Ancient Greece Done Right?

Back in my junior year of college, I was stuck in a conundrum. I had less than 2 years left before graduation and I was a history major. My college counselor told me that nobody hires history majors, and that I had better start trying to find another angle. Two years after graduation, I’m still working to break that mentality, so I’m always on the lookout for projects that prove otherwise. Any entertainment that shows that ancient history has a wealth of fascinating, hilarious, and deeply-human stories just waiting to be noticed – centuries after they were put to papyrus. And this past weekend, I found something that I think is going to be both really special and really awesome – especially if you’re fan of all things from ancient Greece (like me). I discovered a TV series coming up on SyFy called Olympus.

Sword and Sandals in 2015? Nostalgia activate!

Before I get started: a little bit of context about my taste in entertainment – what I like and what I don’t like. I love real world pieces; shows that take their cues from historical events, and breathe life into the realities and imaginations of ancient people that would otherwise only exist in textbooks. Vikings, Deadwood, and House of Cards are all awesome shows that make history and political science lessons leap off the page. And as you might have noticed by my inclusion of House of Cards, my shows don’t have to be completely historical. Game of Thrones is obviously fantasy, but that hasn’t stopped me from marathoning it over a weekend. Those kinds of politics were all drawn from real world events and sources – most of which were too crazy for GoT or HoC (case and point). 

Conversely, I hate pieces that misuse and disregard the material. Movies that think of their source as a façade for an asinine action flick - completely missing the point of what made that story so powerful in the first place. I mean movies like Clash of the Titans. Stay away. Stay very far away. 

I’m going say this cautiously, but Olympus is looking to be more of the former rather than the latter, and that’s making me excited - very excited. And that excitement starts with the talent that’s been attached. You see, the whole thing was created by Nick Willing, who you might remember as the mind behind Tin Man. Compare that to Louis Leterrier, the guy behind Clash of Titans… and The Transporter. Out of the two, Willing is definitely the one I’d expect to treat the content with grace and dignity as he gives it his own spin. And I have a feeling that that prediction might be spot on – mainly because of this interview, where Willing has this to say:

In the case of Olympus, I was trying to express the world the ancient Greeks imagined – that Homer and Aristotle wrote about – but with modern tools. But the other common thread running through all my adaptations is that they’re psychological – they all explore our dreams.

According to the article, the show is modern myth – an attempt to bring the characters and tropes that define the Homerian epic to life in a new and interesting way. To start, the main character is named “Hero” – an allusion to his trope. "Hero" is on a quest to unlock the power of the gods and discover his past, a task which will require as much trickery and savvy as it does strength and skill. Yes, he’ll probably battle monsters, but he’ll also have to solve a riddle. Whatever that riddle is, that kind of challenge is perfectly reminiscent of the typical Greek hero. Both of the most famous Homerian epics center on puzzles - obstacles that require far more wit than strength to overcome. The Troy of the Iliad didn’t fall to an overwhelming attack, it fell to a sneaky trick involving a wooden horse. Similarly, Odysseus didn’t defeat the Cyclopes with brute force, but with clever wordplay.

It's concept art like this that gets me excited. Also a gratuitous metaphor...

The more I read, the more I’m starting to think that Willing gets it. He gets the source material. He understands that this isn’t necessarily supposed to be hyper-realistic ancient history or an excuse for a stupid action movie. He’s capturing the imagination of a people just like us who just happened to live a very long time ago, and connecting that experience with the audience of today. Also, it doesn’t hurt that he has a stellar cast to back him up. They’ve got relative newcomers like Sonya Cassidy of Fifth Estate fame, Tom York leading the way alongside more experienced folks like Cas Anvar (and you know how much I like him).

If Willing and team manage to do what I think they’re trying to do, then this show deserves all the views that it can get. There are too many stories that stretch back thousands of years, and yet remain completely unplumbed and unexplored in our modern day. I refuse to believe that ancient history and mythology are as useless as my college counselor claimed. I refuse to believe that the ancient Greeks don’t have anything to offer us today, and that my chosen major was somehow "worthless." I’m thrilled to hear that someone out there is trying to shift the paradigm.

