Its a blustery late-November afternoon and there are an underwhelming amount of monkeys roaming the snow-dusted streets of Toronto.
There are none, actually.
They keep them concealed inside a production studio the size of an airplane hangar on the outskirts of downtown.
The monkeys held there, Im told, are dangerous, but I wasnt to be deterred.
Where in this time-traveling wasteland could they be?
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I saw nothing resembling a primate while on set.
Did I go too far back in time?
Theyd build that later on.
The writers emphasized how loosely the series is based on the film.
That synopsis pretty directly mirrors the film.
Gilliam squeezed plenty out of a modest budget of close to $30 million.
He did acknowledge the curious state of filmmaking and temptations of bringing passion projects to cable.
I think films are really getting in trouble, because the writers are moving to television.
Its a strange time.
Matalas met co-executive producer and writer Travis Fickett while at Emerson College in Boston.
When Syfy picked up12 Monkeys, theNikitainfluence helped speed along the casting process.
They were already familiar with Stanford, who spent four seasons starring inNikita.
That was easy for Hampshire she had never seen the film before she auditioned.
The character was what came alive on the page.
I got to make up my own idea of who this is, says the Montreal native.
She adds: I watched the movie as if he was kind of a relative of Jennifer Goines.
Its not me trying to do that part.
It comes from the same DNA.
The cast had differing methods on how they prepared for their respective roles.
Theres no real historical text we go to to figure out what it would be like in the apocalypse.
I very intentionally did not watch the movie again, Schull says.
I know that this is based on the film but were not trying to be the film.
Theres an internal struggle of whos sane and whos insane?
Stanford says of the film.
But that doesnt mean [Cole] is not physiologically damaged, Matalas chimes in.
Hes got his own brand of crazy.
I still dont believe they exist.
Maybe none of what I saw was real and I was just living out one of Jennifer Goines delusions.
Spending time in a dark, underground world has a dizzying effect on people.
The Chinese zodiac says 2016 is the year of the monkey.
Its the perfect time for a serialized time-travel drama.
