DreamWatch Magazine, #37 (October 1997), pp. 44-45
BYERS' MARKET
Bruce Harwood, who has played Byers, one of he cryptic triptych
known as The LoneGunmen, in ten episodes of The X-Files since his
debut in the first season episode EBE, recently completed filming
his scenes for The X-Files movie, marking the first time the actor
has worked in Los Angeles, as he explains to Dave Hughes...
Speaking from Vancouver as he was getting ready to fly down to
California for the first time since his convention experience in
Burbank two years ago, Harwood says that in mid-May he was informed
by his agent that The Lone Gunmen would appear in the film, and
admits to being surprised.
"My thought was that we wouldn't be in the movie, simply because a
motion picture of The X-Files is basically two episodes of the TV
show, and in a movie you have to make a different kind of impact
on the audience than a TV show does," he explains.
"A TV show has lots of leisure time, and it can introduce characters
like The Lone Gunmen, and pick them up at a later episode. I
thought initially that a two-hour movie would want to go straight
for the guts of the thing, [having] the two stars out there dealing
with some kind of mystery of whatever sort, and that our characters
wouldn't be required -- they would just get in the way of people who
don't watch the show regularly, but decided to see the movie, [and
that] they would be puzzled."
Harwood confirms that the film picks up where the fifth and probably
final series leaves off - meaning that The Lone Gunmen's survival is
all but certain for the whole of next season - and adds that the
team is due to get its own episode, like Smoking Man in series four,
early in the fifth season.
"I hear that the first episode the Lone Gunmen appear in next season
is going to explain how they got together," he says. "I don't know
if it's true or not, but I'm looking forward to that because I would
like to know."
Although The Lone Gunmen made only two 'appearances' in series four
- including Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, in which their voices
were heard on tape - Harwood names Memento Mori as one of his
favourite episodes to date, probably because of the expanded role
each of the trio was given as they break into a Federal office with
Mulder in an attempt to discover the truth behind a cover-up
initiated by Skinner at Smoking Man's request.
How did the actor feel about the normally sober-suited and well
groomed Byers suddenly becoming and action man? "What was difficult
about that is that Byers is totally comfortable being in this basement,
gathering information -- this is how I think of him, as the guy who
enjoys feeling like he knows everything and is sitting at the centre
of all these conduits of information and putting together the big
picture.
"So to put him in the centre of the action, which he is not at all
suited for, was the main challenge of trying to work out how he
would deal with any kind of real danger. And I guess in the end you
could say that his solution was to run as fast as he could! I think
Byers was nervous, but fine as long as Mulder was there to hold his
hand.
"The problem was when Mulder said, 'You have to go back on your own'.
I think when Mulder left me, I had quite a long reaction take -
edited down in the final scene - where I was just watching him go
down the corridor, and then the door he had gone through slammed in
my face, and I had to leave. And I was like a little puppy dog
wondering what to do. And it was a matter of just getting out of
there as quickly as I could."
In addition to the X-Files film and his part-time work at the public
library in Vancouver ("Nobody recognizes me!"), Harwood recently
completed a guest starring role in an episode of The Outer Limits.
"It was four days, and it was a lot of fun," he says. "I played a
sort of frightened technician who was revealing the evil secrets of
the government on a television programme. I got to actually fire a
gun, [and] panic and break down and do all sorts of things.
"It's actually the last episode of this season of The Outer Limits,"
he adds, "And it's what they call a 'clip episode', where they use
clips from previous shows, and so part of the trick is working out
an interesting way of working them into the show. The premise is
that Alan Fick - a Canadian actor who's made it big in Los Angeles -
is the host of this sort of Hard Copy-style TV show, and he is going
to be revealing a government conspiracy in some sort of secret
genetic studies. I am his prime witness, and I bring with me
clips of different researches, and those are the clips from the
shows. Government forces attack us and we have to defend ourselves
and we lose in the end, and everybody dies. I've given away the
ending now," he adds guiltily.
With that episode completed, Harwood says that he is looking forward
to bringing Byers back on the next season of The X-Files. "We're a
great team, actually," he says of working with fellow Gunmen Dean
Haglund and Tom Braidwood. "We get along really well when we meet
on set, and that always comes through with our ability to play the
scene and get to the line, and put it together really nicely."
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