Jason O'Mara on Terra Nova: "It Has Steven Spielberg, It Has Dinosaurs — Sign Me Up"

Jason O'Mara said it plainly: "The good news is my wife hasn't been there to tell me to take out the trash, so every cloud has its silver lining. I'm s…" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

From executive producers Steven Spielberg and Peter Chernin comes an epic family adventure 85 million years in the making. Terra Nova follows an ordinary family on an incredible journey back in time to prehistoric Earth as part of a daring experiment to save the human race. The Shannon family joins the Tenth Pilgrimage of settlers to Terra Nova, the first colony established in this beautiful yet foreboding land. Jim Shannon — a devoted father with a checkered past — guides his family through this new world of limitless beauty, mystery, and terror. The two-hour series premiere of Terra Nova aired Monday, September 26 on FOX. Premier Guide Miami's Daedrian McNaughton and Kamilah Wallace spoke with star Jason O'Mara ahead of the premiere.

How did you get involved with Terra Nova?

I was in London doing a play at the Donmar Warehouse — it was called Serenading Louie, an off-Broadway play from around 1972 that was being revived. I did it with Jason Butler Harner, who is a great American actor. Simon Curtis directed it. I had skipped pilot season because I was in London for all of that and I thought Hollywood had completely moved on and lost interest in me — which would have been fine, things go in cycles. I came back and my agent called me and said, "Just so you know, I've had several conversations with DreamWorks and Fox about a production called Terra Nova, and Steven Spielberg is highly involved in the casting and is signing off on everything related to the production. That's a hoop we need to jump through before we progress any further." I hadn't got an offer or anything — they were just checking my availability and seeing if I was interested.

What do you find most intriguing about this series?

There are a lot of moral questions being asked with regard to how this place is run. We're sort of building this place from the ground up, and we're able to ask these allegorical, sociological, and philosophical questions about the world we're living in now — where we're going and what we would do if we had a second chance. Dinosaurs aside, that's kind of the thing I find most intriguing about the series.

What was your initial reaction when you read the script?

I read the script and I thought, this is so cool — there's time travel, there are obviously a lot of visual effects, futuristic effects, dinosaur effects, all sorts of things going on. But we're trying to create something that's a little bit bigger than a genre piece. This isn't just for a niche audience — this isn't Battlestar Galactica, it's not Star Trek. This kind of has that all-inclusive look and feel of a true Steven Spielberg production. People went to E.T. for the cinematic experience, not just because it's about a boy's relationship with an alien. That's the feeling on Terra Nova. This isn't just about time travel and dinosaurs — it's about a lot more than that. I think there is literally something for everybody, from 10-year-olds right through to people in their 80s.

Steven Spielberg is a big deal. Was that a determining factor for you as well?

I read a version of the script — which has changed a lot since — and I was intrigued by the scale and the ambitiousness of it. After I finished reading it I thought, this can never be made for television; it's too big. This is a movie. Then remembering that Steven Spielberg was involved, I thought, well, if anybody can do it, he can. What intrigued me most was that it was really about second chances — if we were given a second chance as a race, would we make the same mistakes? That was the thing that hooked me. Then I got a phone call while walking down the street in New York City. My agent said Spielberg wanted to watch some dramatic scenes from my work — not show reels, but more dramatic stuff. I sent scenes from Life on Mars and he watched them. About 48 hours later I got a call: "They want you to take the role of Jim Shannon on Terra Nova. Would you be interested?" I said, "Hey, man — it has Steven Spielberg, it has dinosaurs, and it's one of the most ambitious TV projects of all time. That sounds like a dream. Sign me up." I did, and I haven't regretted a single thing.

Can you talk about the initial stages of production in terms of determining a location to film?

I'm not really involved in those decisions, but I know there was talk initially — through phone calls I'd get — of Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida. It was eventually deemed that Australia would offer the right kind of locations in a pretty localized way. From where we live to the studio to the Terra Nova location to all the other shooting locations — waterfalls, forests, beaches, cliff faces — it's all pretty close together.

Describe the current Terra Nova location.

There is an amazing amount of topographical diversity in a small amount of space, which is probably why it was chosen. There is also a fairly established infrastructure there — their version of Hollywood. They have stages set up next to a theme park called Movie World. Sometimes we have roller coasters and people screaming as we're taking a break inside the studio. They have very experienced crews — our crews have been fantastic. It's also a beautiful part of the world. I do understand why Australia was the set location for the first season of Terra Nova, even though I always prefer production to be done on U.S. soil because I think it's important for jobs here in the states.

Some of your past roles didn't make it to a second season. How do you feel this new project will help you out of those shadows?

