a snippet of the pilot online early.

These eight minutes aren’t actually the start of the pilot, but it does introduce you to a fair amount of characters in the world, including the first meeting of Karl Urban’s John Kennex and Michael Ealy’s Dorian.

Take a look!

Read more

ALMOST HUMAN’s Michael Ealy on Working with Karl Urban: ‘The Chemistry is Growing’

In two weeks (Update: Fox has opted to push the premiere back to Sunday, November 17th), Fox will debut its final new fall series, ALMOST HUMAN, a “buddy-cop” show set 35 years in the future — where crime rates have risen and every cop is partnered with an android — that explores what humanity really means. (To give you a sense of the tone/show, it was created by FRINGE showrunner J.H. Wyman and executive produced by J.J. Abrams who did FRINGE/LOST/ALIAS/STAR TREK, etc.)

At the center of the series are Karl Urban’s John Kennex, a newly reinstated detective who was injured in a massive police ambush and has only partnered with humans pre-injury, and Michael Ealy’s Dorian, an android (model DRN) whose kind was created to be as human as possible, but has since been taken off the streets…who have become reluctant new partners. And as with any show where there’s one key relationship, the actors are aware their chemistry needs to be on point.

“The chemistry is growing episode after episode,” Ealy told me last month (in the video below), after the duo had completed a handful of hours. “We still work every episode on how to make it better.”

What else did Ealy have to say about his working relationship with Urban? Take a look…

Read more

ALMOST HUMAN: Michael Ealy on Playing an Android, What Drew Him to the Series, and More

There are a ton of procedurals on television these days — the good, the bad, the forgettable — but the new Fox drama, ALMOST HUMAN, is giving the genre its own little twist: it’s set in 2048, and in the future, law enforcement officials are paired up with android partners. (And since the series comes from former FRINGE showrunner J.H. Wyman, you can expect the future to be appropriately bizarre in all the right places.) Playing one of those androids — albeit a discontinued/bug-filled model whose big flaw is that he was made to feel — is Michael Ealy (Dorian), who has been a familiar face on television over the past few seasons, including starring in the USA Network series COMMON LAW.

I recently sat down with Ealy to get his take on playing an android, the show’s appeal, keeping up momentum, and more…

Read more