Luke Macfarlane On Sexuality and the Sci-Fi Genre In ‘Killjoys 

Luke Macfarlane stars as D'avin on 'Killjoys.' (SyFy)

First, he grabbed our attention by playing Scotty, the man who stole the heart (and ours) of Kevin (Matthew Rhys) on the drama “Brothers & Sisters” and was part of groundbreaking moments as big as a gay wedding and smaller like just having scenes showing male intimacy, which had typically been something left to viewers’ imaginations.

Then, he popped up guest-starring on shows like “Satisfaction,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Smash” but we all knew we needed the out actor back on our TVs on a regular basis. His recurring role as the war vet/boyfriend to Brendan Fehr’s Drew on NBC’s “The Night Shift” was a step in the right direction but as of tonight we have Macfarlane back in a new series that is something of a departure from what we’ve come to expect from him.

Yes, Luke Macfarlane is now in a science fiction series and he’s playing something of a bad boy. In “Killjoys,” he is D’avin Jaqobis, a futuristic bounty hunter who teams up with his estranged brother (Aaron Ashmore)  and the first scene we see him in in tonight’s premiere episode on SyFy he’s in a cage kicking ass…with his shirt off.

Actually, Macfarlane has his shirt off quite a bit in the show, which is something I asked him about when we talked recently about the new show, his love of sci-fi (who knew?) and how sexuality is portrayed in this new world.

On the surface it seems like a really different role for you. Have you done sci-fi before?

Luke Macfarlane: Sci-Fi is definitely new territory for me. Action I have definitely done before but sci-fi made sense for me and I’m quickly learning how an established little group it is. I feel very much like, “Oh, I hope they’ll allow me to sit at their table.”

I think the sci-fi fans are pretty loyal like the LGBT audience. We’re like, “We’ll stand by you no matter what.”

LM: Yeah, but they also might turn on you if you make them upset in any kind of way. [

Was this the kind of role you were looking for because I’m sure you had a lot of options.

LM: I really, really wanted to do an action show and I really wanted to a sci-fi show, very much. When I read this pilot I was like, “Oh, this is really good.” It was really well written. It takes the genre seriously enough but there’s still a sense of fun to it, this idea. The show doesn’t take itself that seriously [and] it takes its audience members seriously so it was a really delicate touch that I thought was really smart so I was definitely wanting to be part of a show like this.

LM: A killjoy is a kind of derogatory term. We’re basically bounty hunters so a killjoy is a kind of derogatory term for a RAC agent. A RAC agent, think of them like black water, it’s a sort of private corporation that exists kind of in the murky areas of the law.

I actually loved the brother relationship just because I feel like that allows you guys to have a lot of extra layers instead of just being bad ass bounty hunters and fighters. How was that for you to play?

LM: I think the brother relationship is really unique and I also think that all of the relationships are. Playing a brother is awesome, especially brothers that are estranged. But then I also love Hannah John-Kamen’s relationship with Aaron Ashmore because they’re best friends and it’s not sexual. We don’t see that where a guy and girl can be friends but they don’t want to have sex with each other. It’s just two people who are friends. I think that’s really realistic and it’s fun. We’re so used to seeing, “It’s a pretty girl and a pretty guy of course they’re going to want to have sex.” I think that’s a really unique relationship. It’s very real.

And  your character has a definite edge to him. Can you talk about who this guy is?

LM: We find out that he was actually in the Galactic Army and he left for sort of reasons we don’t know yet and I’m in that prisoner transfer ship when they find me because if you don’t have money it’s very hard to travel across the galaxy so you kind of become a bit of an indentured slave in order to get free passage so it’s less of being a criminal and more of being a cheap ticket across the galaxy.

(l-r) Aaron Ashmore, Hannah John-Kamen and Macfarlane. (SyFy)

What is sexuality like in this world? From the first episode I didn’t get a big sense of that or even your character for that matter.  

LM: It’s really great. Our showrunner, Michelle Lovretta (who also created the queer-centric “Lost Girl“)  is really smart about sexuality and what sexual identity meant. She has very cool opinions on it. The thing I told you about Aaron Ashmore and Hannah’s relationship, that’s a unique sort of sexual relationship in that they’re people that are not having sex but they’re really close. My character could really have sex with whoever he wants and has a very sort of careless relationship to sex. I don’t think he’s gay in any way but I don’t think it would be above him or like anybody in the world to have sex with somebody of the same sex if it was going to get them something that they needed. It’s a very transactional world in that sense.

We go to a bar that we spend a lot of time at where the owner is a transgender person, perhaps. It’s not really spoken of but his clothes suggest that he’s a woman. And there’s also ‘sexers.’ There are these prostitutes that are in the world that are actually very empowered. They don’t work for anybody but themselves and people have sex with them all the time. They work at the bar.

I couldn’t help but notice that your shirt is off a couple of times in the first episode…

LM: Yeah, it became a running joke amongst the group. It’s all in the script and in fact I would actually rather have my shirt put on like, “This is just getting ridiculous,” but yeah.

But you’ve obviously been taking care of yourself and we see you doing some MMA (mixed martial arts) type of fighting. Is that what you were going for or is that something that you were trained in?

LM: Yeah. The fight choreographers do a kind of MMA-style kind of thing and I’ve been interested in boxing for some years now. I’ve always actually taken very good care of body. I don’t tend take my shirt off in my television shows so it was kind of fun to take it off. for the show  It does come off a lot in the show. It’s also that hilarious thing of when you’re filming all the time and you just stop eating so it was quite a terrifying thing to always try to be in good shape.

And you can’t go to craft services for a snack too often, right?

LM: Totally. Like growing up, one of the shows that the entire family ate dinner at the table was “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” That was one of the greatest television shows ever and then I’m a fan of “Firefly.” I’ve always loved the genre.

And there’s something nice about the fact that today there are so many gay characters popping up in shows that you wouldn’t call gay-centric but it’s kind of reflective of our world.

LM: Absolutely. It’s been interesting just watching everything with the Supreme Court happening right now and the thing that the media keeps saying over and over and over again is that the attitudes of this country have changed so quickly and so drastically…I heard some statistic today that 30 percent of Americans, in 1997, thought that people of the same sex should get married and now it’s 70 percent. That’s just great.

(l-r) John-Kamen, Ashmore and Macfarlane during the NBC Summer Press Day. (SyFy)

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.

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