“I come from theater, and that’s my favorite part of doing a play, just rehearsing it.” – Lee Pace
With the AMC series Halt and Catch Fire ending earlier this month, it’s worth looking back at the series at how the cast worked together on the acclaimed show. Previously, Mackenzie Davis revealed that the cast did table readings at Lee Pace‘s house. In an interview about the end of the series with Vulture, Pace spoke about the impetus behind the decision of the cast to treat each other more like they were all members of a theater company rather than cast members of a TV series.
Pace says that the arrangement among the cast was born out of necessity. He explains, “When we started, I wrote this email to everyone and I was like, ‘The writers are on the West Coast. The directors come and go. So we should really make a company of people here, like actors.’ I come from theater, and that’s my favorite part of doing a play, just rehearsing it. And so, we do a read through every Sunday. We would get together and read the episodes that we were working on. It just started this conversation: We’re talking about the characters and decoding them and getting to know each other in a really close way, so we’re making connections between our lives and the characters.”
According to Pace, the end result is what made the efforts worth it. He continues, “It finds its way into the work in a really satisfying way that I’m really proud of. I really like that. We just embraced the opportunity of getting to tell a story over a long time and getting to really know each other, as you do when you get to work together for a long time.”
