Mark-Paul and Saniyya Sidney speak about their upcoming TV series

Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Saniyya Sidney

Can I start by asking, how did you guys get involved?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Brad Wolgast): I was, I had a relationship with 20th Century Fox from my previous show Pitch which was a 20th show as well. I read the script, became available, and just thought it was an amazing opportunity to work with a very talented pedigree, Liz Heldens and Matt Reeves and Ridley Scott. The material itself, what Liz was able to do a trilogy of books really excited me and just sort of spoke to me in a way. You know, as an actor, you sort kind of go with what your gut and your heart tell you. And when that whole process started, I also read the books, all three of them and saw what the blueprint of the show is.

Did you have time to work on the chemistry or was it just from the first day on the set?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: No. I've sort of said this before. We sort of started off like our characters. I have a daughter who's twelve years old, so I can relate to our relationship. She needs someone we're kind of like "hey, hi" but we were able to film the show in a linear fashion and so as we shot more and more scenes we became much more comfortable with each other and that's the story of Brad and Amy.

Saniyya Sidney: Pretty much. You said everything.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: What'd you think when you first met me?

Saniyya Sidney: When I first met you? Oh gosh.

Did you know him? Did you know anything about his career?

Saniyya Sidney: So, when I first met him, I didn't know anything. So, like later I was like Saved by The Bell and like everything, and Hulu has like Saved by the Bell, Hawaiian Style, like they have everything. I have it all on my list, like I'm watching everything. You will never get away from it. Just to let you know. From me. When I first met him, it was like who is this person, I don't know you, and I'm never shy and I was shy. I met Mark-Paul. I was like "Hey I'm Saniyya". He was like "Oh hey I'm Mark" trying to play around and stuff. And later, I started realizing oh he's cool and he's wonderful to work with and he's a great person. Then I realized, okay this is like having a relationship with my dad and I'm so close to my dad.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: I think I'm older than your dad.

Saniyya Sidney: But my dad's my best friend so I can relate to that when they tell me that it's like a father-daughter relationship. I was like, oh makes sense.

Have you read the books, Saniyya?

Saniyya Sidney: Some, but um.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: because she's not allowed to.

Saniyya Sidney: Hey Hey Hey

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: I've talked to your dad. You're not allowed to.

Saniyya Sidney: Hey Hey Hey I'm allowed to now. Okay?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: Okay

Saniyya Sidney: You can ask. Okay, but my dad, he's read all three so he kind of told me what happened but I kind of want to wait so I can be surprised by what happens with my character, but yeah, so I've heard a lot and I've heard everything that has gone on but now I'm just focusing on Amy now. Amy, how is she gonna become this or how is she gonna make it with Wolgast?

Mark you haven't really worked on Sci-fi so why did you choose to go this way?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: Well I'm excited I am doing a sci-fi because now I can come to Comic-Con. Not one of my projects that I have done has ever been here. There's really no difference between doing like, it's not like you say oh there's a difference between comedy and drama. Sci-fi is just an extension of drama. It could be an extension of comedy as well. But material is material and if you have good material that's, I think as actors, what we're always seeking, is will this role challenge me and is the material good and appropriate for what you're trying to accomplish? So, I'm just excited that I get to come to Comic-Con.

Science Fiction adult is often good social commentary. How would you say this show does that?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: I think it's very relevant. It's sort of what we're socially going through. I mean in the pilot episode, there is an outbreak that is going to happen that has potential to wipe out civilization, and we're trying to create a virus that can destroy this disease. I mean without giving too much away, the books say that civilization does get wiped out and how do we rebuild and how do we become a society again to what we remember? So, this has a lot of relevance to what we do in the show and to what's in the books and sort of happening, or can happen in real life.

What do you think the base fans from the books will find in the show?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: I'm probably not the person to ask just because I'm not writing it and we have not seen a second script. I can tell you what I believe, well what we've been told when we visited the writer's room… And it's difficult because we're a month away from shooting and we haven't seen a second script. We've been living with the first script for almost close to two years now, but what we've been told is that we're going to draw out the relationship with Amy and Wolgast before they go back to Project Noah and before the virus starts to take ahold of her. Then we'll see a lot of back story between my character and his ex-wife played by Emmanuelle Chriqui and then toward the end of the season we may have the outbreak of the virus, and possibly get a glimpse of the future. That's what we've been told.

Saniyya Sidney: Are we? Are we?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: It's weird. We don't know really what we have in store.

Well how do you like it so far?

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: Well I've been going room to room and it's been like going to a TCA so far, but I'm looking forward to going to the floor and I'm really looking forward to, what I can't wait for is to screen our show which we're going to do here and have the panel afterwards. I'm really excited about doing that because I want to see the reaction, what people...

Saniyya Sidney: I hope everyone likes it.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: Yeah, they better like it and if not, they better lie.

Saniyya Sidney: Right.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar: Right

The Passage airs in India on Star World

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