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Ari Millen of ‘Orphan Black’ on Being a Clone and a Dad
A maniacal leer, a zipper scar slicing his cheek, a body pumped to kill: You wouldn’t want to run into Rudy, the new guy on the cellblock in BBC America’s “Orphan Black,” in a dark hallway.
But Ari Millen, 33 — who plays Rudy as well as his clone brothers Seth, Miller and Mark — didn’t seem the least bit scary in a recent phone call from Toronto, where Lily, his daughter with his fiancée, the actress Kassandra Santos, squalled in the background just 32 hours after her birth.
“It’s absolutely the greatest thing that has ever happened,” he gushed. “Right now we’re just enjoying holding her in our arms, staring at her in wonder and fighting over whose turn it is to hold her next.”
The intensity of Mr. Millen’s gaze has made him perfect for bad seeds like the Shadow King in CW’s “Reign,” the digital terrorist Adam Wexler in Syfy’s “12 Monkeys” and now the ghost soldiers of Project Castor, the military experiment whose spawn will haunt the Project Leda clones played by Tatiana Maslany in Season 3 of “Orphan Black.”
But when he took on the role of Mark in Season 2, Mr. Millen expected his character, a murderous Prolethian, to be killed off by the sixth episode. “Then somewhere along the way they changed their minds,” he said. “I’m very thankful they let me live, obviously.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q. You play four characters, so far. How do you keep them apart?
A. The easiest way for me to describe it is that Rudy, he’s a bit of a peacock. He’s the smartest guy in the room, and to exert that prowess, he’ll look at a person, figure out how to push that person’s button and as soon as that person rocks, he’s got the upper hand. Miller is quintessential military. Seth is almost the runt of the litter but also probably the best soldier of them all. He’s constantly looking for approval from his brothers, so he’s willing to be that much more vicious to get it.
And Mark?
Mark is a wild card. He doesn’t want to be part of Project Castor, so he’s trying to distance himself from his family, which is a major theme this season: who your family is, and how the family dynamic exists. But his brothers are not going to let him go without a fight.
The Leda clones have a lot of disparity, while yours are more alike. Any acting tricks?
Because they are brothers and grew up together, for me the challenge was finding the similarities in guys who had a common upbringing. But because they are their own people, they want to exert themselves as individuals.
You took the BuzzFeed quiz “Which ‘Orphan Black’ Clone Are You?” and got Sarah Manning. Which Project Castor clone are you?
There’s a little bit of me in all the Castor clones, but I think I fit best with Mark, and that’s because I gravitate toward characters where I can see two sides of the coin. I think he’s ultimately a good guy caught up in a bad world, and he is very intent on finding his way out of that. But whenever he’s very close, somehow he gets pulled back in.
Do you think that having a baby will bring new dimensions to your acting?
I’ve always heard that once you’re no longer the center of your own universe, things get easier because you realize you don’t have to take yourself so seriously. I’m really looking forward to that.
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