My Three Crichtons - From the Companion Book
(In the margin there is a quote by John, "It's bad enough being spat out of some green blob. Now I've got Quasimodo here saying he's me!")
"During season two Ben Browder proved himself to be the Lon Chaney of Farscape," says Creature Shop creative supervisor Dave Elsey, fulfilling David Kemper's aim to "Put Ben in prosthetics and let him act behind some masks."
"This was the first time that we'd done any make-ups on Ben," Elsey recalls. "We'd always wanted to get him in the make-up chair. I think some of the other actors had wanted to get Ben in the make up chair just so he knew what they were going through! We were worried about him being the star, and we wanted to make it good. We wanted to make it as comfortable for him as possible, but of course we had to make it Farscape, which means pushing it as far as we can."
"Harry and Gaby came up with the really smart idea of not having him be old or young." Kemper explains, "but having Crichton change on the evolutionary scale."
The first alternative Crichton is Neandro, the caveman-like crature. "Neandro was a full fur suit with a muscle suit underneath," Elsey explains. "It had a chest with bunched hair in it, which Ben was rather fond of. We also had to do his make-up, which was inspired by Dick Smith's work in the film Altered States, which is one of my favourite make-ups. We made the teeth, and wanted to see how far Ben was willing to go. It turned out he was willing to go all the way! He loved wearing the make-up, looked fantastic in it, and worked closely with us. He kept coming in to see how it was progressing, trying things on, and never got bored with helping us as much as possible."
Ben Browder had some very clear ideas of how he envisaged the future Crichton, dictating why he chose the Southern accent for Futuro. "If you listen closely, you can actually hear Bill Clinton," he laughs. "In most science fiction, the evolved person is going to be English, and very well spoken. I wanted him to be a big, dark-skinned bald guy with perfect teeth, But they wanted to make him look alien."
There was a more practical reason behind Browder choosing a different voice. "I looked at the script and realized that if I sounded the same over the comms, talking to myself, it would be confusing as to which one was talking."
"For Futuro, Ben wanted to have these absolutely perfect Hollywood teeth, and he really worked on talking with them, "Dave Elsey recalls. "Nobody else was particularly keen on them in production, but I think everybody now agrees that they were a fantastic idea. One of the important things that was stressed to me many times was that they wanted to keep it looking like Ben, and Ben had to come through the make-up. To be honest, Ben's such a good actor that I think you could have made him up as anything and he still would have come through.
"It was a very complicated episode for us," Elsey adds, "Because we also had to have the stuntmen in suits and make-up as well. We realized very early on that we were going to need duplicate versions of everything. You can't do it all with computer graphics you've got to have stand-ins, people doing stunts and so on."
Claudia Black feels that there were some missed opportunities in the story. "I felt that our characters were dumbed down a little in the process," she says. "Futuro Crichton was the one who was really manipulating the environment, rather than any of us being able to control it. Chiana was the one in that episode who seemed to have the intuitions about Crichton. There was a lot of potential for Aeryn to run through the issues with the various Crichtons, but she never really got the chance."
David Kemper enjoyed the opportunities that were present. "There was some particularly good stuff there because you had Ben playing three roles," He points out. "We had our best gun sitting there, doing multiple tasks in a lot of different scenes. It was a good chance for Ben to flex."
"During season two Ben Browder proved himself to be the Lon Chaney of Farscape," says Creature Shop creative supervisor Dave Elsey, fulfilling David Kemper's aim to "Put Ben in prosthetics and let him act behind some masks."
"This was the first time that we'd done any make-ups on Ben," Elsey recalls. "We'd always wanted to get him in the make-up chair. I think some of the other actors had wanted to get Ben in the make up chair just so he knew what they were going through! We were worried about him being the star, and we wanted to make it good. We wanted to make it as comfortable for him as possible, but of course we had to make it Farscape, which means pushing it as far as we can."
"Harry and Gaby came up with the really smart idea of not having him be old or young." Kemper explains, "but having Crichton change on the evolutionary scale."
The first alternative Crichton is Neandro, the caveman-like crature. "Neandro was a full fur suit with a muscle suit underneath," Elsey explains. "It had a chest with bunched hair in it, which Ben was rather fond of. We also had to do his make-up, which was inspired by Dick Smith's work in the film Altered States, which is one of my favourite make-ups. We made the teeth, and wanted to see how far Ben was willing to go. It turned out he was willing to go all the way! He loved wearing the make-up, looked fantastic in it, and worked closely with us. He kept coming in to see how it was progressing, trying things on, and never got bored with helping us as much as possible."
Ben Browder had some very clear ideas of how he envisaged the future Crichton, dictating why he chose the Southern accent for Futuro. "If you listen closely, you can actually hear Bill Clinton," he laughs. "In most science fiction, the evolved person is going to be English, and very well spoken. I wanted him to be a big, dark-skinned bald guy with perfect teeth, But they wanted to make him look alien."
There was a more practical reason behind Browder choosing a different voice. "I looked at the script and realized that if I sounded the same over the comms, talking to myself, it would be confusing as to which one was talking."
"For Futuro, Ben wanted to have these absolutely perfect Hollywood teeth, and he really worked on talking with them, "Dave Elsey recalls. "Nobody else was particularly keen on them in production, but I think everybody now agrees that they were a fantastic idea. One of the important things that was stressed to me many times was that they wanted to keep it looking like Ben, and Ben had to come through the make-up. To be honest, Ben's such a good actor that I think you could have made him up as anything and he still would have come through.
"It was a very complicated episode for us," Elsey adds, "Because we also had to have the stuntmen in suits and make-up as well. We realized very early on that we were going to need duplicate versions of everything. You can't do it all with computer graphics you've got to have stand-ins, people doing stunts and so on."
Claudia Black feels that there were some missed opportunities in the story. "I felt that our characters were dumbed down a little in the process," she says. "Futuro Crichton was the one who was really manipulating the environment, rather than any of us being able to control it. Chiana was the one in that episode who seemed to have the intuitions about Crichton. There was a lot of potential for Aeryn to run through the issues with the various Crichtons, but she never really got the chance."
David Kemper enjoyed the opportunities that were present. "There was some particularly good stuff there because you had Ben playing three roles," He points out. "We had our best gun sitting there, doing multiple tasks in a lot of different scenes. It was a good chance for Ben to flex."
but maybe if we get enough people interested we could hold one. 
Anyone reading this interested in that? Let us know.
Loved the ending when John teased Aeryn and she jumped on him and they actually wrestled around on the floor, both smiling and laughing.....wow....let's enjoy that cuz we won't see that again. 
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