A family friendly yarn awaits Friday night for fans of classic literature and pirate lore, as NBC debuts “Crusoe,” their 13-week series that is described by the network as “an ambitious adaptation” of Daniel Defoe's "The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner."
Filmed in the lush coast of South Africa, the setting and island trappings for "Crusoe," which premieres Friday night with back-to-back episodes will entertain younger kids who are fans of "Pirates of the Caribbean."
"Crusoe" might disappoint diehard fans of the classic and some older viewers, who may question some of the improbable scurvy dog and fetching odd-man out female pirate scenes that play counter to what anyone would expect from these seafarers.
Produced for NBC in a collaboration of British, Canadian and South African production companies, this is as close to the production values of a big Hollywood movie as they come and feels like a visually lush adventure rarely made for television anymore.
Tongai Arnold Chirisa as Friday- Courtesy NBC
As Crusoe, actor Philip Winchester plays his character with sincerity, and veterans Sam Neill and Sean Bean dress up the rest of the cast as the nefarious family friend and the castaway's father respectively. South African actor Jonathan Pienaar is pirate chief Lynch, Tongai Arnold Chirisa is Friday, Georgina Rylance is a comely female pirate flirts with Crusoe and Joaquim De Almeida is the captain of the coast guard.
Monsters and Critics got a chance to talk to “Crusoe” stars Philip Winchester, Sam Neill and Executive Producer, Jeffrey Hayes.
Crusoe airs Friday, October 17 in a two hour premiere from 8:00 to 10:00, and then it will move to its regular timeslot from 9:00 to 10:00 pm on Fridays.
Sam, I was thrilled to see you and I was a big fan of you on The Tudors and miss you. Your character is Jeremiah Blackthorn, and we see a lot of you in flashbacks. Can you tell us more about how you’re going to be worked into the story through the season?
Sam Neill: Oh good, good. Well I’ve filmed - I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to give away but Robinson has been stuck on this island for 11 hours dealing with all kinds of bad people and any number of challenges.
And Philip can tell you more on that. I live in England and I’ve filmed all of my material in England in advance, I think in May or June. Something like that, wasn’t it Jeff? Something like that.
Jeff Hayes: Yes it was
Sam Neill: So now I’ve decided that he’s had - that all good things must come to an end and I am coming to the island and I will deal with Robinson one way or another.
And if tides and so on have been bad, he ain’t seen nothing yet. So I think that’s pretty much - is that a fair comment Jeff)?
Jeff Hayes: I’d say that’s a fair comment.
Where are you based? Are you based in London or are you in Australia or New Zealand?
Sam Neill: That’s an interesting question that I ask myself a lot, too. But I just - in between times I’ve been home in New Zealand where I live and I manage to fit in a movie there.
So I just finished that last Saturday and I’m ready to take to Robinson and he’s not going to forget this in a hurry.
Philip, you do a tremendous amount of your own stunt work in this series. And I was wondering if there were any injuries you might have sustained? Can you talk about the physical challenges of the series?
Philip Winchester: Yeah, I don’t think we really knew what we were in for when we started in York because York was quite - this nice meandering drama that we were doing and we were riding horses and meeting people in pubs, and having conversations.
When we got to South Africa I think it really came out of the blue just how many stunts and how much stuff we would be doing. So I have a really strict health regime and I just really take care of myself.
But also we have just an incredible stunt team who has really looked out for us and they (offer to respond) from kind of giving us the option to say yes or no.
But most of the time I do end up doing my own stunts and I think, I just think it helps the character along as well. If what the character has done physically, you can go there emotionally as well.
I think it’s probably more not watching what I eat but just eating healthy things, eating good foods. And I do get up very early in the morning and workout.
We have 5:30 calls in the morning so I’ll be at sometimes 4:45 to get some work in. But I’m not doing anything crazy.
I wanted to do things that Robinson could’ve done on the island so I’ve been running on the beach and I’ve been doing pushups and pull-ups on the beach, and things like that.
I haven’t been doing anything too crazy - things that he could do on the island.
