Craig Horner sees Buffy in his 'Seeker' character

Horner's titular Seeker, Richard, faces very "Buffy"-like situations this season, including dealing with a rift to the underworld, much like the Hellmouth in "Buffy," that lets loose countless demons, goblins and other creatures to challenge Richard and his mates, sorcerer Zedd (Bruce Spence) and Confessor Kahlan (Bridget Regan).

Last season ended with Richard killing the villainous Darken Rahl (Craig Parker), and as the acti

on picks up, Richard learns that the victory will be short-lived. "Seeker," which offers beautiful images of the New Zealand countryside where "Lord of the Rings" also was filmed, gets much darker this season, something Horner is happy to see.

"I don't know if they've taken [advice] from me or if they've just done it on themselves," Horner said. "I said we've got to go darker and we need rock music. And that's what they've done."

Horner is well aware of the similarities between his show and "Buffy," and his enthusiastic response to hearing someone else point it out shows that he couldn't be more pleased.

"Exactly, man. I'm making these comparisons every day!" he said. "I remember I used to watch 'Buffy' and I'd be like, 'Ah man, I would kill to be on "Buffy" to be part of that little crime-solving team fighting demons and monsters.' And you know, now it's kind of happening. So, I'm having a great time."

A friendly, engaging Horner talked more about "Seeker," "Buffy" and guest stars Jolene Blalock ("Star Trek: Voyager") and Aimee Teegarden ("Friday Night Lights").

You and Bridget are in the States to do press this week?
Yeah, yeah. Kind of just Los Angeles and New York though, nothing in Chicago. I really, really want to go. You know what? I fell in love with Chicago when I saw that movie "Home Alone" as a kid. I was obsessed with that film. I was like, "Man, look at that place." All those houses are so beautiful and there are ice rinks everywhere. Yeah, that looks really cool. You've got something there.

Are you still filming the new season?
We're still filming, yeah. We're up to about 10 out of 22 [episodes] in Season 2.

Congrats. It's gotten hugely popular, hasn't it? Lots of fans. Were you expecting it to get so big?
I don't know. I don't really think about that kind of stuff. I just think about my work and how I'm going to do it and just make sure I do a really good job. I knew there already would have been fans of the books; that kind of helped. And having people like [executive producer] Sam Raimi in there. Little things like that I knew were going to help, but the show needed to be good enough to be able to withstand a season or two. And it has. And it's getting better, man. This Season 2, I'm really proud of and it's just getting better and better, you know?

Had you read the Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" books before being cast?
I read the first one before I started shooting Season 1, and I'm reading the second book now.

Does the show follow the books pretty well?
You know what? Not really. They keep the characters, they keep the world, they keep all the costumes and everything--the weapons and all that kind of stuff. But what we do is we kind of just swap it around a little bit. So, say, Richard would go into the power for the prophets at one point in the book, we'll make it at another point in the show. He might meet one character in Book 1, but we'll make him meet him in series three of the show.

I think that's what you would want if you were a fan. I love the book. I love it. And I love the show, you know? Because it's not like, "Oh, well, the next episode is going to be, well on Chapter 12. I'm not going to watch that because that was a boring chapter in the book." You know? You want something new and exciting.

I like to think of it as, I love the original "Star Wars" films, and ever since their films came out, there have been so many books. And I read those books when I was a kid. There were comic books, there were games, they were fan fiction. You could just go anywhere with that world. You pick up a book and you know what a Jedi is, you know what a light saber is, and you're away.

How has your life changed since this all started? Are you now recognized?
Not really. I'm in New Zealand the entire time. All I know is work at the moment. I have a grueling schedule; it's Monday to Friday, but all day I hardly see the lights unless we're out shooting in it [laughs], but I leave in dark and get home in dark. ... I jump on the Web from time to time. I'm here in America for a week just to check it out, and I go from hotel room to hotel room, interview to interview, so it's hard to keep up. But all I know is that down there, we're doing a good job and I just hope it that it gets more popular and popular.

What's coming up this season? I saw the first episode and I liked it. It's darker.
Well we think Richard saved the world from evil, but even greater evil is going to come out because now the underworld has made a crack in the ground where creatures and goblins and ghouls and all sorts of things can just come out. So, yeah, it's just opened up a whole can of whoop ass.

