'Absentia' star and EP Stana Katic felt naturally inclined to the process of storytelling and collaborating with other producers
Stana Katic is not only the lead actor in 'Absentia', she is also one of the executive producers of the psychological thriller in which she plays the role of FBI agent Emily Byrne. While as an actor Katic found herself interested to play an anti-hero, her role behind-the-scenes helped her creative juices flow between season 1 in 2017 and season 2 in 2019. In an interview with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), the actor spoke about how her role off-screen influenced her, her interest in storytelling and more.
Katic felt some actors are deeply involved not just in immersing themselves in their characters, but also getting involved in the process of storytelling and said that for her it was a very organic move. She said, "I think that there are some actors who are truly actors, they are people who enjoy being in front of the camera. They enjoy focussing on their character. Then there are actors who like Matt (Matthew Le Nevez) - I've mentioned this in the past - like Bradley Cooper, like Robert Redford and all the way back to Mary Pickford, who were very involved in the concept of storytelling. Not only are they actors but they're general creators, storytellers."
She added, "So, after a period of time on set you just accumulate so much knowledge if you're interested. Knowledge about the camera, knowledge about the story, knowledge about editing. Every inch of those elements that contribute to impacting an audience and sending them on a journey. And I've always felt like I was more naturally inclined to storytelling and not necessarily only acting."
Speaking of other actors turned successful producers such as Reese Witherspoon and Eva Longoria, Katic said, "I'm not the only voice right. But the wonderful thing about filmmaking is it is a collaboration, so I'm not going to win every single battle but I'll try to deliver the best story that I can possibly deliver and I'll try to add voice and hopefully speak up for the characters, and for their organic sort of movement from one staging to another and hopefully we will deliver a story that is satisfying for the audience as a group."
Katic also revealed how actor Le Nevez who plays the role of Special agent Cal Isaac and is one of the other producers is also someone who gets deeply involved in the process of storytelling. She revealed, "Matt has a phenomenal way of attending to storytelling. He is very much a wonderful, talented, beautiful actor but he also, in addition to that, he has the capacity to look at [a] story almost from a director's scope. And having that capacity means that he was a part of any problem solving that we would have along the way and he also knew how to fill in story elements and raise the bar, elevate the script all the time. So that was a really wonderful collaboration to have on set, especially on a project that is so much like an independent film."
Katic's 'Absentia' season 2 aired on Amazon Prime Video June 14 and saw Katic return as Emily Byrne who attempts to find the truth behind the missing time in her memory.