Jeff, did you hire all your keys in South Africa or if you brought some of them from the United States or from England? If you could talk about your art department. They do an exemplary job.
Jeff Hayes: Well yes, we brought our production designer from the UK. this being basically a three way co-production between Canada, the UK and South Africa, you have a certain balance that you need to achieve.
So we brought a production designer down from the UK and he had worked in South Africa before, so that was a bonus. He knew all the key people we wanted to hire down here and we’ve been very fortunate.
Courtesy NBC
The South African crew, across the board, has just been so gung-ho and enthusiastic about what we were doing and delivered way beyond anything I could’ve hoped.
It’s a testament to them that we’ve been able to achieve all the things that we’ve achieved. So it was a good thing.
Philip, how did it work out that you’re playing this character in this series to begin with?
Philip Winchester: Yeah, of course. When these things happen it’s a little surreal and I - actually I can’t speak from experience. This is the largest role that I’ve undertaken so it was a real surprise.
But I worked for the (U.S.) Royal Shakespeare Company last year and we did King Lear and we were traveling all around the world. And I got back to England and I was back between London and filming in Prague.
My agent had sent me Robinson Crusoe during my time filming in Prague and it kind of disappeared for a month or so. And I was getting ready to head back to Los Angeles to just pick up pilot season again.
I remember asking whatever happened to Robinson Crusoe? And she said well I think they’re still casting for it if you’d like to go in and have a session.
I said yeah, I definitely would. Before I fly back to Los Angeles I’d like to have a go at it. And so I went in and I met with the Casting Director, Jeremy Zimmerman who is a great casting director in London.
And it was a funny casting because I trained in London and so there were a lot of people - a lot of people who I trained with were sitting outside in the waiting room and everyone was really antsy I noticed because it’s one of those parts and it’s one of those roles that everybody wants to get, especially all the guys, .
To play Robinson Crusoe, to be able to sword fight and tell this great tale, and travel all over the place as we have would be such an amazing opportunity. So everyone was very nervous and very excited all at the same time.
I did a casting and came out and had a chat with a buddy who I had worked with years before; who I went to drama school with.
And then as I try to do with auditions, it’s kind of like golf - I try and hit the shot and forget about it. I try and do an audition and forget about it. Otherwise you worry about it so much.
I got a phone call a couple weeks later saying, , it looks like they’d like to have another meeting and they’d like to test you. So, not trying to put too many eggs in one basket I just assumed it was just another normal test.
And it turned out it was a screen test. Then I got very excited about it. And it did go on a little bit.
They have to be sure and it’s, to be honest I’m glad they drag it out like that because you have to be really sure you want to do it as well because it’s a huge commitment.
So I think it went on for a couple weeks. We did a couple tests and then we retested. And then I was out having dinner with a friend because I couldn’t do anything.
It was consuming everything. I just could not stop thinking about this show. A buddy of mine had called and said look I’m going to take you out to dinner because you’re driving everyone crazy.
And while we were at dinner we - I got the phone call. And it’s one of those phone calls where both your agents are on the phone so it’s important.
How much of the show goes back to the original literary source material?
Jeff Hayes: It goes back to the original source material, , at its core.
(Actually) it definitely has its foundation in the book. There’s no doubt.
Did you have any trepidation in taking the liberties with the original material?
Philip Winchester: I’ve been mulling over that for awhile thinking about how - I mean, because we have taken artistic licenses with some of the stories.
And like Jeff said it has to happen because otherwise it just - it can get dull watching a guy on an island build a shelter and get a fire going, and going hunting every episode. It wouldn’t be entertaining.
So what I’ve really tried to do and what I think we’ve stuck to is that Robinson Crusoe is the same character but he’s telling different tales or different things are happening to him.
Different things are coming into this life. But we have definitely (done at the core) novel to kind of (visit) the island several times and Robinson Crusoe has to go through the emotional, the emotional journey of what he’s going to do about seeing cannibals and if he’s going to interfere with the cannibals.
So we’ve taken those elements of the story and we’ve intertwined them into the 13 episodes. We’ve also taken scenes from the original book and we put them throughout the different episodes.
There’s probably actually only two or three shows that are completely original stories where there’s something completely different happening.