You'll be fighting a lot more supernatural creatures then?
Yeah, I love that kind of stuff. We have such a great prosthetics team down there. They've worked on "Lord of the Rings" and all that stuff. And gosh, I go into that ... prosthetics warehouse and there are like faces and hands and wings and all kinds of stuff. I love that. The little kid in me looks around, he like looks at all the weapons and all that stuff. You know what? Just leave me here for 10 minutes, OK? I just want to be by myself because I'll just run around and put things on.

There's a pretty cool creature in the first episode, the Screeling. Is someone in a suit, or is it all effects?
That's all CGI. The prosthetics people made an actual Screeling we used when I got slammed against the table. He get right in my face, eye-to-eye, and looks at me and drools all over me. [Laughs.] It looked really, really good. But I they had to CGI that puppet.

I don't want to give anything away, but this opener pretty much sets up the conflict for the season, right? Richard has to make some huge, difficult decisions this season.
Exactly. Like, who does he answer to basically? Himself, he's got to trust his own instincts. The first season, he was already thrust into this thing, it's like, "By the way, you thought you were just a simple farm boy, but you're like the savior of the world and you have to come and kill all of these people and kill this main dude Darken Rahl." [And he said,] "Like, OK. All right. I'll do it if that's my destiny."

So this is Round 2. It's like, "OK, now here's a new challenge for you, buddy boy. You know, you've got to lead the people and unite the people." That's what's so crazy because we're fighting an even greater force. It's literally the underworld. It's like, "Guys, we don't have time to bicker and argue about who's leading who, otherwise we're all going to die. OK, so just pay attention and just follow me for a second and then flip out later."

Tabrett Bethell plays the Mord'Sith Cara. ABC Studios

He seems more confident now. He's able to give orders, make demands more easily it seems. There's the great line where he says something like, "Anyone else want to question my order?"
That's kind of what I wanted to do with the character. I had a feeling this would go for a couple seasons and I thought, "Gee, what a great thing to do to be able to take this guy and turn him from boy to man, from newbie to hero." You know what I mean? Because that's a good journey to go through. You can't really do that with feature films that much ... But if you've got 22 one-hour episodes a season? You can literally start him from zero and end him in Season 6 as a frickin' warlock, a wizard, and you see the journey.

You don't want to start Season 1: "Hey, I'm a bad ass. I'm cool. This is what I want to do." You want to see this guy's personality and humility and that's what makes a likeable character and a hero.

You can have a lot of leaders can be nasty and all this, and be very good at barking [orders] and getting people to obey them, but that's not what Richard is. He doesn't want that; he doesn't even want this whole leadership thing, but he's doing it because it's his destiny. You know? And maybe he is the right man for the job.

I hear you're a fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
I love it.

Have you thought about how Richard and Buffy sort of are the same character?
Totally.

The comparison is greater this season because with the rift and up to the underworld it's sort of like the Hell Mouth.
There you go. Exactly man. I'm making these comparisons every day. No one around me knows what I'm talking about on the set. It's like, "Oh my God, it's just like in 'Buffy.'" They're like "Shut up Craig. We didn't watch that show" ...

And now you have Charisma Carpenter on.
It's such a small world. Apparently, she is engaged to this camera operator who was on the very first job I ever did in Australia. I can't believe it. Are you kidding me? That guy is like, what a great guy. And this guy took me into the camera department for a whole week and trained me. I had a whole week off [from acting], but I was the kind of kid who was really interested in the film industry and for that week I just wanted to be in the camera department. I wanted to be the clapper loader. I wanted to be the dude who runs in front of the camera and go "23 take 2, mark it." Pop, and then walk out. I wanted to do that. I wanted to hold the boom for a week. It's crazy. We hung out in the camera truck for a whole week and I can't believe it, it's a small, small world.

That's cool. You didn't have any scenes with Charisma though.
I didn't get to work with her unfortunately. Maybe I'll work with Sarah Michelle Gellar or James Masters or someone else [from "Buffy"] one day.

Now, you're going to angle to get all the "Buffy" stars on?
Yeah. Come on guys, what are you doing? Come on man, get on my damn show. I know Angel's busy with "Bones," but come on you other guys.

