Lee Pace And Laura Birn Discuss The Evolution Of ‘Foundation’ Season 3

Since premiering in September 2021 on Apple TV+, the sci-fi drama series Foundation has taken its viewers along for a thought-provoking and emotional ride, filled with compelling themes surrounding social class, greed and striving to find a deeper connection with others amidst an imperfect world.

Based off of the Foundation book series by Isaac Asimov, season three premieres July 11, kicking off an entirely new chapter several years later and is a fresh start for certain characters, while destined prophecies and lingering uncertainty for the future remain a focal point.

Sitting down with two of its stars, Lee Pace, who continues to play ruler Brother Day, and Laura Birn, who continues to play robot Demerzel, I wondered what has been the greatest joys for these actors, in getting to play Foundation characters that constantly have the chance to evolve, season after season.

Birn said, “As an actor, that’s what you wish for. Well, you [Lee] get to play a totally new character every season, and I think Demerzel, it’s the other way around. In the beginning, she was so mysterious and just observing, and you would not know what she’s going through. Then, when it starts to open, it’s the other way. You can always go back and understand that in that moment – she already had all the power, but we just didn’t know that. So, it’s so much fun to be able to play with that, and sometimes, I’m surprised myself when I read the scripts. I’m like – I did not know that it’s going to go that way, and sometimes, I know already before that we’re going to go maybe tease that side of her. Being surprised constantly by the scripts, by your fellow actors – that’s the best thing in our work.”

Pace said of Day: “Yeah, he’s so different every time. One of the riddles of the character is that even though he’s a different person, different soul, different time that he’s living in, that he’s responding to a different emperor – he’s still the same man. I think that as an actor, it’s interesting to experiment with that idea, that there is a scientific truth to that genetic coding that has to remain constant through the characters. One of the things about Foundation is that you’ve got all of these characters that somehow have managed to cheat death and extend through time. In this season, I tried to make him as different as I possibly could from any of the previous Cleons – but even in doing so, I made him sloppy. He’s no longer interested in ruling any kind of anything. He’s not interested in taking any kind of responsibility. He doesn’t want to execute anyone. He doesn’t want anything to do with the robot. He just wants to hang out in the garden and get stoned and eat snacks and hang out with his pets. Then, some very serious things start happening in the galaxy. And so, I find that to be a really interesting, fun setup for the character.”

He added: “One of the things we do a lot on Foundation is we like these reversals that happen, and things that you begin the season taking for granted, become reversed by the time you end the season – or you just find out information that completely changes the way you had interpreted what you took to be fact. You know, that happened in a huge way with our characters. He thought Demerzel was absolutely someone he could trust, he could rely on, and when it came down to it, she’s like – Go ahead and die. I’ll decant another one of you. You thought I loved you?”

Birn responded on behalf of Demerzel, “I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t in my hands.”

Being a story that depicts war regularly, with some characters risking their lives for the greater good, I wondered what Birn and Pace hope that Foundation audiences bring into their own world after watching this series play out, knowing and seeing the divisiveness that is occurring across our world today.

Pace said, “What I find really interesting about where we are right now in the story – and it has taken the building of a couple seasons to get there – but I think one of the things this show shines a light on is not this idea of war as two different factions of opposing views, battling it out, and whoever is the strongest is going to win and long live the king. That’s not what we’re exploring here – what we’re exploring is the idea that there is a civilization that is vast, diverse, massive, and its destruction will not be any one event. It will be a crumbling that happens from lots of different things that disintegrate, things that stop working – moments of violence that create imbalance. In our story, we dramatize that with this character, The Mule, who’s one of the big marquee characters of the book. He is this mutant of chaos that unsettles everyone in the galaxy, and they never even saw it coming. Foundation is worried about the traitors, the Empire is worried about the Galactic Council, the Emperor is worried about the other emperors and the robot. Everyone’s thinking about something else, and then chaos appears. It’s not even the chaos can do it – it’s just that things start to crumble and fall apart. I look at our world right now, and it’s so kind of overwhelming, the things to be anxious about. That’s kind of what that feels like, is that it’s just kind of – it’s all fraying.”

Concluding my conversation with these Foundation actors, I left them with my original and signature interview question, wondering what they would say to the different variations of their characters, Day and Demerzel, if only they could.

Birn said with Demerzel in mind, “Do you know what I would do? I would listen, because there’s no one who listens to her. I think that’s the thing – she’s endlessly lonely. Obviously, she’s the only one of her species that’s left, but then she lives in this palace where she’s always there for them. I would just listen and let her speak. I think that what she tries to do in this season, she needs to get someone to the palace that, for a moment, has ears for her – because these guys, they don’t. They are always like so concentrated on their things and wanting her to listen to them.”

Pace quickly interjected to Birn about Demerzel, “I’m having such a hard time understanding, because she’s making us. She’s making us in her little vials and laboratory, and then you’re mad that we’re not listening to you?”

As for his message for Day on Foundation, Pace added: “Unplug the robot. What would you say to him? I don’t know – I’m sorry, man. You’ve got the worst job.”