TVSquad Talks To Morena Baccarin on "V"; Anna's Psyche and Scary Spiders

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Morena Baccarin on "V", Anna's Psyche, and Scary Soldiers
by Jane Boursaw
posted May 18th 2010


She's cold, she's heartless, she's ... Anna! The queen bee alien on "V", whose finale is tonight at 10PM ET on ABC.

But don't call her evil, at least not when you're talking to her real-life alter-ego Morena Baccarin. In fact, as she explains it, Anna is really more of a hero to the Visitors, which makes complete sense.


Read on for more of Baccarin's thoughts on Anna's compassion and how she'll do anything to ensure the Visitor's survival.






Talk a little about what's going on inside Anna's head.

We're led to believe she doesn't have emotions and yet, she almost seems evil in her efforts to bring down the Fifth Column.

Do you think she's evil, or is there a better word to describe her?

Well, I think that for me to describe her as evil would be very unfair, especially since I have to play her. I think she's compassionate to her people. Their survival is of utmost importance to her, and she'll do whatever it takes to ensure that.


So, it's a noble cause if you're on the right side. It's something she's willing to fight hard for, which I think is very admirable.

But within that, of course, there's the fight between the humans and the Vs, and there's always casualties of war. Depending on what side you're on, you might find her very evil.









That was such a shocking scene when she slapped Lisa and told her people to break her legs.
Do you think she has any remorse about beating her daughter?

No, I don't think she operates that way.

If I were to venture a guess, I think Anna sees that as one small casualty of the war they're fighting. I don't think she sees it as a loss. If it gets the reaction she wants, she sees it as a gain.

That's part of the emotionless part of the Vs. They feel very differently, and it's all about the goal and how to get it.







Right, so we need to stop looking at her as human, because she operates on a whole different level.

Because after that, she turned around and acted all sweet and loving when Lisa was in the healing center. So she's clearly really manipulative, too.

I have to say, I've seen some human beings do some pretty atrocious things, as well.

What's interesting is that Anna is in a human outfit, so we villainize her because she's doing this horrible thing. She's not human, but she knows how to play on the human heartstrings.







Right, and as far as the Vs go, she's probably a hero.

Yes. I think so.
She provides for her people and really wants to make sure they're well taken care of and healthy and loved.







That's interesting that you say loved.

Well, loved in the sense that they feel the bliss.
They feel included in a community and supported and not alone.







She also seems really manipulative. She's set up these healing centers and helped the humans with natural disasters.

I wonder if there's some message in there that humans will just follow along like sheep with anyone who can help in desperate times.

Yes, she uses whatever she needs in order to achieve the goals.
So, that vulnerability is something she latches onto.













Do we know why the Vs are here yet?

No, we don't entirely know.
We start to get an idea, and it has a lot to do with human DNA. But we don't know exactly what's going on.








I talked to Morris (Chestnut) on Friday, and we talked about the fact that some Vs have been here for years and embedded themselves into our society.

So did the Vs do that to figure out what humans are all about and how to manipulate and work with them?

Yes, definitely.
There was a period of studying humans and figuring out what made them tick.









I have this theory that Tyler and Lisa will become this super couple and rise up and lead a resistance against the Vs.
Any thoughts on that?

I honestly don't know anything, but that sounds interesting. I love that they're both different species and they're sort of rising up together.

She's definitely being bred to be the new queen, so it'll be interesting to see what side she takes.







Can you tell us if she turns on Anna at some point?
When she was beaten, she was clearly freaked out.

Yes, she was.
In the next episode you'll see a little more about where her alliances lie.











Chad is an interesting character because he's obviously indebted to Anna because the Vs cured his aneurysm, which should have put him on their side.

But he's also forming some sort of alliance with the Fifth Column. What's your take on the relationship between Anna and Chad?

It's a very interesting power-play. They're both smart and ambitious, and they recognize that in each other, and it's a powerful turn-on for both of them.

But at the same time, they're both playing their cards and playing it safe with each other. It'll be really interesting to see how the relationship develops once Chad realizes that Anna's been playing him -- and whether he cares or not. Because he's getting exactly what he wants.







Right, from the beginning, he wanted to advance his career, and being her mouth piece has certainly done that.

Yes, it has the potential to go to a lot of different levels.
The power keeps shifting, and that's very interesting for Anna.







It sounds like there could be a falling out there, though.

It's hard to leave something that's making you happy, even though it's wrong, you know?

I think Chad knows, deep down, what's happening, but it's really seductive because he's very comfortable and he's getting the success that he wanted.







One of my TV Squad readers thought she'd done some sort of mind control on him. Does she have that ability?

I don't think so. The Vs don't really have any magical powers other than the bliss.
It's just a matter of playing on human emotions.







The bliss only works on the Visitors, right? Does it have some affect on the humans too?

It hasn't yet on our show, but you never know.








Another one of my readers thought there might be some romance developing between Chad and Anna.

It wouldn't be out of the realm, in my mind, that she'd try and manipulate him that way.

I think it's really possible. We haven't shot anything like that, other than that dream sequence I had with him.

But that dream sequence speaks to how attracted he is to her and how he sees her, and it's a fascinating glimpse into his psyche. But he's also very scared by her and knows he's playing with something really dangerous.







And he kind of likes that, too.

He kind of likes it, which she did, too, in his dream.













Talk a little about Anna's soldiers that she's breeding.

Are these the same types of soldiers as the one who went after Ryan and the others at the Visitor's compound? Because he didn't really seem all that scary.

No, I think these soldiers are more scary. They are bigger and more capable of a lot of things. And there's a lot of them.

Those were just a couple of guys that had come with us, but now I'm breeding an army of hundreds of thousands of them.







And the scene where they're hatching out and then Ryan and Val's baby is being born ... very interesting ending to last week's episode.

And do we know if John May is alive? I think a lot of us are thinking that Tyler is John May's son, which sort of goes back to my theory about Tyler rising up and being a leader.

It's something we haven't really dealt with on the show yet.
We'll have to wait until the second season to delve deeper into that.









Is Anna fun to play?

The best. I have such a blast.

I'm so thankful and happy to be playing this role. It's really, really fun, and every week there's some crazy thing she's doing.







Anything you want to add?

Why should people tune into "V" if they haven't yet? I think it's an awesome show, and I look forward to it every week.

Oh, thank you. I think it's an awesome show, too. I mean obviously I'm biased, but I really love it and would watch it even if I wasn't on it.

It's thrilling and exciting, but at the same time, there's some really interesting connections to daily life and issues we're dealing with today, like the earthquake in Haiti and our energy crisis and economic crisis and health care and religion.

But at the same time, it's a fantastical show about aliens coming down to earth. I think we all have that little bit of curiosity about what if, and the show does a really good job of playing on that.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/05/18/mo...cary-soldiers/