If you want to check out Olympus for yourself, you can find the official trailer here. The show premieres on April 2^nd (this Thursday) on SyFy. So if you’re wondering what I’ll be doing then, I’ll be on my couch, crossing my fingers, and daring to assume that I shouldn’t be afraid of this Greek bearing gifts.

From The 90s 'Til Now

When you’re sitting at home looking for a job that you can apply to, it’s easy to start to give up on your dreams – especially that ones that your parents always hated. We’ve been trained to believe that the most talented actors, the most brilliant screenwriters, and the savviest entrepreneurs are born – not made. They just put their mind to the task one day and succeed beyond everyone’s wildest dreams. That conception is downright impossible to relate to when you’re pounding pavement, and luckily, I can assure you that it’s patently false. Believe it or not, achieving your pipe dream is possible; but it will take years and years of hard work, resilience, and dedication. It takes an understanding that you won’t be there tomorrow, and that you don’t have to be. You just have keep at it.

This is true for most anyone in any industry. Take, for example, Cas Anvar.

This guy!

You see, we usually think of Cas Anvar as a sort of up and coming actor who just suddenly materialized, fully-grown, as everyone's favorite assassin. We all know him and love him as Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, that awesome white-hooded star of the Assassin’s Creed series, and an all-round badass that enjoys stabbing people with his hidden blade and jumping off buildings into conveniently unattended haystacks. And while it certainly takes talent to breathe personality and life into one of my favorite characters, that talent didn’t just come out of thin air. While we all might have first heard of him fairly recently, Cas Anvar has been performing professionally for decades. And I don’t mean in a slew of off-Broadway theater gigs, I saying that Cas been in front of the camera, contributing to TV Shows and Movies that you loved long before you ever heard the word “parkour.”

The story starts in 1994 and 1995. If you were a fan of 90s crime dramas, then you most certainly have heard of Sirens; the slice-of-life story of three female polices officers who struggle to balance their work as newbie cops with their increasingly difficult personal lives. And if you followed the show, you most certainly remember that unforgettable three episode guest star: Dr. Fitch. For those of you who didn’t click the link, that was Cas Anvar.

Fast forward to 1996, and Anvar lands smaller roles in TV Films like Ivana Trump's For Love Alone and Everything to Gain before making it big as a major player (Goldwin) in Psychopath – that thrilling mind game that pit a high-powered prosecutor against an all-too savvy serial killer.

Old School.

1998 and 1999 roll around. It’s almost the turn of the millennium, and Anvar adds more shows to his resume, including The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo and La Femme Nikita. Those might seem like small potatoes, but they build to a substantial role in Sublet.

Then the millennium turns and it’s one role after another - and they’re getting bigger.  In 2001, he’s Leonard in Cause of Death, and then Agent McCoomb in Hidden Agenda. Then in 2003, he’s in Shattered Glass and Timeline. And then, The Terminal (remember that Steve Spielberg piece), The Unit, and NCIS among other roles from 2004 to 2007!

By the time the decade finishes out, he’s guest starred on LOST and In Plain Sight, before finally landing that job with Ubisoft that we all know him for.

And that’s only a small snippet of his total IMDB page. You could even watch the man in action in some of those pieces and more right here, but that still doesn’t cover the total breadth of what Cas Anvar has accomplished long before we all knew who he was. 

One might call this rise meteoric, but I would prefer to call it inspirational. Obviously, Anvar grew up dreaming of becoming an actor. He worked hard over the course of decades to build that life for himself. And, in spite of the events of 9/11 and the socio-political paradigm shifts that occurred as a resulted, he managed to work against the grain and establish himself as a middle eastern actor of importance.

So if your pipe dreams feel distant and unobtainable, then please go ahead and think of Cas Anvar. Personally, I can’t wait to see where he is ten years from now - when everyone knows him as Alex Kamal from The Expanse.