The Point Radio: Roxanne Mckee’s Heavenly Gig On DOMINION

Actress Roxanne Mckee (“Claire”) feels her new role on the SyFy series DOMINION is a little slice of heaven, and she shares the enthusiasm about all things angels and devils, plus Peabody Award winning TV genius, Angela Santomero, has given us children’s classics like BLUES CLUES, DANIEL THE TIGER and now a new show just in time for summer binge watching on Amazon.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. It's my drive. We check in on the war between heaven and earth on the new sci-fi series Dominion and talk to one of the stars about what it's been like putting that whole thing together. Plus the beautiful and brilliant Angela Santa-Mera has produced some great children's television

over the years and now she has a new series just in time for summer binge watching. We'll give you a preview. All that plus the Adam is coming to TV. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point.

The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Actors Roxanne McGee is part of the exciting new cast of the sci-fi drama Dominion based on the popular movie Legion about an ongoing war between heaven and earth. I asked Roxanne what drew her to the project.

When I read the script, gosh, way back, ages ago now, I just thought it was a really interesting script. I thought the concept was really interesting, the ideology behind it. I thought the part of Claire had a lot of room to grow and I wanted to play a strong female character and Claire definitely fitted that bill.

I think the writer's vision, Bourne's vision and Scott, our original director and producer, was one of real strength for a female character which was a really big deal to me. When I discussed that with them in the audition, when I got my recall, we were all on the same page. We were thinking more Princess Leia than Princess Sparkle.

It didn't take long for Roxanne to forge some serious relationships with her ghost eyes. Working with Chris was just fantastic. Everything with him was just lovely. We work in a very similar way with both quite serious onset and then offset, not at all. He comes really well prepared and we both really thought about it.

We would get together and have coffee and go out together and stuff. We became really close. All things with him were just really enjoyable and we both got really excited when we were working together. Luke Alan Gale is a completely different dynamic and so it's always a pleasure to work with

him as well. There's something very interesting about working with him. Also, because of the nature of his character, the fact that he switches so quickly in scenes from being William Weil who is just that very gentle soul and certainly with Claire to being somebody who has a lot going on deep down, behind the eyes, all that sort of thing.

Then Anthony Head was just an absolute joy. Anthony Head is the complete opposite of his on-screen character. His on-screen character is obviously a sly old devil. I shouldn't use the word devil. No, I'm not with this series.

I did find him as well. He's a pleasure to work with because he's great to learn from. He's very in the moment so you really feel like you're just talking to David Weil which is just obviously fabulous. Did she add anything to her character as it was written?

Certainly. I think every actor will add stuff to her character even if it's just a certain tone. Yes, we do. Vaughan is just a very intelligent writer and he really works with the actors in terms of getting the best dialogue onto the screen.

We did change things around and talk to him about how we felt our character would say something or do something. As an actor, you always have a personal feeling of where you're going with the character that you don't let onto everyone else. It's funny because in the pilot, Scott and Vaughan gave us all a secret to hold onto and

we weren't allowed to tell anyone. A secret for the character. I can't tell you what that is and those secrets sometimes change but it was very nice to have that because obviously people just in life in general have secrets inside of them and that affects the way they talk to other people.

So with that in mind, that definitely affected the way we acted certain scenes and other characters wouldn't necessarily understand why that was the way it was which is great because you feed off of that. Like most shows on the Sci-Fi network, Dominion has a strong social media presence including live Twitter events during certain episodes.

Ask Roxanne what that was like. I think it's absolutely fantastic. I wasn't on any social media at one point. I've never been on Facebook and MySpace and all of those other things and Instagram and all the rest of it.

It was a friend of mine, Staney, who was in the real L Word. We were at a convention together and she said, no, you've got to get on this. She set me up. Her and her girlfriend Tracy set me up on Twitter at an L Word convention. I was there because I did another show in the UK and I found it the best tool for talking

to people and getting reactions and forming bonds with the fans and whatnot. I think it's really, really important and I just think it's nice. It adds a touch of closeness and I don't know whether I'm biased but I think the people who follow me are so funny and witty that I just enjoy it on a personal level. I want to interact with everyone.

