Earlier today I was very excited to take part in a media conference call with Jolene Blalock who will be playing Sister Nicci in some upcoming episodes of Legend of the Seeker.

** Beware of spoilers ahead. If you don’t want to know about her upcoming episodes please don’t read any further. **

There were also several other bloggers, TV critics and podcasters present on the call as well. Some of them were from websites that I can personally recommend such as Sci-Fi Talk, The TV Chick and SF Universe.

Below is a recap of what was covered in the first half of the call. I hope to post the second half of the call recap tomorrow. We also published our latest podcast tonight so I just ran out of time trying to cover everything.

Question – I want to know a little bit more about your character Sister Nicci?

Jolene Blalock – Sister Nicci is introduced as a sister of the light but later defects and becomes a sister of the dark. Regardless of her label…I firmly believe that Sister Nicci is inherently good and innately pure. She has lost focus of the bigger picture because she’s become blinded by her own passions…the passion of her own intentions…which she truly believes are the way to go, the path to take.

Question – What has it been like filming the show, especially in New Zealand?

Jolene Blalock – New Zealand is an incredible place to shot…the landscape is breathtaking but even more special are the people. The cast and the crew they went out of their way to make me feel at home and were just incredibly hospitable to me and I am grateful for their effort.

Question – You seem to act mostly in the scifi/fantasy genre especially coming from Star Trek. What about this genre attracts you?

Jolene Blalock – Scifi/fantasy is always going to attract me because it’s something that’s special to my heart. I grew up on the original Star Trek. Also when I was in the 6th grade I would came home from school and watch the Star Wars trilogy back to back…it’s something that brings humanity outside of itself…it presents questions…what if, what if we could jump the timeline, what if we could meet another intelligent species, what if we could colonize on another planet. It deals with very big ideas.

Question – Could you give us a little teaser about what’s coming up with your character?

Jolene Blalock – There’s a battle of agendas…we have Richard who has his quest so that’s one agenda, we have the sisters of the light they have their agenda, then we have the defected sisters of the dark lead by Sister Nicci who has her agenda. It’s really a battle of agendas…each person believes their agenda is true. For Sister Nicci her agenda and her intentions has been a plan long awaited…she’s plotted this for possibly thousands of years. When Richard arrives on the scene it is a long awaited event and each moment with Richard…between Richard and Sister Nicci…each word that is said to him, each sentence that she says and the way that she says it is very well rehearsed…she’s had all this time to salivate over how this will unfold. So as she’s actually watching it unfold moment to moment I think she’s just self satisfied with herself and with her mastery of manipulation and the subtleties of it because it’s not blatant manipulation.

Question – What were some of the acting challenges you found with this particular character?

Jolene Blalock – What drew me to the character was the fact that there was a seed of doubt. She wasn’t blatantly sinister and she wasn’t blatantly evil. And with a seed of doubt…we have a lot of space to move and a lot of space to grow. What drew me to this character was this ability to have maybe a darker goal but be able to play that innocence. Also the fact that she was so calculated. Everything was so well planned out…so well rehearsed. Those two elements drew me to her because I’ve never really played a character that was so calculated.

Question – How did you originally become involved in Legend of the Seeker?

Jolene Blalock – It’s odd because I auditioned ages ago. I want to say probably over two years ago. The casting director at the time held on to my tape and the producers remembered me and when Sister Nicci came up and when they were writing her they thought of me and they brought me in for it. It’s sort of interesting.

Question – Did you always want to work in this particular industry while you were growing up or did you have other professions in mind?

Jolene Blalock – I’m a creative nut case. To say that I knew exactly where I want to be would be a lie. I knew that I had a sense of creativity and that an outlet was necessary. Whether it be art or writing or acting or performing in a play there had to me an outlet so I’m thankful and grateful that I’ve been able to do this.

You can find part two of the call here.

I want to thank Jolene for taking the time to talk with all of us. I also want to thank Cynthia Arntzen from Ferencomm for setting up the call as well as ABC Studios.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Interview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.