Altered Carbon: With stunning action and a mind-bending concept, this Netflix show is an actor’s delight

Netflix’s Altered Carbon is set in a time so far removed from the world as we know it today, it takes a while to get used to; but then, in many ways, that’s also the essence of the show. Imagine being able to store your consciousness digitally, so that it (and thus, you) can be ‘re-sleeved’ from body to body, effectively making you immortal; imagine the connotations - both physical and philosophical - of such technology.

Based on the eponymous cult cyberpunk novel by Richard K Morgan, Altered Carbon is centred around the character of Takeshi Kovacs, an ‘Envoy’ (a highly trained revolutionary of sorts), re-sleeved into a new, unfamiliar body nearly two and a half centuries after his death, for the specific purpose of solving a crime.

At its heart, Altered Carbon is a whodunnit. But the future it is set in lends itself to some heavy-duty action, the kind that would have pushed its actors to their absolute limits.

Firstpost caught up with the cast of Altered Carbon at the launch press event for the show in Seoul, South Korea, where they spoke about the experience of working on Altered Carbon, especially considering the audaciously trippy setting of the show, and the kind of action sequences they dealt with.

Said Joel Kinnaman, who plays Kovacs on the show, “One of the biggest draws of this project was being able to create a massive new world on a scale that’s usually reserved for big budget features.”

When quizzed on how he prepared for a role like that of Takeshi Kovacs, he elucidated, “Every character has its own method. So when I’m building a character I’m being very aware of where my imagination is taking me and what the process for this particular character is going to be like. After a while, the character falls into place. For Kovacs, there were different animal impersonations going on in my mind - like big cats. Tigers. How a tiger moves. There’s a stillness around him, but he’s also always ready.”

A lot of the action done by Kinnaman also involved him being naked. “It’s challenging to be naked in front of 250 people every other day. The first three days of shooting Altered Carbon, I was naked on two of them. It’s challenging, but also healthy, because you let go of your inhibitions,” he quipped.

With regards to the action sequences, stunt coordinator of the show Larnell Stovall said of Kinnaman’s performance, “Joel loves trying to do all of his own action - of course, within safe parameters. He has delivered non-stop with each action sequence. He goes all out. He’s professional, learns the choreography, and always puts everything he has into it.”

What’s interesting in Altered Carbon is that the women of the show have performed equally intense action as the lead character of Kovacs. Dichen Lachman and Mexican star Martha Higareda play key characters Reileen Kawahara and Kristin Ortega respectively. The former is an Envoy like Kovacs, while the latter plays an earnest, street-smart cop who gets entangled with Kovacs and his escapades. In fact, one of the best fight scenes of the entire season appears in a later episode, between Reileen and Ortega.

Said Lachman about that particular scene, “The logistics of that scene was one of the more complicated things they did on the show. There were so many body doubles, who had to look like my character. Then there’s the nudity. I’m completely naked from head to toe, and you see everything. When you’re fighting naked with a weapon, and there are pieces of silicon glass on the floor that turn into sand when you step on them, it’s like walking on ice.”

“There are so many scenes where there are two girls rustling together, rolling around. But with the sword and (Martha) being able to use her arm to block it, it was so important for the scene as well as for my character - she would have swords in the room! What really helped me is that my character got me through it. Reileen would have no problem with doing all of that,” she later added. “There was a lot of discussion for the scene. We trained a lot, so we were very well co-ordinated. And we were always checking in with one another. Is this okay, did I hurt you? Just checking in on each other.” Higareda chimed in.

About her own character Higareda said, “Laeta Kalogridis [Altered Carbon showrunner and producer> did a fantastic job writing very powerful women that were different in many ways. My character is always on the edge, she has a lot of secrets she’s hiding, a lot of integrity. And she always has to make decisions. Even if she wants to be cold-minded while making them, her heart wins over her.”

Altered Carbon streams all episodes on 2 February, 2018.