Aug. 3, 2009 - More NEW "Defying Gravity" photos & interviews with CHRISTINA COX!!!
Here are MORE new photos of Christina from her new TV show "DEFYING GRAVITY"!!
Here is an interview that Christina did with Hollywood Today:
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
Gabrielle Pantera asks Christina Cox about her starring role in the Defying Gravity TV series that premieres on ABC on August 2nd, 2009, at 9pm/8c
Christina Cox in Defying Gravity
"HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 8/2/2009 - The ABC TV series Defying Gravity poses the question, can humans be celibate in space? Not hardly.
“The first day of shooting there was a lot of ridiculous fan-girl squealing because the sets on Defying Gravity are so unbelievably cool,” says Defying Gravity star Christina Cox. “It was a lot of Florentine Lahme and me slapping each other and doing silent oh-my-gods behind the producers’ backs because we wanted to look really cool. Aside from Riddick, to walk onto a television set where there was such a complete world manufactured for you, I can’t even describe how awesome those sets are.”
Christina Cox, known for roles in The Chronicles of Riddick and Stargate Atlantis, is astronaut-biologist Jen in Defying Gravity. The story has eight astronauts, four female and four male, from five different countries aboard an international spacecraft. While the crew is working the world is watching through video cameras.
“This is the first time that we’re looking at, can we put someone on the surface of Mars?” says Cox. “Can we put them on Venus? How will that work? What are the psychological repercussions of long term space travel when you isolate people from their families for five or six years?”
“My character on the ship, Jen, is married,” says Cox. “Defying Gravity is set within the next fifty years. It’s not deep future with us on other planets. It’s a projection of what NASA thinks we can do in the next fifty years. The show takes place over the five-year training period where the astronaut candidates or “ass-cans” as we ended up calling ourselves. As people train in this intense environment there are relationships made, while they’re getting ready for launch. And, there’s an unknown element to their mission that they’re not aware of initially.”
There are thirteen regular cast members on the show. “Some of us are on the ship and some of us are at mission control,” says Cox. “We are in contact with home by satellite uplink kind of a thing. They’re just very far away and the roaming charges are a bitch.”
“I’m really passionate about this show,” says Cox. “There’s an alchemy that has to come together for a show to be good. There’s something special here for us. I’ve worked with Ty Olsson before, who plays my husband. We were both on Riddick. We were both on The Crow years before. We’d never played opposite each other like on this show. We were never married. So, it was a completely different experience. It was kind of funny after working together for ten years.”
The sets are on the same stage in British Vancouver. “The majority of our space station is on the same set that I shot Stargate Atlantis on,” says Cox.
Many of Cox’s projects have been Sci-Fi. “I like the progressive nature of a lot of Sci-Fi writing and endless possibilities,” says Cox. “When [Virgin Airlines] Mr. Branson brings the price of a ticket down, I’m there. I’m particularly interested in Pluto.”
Cox says Defying Gravity is fundamentally different from previous space station stories like Star Trek Deep Space Nine. “DS-9 is set so far in the future and the technology available to them is very different,” says Cox. “We’re at a point in our show where we can travel these longer distances and survive and have the technology, such as it is, to set down on a planet and survive. It’s not a perfect journey.”
Will Cox return someday for a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick? “I’d like to think I’m not quite dead, if they ever come back for a second Riddick,” says Cox. “It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I thought I was going in there for a couple week’s work, and it ended up being six months.
Cox likes doing her own stunts and is listed as a stunt woman on Million Dollar Baby. “It had to be credited that way because of SAG,” says Cox. “I’m not a stunt woman. I’ve done a lot of my own stunts and happy to do the things I’m good at, but there are certain things I leave to the professionals like air rams and ratchet-pulls and car things.”
Like The Office, Defying Gravity is filmed documentary-style. With personal cameras in their quarters the astronauts have no secrets from the cameras. That abortion is illegal in fifty years time is a key plot point of Defying Gravity. Before leaving Earth, each astronaut is fitted with a device to inhibit them from fooling around with other crew members. It apparently has the unforeseen side-effect of making them talk about sex incessantly on camera.
Like Lost, Defying Gravity is told with flashbacks and has secrets.
Defying Gravity is made by the producers of Grey’s Anatomy for Fox Television Studios and Omni Film Productions in association with Canada’s CTV and Germany’s ProSieben. It’s loosely based on the BBC drama Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets.
