G-Loc, which will be available on DVD, Digital, and On Demand on August 11^th, is a sci-fi film that follows Bran Marshall, played by Stephen Moyer (True Blood), as he escapes a desolate Earth to the hostile planet of Rhea. He boards a Rhean supply ship to find the crew murdered and only one survivor, Osha (Tala Gouveia). The two battle for control of the ship but must put aside their differences when the ship is damaged and they find it hurtling towards the planet. Can they work together to save themselves and those on the planet below? The adventure also stars Casper Van Dien (Star Ship Troopers) and John Rhys-Davies (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy).

The three actors recently talked to Jamie Ruby of SciFi Vision about their time on the show, special effects, stunts, and more.


Be sure to check out the transcript following the video.

Zoom Call
G-Loc
Stars Stephen Moyer, John Rhys-Davies, and Casper Van Dien

July 29, 2020
1:15 p.m. ET

***Some unrelated content from the video was removed from the transcript***

SCIFI VISION:  Can you all just take a second and talk about what drew you to the project, you know, the character, the script, whatever?

STEPHEN MOYER:  Take it away John.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Ah, I love sci-fi: good story, good script, interesting actors, the interesting whole setup. I thought, yes, it is worth a play here. And I loved it and got on the set and had a ball with some magnificent actors. What's to complain about?

STEPHEN MOYER:  Present company excepted.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Of course. Yes. It goes without saying.

That's me covered. Up to you boys.

STEPHEN MOYER:  I just really love the world. I really love what Tom [Paton] was trying to say. It's about prejudice and love and family and survival and the preconception that we have of the other people on the other side of the wall…that have been fed to us by the media. And that actually when you come face to face with them, you're not as different from them as you thought you were. I really liked that as a message for today.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  I loved the script. I love what Tom Paton wrote. And then I had to see who this this young actor Stephen Moyer was…I had to see what this cat was all about. I hadn't heard much about him. So, I knew, of course, the great john Rhys-Davies, but I hadn't met Stephen Moyer yet, so I signed up and, you know, I had a great experience. I really enjoyed working with him. I wish I'd gotten to work with John, whom I've known and loved and adored for years -

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  We have worked together haven't we? Well, did we only work on that Irish thing?

CASPER VAN DIEN:  Yeah. That was just what we did over there. We will work together.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Oh my God. Yes. Oh yes. No question about it. Yes, yes, yes. Forty years from now, I should be just about finishing my apprenticeship.

As you were saying, young lady?

SCIFI VISION:  Yes, this next question is for Stephen…Can you talk a little bit about the [specfial effects]. I'm not sure how much was practical and how much was [SFX], but the effects with the ice and kind of that whole scene?

STEPHEN MOYER:  …Yeah, you know, a lot of it is effects and a lot of makeup. So, we created a sort of an icicle sort of type effect, and I was probably in makeup for a couple of hours. And then the set was completely dressed with that, and then obviously dry ice was being pumped in to make it feel cold. Then the rest is just, you know, trying to make it feel as cold as it's supposed to be.

It's one of those things where you, as an actor, you sort of speak to the director, and you go, "How far am I going? What are we going to do?" And he goes, [does an impression] "Well, you know” – and he's got like an [accent] and he sort of speaks like that, and he says, “Well, show me what you got, and I'll sort of try to work it out from there." And so, you're like, oh god, I'm going to be doing cold acting. And all the crew are like standing there with their booms up and stuff. [pretends to be cold] And then the director goes, "Yeah, no, don't it like that."

You have to find your way, but honestly, what I've learned over the years, is you won't find out how far is too far unless you do it. And I think I was certainly guilty in my early years of not wanting to seem foolish and therefore doing nothing, and then the director having to try and sort of build you up from nothing. If you give everything and it's too much, you can always take it back.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  But you know that because you direct yourself now.

STEPHEN MOYER:  Yes, and it really helps. If somebody comes in and just, you know, gives it the full Pacino, then you go, "Okay, great. Let's see what, you know, Pacino, age twenty-five would have done.”

JOHN RHYS-DAVIS:  Yes, yes, yes.

STEPHEN MOYER:  That’s my acting. By the way, Pacino's my favorite actor, so I am not being disparaging here. - That was a reference to Made in Italy, if anybody seen that, but it's that idea of being, you know, you have to go for it to find out whether it's real or not. And a lot of actors tend not to do that, because they're worried that the director will use that take, and they don't want to look foolish. So, sometimes you get actors who will only work in this range.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  That's right.

STEPHEN MOYER:  And that's it.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  And that's a matter of trust. I did have a director once who said, "All right, John, lovely, lovely, lovely. Now, I want a JRD rant at this moment now." And, I said, "No, please. No, no, please don't." And he said, "Now come on. I really want a JRD rant." I said, "They will kill me for it; you know that," and he said, "Come on, you're being paid. Give me what I want."

So, I gave the rant, and I'm going to use a rude word there, but you're a sweet young thing. - The bloody reviewer said, “Of course John Rhys-Davies can't resist having a rant in the whole thing."

