[English Version] Spartacus: exclusive interview with Dan Feuerriegel at Rebels Spartacus V

The ultimate edition of Rebels Spartacus took place in October 6 & 7 in Paris. Still organised by People Convention, this event honoured one last time the tv show Spartacus. This year was the 5 year anniversary of the show, and Just About TV’s team had the chance to talk about it with Dan Feuerriegel at the event. The actor incarnated Agron for the 4 seasons of the show.

Spartacus ended 5 years ago. If you could go back to any scene, which one would that be?        Hum… That’s difficult! I don’t know right now, but I remember one scene we were supposed to shoot but finally we didn’t. It was first season, last episode, right after the rebels killed everyone. Doctore (Peter Mensah) was supposed to go out, after the death of my brother Duro (Ande Cunningham). So, he was going out and walking through the corpses, talking about the fact that he dedicated his life to the ludus, which was why he was so upset about all of this. And Agron watches him and says … « I really feel sorry for you ». Unfortunately they had to cut this scene because the episode was too long… It’s a scene that I regret because I thought it was really cool and powerful. There, I’m sorry I didn’t really answer your question but it was the first thing I thought about when you asked me.

In what way Spartacus, the show, have been special to you?                                                                            Oh, in many ways. First, it was my first big opportunity as an actor. I was in Australia at the audition’s time, and it was the kind of productions I dreamt of. I had the chance to play a great character, that people loved and admired. The fandom is amazing. A lot of people were inspired by Spartacus. Someone told me that the creator of Game of Thrones copied Spartacus, which he didn’t. But as we were kind of similar on the violence and that sort of things, the comparison was easy.

What would you say to the people who didn’t watch the show yet, to make them want to?      Honestly, it’s on Netflix, just watch it. When you watched the first 2 or 3 episodes, like every show, you need time to get into the universe, here there are a lot of things to get used to. If you like violence, sex and great story… There are a lot of super interesting topics on the show.  Powerful people, oppressions of the people… And of course, one of the most important theme: freedom.

Spartacus is a tv show with a really specific audience, not everyone can watch the show. The love story between Agron and Nasir (Pana Hema Taylor) was able to touch this audience, to the point where the couple became iconic. How do you explain that?                                                                                       When you do a job, you try to be the most accurate possible. All depends of the kind of production after that, some asks you to be ridiculous, to laugh on certains things. It wasn’t the case here, so I tried to make it as real as possible… But you don’t know which impact it will have on the audience. Well, Spartacus was broadcasted before the Social Media era. So maybe if it was broadcasted now, I would have noticed before. But at the time I didn’t have a clue about the impact. I try to stay humble about it, all I did was to do my best to be the truest possible to my character. I’m really thankful for the good reviews that I could have about it.

Do you think that, today, it is important to have representations about these characters? LGBTQ+ characters, oppressed characters…                                                                                                                             Of course it’s important. It’s vital to show what it was in different historical times. Well, of course, there are some artistic views that explain some liberties with History, it is not a documentary anyway. But, it still shows historical actions and if some are offended by it, I wanna say to them « It was like this, period, it’s like going to the museum, it’s real ». I think that it’s important too because it shows that we’ve come so far. And, looking closely the mistakes done in the past, helps us not to make them again today. We have to take a different path. If you learn from the past, you can do a lot of positive things in the future.

If you could name one thing you have learned from Agron, what would it be?                                                  Loyalty. It’s a quality that you can find under different forms, for example his loyalty to Spartacus, Nasir… There is loyalty in everything he does. There a sens of vertu and values he follows, it’s something that represents a lot of who he is.

About your future projects, we will be able to see you in the show Pretty Vacant. Could you tell us more about the show and your character?                                                                                                                     I am in only one episode of this show that talks about the story of two girls who are working in the marketing, they are super funny and careless. They gonna live all sorts of adventures. In my episode, I’m a young single dad, one of the girls will have a date with. She doesn’t have a way to get in touch with me so she adopts my child from the park. But I swear it’s funny, it’s kinda ridiculous plan and basically she will try to contact me this way. It’s a funny show, the girls are not pretty skilled but they are cute. Well, I can’t wait to see the result.

This fifth edition of Rebels Spartacus is the last. How do you feel about it?                                                      First, I’m really happy we had more than one aha! I love coming here… I love to see the fans that I know again, I love to always see some new people who find a way to come. I also love the country, it’s beautiful, Paris is gorgeous too. And… We have the feeling that it’s a family. It makes me a little sad to know that this time when we’ll leave, we won’t come back. But hey, I will come back to Paris some day.

Do you have any future project you could talk about?                                                                                               There are two projects. Two movies actually. One is Serpentine, the other is 14 Fists. Serpentine is the story of an author who’s writing a book for so long that her story et her reality will intertwined in such a way that we don’t know what is real and was is not anymore. 14 Fists is a movie we should start to shoot at the end of the year or the beginning of next year. It’s about martial arts.

 

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