Tonight on an all new episode of BEING HUMAN, Sally takes desperate measures to keep everyone safe, Josh helps Aidan find untainted blood, and Nora brings Josh home to meet the parents.  To celebrate what feels like a rejuvenated season of the show, I spent some time chatting with series star Sam Witwer about what’s coming up on the show, what guest stars we can look forward to, and where Season 6 of THE CLONE WARS might currently stand!

I feel like everyone is so excited about this season of BEING HUMAN.
Oh fantastic, we are as well!

When you hear “oh we’re coming back for a new season” and meet with the writers, do you get the full season mapped out?
Last year, we were in a rush.  We have a very difficult production schedule to keep, and it depends on a lot of things like when we get renewed and when the writers’ room starts up, so last year we were in a mad rush all the way through.  This year, Syfy knew that, so they compensated, gave the writers room the time they needed; we were shooting Episode 2 and reading Episode 7, which, for an actor, puts you in an extremely advantageous situation.  Furthermore, we also had talks with the writers before they wrote anything. Threw in our suggestions, had discussions about what we thought worked, what we thought didn’t.  It was a much smoother process going into it this year, and I think that, and a whole bunch of other things were ironed out on set, and the entire season was creatively, extremely fulfilling and I think as you see the episodes, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

So many doors have been opened story-line wise this season! What can you tease for us about what we’ll see for Aidan and the roommates as the season goes?
You’re going to see grave danger for these three people, but more than anything, you’re going to see humor, you’re going to see warmth, you’re going to see relationships.  That’s really what I love about this season so much; it’s the best season that we’ve done by far.  It’s the show that I hoped our show would evolve into.  It really is way more concerned about these people and what it’s like when [laughs] your best friend’s girlfriend moves in; you know, it’s more about that than it is supernatural stuff.  Boy Anna Fricke and her writers just nailed it this year!

It is about the girlfriend moving in, but what happens when the girlfriend also happens to be a werewolf.  Little things like that!
[laughs]  Exactly!

How does Aidan feel with Sally back to life and Josh not being a werewolf – where is Aidan’s mind?  Is there a cure, is he looking for it?
There is no cure for the vampire condition.  These other guys, they have things they can side-step.  Josh lives a normal life, well I guess he’s a human now, but Nora lives a normal life except one day of the month, and Sally is…back [laughs].  Two people, a werewolf, and a vampire living in an apartment together, and Aidan is definitely alone in that.  He is dealing with the most traumatic condition; the most violent condition.  There is not a lot of people he can talk to who understand what he’s going through, or at least so he thinks, so far.

Can you talk a little about guest seasons that we’ll see this year – who is coming back, who are some new faces to the BH world?
We have a hell of a guest cast this year.  Of course, any time that we do a season, people like those flashbacks, and we do a flashback story this year that takes place over four episodes, in which we will meet a lot of important characters in Aidan’s development, and of course, if you’re going to do flashbacks, Bishop can’t really be that far behind! [laughs] So we will likely see Mark Pellegrino again, and in those flashback episodes, I really shouldn’t tell you who we meet, but I can tell you that they’re very interesting, very important characters to Aidan.  We’re telling a story that I knew about but never thought we’d have the courage to actually attempt, but we attempted it!  I dare say we may have pulled it off! [laughs]  By far the most ambitious thing that we’ve done on the show.  We also have, possibly, there is possibly a young lady that will be entering into Aidan’s life.

There are bunch of other really interesting characters.  I mean, I don’t want to tell you who they are playing, but I’ll tell you the actors who you should look out for!  Connor Price, 17 year old guy, super cool guy.  He plays a key character that I believe will be introduced [tonight].  Really liked working with Connor. We have Xander Berkeley being delightfully brutal and sinister.  We have Amy Aquino playing a witch which is wonderful and new for our show.  We’re just in love with how well she gets the show and gets the tone.  She just arrived on set, and understood how to perform on our show, which is not an easy task.  Do you play it straight?  Do you play it funny?  The answer is, no, you play it straight but do it in such a way that is funny [laughs] and that is not easy to do!  It would be easier if we could be kitschy or campy, and lean into that humor, but then you start losing the dramatic tension.  Amy understood that right away. And Deanna Russo, who is extremely charismatic and lovely.  We have Katharine Isabelle, who is playing a different kind of role than people are used to for her.  She is an extraordinary presence.  There are episodes where she doesn’t even have hardly a line, and she makes such an impression.  Then there are other episodes where she has quite a bit to say, and does an incredible job.  She really brings something special to it.  We have Bobby Campo, and I hope I haven’t left anyone out.

I’m interested to see how it goes because the show writers always do such a great job of writing for guest stars – episodes aren’t written around a guest star, it feels so seamless.
That’s the wonderful thing about being a regular on the show.  They are always more concerned about telling character stories about your character.  I remember when I was making a living guesting on various shows and I liked that.  I liked going from show to show because I got to play different characters every week, and I got to play generally the most interesting character [laughs].  If it was some sort of CSI or NCIS, often times, I would have more interesting things to do in those episodes.  With BEING HUMAN, you become a regular, and every episode, me and my other regulars have such interesting things to do!  Not to say that the guest stars are not going to have their moments, I mean, my god they are really fleshed out as complete characters, so we’ll see how it goes!

Switching gears to talking a little bit about THE CLONE WARS – we’re coming up on the end of Season 5.  With an animated show like that – when are you done for the season, even if it airs through the rest of the year?
It’s pretty much a year in advance that we do this stuff.  I mean, it’s a lot of animation to get done and they are doing 22 a year.  It’s on a television schedule and television budget, so they do need the time in advance to work out the kinks.  The affect it on my part is that I get to do this, I get to work very hard, and I get to go away for just under a year, and then come back to it as an audience member, remembering the plot, and remembering sort of what happens, and not remembering all of the specifics, so I get to watch it with fresh eyes, especially as a STAR WARS fan.

What talks have been happening about a Season 6? 
We don’t know the specifics, but I can tell you that they have work for Season 6 in the can.  Some really tremendous work, I might add; I’ve seen some of it.  I don’t know what Disney’s plans are for the show.  I mean, Disney just took over LucasFilm.  They actually officially took over in [January].  So they are piece by piece making their presence known, and slowly letting people know how they want to proceed.  CLONE WARS has not been interfered with in the slightest, so I would take that as a good sign.

What have you been doing besides BH, do you have other things we can look forward to?
I’m developing an animated series with a good friend of mine, a guy named Glenn Howerton, from ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA, doing a very funny animated series, trying to get it together and sell it, so that’s fun.  We have a very funny pilot script for that, which, I can’t really tell you what it’s about…but it’s pretty great! [laughs]  But other than that, just promoting BEING HUMAN and doing CLONE WARS work when they call me up!

BEING HUMAN airs Monday nights at 9/8c on Syfy.  THE CLONE WARS is airing new episodes of Season 5 through March 2 on Cartoon Network.