Building on Asimov’s ‘Foundation’
Lee Pace reigns as Emperor in AppleTV+’s sci-fi series
Lee Pace knows how good it is to be Emperor of the Galaxy but as he takes the lead in AppleTV+’s sprawling “Foundation,” it’s also quite complicated.
“Foundation” is an ambitious 10-episode first season of one of the late sci-fi icon Isaac Asimov’s key works, a series chronicling a band of exiles — they call themselves the Foundation — who decide the only way to save the Galactic Empire is by defying it.
Asimov’s Foundation series began as short stories in the 1940s, hailed as a trilogy in the ’50s. In 1981, he expanded this universe with two sequels and two prequels.
Producer David S. Goyer (he wrote Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy) hopes that AppleTV+’s “Foundation” will continue on, ultimately delivering 80 episodes to tell the entire story.
“We should be so lucky that we get the chance to continue,” Pace, 42, said in a Zoom interview. “Especially with a character that has so many dynamic elements to it.”
The Emperor is a human who’s continually cloned.
“I like this idea of a cloned dynasty, I’ve never seen it before,” Pace began. “I find that fascinating on so many different levels.
“As an actor, the opportunity was to not just play a man but a series of men who, for a certain time in their lives, take on the role of the Emperor of the Galaxy, which is an abstract idea.
An emperor “who has control over trillions of people spread out through the entire Milky Way galaxy. Who decides who lives or dies. Who decides which planets prosper and which ones suffer.
“To have a technology at your fingertips of surveillance and travel, to be able to fold time and space! It’s mind boggling, right?
“But inside that idea of the Emperor of the Galaxy, there is this successive line of men who fill that role, clones who inherit that power.
“I play the sitting emperor, Brother Day. Then to one side of me is Dusk (who’s older), the outgoing emperor. To the other side of me is Dawn (a child).
“I look towards Dusk and think I will be a better emperor. I’m looking towards Dawn saying, ‘It is imperative that you do exactly like me. This is how you fulfill the role that you will inherit.’
“They believe this fantasy that they’re the same man. But those relationships prove the point that they are not. There’s an individuated sentience that they can’t escape.
“What the show really comes to investigate is: What is human life? What does it mean to be a human? Where does the soul exist?”