Ahead of the return of the new series of Perception (on Watch, 3 September, 10pm) we spoke to Eric McCormack who plays Daniel Pierce, the gifted but troubled neuroscientist who aids the FBI when their guys are stumped by certain cases.
At the end of the last series Daniel, who suffers from regular hallucinations, admitted himself to a psychiatric ward. Where does this leave him at the start of the new series? With such weighty subjects as neuroscience and psychosis, it wasn’t long before we began to discuss law, the meaning of life, and if happiness is riding about on a scooter.
Neuroscience, eh? That must be easy to learn while you’re doing your lines.
The main work these days is putting neuroscientific terms and concepts into my actor’s brain. It’s a great challenge. I was getting a lot of tweets last night, as the show was airing in the States, and they were asking, ‘Do you understand the things you’re saying?’ The answer is, ‘Most of the time.’
Most of the time?
I love playing someone much smarter than me.
Is he that much smarter?
He’s the teensiest bit. I’m an actor. And never the twain shall meet.
You’ve set up a clear dichotomy there.
[laughs]
Do you find your interest piqued in neuroscience now? Do you know your medulla oblongata from your cerebral cortex?
Very good. In terms of that stuff, yes. The show begins and ends usually with a lecture, which has become something the fans really like and since ER there’s been a hunger for medical, and even legal shows, to use the terms and to not dumb it down. Make the audience play catch-up and make them feel like they’re being let in on the real thing.
We certainly do that. Our consultant is a guy named David Eagleman who wrote a book about the secret lives of the brain, and it’s the kind of book Daniel Pierce would have written. It’s like Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time – someone brilliant who really wants to communicate with the layman. That’s what I like about the part, it’s that he’s passionate enough to still teach Neuro 101 by connecting with it on an emotional level. Which is something he can’t do in a lot of his personal life.
He’s not a snob, is he? He understands all these incredibly complex issues and how the brain operates but doesn’t think he’s above explaining it to people.
On one level he doesn’t suffer fools but on another level he absolutely loves sharing what he knows. Sometimes he shares in such a way that he thinks you know more than you do, which leaves some people stymied at the FBI. For the most part it’s done, not with a sense of ‘How could you not know this?’, but with a sense of ‘Everyone needs to know this.’ It’s the essence of who we are.
This all sounds very introspective, Eric. It sounds as if you’ve turned in on yourself and are thinking about what it all means.
Well, a little bit. That’s partly the role and partly turning 50.
And what is it all about? What have you uncovered with those two events running alongside each other?
I feel I’m yet to come up with answers. I do know that eventually it’s all about taking a few weeks in Vancouver and just riding my scooter around. It comes down to the simple things in life.
A great philosophy, and it must also include taking as many opportunities as possible for your character to show his students clips of Igor from Frankenstein films, like he does at the start of the second series.
It’s a good comparison – you think about how simplistic the Frankenstein was and yet the scenes with all the machines beeping and the lightning coming in, it must have seemed incredibly scientific to the audiences in 1932.
I was talking about the idea of neuro-law the other day, which really comes into play in the second series, and the idea of insanity being a black or white thing. In legal terms you plead insanity and the court agrees with you or not. It’s so much more grey now. Every act of man can somehow be justified – everything has a name now or a condition. Everything has a syndrome.
It’s not to be scoffed at, as it is with every day more of a reality, but it does beg the question about free will. If no one meant to do the bad things they did, then how would our courts adapt? They’re based on guilt and choice, and that’s one of the cool things we get into in the second series.
Now, when we left you, you were in a psychiatric ward. Is it nice not to be there anymore?
It is nice. I find my way back there eventually, but for a different reason. I loved that ending because it was daring. I said to Ken, who created the show, “We’re really going there fast. Ten episodes and I’m in the bin.” He replied, “You’ve been there before and we need to remind the audience of that.”
I think there was a tendency for the media to represent the show and my character as quirky and wacky, but he’s not just eccentric, he has a mental disorder which he plays fast and loose with. He doesn’t take his meds, which is definitely a choice on his part, he flouts the accepted intelligence which is that with the right drugs this can be managed and people can be high functioning, but you have to be on medication. The very fact he dares to function as high as he does and not be, it was inevitable he was going to land in the bin at some point.
That he volunteered to be admitted points to a strength of character.
Yeah. That’s what I find most interesting about the character. Being a brain guy and being someone who understands exactly what is wrong with him, he’s not a victim and refuses to look at his particular condition as something he’s afflicted with. He almost takes his disability and makes it an ability.
For better or worse, I’m not saying he’s right. What the show’s saying is that here’s an interesting guy who would rather work through his hallucinations than have them go away, because he understands they represent some part of his brain he’s desperate to understand. It’s a strange way to live and a little dangerous, but it makes him interesting.
Speaking of hallucinations you work alongside Kelly Rowan who plays both the hallucination Natalie Vincent and his psychiatrist Dr Caroline Newsome – but who do you prefer Kelly as?
[laughs]
Do you make a point of being nicer to one more than the other?
Natalie is in knee high boots, so she’ll always be my favourite.
Oh, she’s more relatable.
Right, but at the same time I can’t touch Natalie. I think that’s an interesting concept. She’s based on someone I only ever saw across a room – we never had a moment.
We all do that…
Yeah, exactly, I did it last night at the bar. But how far do we take it? Daniel has taken it 25 years and this girl now lives a life of her own and comes and goes from his psyche. To all of a sudden have a real woman who looks like her, but isn’t her at all, asks if it’s a good thing your fantasy is made flesh.
Then she’s not the girl you thought she was. At the beginning of series two people are going to be thrown because he’s on his meds and he’s dating an actual person. But when I asked how long this was going to last, I was told to read a few more pages. We don’t want our Daniel Pierce to be too sane for too long.
Finally, what’s your favourite part of the brain?
[laughs] It’s before noon – I don’t have one right now…
(Originally published at http://tv.uk.msn.com/drama/perception-eric-mccormack-talks-season-two-daniel-pierce-and-the-meaning-of-life)
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