Aimee Teegarden from "Friday Night Lights" also guest stars this season.
Yeah. That's right. I have a friend who is a fan of that show. He loves that show and I haven't really got a chance to watch it yet. But I hear it's a great show. She is great. She is very cute. She's sweet and innocent; she makes it a perfect character. I can't tell you too much about her character because I will kind of give it away. But she's really cool.

And Jolene Blalock is coming on too. The release says she plays "a mysterious Sister of the Dark."
Yeah, she's also great. She brings and element of darkness, but in the female essence. Because in Season 1, the dark side was very male-oriented. It was dark and raw with all these soldiers and all these men and "let's kill, kill, kill." And now, you've got these seductive kind of female temptresses. So, you don't know if they're good or if they're bad or if they're trying to help you, or who they're answering to. She does that really, really well.

Tabrett Bethell's character, the Mord'Sith Cara, is sort of that way too, right?
Yep. She's cool, she's cool. It's great having her onboard because the three of us--Zed, Kahlan, and Richard--are so wholesome and good, it's great to get this character that comes into the hero group and is like, "I don't care about any of you. I'm only here to serve Richard because I have to, OK? So, I'm just going to give you attitude the whole time." It's kind of good having that light and dark in the whole time.

Craig Horner says he doesn't get a lot of time to work out while filming, but he does what he can. ABC Studios photo

You do a lot of stunts yourself, so did you get trained with the horses and swords? Or did you already know how to do all of that stuff?
I didn't know how to ride a horse properly. But when me and Bridget got to New Zealand, ... we were lucky enough to have time to spend training--horse riding, working on our characters, reading the books. It was really valuable because once shooting started, there was no time to go back. There was just no time. You have to do it on your weekends and that's the last thing you want to do. The last thing you want to do is go and be fighting when you're damn exhausted.

But luckily we have amazing teachers. This horse wrangler, Wayne, worked on "The Lord of the Rings." I'm riding a horse that Aragon rode. He taught Brad Pitt on "Jessie James." So I'm in good hands, with the fighting as well. It's a great bunch of people. That stunt team has been around since the Herc and Xena days, like 10 years ago, 15 years ago. They started off as like 17-year-old boys and now they're like 35, some are pushing 45. They're really, really good and they take the time to kind of show you and explain it.

Luckily I've kind of got a good memory for the stuff. I don't know where it came from; when I was a kid and obsessed with that stuff. Like the running around the house and the back yard with a sword, or a gun, almost every day for 10 years. I didn't drop that stuff until I was like 13. I was really sad. Remember the time when you was a kid and you were like, "Shit, my imagination is just not working anymore. Like I can't jump in the back yard and run around and not feel like an idiot."

Were you a fantasy and swords-and-sand story fan a kid?
Absolutely. And in Brisbane, it has that real kind of earthy kind of vibe. So, it's like, you've got to go to school, but then at the end of the day, it's straight into the streets just playing with the kids. There was just heaps of space to go play and muck around. And I was just obsessive with films and fantasy and "Star Wars" and all that kind of stuff, and toys and everything. I loved it.

Back to the stunts. Have you had any big injuries?
I actually did cut myself with my sword, but it wasn't even during a battle. It was so embarrassing. I was trying to do an eye line for Richard and Bruce off camera. I was supposed to be like up in the sky, jumping, so I was like, "I'll just use my sword and I'll point it up there so they can look at my sword." And I go to put it up and it catches on my jacket as I'm lifting my arm, and it kind of catapults. It sprang and hits above my left eye, and them I'm like bleeding profusely. I'm like, "What the hell?!" It didn't really hurt. But I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm bleeding." And they're like, "You cut yourself pretty damn deep, you've got to go to emergency." I went and got stitches and then I was back on set within an hour and I kept shooting. I just had to get makeup over it.

OK, last question, and it's kind of silly. Would you rather date a Confessor or a Mord'Sith?
Wouldn't you just have to date a Mord'Sith? I mean, dating a Confessor you're her slave. It's like you're losing your will. By the time I come around it's like, "I think we should get out of this relationship." The only way you can get out of that without being confessed and being a slave is to kill her. So, I don't know if that's a pretty good option.

I'd take the Mord'Sith and just endure the pain and have some great sex. You know, it's better than getting none. [Laughs.]