He wasn’t married when he was on the island in the original, was he?
Philip Winchester: Right, No he wasn’t but actually in the second book (where) Daniel Defoe, of the success of Robinson Crusoe wrote The Further Tales of Robinson Crusoe.
When he’s much older he is married and he lands on the island. So we actually haven’t gone that far off the script. And again for the drama of it, it makes it - this guy has to have a reason to stay alive.
There’s - the things that are happening to him and the amount of pressure that he’s living with, and the stresses of everyday life of surviving - to have something it live for, i.e., a wife and a family, it gives him a real drive I think.
And that’s something that (can) really come up throughout the episodes is why is he so tenacious? I mean, why does he want to get off this island so bad?
And for an audience watching, I think having something that’s relative to all of us like a situation, like being in love with someone and wanting to be with them so desperately I think that’s a really good (key) to have through this episodes.
What other kinds of challenges does he face?
Jeff Hayes: Well this is Jeff….we have not just pirates but there’s cannibals and they’re the mutineers. A mutineer, is a group of guys that take over a ship that’s commanded, in more of a military way and they mutiny and then they take over the ship.
And so in terms of pirates, they would become pirates possibly but they don’t start off that way. They start off as a ship’s crew.
He also manages to return to the island and it’s through him - he’s a bad guy in the two hour and then he comes back and he’s been redeemed. And he helps Crusoe and Friday fight the cannibals.
So we have, , quite an interesting tapestry of various characters of the period coming through the island over a period of time. The mutineers, for instance, they stay on the island because their ship is actually wrecked on the reef.
And while they repair it, they’re there for an arc of about four or five episodes and we draw on them for stories as we go through that arc.
Sometimes they don’t figure very often into an episode - very much into an episode. And then other times they are a very integral part of the episode.
Can you talk a little bit about that balancing done in adapting this for TV, and how you’re hoping to achieve that?
Jeff Hayes: Well first of all, it’s an action adventure show and so, you have to start there and then develop your characters into that, knowing that, you’re appealing to - trying to appeal to a broad audience.
And so, hopefully everybody knows the Robinson Crusoe story. They know about a man on an island, a man who’s desperate to get off that island and the adventures that he has to face.
You start with that as the foundation and that’s what you’re being true to in a sense when anybody asks about the novel.
And then from there you have to go into your action adventure series. You have to create characters. You have to create a back-story. You have to create a love story.
You just try and give it as many layers as you possibly can and contemporize it in a way that’s going to appeal to a broad audience for television.
I think that we’ve managed to accomplish that on a number of levels, , particularly as far as the back-story that Sam and Susannah, Crusoe’s wife and his father who is played by Sean Bean and, , this group of remembrances that actually dovetail into real-time towards the end of the first 13 episodes.
So it’s a balance, yes and I think that we’ve found - we’ve struck a good balance actually in being true to the book and providing a very I think, substantial piece of entertainment.
Philip and Sam - could you talk about stepping into these iconic roles?
Sam Neill: I have to be fairly honest and have to admit I’m not the world’s leading expert on Daniel Defoe. And I probably - I’m more in favor of the (rip and yard) and what we’re doing here is, …I think probably, the job description is to have as much fun and provide as much fun as we possibly can, and pack as much as possible into a good television hour.
And as far as the iconic roles go, Philip’s role is much more iconic than mine.
Philip Winchester: Shoot, I thought you were going to answer for me there, Sam.
Sam Neill: Yes, you’ve got an immense burden on your shoulders for a young man. And - but as for me, I’m just lifting what I can from the page and running with it as fast as I can for the touchdown.
Philip Winchester: Yes. Well, just when you have a role like this you obviously have to pour over the original stuff as much as I could. I read the book several times before looking at the script.
And you just have to do something new. You start with bare bones so, what would this guy - where would they be living and what would they be eating, and what would they be drinking and dressing like?
Obviously the production does a lot of that. They put clothes on your back which helps immensely. And then you start to - you’re given a job as an actor to kind of make believe and to tell a story.
