The Librarians: The Next Chapter brings a new story to the franchise, this time taking place in Belgrade, Serbia. Vikram Chamberlain (Callum McGowan), a Librarian from 1847 finds himself stranded in the present-day world. Upon his arrival, he accidentally unleashes dormant magic across the country, forcing him to join forces with a new team of unlikely heroes each with their own unique skills, including a tech-savvy historian (Bluey Robinson) a scientific genius (Olivia Morris), and a formidable Guardian-in-training (Jessica Green), to recover magical artifacts and prevent the threat from spreading.

Recently, stars McGowan and Robinson spoke with SciFi Vision about entering the magical world of The Librarians: The Next Chapter, including why they wanted to be a part of it, how they prepared, and more.

Watch the full interview and read the transcript below. The first episode airs tonight on TNT with the second and all subsequent episodes airing Mondays, starting tomorrow. Be sure to catch our livestreams reviewing and breaking down the show Thursdays at 11pm ET on our YouTube channel.



***edited for length and clarity***

SCIFI VISION:   To start off, why don't you both talk tell me, why did you want to become a part of it? Let’s go Callum then Bluey.

CALLUM McGOWAN:   Well, I was unemployed at the time, and I really like working, you know, so I'm quite cheap in that way. No, I mean, you know, as an actor, you will audition for numerous projects, and maybe one in twenty is something you have a feeling about and something that you genuinely understand is special and kind of one in a million. The Librarians was that script. I remember reading it and going, “If I'm not going to be a part of this world, then I don't want to be an actor anymore. And luckily, I got the job, but it's a very rare thing where at the very heart of all Dean's projects are kind of storytelling at its most basic. And I don't mean that in the way to take away; there is something beautiful that we as humans do where we share stories. You know, our earliest memories as children are reading those stories, and it's escapism where we can forget the world outside for just a moment and believe in a world where I can be a hero. [laughs]

BLUEY ROBINSON:   I mean, I read the breakdown of the character. I didn't know a lot about the show, but I read that breakdown of the show. I thought, “this sounds fun. It sounds like something I'd love to be a part of.” Then, I read my character, and I said “Oh, I get this guy,” and from then it was just like I read it, and it felt natural. It felt like I was already in the world in a sense, and you get to play; you get to be silly, believe in magic. You learn about all these myths and legends and law that I would never get to - I probably wouldn't look into in my everyday life. And then you’ve got figure out who you're going to be working with and then finding out who my cast was and then meeting them and going, “Oh these guys are pretty awesome.” I'm trailing off your question, but I remember that maybe a couple days into shooting, I was just like, it feels like there's something here. I don't want to jinx it or say too much, but I feel like we got like a special dynamic maybe, and hopefully that shows on camera.

SCIFI VISION:   Yeah, it definitely does. So, talk about what your prep was like for this.

CALLUM McGOWAN:   I mean with this one, I didn't actually have that much prep, because the script that I was sent, the original pilot, it's all there. It kind of leaps off the page. I saw Vikram – well, my interpretation of Vikram, so clearly it was, that’s who he is. That's how he reacts. And in that sense, it was a joy, but I kind of think about Vikram as a roller coaster: you just have to get on, and that's it. You have to trust it, because anything Vikram does, you won't be surprised. He can pull it bone out and play that, and he can fly a Pegasus. You won't be surprised. You know, I said it earlier, but trying to psychoanalyze a person like Vikram is kind of impossible You just have to get on the ride and hold on tight.

SCIFI VISION:   What was your preparation like?

BLUEY ROBINSON:   Specifically, for this, I don't really know what my prep was. It kind of felt natural. Obviously, I looked into the show. I Googled the show. I watched a bunch of the original series, the original film with Noah Wiley, and just really tried to understand what it was I was getting into and find the tone of the world and the show, because you can read something and then have a certain way you want to do it and do it and then you watch. Luckily, this show existed, so I could watch and go, “Oh, okay.” Give a bit more this a bit more of that, and then just learn the heck out my lines back to front so I know exactly what's going on, what I'm saying, like research all these phrases, all these like, historical mythological figures I'm mentioning, so I kind of get a grip on what what the heck's going on. [laughs] That was my prep.

CALLUM McGOWAN:   Oh, you learned the lines?

