Fights like a banshee

There are lots of new action shows on TV. Guns, mixed martial arts, babes — usually a combination of all three — might seem like enough to get male (and many female) viewers hooked. But sometimes it’s not. Watching the opening of Banshee, a new Cinemax series starring New Zealander Antony Starr as a just-released con who seeks out his old heist partner (Ivana Milicevic) in a small Pennsylvania town, you might initially think, “Been there, seen that.”

But then the show’s weirdness starts to grow on you.

Kick-ass fights. Amish gangsters. Raw, spontaneous sexuality. A local slaughterhouse. A new sheriff who gets gunned down on his first day, his identity nicked by a thief.

No, Banshee is not your typical TV fare.

And Milicevic is not your typical Hollywood actress. The long-legged beauty first turned heads as Bond’s girl du jour in Daniel Craig’s initial 007 outing, Casino Royale. Now she’s in just the right place to take on a complex character who’s hiding from the mob in a town that seems every bit as dark and secret as anything the mob might be up to.

Her co-actor Starr plays Lucas Hood, an ex-con posing as a sheriff who’s as likely to twist a suspect’s arm into a pretzel as he is to read him his rights. In a phone conversation with Milicevic in her LA apartment, she bares all about the sex on the show, what’s it’s like to play both a mom and an action heroine, and where she learned those really cool Filipino fighting skills.

What attracted you to do Banshee?

IVANA MILICEVIC: I never saw a part that was so exciting for a female character my age. In the past I was named Anna, a woman who was hanging around with the Lucas Hood character, we would do crimes for this big gangster named Rabbit. I try to convince him not to do this particular job, because I can tell something’s wrong, but out of love we do it anyway, and he gets caught and has to go to jail for me. I go into hiding after that.

I love pulp, like Pulp Fiction, material that’s noir, that’s dark and funny. There’s really nothing else like this on television. I get to play a mother, I get to fight, I get to love. I get to play on so many emotional roller coasters.

Your character leads a double life. Does she know all the angles? 

Yeah, when Anna goes into hiding, she takes on a new life (as Carrie Hopewell) with a husband and kids. I felt she had so many different layers to her. She’s playing a mother, a villain, a fighter, someone who can kick butt, someone who’s very much in love, she’s torn between two men in a way. She has to play this whole range of emotions. Everything we do we do very strong and in your face. You’ll see as the season progresses why it’s such an interesting part. Really emotional and very torn.

The show employs mixed martial arts — coming from the Philippines, we’re interested where you got to learn your Filipino fighting skills?

Oh, you’re calling from the Philippines? Oh, you should know, I love Kali so much! I was learning how to do Kali (for the show), I was doing Jeet Kune Do, which is Bruce Lee’s method, and other styles. That was helping me to train how to move, because I’m a little clumsy in real life, so I had to learn to be a little more graceful.

I did get hurt a little bit, not too bad. I post pictures of my bruises on Twitter. I sprained an ankle, also my muscles ached all the time. But Antony (Starr) had bigger injuries! ‘Cause he’s a guy.

The physical parts are very hard. You’ll see as the season progresses that I had a lot of fight scenes. I got a lot of bruises, I even had a black eye in an episode coming up that was real. But for me the hardest part was the emotional cycles this character goes through.

Being back with Lucas, it’s like she was an alcoholic and she stayed sober for 15 years, and now with him back in town it’s like the first drop of alcohol to the alcoholic and she’s trying to do the right thing, but it’s difficult.

The sexuality is pretty open, even for Cinemax. How did you approach the sex scenes in Banshee?

I liked that they were natural. The scenes between husband and wife, I wanted them to be natural and free. You now, nothing is real, it’s all fake in Hollywood, the actors have to trust each other very much. It’s hard on a lot of levels; you’re putting yourself out there, and you have to be fit. It’s just scary. But I can justify every single love scene in the show. They’re not just there to be there, it may look like it, but everything has a deeper purpose in character development. But of course, I feel exactly like any other girl would. I just try to be brave and try to tell a story.

How does Banshee stand out among other action series? How do you describe it?

It stands out because I think we’re pushing everything. You’ll see fight scenes you can’t even believe are on TV. They are bloody, long and intense. Everything we did we pushed. And all of the female characters are in some way very strong.

It seems like a cross between Twin Peaks and The Bourne Identity at times. How weird is it going to get?

I don’t think it’s as weird as Twin Peaks, that’s a very particular kind of weird. There’s very little to compare it to. It’s more like… gosh… if Quentin Tarantino did Twin Peaks, you know? The characters are big and bold, and there are a lot of surprises: who you think is good maybe isn’t, and who you think is bad maybe isn’t bad. But that changes too, kind of like real people.

Banshee is full of action and fairly graphic violence. How do you relate to that?

I’m lucky that I didn’t have a violent upbringing, so for me it’s all pretend and make-believe. I don’t know why people like to watch violence so much, maybe it’s our past ancestry when we used to watch gladiators or whatever. But for me, it’s just entertainment. Like, for me, I would never play a violent video game. I guess it’s no different from when I was little, playing cops and robbers. It’s drama, and since it’s television, we raise everything up to 12. Otherwise, it would be boring and nobody would watch!

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Banshee airs on Cinemax Fridays at 10 p.m.