Richard Fleeshman and Reece Ritchie Discuss Life on “The Ark” – Interview

Actors Richard Fleeshman and Reece Ritchie discuss SYFY’s The Ark, life on set, and a potential crossover.

SYFY’s The Ark, currently airing its second season, follows a group of survivors searching for a new place to live after the destruction of Earth. After an attack kills the leadership of Ark-1, the remaining passengers must step up to complete the mission. Among these crew members are Lt. James Brice (Richard Fleeshman) and Lt. Spencer Lane (Reece Ritchie), who have helped Ark-1 navigate some difficult situations. While tight-lipped about the season’s remaining episodes, Fleeshman and Ritchie sat down with the Geekiary to discuss their favorite aspects of the series.

The Geekiary: What can you tell us about the season’s remaining episodes, and what are you most excited for fans to see?

Reece Ritchie: Our hands are most definitely tied there. We’re not allowed to tell you anything about the remaining episodes of the season, unfortunately. Richard, you can pick up the second part of that question.

Richard Fleeshman: I am looking forward to the fans seeing what we’ve known for quite a while, because obviously we filmed this series quite substantially ahead of time. We wrapped in February of this year. So we’ve had a lots of these secrets now, and anyone we know that is watching the show is like, “Go on, go on, tell me.” I, on a personal note, am quite excited because there are major twists and turns coming up over the next few weeks. It will be a great relief, to all of us, when that is out in the world, and we can no longer be held responsible if it was to be leaked. I’m excited for them to see it because they’ll love it and they’ll be shocked. And they’ll hopefully enjoy how it’s done. On a personal note, I’m just glad I won’t be getting into trouble because it’ll be out in the world.

TG: So far this season, we’ve explored a parallel universe and delved more into clones. What has been your favorite aspect of exploring the expanded world and character dynamics this season?

Ritchie: It’s just really fun when we’ve already spent a season building these characters, to get pulled into a different direction, it’s so much fun. Once you’ve established certain traits in a character, and you know the way they react to other characters and situations. As an actor, selfishly, you want to be pushed, and you want to explore different dynamics. What would happen if this person and this person was in a room together? I really feel like the writers and the creators have given us the opportunity this season to really go there. Which is kind of bold, because if something works usually, in some productions, you can get into kind of a rut where they don’t want to break it if it’s already not broken. But I feel this season, this second season, really does venture out into the unknown, for every character and what we think we know about characters we’ve gotten to know and like.

TG: What has been your favorite episode and/or sequence to film so far?

Fleeshman: Just picking up on what Reece said in that previous moment, my favorite episode, just speaking for myself, was episode four because I got the opportunity to almost be the audience within the show. Brice, as his normal incarnation of Brice, got put into this entirely different situation, and then I had all of my Serbian family, as they have now become, all the people I work with on a day-to-day basis, bringing new characters to meet me. When we turn up to set, usually as Reece was saying, I know what Lane might be like, I know what Garnet might be like, I know what all of the other characters might do, and suddenly there’s this whole new surprise. That was kind of a delight, because we’ve been doing it for two years now. It was lovely, and also just to watch people get to flex that muscle and to go create a different version of themselves. It was brilliant.

Ritchie: I loved episode six because I got to bring Ian to life. And also, then we had the technical challenge of filming Lane and Ian together, which was something that I had never done before and that was really interesting. I’m a bit of a techno geek as well. I like the technical side of it all, and that really fascinated me. So that was a lot of fun. Seeing everyone’s reactions as well, their shock, it was good.

TG: What has been the most enjoyable and challenging aspects of being a part of a sci-fi series like The Ark?

Fleeshman: I think the enjoyable things kind of speak for themselves, it’s all of the usual stuff. It’s the tech, and the scale of it, and the absurd nature of some of the plotlines which you obviously wouldn’t get if it was based on Earth, if it was completely realistic. That’s the enjoyable stuff. I think some of the challenges kind of go hand in hand with that because we are obviously locked within one closed set, which is the spaceship, for let’s say maybe 95% of the time. We know that given the difficult challenge of trying to keep the audience not feeling claustrophobic, not feeling trapped, not feeling as you probably would if you were in a spaceship, but keeping them entertained, keeping them on edge.

So, it kind of throws up, for all its good things, it throws up certain challenges, but I think the writers meet that brilliantly because every episode is so distinctly different. I mean, they say there’s what, there’s a million ways to die? I think those writers know about ten million, they’ve thrown them all at us so far. It’s great, but obviously, just by nature, it has its own difficulties.

Ritchie: If you want me to elaborate, I guess I can. The thing that they don’t see is what we do off screen. Which is a shame really because it’s probably better. One of the big joys is that we have so much fun off-camera when we’re on set and also when we’re off set. Weekends and things like that. We get out and Richard and I have certainly all sorts of adventures in Serbia. And that’s a real joy as well, you get to hang out with people, take boat trips, go cycling. There’s a lot of fun to have that’s off screen, which is super cool.

Fleeshman: It’s really intense, I was just about to say. You’re away from family and friends, so I’m no longer in England and neither is Reece and other people fly in from all over the world. We become each other’s family for like half a year, it’s very, very intense a process. As most actors will tell you that’s the case, but obviously because we’re away, all of us. It’s not like we come to London and some people are at home, everyone is away. It’s like being around this huge summer camp, which is lovely. That means we have all of this extracurricular time to go and do many things, which is great.

TG: If the crew of The Ark could team up with a crew from another series, who would you want to crossover with and why?

Ritchie: I just want to meet Groot. Guardians of the Galaxy, that would be cool. Also because of the music, there’s always music playing, retro music, and I love music. As Richard does. That would be cool, have Groot on the ship.

Fleeshman: I think that’s a good one. Also, they don’t have many crew members so they wouldn’t take up too much space. Don’t want a crew with like fifty people coming on there, there’s not enough room as it is.

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Season two of The Ark is currently airing on SYFY. You can catch up on the season with our reviews.

Author: Jessica Wolff

Jessica Wolff is a graduate of Drexel University with a BS in Film/Video. She has a passion for entertainment and representation in entertainment. She currently resides outside of Washington, DC.

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