‘Fringe’: Anna Torv Makes the FBI Look Good
Posted on July 7th, 2011 by Darcy
Most actresses today couldn’t match the range and abilities of Anna Torv on “Fringe” if additional talent were handed out free. Anna portrays FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham, a tough, smart agent and the subject of human experiments carried out by Dr. Walter Bishop in her childhood. She’s assigned to the Fringe division of the FBI. This division investigates unusual incidents, to say the least. It’s all based on fringe science – those research projects outside the accepted norms of scientific leaders, the laws of physics, and so on.
Olivia has the ability to travel between our universe and an alternate universe by herself, thanks to Dr. Bishop’s experiments. Unfortunately, she only has the ability under extreme fear. Now, that’s a negative side effect.
Anna also portrays Bolivia Dunham, the alternate universe’s version of Olivia. Bolivia is also tough, smart and determined to get the job done. However, her life unfolded differently than our Olivia’s. She’s funny, where Olivia is serious. She has Olympic medals for marksmanship, and her mother is alive. Our Olivia lost her mother as a child.
She also portrayed a third character – that of being taken over by Dr. William Bell, played by the legendary Leonard Nimoy. She had to pick up his mannerisms, imitate his intonation and inflection, and act mannish at times.
She did all this beautifully, creating three distinct characters totally different from each other.
In an interview she commented on portraying multiple characters: “This season was my favorite so far. You do a show, and there are things you do every episode – like we always have a crime scene – so to all of a sudden throw it in the air and be given the chance to play a whole lot of different stuff is fun.”
She was asked if she received any feedback regarding her impersonation of Leonard Nimoy. “I did! I got an e-mail saying, ‘I’ve been hearing good things about your impersonation of me.’ I wrote back, Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t they give it to Josh Jackson or John [Nobel], I don’t know. He was so darling, he wrote back, ‘It wouldn’t have been as charming.’”
How much further the writers and producers of “Fringe” will push her talents we have yet to see.