So, sometimes you've got to trust your director, and sometimes you shouldn't trust your director.

STEPHEN MOYER:  And I think if there's anything I am not very good at learning, it's that. I just always am such a people pleaser that I want to make the director happy.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Actors are really just sort of puppies that just want to be stroked and told that they're the most engaging little puppy in the world.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  And then you go, and you watch it; you watch a performance; you watch it with your wife, and you both walk out, and she goes, "All right, yeah, you can really be bad."

STEPHEN MOYER:  You can really shout.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  I'm like, "You don't understand! He asked me to go full."

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  And when your friends say, "What were you thinking?"

STEPHEN MOYER:  Or, even worse…

CASPER VAN DIEN:  Why weren't you thinking?

STEPHEN MOYER:  …They don't say anything.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  Oh yeah.

STEPHEN MOYER:  It's awful.

SCIFI VISION:  All right, Casper, can you talk about the fight scene between you and Stephen, beating each other up?

CASPER VAN DIEN:  Speaking of going over the top, speaking of going way over the top, and then not knowing what it's going to be like and having him direct you and telling you what you're going to do. So, we're in this full g-force thing, having no idea what's going to happen with it. We fed off of each other, and we went on, we talked about [it]; we just kept going and we did everything good. I have no idea; I haven't seen this scene, so I don't know.

STEPHEN MOYER:  I will say this - Sorry to interrupt buddy – Jamie, that scene, as it's scripted, you go from sort of like Mach 1 to g-lock, which is like Mach 13. All right? And so, you're going from like [makes sound effect] And that's one. And so, by the time you're at like, 13 [makes sound effect], you don't know what you're doing, and it's hard.

Sorry, Casper, carry on.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  No, no, that's exactly what we were doing. And they had the fans blowing on us, and we're on the ropes, and we're reaching over each other, and we can't move, and we have to move our arms over, and [everything was] very technical. Everything you're doing is extremely technical. It's not like you're just going over, because you have certain things you're supposed to hit, and we have to match it to certain scenes, and then they're going to have the stunt people come in and do this fall, and you're going to have all these other things.

STEPHEN MOYER:  They didn't come in and do the fall, because Casper very naughtily did it by himself. And we didn't end up using the stunt man, because Casper did it.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  That's because we had no time. They said we had no time. We had a whole other scene to shoot, and if I didn't do it, if I didn't take the fall back, we wouldn't have got that other shot. They just wouldn't have known what to do, because we weren't going to be able to film it. I was supposed to leave the next day or whatever. So, this was it; they wouldn't have gotten it. They wouldn't have gotten it.

STEPHEN MOYER:  He's being very self-effacing; he was brilliant. He did the stunt himself.

SCIFI VISION:  Well, the scene came out really well.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  Oh, it did? Oh, good. Thank you.

SCIFI VISION:  Yeah. I really liked the movie.

So, John, can you talk about your relationship with Bran in the movie?

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Well, since I haven't seen it either, I can't really talk about it. All I can say is that it was lovely. I liked working with these actors. I liked working in on that film; I liked working on the script. Knowing much of great pith and moment that [is all] I can give you, I'm afraid.

STEPHEN MOYER:  I think the thing is that's also worth remembering at this point, is that john came in, you know, for - How long were you there, John? Two or three days?

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Two or three days, yes.

STEPHEN MOYER:  John came in when we were already up and running and met me. Those scenes between us, we hadn't really sort of had a chance to actually kind of go out and spend some time together. You know, on a low budget movie, you don't have very much time, so, you're thrown into this situation. And John and I got on very well, very quickly. So, those scenes between us, they're really felt in the moment. Am I right in saying that, John?

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Yes.

STEPHEN MOYER:  You're just sort of playing against each other. And then the whole film with the scenes between us actually are sort of shot in one or two days. And one of the things that we've already talked about, is that, you know, the big, sort of climactic scene between myself and John's character, John improvised pretty much and only had one go at it and did it rather beautifully. But that is, you know, that is why you get somebody like JRD.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Well, rather than talk about me, I want to talk about one of my performances, apropos of your G-Loc faces. Doing Lord of the Rings, you've got two inches of foam on your face. You know, you can't be subtle. In order to get anything moving, you've got to be really gurning. So, if you want to open your eyes, you're going to go [makes exaggerated face].

Yes, and you just get a tiny little bit of movement under - I mean, it’s not quite the same problems that you guys had with imitating an enormous g-force, but Interesting, interesting technically.

STEPHEN MOYER:  Did you get to see dailies on that so that you could get an understanding of what you were looking at?

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  No, not really, no, but I did read the script. You see, I am one of those actors who reads the script, and I look at my fellow actors, and they generally fill me in.

STEPHEN MOYER:  Oh, I was just wondering whether Peter Jackson sort of...

