Lost Girl (Season 4): Where Do We Go From Here?

During a recent conference call with Lost Girl cast members Kris Holden-Ried (who plays Dyson) and Zoie Palmer (who plays Lauren) as well as the show’s producer Vanessa Piazza shared what they could about the Syfy series that recently aired its fourth season premiere.

The following is a transcript of that conference call:

[Please note I adjusted the Q&A for sentence structure and simply to make all the crosstalk easier to read.]

Question: Can you talk about how the relationship between Lauren and Dyson evolves this season?

Holden-Ried: Their mutual respect grows. They get to really trust each other, as they realize they’re allies on the team of Bo.

Palmer: There’s an understanding that they have more in common than they realize.

Piazza: We also get to see them work on episodic cases together too.

Holden-Ried: There are also some very interesting moments in a certain flashback episode that I’m sure everyone will enjoy.

Question: In the season premiere, the writers dealt with Bo’s absence by having all of the characters forget her. How did you approach playing your character when it’s more or less been rewritten?

Holden-Ried: It was a good challenge. But that the thing that we love about Lost Girl; it’s always throwing you curve balls and giving us scenes for which we have to adjustment our performances.

Palmer: It was cool actually. It was funny because that episode felt almost like a different show to me.

Kris Holden-Ried

Holden-Ried: Ana (Silk) is such a binding force when she’s on set that when we started without her, it really did feel like a different show. I remember we were all standing around and the vibe was different.

[NOTE: Ana was missing from the majority of the first few episodes of the new season of Lost Girl as series lead Ana Silk had a baby.]

Question: Are we going to get more information about Bo’s father this season?

Piazza: We are. The storyline will continue. I can’t say much more than that, though, nor can I say whether or not the story about her father will be resolved, whether we’ll meet him (or not) whether he really exists (or not), but he is a subject of the current season.

Question: Zoie, can you talk about what it was like to wear the red wig when you were playing Amber (the waitress at the restaurant). What are your thoughts about playing Lauren looking so different from herself?

Palmer: I was excited at first, but I have a hard time with wigs in general. I have a hard time with anything on my head: wigs, hats, anything. I looked really, really different; it was a transition, but it was kind of neat because it (obviously helping) playing a different character, which is what Lauren was actually doing in that episode.

Question: Which dynamic do you like playing more (between Lauren and Dyson), the more antagonistic or the, sort of, friendlier dynamic?

Palmer: I like both.

Holden-Ried: Yes, it’s all about the journey, right? You’ve got to go through different stages of what the joy is.

Palmer: I think early on we were really distrustful of each other in the first season for all kinds of really good reasons. And I think that there will always be a little bit of that leftover feeling, but it’s nice to see that they’ve done a little bit of one step forward, two steps back throughout the season.

Question: What made you decide to do the show after you were approached about it?

Holden-Ried: I read the original script and I loved it. It was the kind of show I’d always wanted to get involved with because I grew up reading fantasy and sci-fi novels – everything from Lord of the Rings to Dragon Lance – and I played Dungeons & Dragons. So when I had an opportunity to (play) a character that was sort of mystically based, it really resonated with the imaginings that I had as a kid, running around the forest with my little Fisher Price bow and arrow. And I got to do it as an adult and get paid for it.

Zoie Palmer

Palmer: It’s been the opportunity of a lifetime in so many ways. It’s been a really exciting journey to go on all the different adventures. For me it was kind of a no-brainer to take the part.

Question: Lauren, can you talk about what’s in store for her this season?

Palmer: A lot. It’s a really different season for Lauren this year. She sort of starts to have a different journey and we learn a little bit more about her history. And it’s a really different side of her than we’ve seen before. She sort of stars to come into her own a little bit this year.

Question: Lauren was a pretty mysterious character in season one; but now that we are learning a lot more about her, do you go back and reconsider moments that happened in seasons one or two that would shed a new light on her for you?

Palmer: For sure, I did it more early on; but now there’s a lot of stuff out on the table. We learn about her all the time; and I never know from script to script what I’ll learn about her. But in terms of her intentions, the first season was the hardest to play because I never quite knew where she stood either. It took up until season two and a little bit into season three where I started to get a holistic sense of her.

Question: Kris, is there a period of Dyson’s past that you would like to explore either a historical period or a piece of his personal journey?

Holden-Ried: Yes, I would love to. Right from the very beginning, when I walked into the audition, I had ideas about his back-story and exploring the mythology of the shape shifter. I would love to explore a bit more of that part of his world, maybe the hierarchy within the shape shifter world. We may, in season five, get to explore a bit more of the mythology of the shifter and how it will relate to the world we have already made. For the historical period, there are so many cool possible ideas. Dyson is 1000 years old so what was he doing during the Renaissance? What was he doing? We kind of did the Dark Ages already, but maybe we could go back to the 1920s when he first came to the new world with Trick (series regular Rick Howland). That would be cool.

Piazza: I think we can also hint at the fact that we will learn more about Dyson’s back-story this season.

The next new episode of the fourth season of Lost Girl will air on Syfy tonight (January 20) at 8/7c.