Oh, I hope so. Third time lucky, maybe? I've never got a show to a second season, so I'm sure people online are painfully aware of this. What's great about this is that in Life on Mars I had the most amazing cast assembled on television at the time, so I was ably supported. In Justice was a great show, but I don't think we made enough noise to break through. With this, I'm really not sweating the premiere — it's really about whether people are ready for a show like this, and I believe they are. The show is way bigger than the actors. Steven Spielberg's presence is one of the selling points. The dinosaurs are a huge aspect. We're hoping people come for these reasons but stay because they're enjoying the world we've created and the dynamics between the characters. I really feel like it's out of my hands. I've done my work and now it's just a question of how much of a hit this is going to be. I think we might be on to something here, but I've been wrong in the past.

What were some of the challenges you faced shooting this series?

It's been well documented how difficult some of the shooting days were on the pilot due to the inclement weather. As if it wasn't hard enough trying to create as ambitious and complicated a show as this, we had to contend with some extreme weather. There were days where I opened my trailer and stepped down and was literally up to my knees in mud. The Australian Outback can be quite unforgiving. We haven't had any medical emergencies on the cast so far in terms of the wildlife, but there are a lot of snakes. I had a toad crawl across my boots just last week, which was actually kind of cool. We're really out there in the rain forest, exposed to the elements. Anybody who goes out for a hike on a regular basis knows how tired you are in the evenings — and you come back after a long day's shooting in the forest and you want the next day off, but we don't get days off. We're shooting in eight or nine days per episode, sometimes with two different units shooting two different episodes at the same time. It's a pretty big production — the size of which I'm not sure has been seen in recent memory on broadcast TV.

Was it difficult for you to stay true to this character, Jim?

Yes. I like to play very raw characters — characters who have a degree of vulnerability and passion. The greatest acting challenge was to allow Jim to have enough darkness and to be more flawed than perhaps he was on paper. I've been talking to the writers about keeping Jim as complicated as possible so he's not just a hero running around protecting his family and chasing dinosaurs. Technically, the green-screen acting can be difficult. There is something worse than a tennis ball on the end of a stick — it's an Australian visual effects assistant running around with a cardboard dinosaur head on a stick while wearing shorts and sandals, and you're supposed to look intimidated and scared to death of this guy. He's a very sweet guy, but it's just really hard to be scared of something like that when all you want to do is burst out laughing. I'm just trying to keep Jim as edgy and engaging and as intriguing as possible.

What is Jim's primary goal on Terra Nova?

I think his primary goal is to protect his family and ensure that they thrive and survive in this new place.

How does he fit into this new society?

Whether he likes it or not, he's sort of been made the sheriff in this frontier town. He has to go along with what Taylor does and says, and sometimes he has reservations — sometimes he's in accordance with it. Even though Taylor is heroic in many ways, he can also be a little autocratic, and not everybody agrees with how he rules. Jim has to toe the party line to an extent. There is also a kind of partnership and friendship emerging between Taylor and Shannon. I really enjoy the subtleties and the little relationship dynamics we have between all the characters on the show.

What are some of the things that will be revealed to your family in this new environment? What can we expect?

Well, firstly, they're a very lucky family — one in a million. They've managed to escape this dying world and get this second chance in a Utopia. However, once the Shannon family gets there, you realize — and it doesn't take too long — that there is something else going on. There are splinter groups, people challenging Taylor's rule. You find out that people close to Taylor have become estranged and might even be plotting against him. Who put him in charge? Was he ever elected? All these questions are asked. The Shannon family becomes the audience's eyes and ears, getting involved first-hand in the intrigue taking place politically and socially. Josh Shannon gets embroiled in something and gets in way over his head. Maddy has her story line. And some of Zoe's stories — my seven-year-old daughter — really play well. Just to put everybody's minds at rest: there will be dinosaurs in every episode regardless of how human the stories become.

It must be difficult for you to be away from your family?

The hardest aspect of all of this is being away from my family. My wife, Paige Turco, who is an actress pursuing a career from New York City, and my son who is seven years old. I really, really miss them. They have come over to visit me for an extended period of time, but not for the full five and a half months or whatever it's been. I've spent a lot of that time missing them terribly. That's the bad news.

Even though you miss your family, what are some of the good things about being away from them?

The good news is my wife hasn't been there to tell me to take out the trash, so every cloud has its silver lining. I'm so intense on this show — I work almost every scene, almost every day. I literally do not have time to take out the trash. I'm going to be coming down to earth hard when I get back home, because that is one of my major jobs in the house: to stamp out the garbage.

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