TV Verdict

Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly are the stars of Warehouse 13, Syfy’s most successful series ever, which returns Tuesday, July 6 at 9:00 pm.

They recently participated in a Q&A conference call.

Q: What about the show continues to challenge you?

Eddie McClintock: The hours.

Joanne Kelly: Yeah, the physicality and the hours I think.

Eddie McClintock: Well, you know, for me the challenge is to keep it fresh, you know, not try – we try and make sure that we don’t hit the same beats again and again in episode after episode. So Joanne and I try and communicate to one another if we feel like maybe a beat is stale or we’ve used it before and so, you know, just keeping the show fresh and new is a bit of a challenge for me.

Joanne Kelly: Yeah and – yeah, I think that, you know, as mentioned before with the hours, people get really tired and to keep the work – the focus on the work and to make sure that it’s continuously good despite the hours. It doesn’t matter if it’s 4:00 in the morning, it’s still important to make the scene as good as it can be and that sometimes is a challenge but one of the more interesting ones that we – I think we manage to pull it off most of the time.

Eddie McClintock: You know, people come over and they’re like oh I feel so bad, you have worked so long and so many hours and I’ve just been saying to them, I go ditch digger, coal miner, oil rig worker, you know. I mean, those people have hard jobs, not me. So it kind of keeps me – when I hear myself say that it keeps me grounded and keeps me from ragging too much about the hours.

Q: What has been your favorite scene you’ve filmed so far this season?

Eddie McClintock: I’ll start I guess. I – there is an episode called Around the Bend where an artifact has affected Pete to the point where he begins to lose his sanity. And I have a really good scene with Mark Sheppard that was really a challenge.

And then I have a – I had another scene with Myka and Claudia and Artie that, you know, it’s always nice when we have scenes with all of us together because, you know, I really feel like we work pretty well together. So when you get everybody in there firing at the – firing on the same wavelength, it really seems to be a great experience.

Joanne Kelly: My favorite episode this year which I think – I always pick the one that was most challenging to me as an actor was probably an episode that involved an artifact that was a gryphon. I have no – I’m terrified to see that episode so that’s why (unintelligible).

Q: Can you both tell me a little bit about your on-screen chemistry?

Eddie McClintock: Well Joanne and I figured we’d just get it over with the first week so we got together a couple of times and she – unfortunately she kind of fell for me and I had to tell her to back off. So since then she’s kind of, you know, she’s not quite as hands-on let’s say as she used to be.

Joanne Kelly: Shut up. You see how long I let that go for? Are you impressed?

Eddie McClintock: You know, the other – this is kind of mine and Joanne’s relationship in a nutshell. She and I were being pulled by a car – a camera truck and we were – I was supposed to be driving, she’s sitting next to me, it’s a beautiful day, and we’re being driven. And I just looked at her and I said do you ever get tired of the fact that I can never take anything serious? And she goes sometimes I want to stab you in the eye with a pencil. And she goes but if you were any other way, you know, it just – it wouldn’t be the same.

And so, you know, I mean, look, I have a personality that, you know, it works for me sometimes and maybe not all the time but, you know, Joanne is a good sport and she puts up with my Tom Foolery let’s say. And, you know, we truly are like a brother and sister. Like we don’t always like each other.

I mean, you know, we spend 15 hours a day 5 days a week. I mean, most families don’t spend that amount of time with each other so – and we’re in a very stressful situation. You know, it’s like there’s always someone standing there with their watch pointing at their watch going let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, you know, why did you mess up that line, why don’t you know your lines, we’ve got to move, why do you – haven’t you slept?

I mean, so there’s a lot of opportunity for us to just not really care to like one another but, you know, we love each other and I have a great deal of respect for Joanne and her work and I think that it reflects in the work that we have on screen. I think that’s maybe why it works so well.

Joanne Kelly: Yeah, you know, I think that a lot of actors can be very competitive with each other on screen and Eddie and I never competed and I think that’s one of the reasons what people call chemistry is that we actually trust and like one another.

We never compete in things, we let each other do their own thing and that – I think we’ve – it’s just our – the fact that we’re just so different, I think our personalities allow that to happen and, you know, again he puts up with me because I’m not the, you know, the light of…

Eddie McClintock: The what?

