Byron Mann Talks ‘Altered Carbon’ [Exclusive Interview]

You may recognize Byron Mann as Admiral Nguyen on The Expanse, or as Yao Fei Gulong on Arrow. Now, Mann stars as O.G. Kovacs on Altered Carbon.

Altered Carbon is a television series created by Laeta Kalogridis and based on the 2002 novel of the same title by author Richard K. Morgan. I recently had the chance to speak with Mann about his role on Altered Carbon and what makes the series unique.

The series takes place over 350 years in the future, in the year 2384. In the future, a person’s memories have been decanted into “cortical stacks,” storage devices of alien design surgically inserted into the vertebrae at the back of the neck. Physical bodies, called “sleeves,” are disposable vessels that can accept any “stack.”

Takeshi Kovacs wakes up 250 years after his previous sleeve is terminated. He is given a choice to either spend the rest of time in prison for his crimes or to help solve the murder of Laurens Bancroft.

Altered Carbon’s new concept is what initially drew Mann to the project.

“I just thought that it was a really well-written script. Very powerful characters, very interesting world, and it posed a lot of interesting questions, too. I didn’t really know the history of the book, but I read the script and just thought ‘wow,’” Mann said.

“I found out later on that it’s written by the same writer who wrote Terminator Genisys and the upcoming movie Alita: Battle Angel,” he continued.

Altered Carbon is a one of a kind show that can’t compare to anything else. “Altered Carbon was a very unusual show in the sense that they were trying to achieve something that television or streaming has never seen before. On every level, from the fighting to the conceptual thinking, they were trying to do something that has never been done before.”

If you’ve seen Altered Carbon, then you already know how the entire show is built around the action, and for Mann that was one of the toughest challenges.

“For sure the physical training,” he admitted. “I had a very short time to get big and ripped. I had, roughly, several weeks which is not a long time. Morning training was for personal physique, and then in the afternoon, it was fight training for the opening sequence. We rehearsed for that sequence for about two months.”

The opening sequence is Mann’s favorite fight sequence that he got to film on Altered Carbon, but not purely because of the action.

“The opening sequence was my favorite because it was really a fight between Takeshi Kovacs and the guy who framed him. That fight had to establish a number of things — that Takeshi Kovacs is a really badass fighter. It also has to feature some history between these two characters, one is a trainer, and one is a trainee,” Mann explained.

The thought process behind the entire fight was to make sure that it felt more real than staged.

“I was fighting a guy who was in a shield, basically. He was wearing protectorates armor so we had to figure out a way that would make sense, that would be sort of savage and brutal. There was a lot of thinking behind it. We didn’t want to appear rehearsed, so when we see the fight it’s kind of raw, brutal, and not staged. Hopefully, it achieved that.”

Altered Carbon has not yet announced a Season 2, but Mann did share his thoughts on the potential for seeing Kovacs again if the series is renewed.

“I think they’re trying to stay faithful to book two and book three, but I understand the cost might be a little prohibitive to film both books two and three as it is — so there [are] going to be departures,” Mann noted. “If they asked me to come back, I would be honored, of course.”

There are mixed feelings when it comes to using sleeves to live forever (or just in general) on Altered Carbon, and Mann has some for himself when faced with the same options.

“I’d like to have the body that I have. Living forever, now that’s a difficult question. If I had something to live for, I would live for a longer time, maybe a couple of hundred years — that’s fine. If there’s nothing to live for then I don’t mind going,” Mann confessed.

Mann is also excited to continue his role on Syfy’s The Expanse. “I did Season 3, and it’s coming out soon. That’s very exciting — probably one of the best seasons,” he said.

Even though Mann has a reputation for playing characters with a lot of action and physicality, he’s never been in a real fight.

“I’ve never been in a real fight before, ever. Never would I want to, either. People think that I fight all of the time. I’ve done a lot of action stuff, so I’m all on film, but that’s all choreographed and staged. I would never want to be in a real fight. I’ve seen one or two real fights, and they’re nasty.”

Mann doesn’t have a lot of free time to stay caught up with TV shows, so he tries to focus on ones that are recommended to him personally.

“I check out things that people in the industry tell me about and recommend. For example, I’ve been catching up on The Knick with Clive Owen. I watched The Girlfriend Experience because it was recommended to me as well, and it was really good. I’m watching all the episodes of Altered Carbon too right now,” Mann shared.

Be sure to catch Byron Mann on Altered Carbon, airing now on Netflix.

*Featured image credit: Diana Ragland

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