Ivan Hayden -- former VFX Supervisor for Supernatural; Creator of Divine: The Series
How did Misha get involved with Divine: The Series?
Misha and I are friends; because of being on Supernatural. At the time, we were out having a libation – or two – as the case may be, I’m not going to lie – we were lamenting on how often, as creative people in an episodic series, or a network series, you don’t necessarily get to stretch your wings … we’re creating a product for other people. Sometimes you would like to do things that just don’t fit the mold; so we talked about this web series I was going to shoot and he looked at me in that Misha kind of way and was like, “Well, I’d like to read it.”
I let him read the first one, he asked if there were any more, so I gave him the rest of the six we were going to shoot. “I like this, I’d like to be involved. I’d like to play that guy.” I said, “Oh, okay.” That takes it to a whole new level … I gave him the scripts, he gave me his notes and we sort of did the story a little bit more so it was fun for him to play the role of Father Christopher.
What was it like working with Misha the actor and with him on Supernatural?
Misha is a consummate professional, and honestly a wonderful human being. It was just fun. This was a passion project, not a job, as it was. There are some behind the scenes outtakes – he was just a laugh. Now, when we shoot Supernatural, he’s a laugh on Supernatural as well. He’s just a fun guy. Maybe it was because it was my web series that we were working on that I had rose coloured glasses … he just seemed like he was having so much fun. He just really got behind us and really helped us … His skill as an actor – because a lot of the other actors on the show were green. Allen Sawkins, this was his first acting role ever, and Misha treated him as if he was a veteran. There was no impatience if someone flubbed a line, it was support, it was fun … it was great.
With the new show – Scales of Justice – I understand you have a special announcement to make?
With Misha for Divine: The Series, even if we got money to shoot the web series again, it isn’t a lot of money but it’s still a lot more money than I have … at that point in time he was still only in like three episodes, not really a locked-in dude on Supernatural. He was the character, he was big, he was growing, but he wasn’t Castiel yet. But then Castiel became the third character on the show – even then we knew that Misha was going to be able to turn down real work to come do this again.
We shot his storyline out. We’ve filmed all of his stuff already. We’re going to release a scene of that, if we get the certain number of votes we need to get in for the B.C. grant.
The scene will be more in Father Christopher's storyline; we will release another scene from Divine. It's a bit of a spoiler for more of the story, because it is a story beat. When we originally put out Divine there was a couple of people -- I thought they were going to make T-shirts that said, "What happened to Father Christopher." This is one of those storylines -- it's just a little more info on Father Christopher.
The link to vote is here: https://www.storyhive.com/project/show/id/3575?twt=share
Full interview here: http://www.changing-channels.com/ivan-hayden.php