Joanne Kelly: Why, are you curious?

Eddie McClintock: Yeah a little.

Joanne Kelly: You know, I’m not the happiest chick in the world. Sometimes at 4:30 in the morning I can get a little testy and Eddie is the one, you know, tells me – he makes me laugh. So that’s all I was going to say — or not.

Eddie McClintock: I always love when I look over to Joanne and she has that look on her face like do not look at me, do not touch me. So it causes me to like jump around – like it makes me want to jump around even more even if I’m kind of tired I’m like ooh, all right, this is a good opportunity for me to poke sticks at Joanne. So it’s good man, it seems to work so far.

Q: Does it make a difference to either one of you, if they stay just partners or if they get together and have a relationship?

Eddie McClintock: Well I’ve been saying that in Season 15 Pete and Myka start bumping their wheelchairs into one another in kind of a mating ritual but that won’t be for a long time.

I mean, I like the fact that they have enough respect for the boundaries of their job and enough respect for one another not to cross the line. I think it makes Pete a more honorable guy. I think it makes – it lets Pete earn his other, you know, little idiosyncrasies and I think that it gives the character depth, you know. I mean, look, they’re two relatively attractive people that by all rights should want each other but again I think they have a respect and a love for each other that they don’t really go there.

Joanne Kelly: I think any human relationship, any interesting human relationship between two people is complex and it truly takes time to develop, anything that’s worth its salt. And for us to explore the romantic part of it without first exploring the complexities that – of these two people, you know, the partnership that they’re creating and the friendship that they’re creating I think would just short change everyone.

Q: How did you get cast on Warehouse 13 and what drew you to the characters?

Eddie McClintock: Do you want to go first this time Jo?

Joanne Kelly: Sure.

Eddie McClintock: Okay.

Joanne Kelly: No you go first.

Eddie McClintock: Okay. Talk just while I chew now.

Joanne Kelly: Okay. Well how we were cast, basically it was a tough situation. Just like any network there were about ten Petes and ten Mykas. You know, you go in, you audition, and then they whittle it down and whittle it down and then there’s about ten of each characters. The network mixes and matches the characters in the room and, you know, there’s quite a story about the way that we got put together and I’ll let Eddie take over from here.

Eddie McClintock: Well, you know, usually by the time you get to the test they have whittled it down to maybe two Petes and two Mykas. And in this case we walked in and there were like – yeah like seven or eight of each.

Joanne Kelly: All in suits all looking exactly.

Eddie McClintock: Everybody looking exactly the same. And I just thought oh great, I’m not going to get this job either. This was shortly after the birth of my second son and I kind of had a thin year the year before.
Joanne Kelly: He was very sweaty.

Eddie McClintock: I was very sweaty inside and out and I just, you know, an actor’s greatest fear is to make a mistake during the test, at least that’s my greatest fear. You know, you generally only get one chance in front of the network so you better not screw it up. And they had been mixing and matching us all day and I hadn’t gotten placed with Joanne so I was like oh she must suck.

Joanne Kelly: He thought I sucked.

Eddie McClintock: So they finally said okay you two go in and we were in there together and we had been talking.

Joanne Kelly: We hadn’t been talking. Eddie you had your freak out session before we were in there together.

Eddie McClintock: Oh that’s right.

Joanne Kelly: So he comes out of the room and he’s like sweating and he likes takes off his tie and starts pacing. He starts talking about his baby’s birth and I’m like what is this dude talking about?

Eddie McClintock: Yeah we didn’t know each other at all.

Joanne Kelly: No and I’m pretty Zen at tests. Like I just – which is not how I am in real life at all.

Eddie McClintock: Yeah she actually was sitting like in a Lotus position.

Joanne Kelly: Not in a Lotus position but I’m very Zen.

Eddie McClintock: She had a (Bendy) on. So well what happened was the director put his arm around one of the other actors and I was like that’s it, I’m not getting this job.

I took off my tie, I took off my jacket, and I said you know what, I got these – my sons, they’re like two little birds in the nest and their necks are stretching right and they’re stretched and their mouths are open, they’re waiting for their mom to sweep in and drop in the chewed up, regurgitated worm and I’ve got no fucking worm. And I was a little flipped out. And then literally Joanne was like dude.