You feel like you've made new friends and it's obviously not the same as the tangible friends that you have in your life but it's just on a different medium and it's really nice. I totally understand why people build relationships via social networking sites because it's a lot of fun and you do feel like you're gaining an understanding and an insight into people's

life. I want to be able to give people a little bit more information about the show and whatever it is that I'm doing and just have a laugh. There's new episodes of Dominion every Thursday on Sci-Fi and of course you can always catch up and see a lot more at Sci-Fi.com.

There's no other way to say it. Here it is, the latest in pop culture. MTV has announced a new social music video top chart. It's called Your MTV Top 20 and it presents the week's most popular videos from around the world with the information being taken from the network's websites, apps, social

media and even Spotify as well. Then every week they put the whole thing together online and with a playlist at Your MTV Top 20.com and you can vote and give your own opinion, even share it with your friends too as well. Brandon Routh, who was Superman in that other movie a few years ago, is now back in tights

but this time he's the Adam. The long running DC hero will be a part of this season of Arrow on the CW. According to the producers, Ray Palmer the Adam will be a recurring character all through the upcoming third season. Hoping to capture the same lightning in a bottle they did with Stephen King's Under

the Dome, CBS has issued a straight to series order for Zoo, a global thriller based on a James Patterson bestseller about a violent wave of animal attacks against humans. The show is slated to premiere in the summer of 2015. The team that's making a success for Arrow on television is now going to bring that same magic hopefully to the Green Arrow series in comics and to Kreisberg and Ben Sokolowski,

producers of the CW Arrow series, will soon be writing the Green Arrow comic book. Beginning with issue number 35. Both writers are not new to comics, they've worked on the Green Arrow Black Canary series a couple of years ago and the first two issues of the JLA Vibe series as well. Look for Green Arrow 35 in comic stores in October.

The current GI Joe franchise gets a third part in theaters coming up in a couple of years. Paramount is planning another movie, this time hiring Jonathan Lemkin to write it, he did Shooter and Lethal Weapon 4, and the film will concentrate on the Dwayne Johnson character Roadblock who was a big part of the last movie.

Plans are for the film to go into production late next year and be in theaters in 2016. Just a reminder that August is selfie month as far as the variants go for DC Comics. We talked about this a couple of months ago and they've been planned for quite a while. Variants to certain DC Comics will be, well, selfies of those characters. You kind of have to see them to fully understand it and they're all over the internet so that

shouldn't be hard. Check with your retailer to find out which of the variants you'll be carrying from those DC titles in August. The point, the point, is what's cool. There's a good reason to chill a little bit inside your local comic store this week besides

having air conditioning and some great stuff on the shelves. I hate to use the word old time fans but let's just say if you appreciate some of the classic newspaper strips you're going to want to check out the Gasoline Alley hardcover, the second volume collecting some of the stuff from the early years of this beautiful strip done by Dark Horse again in an absolutely gorgeous package.

The Strain will be what everybody's talking about. They're already starting and once it hits television, well, will it be the next Walking Dead? You can find out if you pick up the Strain hardcover which collects pretty much everything that's gone on so far in comics.

It's available to you this week from Dark Horse. Dick Grayson moves into the James Bond era with Grayson number one this week from DC and no pun intended, the Suicide Squad gets a new lease on life with a new run of issues to begin with the number one of the new Suicide Squad this week as well. Some great art to look at this week collected by the folks at IDW.

Starts with the Locke & Key cover collection of Gabriel Rodriguez available as a hardcover. There's an artist edition for Mike Maniola's Hellboy, one for Jim Staranko's Agents of Shield 2, both available from IDW and again both done beautifully just like all the other packages like this that they do. Death Vigil is a new series that runs from images we can make want to take a look at

so is spread which begins with the first issue but more important there's a new issue of Walking Dead from Image and from Marvel Spider-Man gets the 100th anniversary treatment this week with anniversary special number one from them. All these and more in comic stores all over America you can check them out right now with a comic book locator service at 1-888-COMIC-BOOK or with a link on the front of our website

ComicMix.com or with a website called Find a Comic Shop.com. The point, the point. From Blue's Clues to Super Why to Daniel the Tiger's Neighborhood. Angela Santamaro has been changing the way kids watch TV for almost two decades and her latest brainchild Creative Galaxy has become the first original series to launch on Amazon.

