Hannah John-Kamen, Aaron Ashmore, and Luke Macfarlane Talk Killjoys Season 5 

[Warning: General spoilers ahead]

Just one more sleep until the Killjoys Season 5 premiere and we have another treat from last August’s set visit—a chat with the titular team played by Hannah John-Kamen, Aaron Ashmore, and Luke Macfarlane. In part one of a wide-ranging conversation, they talk about what the Season 5 arc of memory and family means for them.

With the character reset, the show ventures into new, although not quite different territory, and the cast reflected on that careful balance of personality and history vs. new surroundings. They agreed it was rich territory to mine as actors, and they enjoyed the nuances of playing different behaviors.

“I think the interesting thing [about the] memory wipe is that we get to see all of our characters interacting in ways that we haven’t seen before, because we don’t necessarily remember each other,” explains Ashmore. “I think for us as actors, that was really, really fun to get a chance to interact and play the characters in a slightly different way.”

“And, I think it will be fun for people to watch as well. The characters are still the characters, so those things still shine through, but there’s just an element of something a little different and a different dynamic.”

“I think the idea of memories is also fascinating…because it’s a memory that erases, essentially, the last [four] years of this interaction that you guys have all watched. So, everything that happened, in a way, is forgotten. They’re sort of new to each other,” adds Macfarlane.

“One of the tensions that they’re playing with is, ‘How unearthable are those [memories]? What is the pure state of these people, and does it supersede memory?’ Is there something pure underneath the memory, if that makes sense. So, will we actually be seeing a truer expression of these people without the experiences we’ve gone through for the last four years?”

“[This season is also about] the idea of, ‘How do you find each other again when you’re completely alien to each other, and what remains?” John-Kamen points out. “’What are the remnants from that past life? What is that connection and how do you bring these characters back together?’ So, that was very fun to play, as well [as to] have a complete shift in roles and in costumes, which will be very fun to see.”

One of the other neat things this season will be how the characters still gravitate toward each other, albeit differently, as in the case of Dutch and Johnny being married in this alt-world. “We get to see sides of these characters…maybe there’s an element that there’s a connection between these two characters that didn’t go there [before] because of just circumstances,” says Ashmore.

“Maybe in a different reality, in a different world, maybe those circumstances would be slightly different. I think a lot of those things are potentially under the surface anyway, to a certain extent. But, it’s exciting to play with characters and actors that you know, but in these different lights.”

“Because you don’t have to treat them the same, you don’t have to have the same dynamics. So, it’s almost like, being in a different show, in a sense. I mean, it’s not, but it is. It allows you to feel like things are fresh and new. It’s exciting.”

“It was really fun to explore that, and to play up to Aaron, and go, ‘This is acting today and don’t confuse me with family and besties,’” John-Kamen says. “It was fun to open up that world, and that possibility. It was interesting to play the after-effects of that as well.” The duo joked that the kissing and the hugging and the snuggling and spooning” didn’t suck, either.

The reset doesn’t supersede the series’ adept ability to build worlds and families, which the cast also appreciated. “Something that I think about in my personal life a lot, is, ‘What does it mean, as a gay man, to have a child, and what does it mean to create a family totally in a different way?’” explains Macfarlane. “The show…really examines that idea too. That it can kind of be whatever you decide it’s going to be. I think that it’s a very positive message.”

“Besides the three of us, our other friends in this world…that’s the family that we’ve built on, right? That’s the extended family. Everybody is still there. Their ability to go outside of their own characters is even probably greater than [ours in the reset],” points out Ashmore.

“We still are more grounded because we’re in this fantastic situation. So, we still have to stay somewhat grounded in our characters, but their characters are just completely different. Allowing [us] to find each other and find our way back, we do somehow do that. Everybody’s still in this circle.”

“We’re all drawn together. There’s some sort of gravity that keeps all these characters together, even outside of the fact they’re completely different. So, that’s kind of a neat thing that they balance and allow to happen.”

John-Kamen adds that muscle memory plays into the familial bond that eventually reunites them. “The interesting thing is the ‘how’ it will all happen,” she says. “The inner soul that you have, that memory, that thing, and how you have to remind people and the other characters, our other family, and to bring them back [will be very important].”

Killjoys returns tomorrow at 10 pm/9c on Space Channel and Syfy. Come join the live Tweet! All of our Killjoys coverage, including new Season 5 interviews and a preview of “Run, Yala, Run,” is here. You can catch all four seasons on demand on the Space Go app and Syfy app and website.

Photos courtesy of Space Channel.