Joanne Kelly: I sat him down and I basically just talked him off the ledge. Tests are painful enough without some dude having a nervous breakdown.

Eddie McClintock: Hence her calling me dude.

Joanne Kelly: And they called us in the room the next – and we went in.

Eddie McClintock: And Joanne’s line – she was supposed to call me a showboat and she was like listen you showbot. And so I just started going Showbot, Showbot, Showbot, and doing a robot and then I did like a Michael Jackson kick with a hee hee verse.

Joanne Kelly: Yeah and I started getting mad at him and tried to get him back on track and everyone…

Eddie McClintock: And she punched me and told me to shut up. And so when we walked out apparently Mark Stern looked at everybody and goes there it is, that’s the show right there. And so ironically enough we kind of got our jobs through a mistake so it was pretty cool.

Eddie McClintock: She had a (Bendy) on. So well what happened was the director put his arm around one of the other actors and I was like that’s it, I’m not getting this job.

I took off my tie, I took off my jacket, and I said you know what, I got these – my sons, they’re like two little birds in the nest and their necks are stretching right and they’re stretched and their mouths are open, they’re waiting for their mom to sweep in and drop in the chewed up, regurgitated worm and I’ve got no fucking worm. And I was a little flipped out. And then literally Joanne was like dude.

Joanne Kelly: I sat him down and I basically just talked him off the ledge. Tests are painful enough without some dude having a nervous breakdown.

Eddie McClintock: Hence her calling me dude.

Joanne Kelly: And they called us in the room the next – and we went in.

Eddie McClintock: And Joanne’s line – she was supposed to call me a showboat and she was like listen you showbot. And so I just started going Showbot, Showbot, Showbot, and doing a robot and then I did like a Michael Jackson kick with a hee hee verse.

Joanne Kelly: Yeah and I started getting mad at him and tried to get him back on track and everyone…

Eddie McClintock: And she punched me and told me to shut up. And so when we walked out apparently Mark Stern looked at everybody and goes there it is, that’s the show right there. And so ironically enough we kind of got our jobs through a mistake so it was pretty cool.

And I just said yeah, you know, if you – I said Mr. Shatner, if you’re not too busy maybe you would come and do an episode of the show. And he just looked at me and he goes, “Call me Bill, please” almost in the voice of George Takei. And so that kind of to me was like – okay, never mind. He didn’t come out and just say no I’m not going to do that but he kind of didn’t need to. I don’t think he’ll be doing it, I mean, he’s got three shows, he’s got two talk shows and another show.

Joanne Kelly: He has a talk show?

Eddie McClintock: Yeah, the man is…

Joanne Kelly: What does he talk about?

Eddie McClintock: Himself. And he’s incredibly busy.

Joanne Kelly: I think he’s definitely going to come on the show after he hears that you said that.

Eddie McClintock: But I must say that I sat next to Michael Dorn and he was really interested in coming and doing an episode of the show. What a great guy, really smart and nice guy, Michael Dorn who played Worf.

Q: Were you worried how the show would do?

Joanne Kelly: Well, you know, you make these things in a bubble, right? The show, you have no idea how anyone is going to respond to it. I mean, you don’t even know what it’s going to be until you see it.

Joanne Kelly: Until the episodes had actually starting airing, right? I mean, I saw a few episodes but I had no – you can’t really get – I can never get a sense of it so it’s kind of like you go in there blind. And when people respond to it of course I think there is an element of surprise, you know what I mean? Because you have no idea. I mean, it really is such a subjective thing as well, you know?

Eddie McClintock: For me this is my fifth series, my tenth pilot, so, you know, to have somebody actually, you know, I’m so wanting for the show to be a success especially because, you know, I really like the show and to have somebody go, I mean, when the reviews started coming in and like there were eight good reviews to every bad review, I was just shocked. And then the numbers in and I still didn’t believe, you know, because I’ve been on a show before that I thought was a hit and then we got cancelled.

Joanne Kelly: Did you buy a car when you thought it was a hit?

Eddie McClintock: Well yeah, I was on a show in ’99 with Tony Shaloub and Neil Patrick Harris called Stark Raving Mad and we won the People’s Choice award so, you know, I bought a Porsche and not a boxer.