So I was fascinated how do you actually sit down and create programming for children? Oh it's such a great question you know for me I kind of came to TV or came to production it kind of threw the back door because I have a child development background and masters and child development and structural technology and media. So for me it's all about learning how kids learn and how they learn from television and

using those formal features to create the show and then it's also about my target audience. So everything that I write and everything that I'm excited about I take out into the field and talk to kids and understand whether or not the goals are being met. You know I definitely want to say if I'm going to say I'm bringing creativity and the arts to kids I want to know that at the end of the show they're walking away you know inspired

to go out in the world and make something you know I don't want to just say it and not deliver on it. So we do a lot of back and forth and a lot of development as if you you know you do it whenever you're creating something new like that and I wish there was a formula. I mean I think the only thing that's you know there are a few things I would say that are

that are threads throughout all of the shows that I do but a big piece of it is knowing the art that there's an audience out there that I am talking directly to one child you know everything from Blue Schools all the way down to Creative Galaxy now we know that the child is there and we are literally bringing them into the experience and so that's definitely a piece that runs through.

In the almost 20 years since Blue's Clues debuted has her audience changed a lot? You know what's fascinating to me about preschoolers especially is that the world and you know the kids do the world changes around them and yet from the developmental standpoint it's still the same stages that they go through and even though they're exposed to more they seem to have potentially a bigger vocabulary or they're still emotionally at the same level

that they were years ago. What I'm excited about seeing is that since Blue's Clues that there's been a better quality of media out there for kids you know educational media has been catching on and different areas that they're out there because I went into this because I hated what was on TV you know I really wanted to make a difference the way that Mr. Rogers you know really spoke to me

and made a difference for me. So I think it's really interesting when you marry who kids are today with the technology that's around them that's new but knowing that developmentally they're the same as they were. And as we said the new show is Creative Galaxy.

The new show we created a literally a galaxy of creativity where each planet in the solar system of our galaxy is a different representation of art. So we have a museum planet, we have a drawing planet, we have a building planet, we have a paintings planet, we've got we had a really great response to this so that some of the celebs who are also parents or grandparents came to came to it and wanted to support

us and be part of it like Brooke Shields and Cloris Leachman and Samantha Bee and Jason Jones and Jason Priestley. So we've been really excited about that. And then we have a preschool character who embodies creativity. His name is Artie, he's a little alien and he lives in a galaxy with epiphany who's his

little adorable sidekick who can you know transform into anything that she is talking about or excited about but he lives with his parents in the galaxy when there's a problem, a preschool relatable problem, he actually wants to solve it with art. So we're showing hands on art craft, we're showing being inspired by the masters of Jackson Pollock and Van Gogh and Picasso and we're using art vocabulary in terms of different

kinds of, you know we're exposing them to pointillism and we're exposing them to splatter painting and action painting and you know all these different kinds of things throughout the series. Why choose Amazon as a home for this? You know it's so pretty.

First of all I've been an Amazon Prime customer since way back when. I am like their poster child. It keeps spreading the word because it's just so awesome. But it really became the connection with Tara Sorensen who's the head of Amazon Kids and she literally will tear up about the fact and you know we share this in the sense of

knowing that when art's being cut from the classroom what this means for the next generation and how much this type of curriculum that hasn't been done before, how much we could do and step up our game and really bring that out to kids and so when you have a shared vision like that it's a no-brainer. You know then you're able to go because it's not an easy thing to say like this is what

I want to do. I want to expose kids to Picasso and this is a you know and you really need somebody who gets it and Tara completely got it and wanted to bring it to her Amazon Prime customer. You and your family can binge watch Creative Galaxy right now. All the episodes are available on Amazon Prime Video.

That does it for the podcast but if you're new here here's how everything works. We do the show twice every week on websites like ComicMakes.com and MichaelDavisWorld.com and it turns up in the iTunes podcast directory too. But in the meantime we cover pop culture 24-7 at GetThePointRadio.com. Listen there live anytime you want to or take us on any mobile device, Apple or Android

with an app called HiNet Radio. We'll see you back here in a few days.