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Oh, you mean that -

STEPHEN MOYER:  ...of how big you had to be in order for it to register.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Yes, I did go to see a few days of that. But you need to because -

STEPHEN MOYER:  That's what I mean, yeah, so you can try to understand what is registering and what isn't.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Yes, minimalism is not in when you're playing with two inches of foam around your eyes. I mean, that's why Gimli has such narrow set eyes, you know, because that's one of the dimensions [indicates the top of his face], and that's one of the dimensions [indicates the bottom of his face] that you can't really change, but particularly that dimension in makeup. So, if the face is out there [indicates outside his face], then the eyes are a little bit piggy and small and narrow together.

SCIFI VISION:  Can you guys just tell me, I'm curious, what have you guys been doing during this pandemic? Since everything's so different right now.

STEPHEN MOYER:  I spent an awful lot of time teaching, teaching cooking. Like the first three months of that lockdown, I planted a bunch of seeds, and every day me and the kids would go down to the little allotment, that little sort of grass, that little mud patch that we had planted, and we would watch zucchini and aubergine eggplant and tomatoes and red peppers, cabbage, and lettuce grow - and sunflowers as well. Like each one of the family had a sunflower, and it was absolutely beautiful, and what was extraordinary about it was, you know, the seed that started this big [indicates a seed], was producing zucchini like this [indicates a big zucchini], and that's how long we were locked down. And, for me, teaching the kids about the beauty of how you can create your own food was the thing I will take away, not the teaching, because I'm dreadful at it.

SCIFI VISION:  Caspar, John, one of you?

CASPER VAN DIEN:  John?

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Well, we are so far past lockdown now, we don't wear masks. We don't wear any padding. We don't have any social distancing here on the island, because we've been COVID free now for I think fifty-five odd days.

SCIFI VISION:  Wow.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  So, in a curious way, we're back to normal, but it would be a hell of a shock if it comes back and we have to go, "Oh, oh." But if I left the island, I would have to go into lockdown for fourteen days when I returned. But what have I been doing? Well, I'm going to put in fifty solar panels, which should I reckon give me just under 12K of power and the optimal setup. So, right at the moment, I've been clearing some land, cleaning ditches, trying to work out whether I really want to point them south, or whether in fact, where we are it might not be a little bit better to the south southwest, or west southwest, perhaps.

STEPHEN MOYER:  Isn’t there a way of making a bank (unintelligible)?

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Well, yeah, but if you want to do a real tracking one, you see, you can get it like that.

STEPHEN MOYER:  Yes.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  But a true tracking one, it can be very, very expensive. Somebody was telling me today that if you've got a motorized tracking one, it's about 15,000 quid, which is certainly nothing that I -

STEPHEN MOYER:  Kind of negates the -

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  The whole point of it.

STEPHEN MOYER:  Casper, tell us about solar panels in Florida.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  No solar panels here in Florida. I've just been hanging out with my wife and going to see my mom and dad - my dad just turned eighty-nine - and my sister and stuff like that, so we’ve been staying in quarantine. I run every day. I go to the beach once a week, early in the morning before anybody's there, and I leave when people start showing up. And I've just been going to take my dogs on walks. I take my dog on a walk in the morning and at night every day for about five to seven miles, and I work out, and I read, and I eat healthy food. My wife and I are vegan, so we just make that, and we just eat that.

And I was just going to be crass and say, “I just do her,” but I thought I would try to be more professional.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Where are you? What are you doing?

SCIFI VISION:  I'm in Pennsylvania. I actually - I don't want to start crying, but my grandmother passed away Monday.

STEPHEN MOYER:  So sorry.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Oh dear. I’m sorry.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  Oh, I’m so sorry.

SCIFI VISION:  I'm just kind of trying - thank you - I'm just kind of trying to keep busy and think of other things, so I'm not crying all day, but -

CASPER VAN DIEN:  From COVID?

SCIFI VISION:  No, no, no, she had a bad heart. But, yes, I’ve been dealing with that, but yeah, we're still in lockdown here. So, that's making it harder too, with relatives coming in.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  I'm so sorry to hear that, so sorry for your loss.

SCIFI VISION:  Thank you, I appreciate that.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Yes.

SCIFI VISION:  Thank you, guys, for coming on here -

STEPHEN MOYER:  Jamie -

CASPER VAN DIEN:  I applaud you for coming on here. I applaud you for coming on here too, because sometimes, when we lose somebody, the best thing we can do is what they would probably want us to do, and that's to go on with our lives and live it to the fullest that we can. And when you have jobs and you have things and you have opportunities, it's best to try to keep some sense of normalcy, so that you can help heal your heart and honor those that have passed.

STEPHEN MOYER:  Word.

SCIFI VISION:  Yeah, she'd want me to be here. So, thank you, all of you. I appreciate it.

STEPHEN MOYER:  Thanks, Jamie.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  I'm glad you shared her with us today. So, thank you for bringing her alive.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  You get an extra cuddle next time we meet, and we'll record that on camera.

SCIFI VISION:  All right, thank you.

STEPHEN MOYER:  Bye, Jamie.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Thank you, darling.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  Thank you, Jamie.

SCIFI VISION:  Thanks. Bye.

JOHN RHYS-DAVIES:  Bye, bye.