Some shows, I think, as we're writing scripts will deal with science very much as it exists. But I think for the most part the fun about it for me with movies and TV shows, especially in the genre of either horror of sci-fi is that pushing of the envelope and going further than you might otherwise. I think the show will definitely be pushing the edge of the envelope, but I don't think it's going to be about that. I don't think we're going to be trying to top ourselves every week because then we'll just be in a race against ourselves and then there's no way to win that one.
Abrams on whether this is a "golden age of sci-fi": It's funny because Lost was always a sci-fi show that was kind of secretly a sci-fi show, and something like Battlestar Galactica is obviously much more overtly science fiction. The weird thing about Fringe is that although you can say it's science fiction, a lot of what we're talking about is stuff that is at least in the realm of possibility, even though we're definitely pushing it.
So some of the stuff that we're talking about now is not as much sci-fi as much as it is just sci, like when Star Trek came out and they had their communicators, that was a cool dream and now we all in our pockets have communicators and it's just real. So when we're working on an episode and we read as we did a week ago, that invisibility is coming, they think we've cracked invisibility. The stuff that you just would never in a million years think is actually possible is happening every day.
So I think we may be living in the golden age of sci-fi for the TV, but I think it's partially because we're living in an incredibly advanced, and almost uncontrollably so, period of scientific achievement.
Abrams on finding Anna Torv: Our incredibly talented casting director … showed us a video audition that Anna did for another show, a movie. We were trying to see as many people as we could and I saw this audition. It's just that feeling that you have where you just immediately know that's the person.
I wish there was some really cool, clever technique that we use to do this, but the truth is whether it's Keri Russell walking through the door, Jennifer Garner, who I'd gotten to work with on Felicity, and who my wife was insistent was going to be a star, or Evangeline Lilly, who I got a video of her audition, or now Anna, it's simply the fact that when you see the right person, the first thing you're concerned about is, "Oh my God, can we actually get her? Is she really available?" Like it's no longer about giving her the part, it's just we have to make this work.
When I saw Anna, I just knew that she had a quality that was unique and smart, and she was beautiful, but not in a way that felt like she was phony. She seemed tough and sophisticated. I just felt like she was the right one.
Abrams on Fringe's cinematic style: I feel like obviously the standard for what TV looks like changes all the time. There's certainly a cinematic quality to much of what you see on TV. In fact, it's funny when you watch some movies now, they've gone to a much more rough, the Bourne films, for example, that feels almost documentary style the way Paul Greengrass does his stuff. So it's funny how television has taken on a very sort of cinematic look, more sophisticated lighting and camera moves. A lot of movies have gone to a rougher place.
So it's interesting to think the line is so blurred now, it's hard to know. If you just want to look at something in a vacuum, I don't know if you'd be able to say, "That definitely is a TV show. That's definitely a movie." I think it's sort of become, just as, by the way, actors and writers and directors are seemingly existing in television and film without real regard to being a TV star or a movie star: if you're an actor, you're an actor and the medium is less important than the material.
