Krypton's Blake Ritson Talks Filming Season 2 Episode 3

Brainiac took our villain quiz and the results might shock you! Read on to find out more about the man behind the brain, Blake Ritson, as we talk all things Season 2 Episode 3 and why Brainiac is misunderstood.

SYFY: Brainiac is great at math, can move objects with his mind and access people's memories. Which one of these abilities do you wish you possessed in real life and why?

Blake Ritson: I'd have to choose telekinesis, purely by process of elimination. Being great at mathematics would be occasionally useful, but is a tad banal. Also, every phone has a calculator. Accessing other people's memories would probably segue from fun to horrifying pretty quickly. Telekinesis rocks. Also, I'm lousy at bowling, so I could redress the cosmic imbalance.

SYFY:  Do you have any pre-shoot rituals that help you get into the mind state of your character?

BR: It takes a fair while to apply the prosthetics for Brainiac. (When we were still experimenting last year, some incarnations took nearly seven hours, but now we're down to about five). Obviously this allows for a fairly long transition into Brainiac. A couple of hours into the prosthetic application, I put on a Brainiac playlist of music I've curated. It's a mix of pretty weird, epic, discordant music which eases me into the cavernous dark recesses of his headspace. It's largely a mega mix of digital white noise, kids chanting, hardcore Japanese hip-hop, Count von Count, aggressive synthwave and Mongolian throat singing.

PHOTO: Actor, Blake Ritson (Brainiac)

SYFY: Your character's pretty serious. Were there any moments in this episode that made you laugh? If so, what were they?

BR: I think it's a misconception that Brainiac is entirely serious. Being "the mightiest intelligence in time and space", I think he has a keenly developed sense of the absurdity of life and people's vanity, hubris and folly. As for being on set, there are frequently things that are hard not to laugh at. Getting in and out of the skimmers was always unintentionally funny. Brainiac's bulky battle armour takes up a lot of space and I can't see clearly with the sclera lenses, so I was like a myopic rhinoceros clambering into a canoe. Every step I took, there was another crunch of plastic as the skimmer was systematically decimated.

SYFY:  In Episode 3, which other character, besides Seg would Brainiac like to use as a host? Why this character?

BR: I'd like to see Brainiac in control of Doomsday. Imagine an unfathomably powerful un-killable weapon controlled by the most intelligent, knowledgeable creature in the DC universe. That would be a pretty terrifying prospect!

SYFY: Had you not been inhabiting Seg's body in this episode, do you think you would have won the battle against Lobo?

BR: In Season 1, we saw Brainiac destroy a fleet of Kryptonian spacecrafts with a flick of his fingers. If Brainiac was connected to his quantum consciousness and had his skull ship overhead, loaded with his solar aggressor, I think it might be wise for Lobo to get the frag out of there as quickly as possible.

SYFY:  If you could trade abilities with any other villains in this episode, which villain would you choose and why?

BR: I think it would be fun to see Brainiac trade powers with Doomsday. Brainiac is so calculating in everything he does, it would be great to see him as an unhinged, whirling tornado of raw aggression and destructive impulses.

SYFY: Please take our quiz and let us know which villain you are. We're curious…

BR: I took the quiz. Turns out I'm closest to Zod! Not sure if that's a good thing or not. He does have magnificent epaulettes though, so I suppose that's a bonus.

Watch all-new episodes of Krypton Wednesdays at 10/9c.
 

*This interview has been edited for length and/or clarity.