Joanne Kelly: Why would you buy a Porsche?

Eddie McClintock: It was like a 911.

Joanne Kelly: He’s very impractical this one.

Eddie McClintock: Because I have a very small penis. I’m Irish and it’s cold there.

Joanne Kelly: It’s cold here, cold all the time, cold all the time.

Eddie McClintock: So, you know, to have people say nice things about something that we work so hard to make good is…

Joanne Kelly: To make good?

Eddie McClintock: Yeah, to make good.

Q: Are you surprised by some of the things that you do or each time you get a new episode?

Joanne Kelly: Yeah, every time I get a script it scares the living daylights out of me with what they have planned sometimes. There is never a dull moment Earl, never a dull moment.

Eddie McClintock: To me it’s like Christmas, you know, it’s like opening a present before, you know, sneaking and opening a present because I’m like oh what do I get to play – I get to do that? I get to break a door because I love breaking doors.

Joanne Kelly: What is it with doors today?

Eddie McClintock: And, you know, it’s really a lot of fun, man, you know, because we get to do so many different things on the show.

Joanne Kelly: Yeah and this season, the second season, is even…

Eddie McClintock: Even more so.

Joanne Kelly: Even more so like I’m even more scared to pick up my scripts this year than I was last year so they have a lot planned.

Eddie McClintock: The show has gotten bigger, better, faster, and funnier I think.

Joanne Kelly: Bigger, better, faster, stronger.

Earl Dittman: And that’s interesting because everyone – the buzz is that everyone knows to watch the show. It’s become this phenomenon, you know.

Joanne Kelly: Well I think, you know, we’ve been really, really lucky too, I mean, the network really pushed us last year and Syfy has been really great about promoting the show and I think they really put it out there.

Eddie McClintock: Yeah we’re on billboards this year. Our faces are on billboards.

Joanne Kelly: And I think…

Eddie McClintock: Which is very exciting for me.

Joanne Kelly: Very exciting for Eddie. But I think that, you know, the audience response has been so good and I think that, you know, they have just continued to push it and everybody is real proud and I think the show this year, everyone has really done their darnedest to deliver. Because the audience – for the audience, you know.

Eddie McClintock: I think the writers, you know, because last year when we did the pilot, you know, the pilot is much thinner on the comedy than subsequent episodes because I think when we did the pilot at that point we were still going is this a funny show, is it supposed to be funny?

And then when they used that line about I made cookies and then when Pete goes ooh and then that kind of became the tag for the show, I think it let everybody know including the network and the writers and everyone that, you know, we were really going to – we were also going to have a good time and not take ourselves too seriously and I think that’s what…

Joanne Kelly: You think that came from the cookie line?

Eddie McClintock: I mean, that’s just, I mean, for me it’s just…

Joanne Kelly: I’m just kidding.

Eddie McClintock: It became kind of a metaphor for the evolution of the show.

Joanne Kelly: I think that is a good metaphor for the evolution of the show.

Eddie McClintock: Yeah. And so, you know, I think that the writers really have found an amazing line to walk in regards to being able to have a very well written, well done, dramatic moment and then in the same scene there is a big comedy beat. And then in the next beat we’re on a chase. And so I think it keeps the viewer off balance, it kind of keeps me as an actor off balance, and I think it helps keep the show fresh.

Q: Do you see a point where you’d like to see Warehouse 13 get to, what season, before the show starts to go stale?

Eddie McClintock: You know, I mean, if you see the shots of the warehouse, the warehouse is massive. I mean, it goes on for…

Eddie McClintock: For miles.

Joanne Kelly: It’s infinite.

Eddie McClintock: And so, you know, I mean, as far as where the story can go, as long as they don’t, you know, put me on water skis in an Evel Knievel outfit and have me jump a shark, you know, I’m still there, I’m still ready to go. I remember watching that episode and even I at that age was like what? What are we doing here?

So yeah, I mean, I think as long as you continue to enjoy what we’re doing and enjoy each other, I’m in, you know. I would like the show to get moved back to LA, I’m not thrilled that we’re in Toronto just because my family is in LA, you know.

