A week after a pregnancy was written into Anne Glass’s storyline at the end of season two, model-turned-actress Moon Bloodgood, who has been playing her since the start of the series, fell pregnant in real life. Debashine Thangevelo found out about her departure from action roles to playing a doctor in Robert Rodat’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi, Falling Skies, and how motherhood impacts negatively on the level-headed doctor this season…
OF ALL the sci-fi TV offerings (Terra Nova and Under the Dome) Steven Spielberg has attached his name to, Falling Skies has definitely been the best, with the series picked up for a fourth season.
When Moon Bloodgood was approached for the role of Anne Glass and handed the script, she did not hesitate in accepting the part. Knowing the series creator, Robert Rodat, and Spielberg were the forces behind the project was good enough for her – plus she didn’t have to audition either.
And she’s no stranger to being thrust into an action-packed playground – she gained experience on the big screen (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Terminator Salvation) and TV (CSI, Day Break, Journeyman, Burn Notice and Human Target).
Married to director and producer Grady Hall, they welcomed their daughter Pepper in December.
On how her real-life pregnancy coincided with her on-air one, she laughs: “So in the finale, they go: ‘Okay, you’re going to be pregnant’, and then Remi, the show runner, takes my husband aside and we are shooting in some silo and says: ‘If Moon got pregnant it would be fine’.
“And then a week later – boom! – pregnant.”
Although she didn’t have to wear a pregnancy suit, the wardrobe department had to find ways to enhance the baby bump.
Bloodgood explains: “I was pregnant, but not pregnant enough because when we got into the first of the season, I was about to go into labour any minute. On top of my belly, they had to put a fake belly prosthetic. It actually wasn’t prosthetic; it was a cotton thing you put on top of it. So I had to look more pregnant than I was, so that was sort of strange. Isn’t that funny – I show up, I’m not pregnant enough?
“Then I have the baby and I look too pregnant, so they were trying to shoot me so you couldn’t see the belly.”
In next Monday’s episode, Glass has her baby… but just can’t seem to bond completely with her newborn daughter – Alexis Denise Glass Mason.
“So shooting those scenes, you kind of think that it’s in my head and then you realise it’s not, the baby is acting very peculiarly. We don’t know what’s going on with this child. But this child is three days old and is already standing up, saying ‘hello’ and having that crazy, scary giggle only babies in horror movies have.”
Naturally, with Glass’s scientific background, she soon suspects something is amiss. Meanwhile, everyone else believes it is post- partum depression.
The actress defends: “But Anne is the most rational human being. She is so calm, she’s never hysterical, she never has grand ideas of any- thing off-kilter, so I think when this happens she really resents the fact that no one believes her because it’s very real to her and I think she makes the decision to take matters into her own hands if no one believes her.”
Season three picks up several months after the arrival of the alien race, the Volm. Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) is now president of the New United States in Charleston. Doug Jones is introduced into the storyline as the Volm Ambassador.
That Tom isn’t around a lot doesn’t help the situation much either.
Bloodgood says: “What I worked on internally was that I was missing him. Deeply missing him, but I didn’t want to be the jerk who said ‘you’re too busy saving everybody else’.
“I think Anne has never been the kind of person who puts herself first. She’s very selfless, she’s a doctor and she is not going to be the person who requires a lot of attention. But we all miss him, I mean, he’s completely busy. We start off the season and he’s just being pulled in a hundred directions. At one point, she says: ‘You know, I kind of miss being on the road, we used to see each other more’. That’s Anne’s way of saying, ‘I miss you.’”
Meanwhile, the actress has been hankering for screen time with Jones.
She smiles: “Doug Jones is one of my favourite people and I think Cochise is one of our best surprises. That’s a trick that could work, or not work. When you have an alien that is interacting with you, you are taking a risk.
“But I think that any time you take a risk, it’s better and you have a chance of making the show better.
“And I hope we have scenes together because he just looks great. The way they set him up and use the CGI, he’s very human-like and he’s very empathetic, but there are a couple of twists and turns with his character.”
Without giving away too much, she offers the status quo on the war between the resistance and the aliens.
“So you have the Skidders, rebel Skidders, who are now on our side. And you have the Skidders we are fighting. It’s funny, now you have the vault; there are so many new aliens. And, yes, how can you trust any-thing that is so different to yourself?
“You will see Will Patt’s character battling. Tom has to make that final decision. We need them, so we have trust them. And they haven’t given us a reason not to.”
Looks like this season, the battles aren’t just external – they are internal, too. And for Glass, she is facing a maternal conflict she can’t get her head around!
• Falling Skies season 3 airs on Mondays on Fox (on the DStv platform and TopTV) at 9pm.