'See' actor Josh Blacker says acting visually impaired took 2 months of training with blindness consultant and movement trainers
Apple TV+'s new post-apocalyptic fantasy series, ‘See’, is one of November's most anticipated releases. Created by Steven Knight of ‘Peaky Blinders’ fame, the show follows a tribal warrior Baba Voss (Jason Momoa), 600 years after a deadly virus killed most of the human population and left only a few blind survivors.
When Momoa fathers twins who become the first humans in centuries to be able to see, not everyone considers their powers a gift. Speaking to MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) about the show, Josh Blacker, who plays the Witchfinder Warrior, talked about the design of the show, why it's interesting that Apple is planning a staggered release for the show and more.
Blacker said that watching the final version of the show, with everything put together, blew his mind. “Even if I wasn’t in it, I would be stoked for it; to see it, to experience that first episode,” said Blacker. “And I know what’s coming up in the following seven episodes -- people are going to be blown away!”
Blacker’s character in the show belongs to a Witchfinder tribe. He explained: “Queen Kane rules the queendom and there are a bunch of small tribes -- there are only two million people left after this virus has swept across the Earth -- and we are the elite of the elite, in terms of the queen's soldiers and the army. And I am the Witchfinder Warrior and I am the right-hand man to the Witchfinder General who commands the army. And Queen Kane sends us out to find these kids who have been born with a sense of sight.”
On playing characters without a sense of sight, Blacker said, “I knew it was going to be a challenge. We had two months of movement training and blindness training. We had Joe Stretch, he was our blindness consultant. And we had a team of movement trainers who were dancers and circus performers and gymnasts who taught us how Steven Knight has perceived the world, and obviously, made it a world that was authentic to that experience.”
On Apple TV+, the show’s format will be different from regular stream platforms. The platform plans to release three episodes upfront and then one every week.
“When you launch a new platform, those are such important things to take into account,” said Blacker, commenting on Apple TV+ trying to revolutionize binge-watching. “What Apple is doing is that they are being very smart about it. They’re saying, ‘This is what you can prepare for. This is what’s coming up’. So you absorb those first three episodes and I truly think you need some time to absorb it and go ‘What just happened?’”
“It allows people to think about what’s going on in the world, what are the storylines, what’s coming up next and where does it go,” he added. Talking about the kind of roles he wants to do in the future, he said, “ I would love to do some comedy. People often say that I look a lot like Jason Statham and he does a lot of the action stuff. But he’s played some comedy and he does it so well. Because when you look like I do -- like I am going to steal your wallet or something like that -- when you play comedy, it can have an amazing effect!”
'See' is slated to release the day Apple has planned to launch its streaming service TV+, November 1.