Q: Are you guys surprised that it’s such a hit with such a variety of ages?

Eddie McClintock: Am I surprised? Well like we said earlier, I’m always surprised when something is a hit. I mean, the fact that viewers have 400 channels to look at and they need to have – the show needs to be an immediate success or the networks, you know, they kill the show. So I’m surprised that it’s a big hit.

Am I surprised that it’s a hit with such a wide audience? No I think that was kind of our – certainly it was my hopes that, you know, the show could be a show that would bring a family together, you know, like something that everybody could like say okay, you make the popcorn, I’ll get the blankets, you turn the lights down, I’ll get, you know, and everybody sits and watches it and the next day at the breakfast table they could talk about the show.

Or, you know, I mean, I know it’s kind of an old – it may be like I don’t even know if people – families sit down for breakfast anymore but, you know, it’s kind of an old fashioned notion. But it just seems like maybe it would be nice to get back to that.

You know, I know there were shows like that in the past and we used to do that when I was a kid. We’d watch the Night Stalker, you know, Cold Shack and everybody would get a little creeped out and I used to have such a – it’s just such a great memory for me as a kid.

And if I can create those kind of memories for some other kid that has an overactive imagination like I seemed to have when I was a kid then that would be amazing. That’s kind of the dream come true for me.

Q: Considering all the past warehouse operatives have essentially left the job due to being killed, is that something that’s in the back of the minds of Pete and Myka and does that affect them at all going into Season 2?

Eddie McClintock: You know, I think that Pete never really allows himself to go there. Again I think part of his defense mechanism in regards to having those kind of thoughts are – his defense mechanism is his arrested development, the state of arrested development that he tends to live in. But, you know, put him in a serious situation and you would want no one else, you know, backing you up.

But, you know, from the time that his father died at a young age Pete has used his sense of humor as a way to escape and I think that’s what he does in regards to any kind of thoughts of being killed. And, you know, he’s a brave guy at heart and I don’t think that he’s all that concerned about that as long as he can die nobly and help the world and help his friends.

Joanne Kelly: I think Myka is – it’s quite the opposite for her. I mean, in Season 1 we see her having already lost a partner which I think comes from a lot of the mask that we see in Season 1, the kind of obsessive personality, the need for control, the need for structure.

I think that death is something that her partner’s death and her lover’s death was something that affected her and I think that’s why she holds onto everything so tightly and why she’s so regimented and has such structure in her life is because that’s something that she lives with every day and the fear of that happening again is a driving force behind her character. And I think that’s very much where her seriousness comes from.

Q: Last season we got to meet Myka’s parents to get more of an insight into her background. Do we get to get any more on Pete’s background this year?

Eddie McClintock: In regards to his parents, no. You know, I think we kind of – we touch on Pete’s alcoholism and we touch on, you know, his military history, he’s a former Marine. And, you know, that was a thing that I kind of – that I really wanted. I wanted him to be an ex former Marine. I thought that it kind of – it lent more credibility to – it gave Pete some gravitas.

And it was a good opportunity for me to kind of give a shout out to all the people in the armed forces who are – who have lived and died and continue to fight for our country. That’s just the way I kind of grew up so that was important for me. And so yeah, I think we continue to find out more and more about all the characters throughout the show.

Q: How much input do you guys actually have in regards to the characterization?

Eddie McClintock: Yeah absolutely, I mean, I think the writers – no one really truly knows the characters better than we do I guess at the end of the day even though they write the words for us. And if there is a – if we have a problem basically we’ll ask, you know, what do you think about this and then generally what happens is they will say well just try it as written and then we’ll do it your way too so we’ll have both. So that way everybody kind of is satisfied in that regard.

Joanne Kelly: Yeah and, I mean, at the beginning of each season, you know, because we are in Toronto we actually go and have a sit down with the writers, all of us, and they tell us what they’re planning for the season and we all talk about it. Not a lot of shows do that.

And they’ve been – the writers room is so great because they’re so open to suggestion and they’re so open to any ideas that either Eddie, I, Saul, Allison, anyone really has. And they really – I think it’s part of what makes the show so great is that kind of openness towards any ideas, our ideas or, you know, anyone else’s.

Here’s a sneak peek of Warehouse 13