AOL Entertainment Asylum Chat - 1998
And for those of you who like your paranoia straight up, our intrepid reporter, Dave Nielsen also got to meet Eugene Robert Glazer, the actor who the suspicious head of Section One, the nefarious amoral government agency that dispatches assassins to deal with political problems in USA's La Femme Nikita.
Does Eugene believe that real agencies like section one exist? Read on.
(Q:) TELL US ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER ON THE SHOW. (ERG:) "Well, it's about an organization called Section 1. I am the head of Section 1 along with Alberta Watson who plays Madeline. I deal with all the covert operations stuff, she deals with the psychological torture- Madeline. So I am basically the boss."
(Q:) SHE WAS FRAMED? (ERG:) "No, I didn't frame her, she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She came upon a knifing, someone had knifed a police officer, she got- some way or another got involved and the knife wound up in her hand, the assailant took off, the usual, you know and there she was with the knife in her hand. Now she's under my knife, yeah."
(Q:) DO PEOPLE SEE YOU AS THAT BOSS? (ERG:) "Well first of all, there's a two part answer on that- no one recognizes me, and the second part is no, he's not evil so much as enigmatic. You really don't get an idea of what the man is about, and one of the shows I was discussing with (executive) in charge of publicity at Warner Bros.- deals with my character- the personal side of the character, and deals with his son. It deals with part of the information I gave them in my biography about the character, about being a Vietnam vet, prisoner of war. I won't get into the whole thing but I'm avidly researching the P.O.W. issue about all that stuff, so that's part of the background of this character. There's a lot more involved in that. But he really can't be emotional about a lot of things. Things just have to be cut and dry and that's the way it is."
(Q:) DID THEY TRY TO KEEP THE CHARACTER ALONG THE SAME LINES AS IN THE FILM? (ERG:) "No, I think we're a little more flexible. The character of operations, or I don't even know if it even existed in the French film which was brilliant, you just saw him for one moment. Most of the film was based on the character called Bob who's played by Roy Dupuis, Michael, so this character has basically been added to it."
(Q:) DO YOU THINK SECTION 1'S REALLY EXIST? (ERG:) "Well, from what I've been reading and a lot of research I've been getting in touch with... For example, yes, there is a CIA within a CIA. I spoke with a gentleman who somebody put me in touch with a little while ago who had told me that he was bringing people out of Vietnam in 1973 after the repatriation, and I called him and I said, 'what did you do for the government?' And he said, 'Let's just say I was involved in electronics.' I said, 'So you don't want to say anything else.' He said, 'I was involved in electronics.' I said, 'O.K.' He would be in the jungle all on his own. Occasionally he would hook up with long range reconnaissance patrols. After his active duty in the service, he then said he worked in an unofficial capacity for the State Department. I said, 'What does unofficial capacity mean?' He said, 'Unofficial capacity.' I said, 'O.K., I got you, thank you.' And I asked him point blank, 'To your knowledge are there any P.O.W.s left behind in Vietnam?' He said, 'Absolutely.' I said, 'Really.' He said, 'They're not in Vietnam anymore. I hate to burst your bubble. They're in Cambodia. They're in Cambodia. They're being guarded by the Command Rouge.' And he said, 'They're worse than the Vietnamese. The Command Rouge are just... you'll never see those guys again.' But that's another story, we don't have time for all of that, yes there are governments within governments within governments that people don't even know about."
(Q:) SO YOU DID RESEARCH? (ERG:) "Oh, absolutely, and operations, the character Operations formed Section 1 through information that he's acquired and strong-armed certain people in the government on up to the President to have his own little thing going."
(Q:) WHAT WAS YOUR BACKGROUND THAT BROUGHT YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? (ERG:) "Well I've done a lot of theater. I do a lot of bad guys. The thing about Operations when I read for the role and then came for the call backs and met everyone, the reading was very strong, there were a lot of colors, a lot of things going on and I believe it was Joel, because usually when actors go to meet all the executives you don't remember who you met its just a blur, I don't know names, I know nothing. And he said to me, 'Just sit in the chair.' He said, 'I want you to say nothing.' And when you say that to an actor it's like, oh my God... Nothing? He said, 'Nothing.' I did it again, he said, 'Too much.' So what it finally came down to was, I'm talking to you right now, that's all it is, there's no movement, there's nothing. It's all in the eyes. That's what they want the character to be."
(Q:) WHAT'S PLANNED TO HAPPEN TO NIKITA? (ERG:) "Don't know yet. Well, in respect to what? We're not sure. I think there are certain areas I believe where they want to peel back some of the layers in the characters they're all a little too enigmatic and they want to give you a little glimpse like... Well the show about my son. They'll say, 'Well he has a son? Oh, O.K, he wears a wedding ring, well we find out his wife is dead. Why does he wear the wedding ring?' People on the internet they're writing these stories telling why I'm wearing the wedding ring, they think that Michael is my illegitimate child with Madeline or one of the other characters... one of the deep cover spies- they make up their own stories. And some of them are interesting, they make a lot of sense, but...
(Q:) SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON THE INTERNET? (ERG:) "When I first got on to it- I'm not a computer freak- I'm computer illiterate- and then I got on to it and got on to the P.O.W. homepages and downloading, and I started spending 8 or 9 hours, it was fascinating. I got so far as the C.I.A. and the Department of Defense homepage, especially the C.I.A. Now I've thought I'd be able to- and I'm not a hacker, so I couldn't of course get into their files, but I thought maybe... So I input some items that I researched that are covert operations and when I entered the information the modem was blinking and I was getting very excited and it was like 4 in the morning and all of a sudden it stopped and it read document complete and the screen went absolutely black. From the top of the screen it bled like black ink, and I looked at it and I said, holy shit, wow! So I put in another one and the same thing happened. I said, I think I better get off the line here. It was something that was public information, it's not that I found out something that I shouldn't know but nothing was available. Nothing that they would want."
(Q:) DO YOU GET(ANSWER) E-MAIL FROM THE SHOW? (ERG:) "Yeah, I've been getting some e-mail. some of the people who have web sites have been getting in touch with me and did some interviews and some of the web pages are just fabulous, I mean these people are amazing, there's sound bites and pictures and things. They know every show, every character, every episode, you name it they know it. So the show has generated a lot of interest. I'm happy, I like it, it's a good show, they have some interesting concepts and they'll be some new sets next year. Oh yes, some interesting changes."