Interview with Terrence Howard for ELECTRIC DREAMS: Real Life

10 October 2017

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What are your personal thoughts on virtual reality technology?  If you were given the same kind of device that George and Sarah have, would you use it?
Yes, I would. But what I wouldn’t want to happen is to be as out of control as Sarah and George are in now, where you are slammed into a world where anything is possible.  I wouldn't like that, but if I could control the spaces that I was in I would put me into some jinn like yogi state, and I could answer a lot of the unanswered questions inside of me.

How has it been working with Jeffrey Reiner?  What is the collaboration process like?

I think Jeffrey may be one of the most talented directors that I have had the privilege of working with, because not only does he direct the actors and teach them along the way and he also teaches them in such a kind and an empathic way.  I watched him teaching the camera operators or the focus pullers, and dictating how the shot should go. You never can see how the cogwheels move, but with him there is a transparency and you turn over this beautiful watch and you see all of these million cogwheels spinning in unison and the slightest turn changes the scene. Working with him is like being in a master class in its own self.

Where you a fan of Philip K. Dick's work prior to signing on?

Yes, I had seen Minority Report and a lot of the work that he had done and I thought that his insight into the future made him somewhat more of a mystic visionary instead of a science fiction writer because they were all based upon emerging technologies that were actually taken to the nth potential! I think we are all blessed to have had somebody like him in that world because he is not creating science fiction he is just creating science that has not yet occurred.

Can you talk a bit more about George and his relationship with Paula?

You look at the stark white apartment that he lives in and it absolutely lacks feeling.  There is something out of place in a place that is so well put together. Trying to find oneself in a sterile stark white environment that has no sense of life or the pulsating nature that makes up this thing called humanity, you can kind of become desensitised and miss the warmth, and he found that in Paula.  Paula was the warmth that shaped his world, and without her in it, he was in a mausoleum.

Your character is linked to Anna Paquin's character in a very unique way, but you never film scenes together.  Can you talk about that link, and the process of playing that connection with another character that George has never met?

It’s interesting watching Anna as she has got a power about her that you don't see coming.  I was on set doing some complicated scenes and I thought she would just be watching for a minute but she spent the entire day studying what I was doing. It made me quite proud to be sharing a character with her as I have never shared a character with another actor before and I hope that we're able to complement each other's work.

What do you hope for people to take away from this episode?  What do you want people to feel?

I think people should be satisfied with the world that they are in.  Often at times, we don't want to live in the now and we are looking for an escape. I think virtual reality can be a useful tool in being used to focus more deeply, but if it is used in the sense of ‘I am going to disappear from my life’ then you are going to get lost in time.