Netflix’s new sci-fi series Sense8 (available to stream from Friday 5 June) is all about interconnectedness. Its eight main characters – Will, Nomi, Lito, Sun, Wolfgang, Riley, Capheus and Kala – are Sensates. They’re psychically connected in ways they don’t quite understand.
Sense8 also has connections in the real world: its cast is riddled with stars from well loved genre shows and films, including Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who), Daryl Hannah (Blade Runner), Terrence Man (Critters), Brian J Smith (SGU: Stargate Universe) and Naveen Andrews (LOST).
Andrews, who starred as Iraqi soldier Sayid Jarrah in LOST, plays a Sensate in the show, but of a different generation. His character Jonas sets out to protect the younger Sensates from a greater threat.
“When I first read the script, the obvious thing that jumped out what that he was very mysterious,” Andrews says of Jonas. “I’m mystified and I want to know more. It’s one of those scripts where you read and page and you actually want to read the next page. The whole thing is like something you want to do, like we want to work for these people.”
LOST was also about connections, in a sense: connecting with the Island, connecting with other survivors and how all the characters’ stories intertwined. But Andrews insists that Sense8 is on a whole other level.
“At the risk of offending Damon [Lindelof, LOST‘s co-creator] or anyone of those fuckers, [Sense8] has a lot more depth,” he admits. “There’s a lot more kindness in terms of looking at human beings. It’s far more daring! We can get away with so much more on fucking Netflix than you ever could with Disney… We’re doing shit that I doubt you’d be able to get away with in the cinema in America! Some of it is like, whoa!”
LOST‘s ending is a subject of great controversy among fans, but Andrews is confident that Sense8 isn’t going to go down the same road. He says: “It’s better than LOST, because we didn’t know fuck all. I think I’ve said this before. They’d bump people off and they’ll read it in the script as they got it. This is not quite that bad. We know more than that.”
Andrews is quite open about his disinterest in LOST towards the last few seasons. But would he be willing continue his relationship with Netflix after Sense8?
“Well if they keep doing shit like this, yeah! Of course!”
Sense8 is available to stream on Netflix from 5 June. You can get an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the show and read interviews with the rest of the cast inside the new issue of SciFiNow.