Like Sam was saying, trying to have fun with it as well which is very important. So with an iconic character like this- like with any character you make a choice and it’s going to make some people really happy and some people might not be so happy.
But that’s the nature of being artistic and that’s the nature of making a choice. And you have to stand by that choice.
What really helped was getting to South Africa and meeting the actor that was going to play Friday, getting to know him well and then just piecing together the story that we were getting in, as the scripts were being put in front of us.
Like Sam said, we were pulling stuff off the page and making it real, calling Jeff about things we agreed with, we really were excited about, the things we weren’t excited about and getting them changed.
And it’s just a practice. it’s one day at a time. I had a choir teacher and I gave him a (stake), our choir teacher who - , he’s (active). When we had big assignments he’d ask us how we were going to do it and we smiled and said we were going to do it one (byte) at a time,
And he said - and that’s good. So we’re going to doing one (bite) at a time. We’re going to take it one day at a time and just - the characters develop that way as well, .
And it’s leaped out the last two episodes in front of us and they’re very well-rounded now. The audience has got to (take) with what they can and can’t do and we’re going to, we’re really going to (come and do) the (action full blown).
How long can people keep coming to the island without Crusoe being able to get off before it turns into Gilligan’s Island a little?
Jeff Hayes: Yeah I mean, that’s one of the reasons why we had the mutineers arc which puts people on the island without them coming each week with a different Gilligan’s Island type of character
And what we’ve also done is we’ve also gone out of our way to develop at least - I think it’s four scripts where it’s really just Crusoe and Friday together on the island.
And those are very kind of character, exploratory type shows between our two leads in a situation on the island, whether it’s them against nature, whether they’ve found some kind of (remnants) of an ancient civilization that leads them on some kind of an adventure or whether it’s just the interpersonal adventure that is - , where the emphasis is, for instance, Friday’s failure of a test when he was a young boy trying to become a warrior.
How something in Friday’s character like that motivates Crusoe to set up a whole series of test and challenges between the two of them in order to make Friday feel like, , like he had become a warrior finally.
There are a number of things to explore between Friday and Crusoe as characters without people being injected into the island life.
The more you end up writing for characters or developing characters over the course of the initial episodes, the easier it is to evolve stories out of those characters.
To answer your question I think, , at least four seasons worth.
Is anyone else on the island besides these two?
Jeff Hayes: Well you never know. It’s a pretty big island.
Philip, do you personally have survivor-like skills that you’d be able to use?
Philip Winchester: Well after we’re done filming this I think I’d be better adapted to it. Yeah, I grew up in Montana. I was fortunate enough to have a really kind of outdoors upbringing so I have camping skills and things like that.
The things that Robinson Crusoe did are - they’re pretty, I don’t know, they’re brilliant. The way Robinson Crusoe or the way Daniel Defoe wrote the book and the way Crusoe deals with things are amazing. I’m okay with animals and insects, and storms and things like that. I think it’s just being alone for that long. I think you probably would start to lose your mind. And I have thought about it, especially when thinking about, the character of Crusoe and the things that start to eat away at him.
And I think the biggest thing that I came up with would be just loneliness and being away from community, and being away from your friends and your family, and, , the people we take for granted.
I think those would be the things that really would come back and haunt you, , that you didn’t have those key elements in your life.
I’d like to think that I could, but at the end of the day you never know, do you?
Philip Winchester: Gosh, well when I was in high school we used to travel on the - we used to have the pep rallies. , we - I was in - either with the choir and with the band and we used to have pep rallies for the basketball team.
I remember getting on the coach and going from Bozeman over to Billings which is about a three hour bus drive. And this massive storm came in and Billings was shut off from the rest of the state.
I would say - we were there for about a week and a half actually.
Sam Neill: If I can just add to that for a minute - I think that nothing about the island would worry me except for my own company. I can’t figure anything more stultifying or dull.
Jeff Hayes: Oh come on, Sam.
Sam Neill: And - no I would think - , you always think oh I’d really like to be on my own and just have some quality time with myself. And then after about a day or two you think this is really, really boring. now.
Jeff Hayes: Oh funny.
Sam Neill: It would freak me out.
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