[crosstalk]

SCIFI VISION:   Did you watch it Callum? Did you go back and watch any of the original?

CALLUM McGOWAN:   Oh, no, I didn't. So, originally when I got the audition, I knew I didn't want to kind of have a kind of a pre-idea what the show was. I wanted to come from what I thought Vikram was, because that's the best way I can do it. I can give my own representation of Vikram, and I didn't want it to bleed from any experience. But after I got the job, I watched all four series in about two weeks and I loved it, and it was good, and that feeling of knowing you're about to enter this incredible world and how lucky I felt, you know, by the work that those four actors had done before. I felt so privileged, and I still feel privileged and very very lucky.

SCIFI VISION:   Did either of you worry though about it already being a beloved series? I mean, does that feel daunting at all, knowing that there are a lot of fans already?

CALLUM McGOWAN:   The whole thing is daunting. I think you're stepping into this world that's been so beautifully crafted by Dean, Noah, and the original films and the guys from the series, you know, you want to live up to those expectations. You want to do it justice. You want to do homage in a way. You want to make sure that what they created is respected and loved and that it evolves. I don't think we'll ever not feel daunted by it, because we respect their work so much. Yeah, I think my anxiety will last a lifetime.

BLUEY ROBINSON:   Yeah. There was a moment where I was talking to Liv, and I said, you know, it is tricky to step into the world, to shoot something that's kind of already existed and people like it. We wanted to make sure we kept the magic and the essence of it. But when I said to Liv about watching the original series, she goes, “We're making our show. We're not making that. We're not remaking that show and trying to be that. If we try to fit a square into a circle, whatever, it's not gonna sell, right? So, you're gonna feel like you're trying to be something.” So, when she said that to me, I was like, “Ah, yeah Got it.” We're making our show, and this is our dynamic, and we're gonna add new bits and whatever. And having Christian [Kane] on board, giving us the okay to kind of do that, was just icing on the cake.

SCIFI VISION:   Yeah, I was going to say, similar but different, in a good way

BLUEY ROBINSON:   That's what we wanted.

SCIFI VISION:   So, what is your favorite either episode or artifact, that kind of thing, for each of you, without spoiling too much.

CALLUM McGOWAN:   Yeah, I think that's the trick, you might spoil something. But we recently got back from New York. That's why I look so tired. My jet lag has really killed me, but we watched the first episode with fans in New York, and you kind of forget the kind of work you've done, but there was the scene in the very first episode where I recreate my library, and then I walk in and Blue and Liv say, “Who are you?” and I say, “I am Vikram Chamberlain, and I'm the Librarian,” and I click my fingers, and then all the flames kind of surround the library, and it is that kind of childlike moment you have. How am I getting paid to dress up and have fun? You know, like it is that thing. But I think that would always be - that was the first scene we shot, so that will always be very special to me, I think. Yeah, mine is, I would say the magic door. That's my favorite thing.

BLUEY ROBINSON:   Even when we were going to New York, I was like, “Oh, this plane's gonna take so long. If we just had a magic door to just open up in the Morgan library and step on stage, that would be my dream.

SCIFI VISION:   Liv was talking about how you guys have to run out of it each time. [laughs]

CALLUM McGOWAN:   Yeah, that's the only thing that we don't like about the cast in the series, is they set up the run, and we will never forgive them. [laughs]

SCIFI VISION:   Let me ask you Bluey, do you have a hard time with the accent? Because obviously your accent is quite different. Did you have a hard time?

BLUEY ROBINSON:   In my mind I did. Yeah, I kind of just - I've never done an American accent for anything ever, so I kind of just read it and just felt like, okay how would I read this if I was, you know, on social media, and I was talking to my family, and I was doing an accent. It's maybe not the best at the time. I just kind of went for it. I think, I do music, so I'm melodic, I can hear sounds and inflections and stuff like that. And I was nervous until I'd seen a clip, a snippet of the first episode when Dean came to say, when we were shooting episode two or three, and he showed us a little bit of it, and I was like, “Oh, okay. I don't hate myself. I'm not creeping out myself [with] my accent. And I had dialect classes and stuff with a guy called Joe, who’s amazing, every week, so that definitely helped. But, yeah, hearing that my accent was believable was just what I needed to kind of give me the confidence to really do go further into it.