Defying Gravity premieres on ABC on August 2nd, 2009, at 9pm/8c as a 2-hour special, then broadcasts weekly as a 1-hour series on Sundays at 10pm/9c." (source:hollywoodtoday.net)
HERE'S ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINA WITH ABOUT.COM:
An Interview With Christina Cox (Jen, 'Defying Gravity') by Rachel Thomas, about.com
"Over the course of an actor's career, much of their time is spent auditioning for role after role in hopes that they might one day land a steady gig -- or just any gig at all. Sadly, not many aspiring actors ever get that big break, nor do they nab very many speaking roles in films or television. Acting is a tough business, one that nobody should ever take for granted no matter how much success one has achieved.
Christina Cox is one of those very lucky actors who has starred in two major television series and guest starred in some of television's hottest shows. Her latest role in ABC's Defying Gravity is sure to make this talented actress a household name.
I had the fortunate opportunity to chat with Christina and found her to be incredibly sweet, funny and intelligent. Most importantly -- she doesn't take her luck for granted and puts absolutely everything she has into each and every single role.
Q: When did you decide to pursue a career in acting?
Christina: "Around the time I realized that trying to pursue a career as a modern dancer was a harder choice. So, I picked the stable and secure field of acting for my life path. I was doing a double major at an arts high school. Hayden Christiensen and I went to the same art school in Toronto. I was doing a double major in drama and dance and then I realized it wasn't that I wanted to make a career being a dancer, it was just going to be really tough and over really fast. I knew that being an actor was going to afford me a longer career and I'd still be performing."
Q: Who was the first big celebrity you ever met?
Christina: "It was actually a director on one of the first jobs I ever had -- Mike Newell, who directed Four Weddings and a Funeral. The first insanely big, made me trip over my tongue celebrity I met was Judi Dench."
Q: You've guest starred in quite a few television shows, which role was your favorite?
Christina: "I just had a pretty amazing time on Dexter."
Q: Tell us about Defying Gravity....
Christina: "I've never seen anything like this before, it's about very human issues being dealt with in an open and fresh way. It's about what happens when you take 8 people and you isolate them from their families and their entire existence as they know it and send them off for 6 years on a journey that they have to complete. What does that do to their psyche, what does it do to their soul? It brings up the questions of fate and destiny. There are amazing secrets that start to show itself at the end of the second episode. This is in the near future, we're not talking 50 years from now, this is science fact. We're going to have to learn to survive for a long duration journey to get to Mars, Venus, Pluto, wherever we want to go."
Q: And your character....
Christina: "My character is the emissions biologist. She's studying the affects of the gravity environment on plant life, on animal life, on DNA on ourselves, how our bodies would react to long term exposure to different kinds of radiation, can you have a child, would we develop the same way.... The bigger question Jen is looking for is if there is life on other planets. Her quest is to find out if we're alone in the universe."
Q: Was NASA involved in the production at all?
Christina: "I know that Laura (Harris) and Ron (Livingston) got to go to the facilities. I think Ron saw a shuttle launch. We're all hoping to find a way to go down to see the facilities; it would be great information for us to have. On the show, we're the ISO - the International Space Organization. Our team is made up of astronauts from different countries and space programs."
Q: Do you have any favorite TV shows?
Christina: "I really like Dexter. I love True Blood. I've been shooting the last 6 months, but I'm looking forward to loading my Tivo with the new fall programs."
Q: Do you Twitter?
Christina: "I did.... for 2 days. I tried it for 2 days and realized I'm not a Twitter person. I'm a little too private for that. I'm experimenting with Facebook right now and I'm on the fence with that. Me and technology are not the best of friends."
Q: Do you have any projects in the works?
Christina: "Well, I did just finish Dexter, I believe there will be a dueling night of that and Defying Gravity sometime in October. I'm going to take myself a little vacation because I've been working for a while."
Q: Anything to say to the fans?
Christina: "Thanks for continuing to follow me around from genre to genre. It's great to be coming out with another show and get the opportunity to experiment with a new story and a new character." (source:about.com)
Hope everyone tuned in last night to the 2 hour premiere of "DEFYING GRAVITY"!!! It was an amazing show & Christina was awesome as ever!! Look forward to the episodes each week. Make sure you keep spreading the word about "DEFYING GRAVITY", we need to keep the ratings up each week & get as many people watching as possible!!
CHRISTINA TV WATCH:
Friday, August 7th, on TNT at 2:00PM (eastern)- "COLD CASE".
Saturday, August 8th, on LMN (Lifetime movie network) at 4:00PM (eastern) - "MAKING MR. RIGHT".
Monday, August 17, on TNT at 6:00PM (eastern) - "BONES".
SUPPORT CHRISTINA!!
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