"Orphan Black" Star Jordan Gavaris
TheBacklot: How has the show changed you and your life? Has it?
Jordan Gavaris: I look very different on the show so in real life, too, even when people hear my voice, they’re not going to turn around because the voice suddenly…and I don’t really look the same…a couple of times I’ve been in line for things and people say ‘You look just like that guy from Orphan Black’ and I say ‘Well, I am that guy from Orphan Black’ but I have no photographers chasing me down the street, thank God!
Will we see some more love or lust for Felix in the new season?
There is some love and lust for Felix in Season 2 and I’m hopeful that we will explore it in a less sexualized sense and more of an intimate sense. I think the audience deserves that, I think the character deserves it. But it’s also important, too, that we don’t lose his sexuality because far too often characters who are gay on television – not gay characters but characters who are gay, I’m trying to make that distinction very clear – they’re often desexualized for some bizarre reason and I think that’s part of what drew me to Felix in the first place was the fact that he was so unabashed about his sexuality. We’re cable, but we’re not Cinemax. But we’re still going to do it, we’re still going to show it. We’ve done the sex part, we’re going to keep that and we’re going to take it a step further and now I want to see the intimacy, I want to see vulnerability and I want to see him as a person. So I’m hopeful we’ll get there.
Meow! Gavaris said that he modeled Felix's body language after that of a male feline.
Graeme [Manson, Orphan Black's head writer and co-creator] talked during the panel about how Felix and Sarah’s relationship will be challenged. Can you shed some more light on that?
I think Felix is at a point where there will be a line drawn in the sand. Something will be a catalyst to him saying ‘I don’t know if I can do this anymore.’ He literally dropped his entire life. Everything! Friends, connection, clientele, everything was dropped for this woman who seems to breeze in and out of his life all the time and instead of just being the little brother who’s complacent and says yes to everything, I wanted to find strength in this character. Have him stomp his foot and say ‘Wait a second! Hold on! This is a lot to ask even for you.’ There’s some contention and it will be difficult to watch.
We’ve talked about Tatiana playing all the different roles. How do you approach it since you’re acting opposite her?
Most of the time it’s easy because she’s so fantastic and you’ll see her in particular clothing that will denote a certain character. If she’s in a cardigan and her hair’s pulled back you know it’s Allison day, but sometimes she’ll be in Sarah clothing and we’ll be doing a clone scene where there’s Allison and Cosima and even in Sarah clothing we’ll have to do the rehearsals for all the different clones. So she’ll be wild and crazy Cosima in her Sarah clothes…and then you hear Cosima’s voice coming out of a character dressed like Sarah and you say, ‘Who are you in this rehearsal?’ Also, when I shoot [multiple clone scenes], I don’t get to work with Allison and Cosima in those scenes. I just talk to tennis balls.
Big trouble will continue to find foster siblings Felix and Sarah in Season 2.
Do you have any clone envy, or do you think ‘Thank God I don’t have to do that!’
Two years ago, I would’ve said ‘I don’t want anything to do with that.’ I’m still very green and young and now Tat’s taught me that a cool approach to pretty much anything in the business is just ‘Okay, let’s do it! This could be the worst thing I ever do but let’s do it!’ So now I’m thinking I wouldn’t mind a clone or two.
Talk to me about Felix’s mannerisms and how he walks and moves. Was that scripted or did that come from you?
Nothing was scripted about his body language. I was really inspired by glam rockers from the 70s. I was really inspired by animal exercises…I’ve noticed he’s quite confident and territorial but he has gender fluidity. He hovers on the periphery of sometimes even transvestite but he’s not and he’s not transgendered. He is very masculine but also very feminine at times, so I thought ‘What encompasses all this?’ and I thought that cats kind of do. A male cat is very female and feminine in the way that they move through the world and those glam rockers, there was something about their loose hip body energy that I really thought was attractive, so I put together all that during the audition process and that’s something they really responded to.
Tatiana Maslany and Jordan Gavaris on Orphan Black's recent TCA Panel
During the TCA panel, Gavaris also talked more about Felix’s Season 2 journey:
I think Season 1 Felix was very much an integral cog in the mystery and the conception of the story and in Sarah's journey, and now I think what Season 2 helps to do is establish him outside of the clones, establish him as an individual with his own identity and as a multifaceted human and not just a plot device or not just someone who's there to facilitate whatever Sarah's crazy idea is that day or, you know, be the person that she calls when she's in trouble. That he gets an identity outside of all that is really important because he's a living, breathing person.
Orphan Black returns for Season 2 on April 19th on BBC America.
