The Librarians: The Next Chapter starts when Vikram Chamberlain (Callum McGowan), a Librarian from 1847, finds himself stranded in the present. After accidentally releasing magic across the country, he must adapt to the new world as he and a new team track down magical artifacts and restore order. Among the team is Lysa (Olivia Morris), the skeptical scientist who brings a logical, analytical mind to the team, refusing to take magic at face value, Connor (Bluey Robinson), the tech-savvy historian, and Charlie, a Guardian-in-training (Jessica Green).

In the this week's episode, “And the Memory Crystal,” Lysa is attending a seminar given by astrophysicist Dr. Roslyn Kirch (Ana Sofrenovic) at a renowned university when a powerful artifact, the Memory Crystal, surfaces. When students and faculty are mysteriously losing their memories and the future itself becomes threatened, the Librarians must work together to recover it.

Recently, Morris spoke with SciFi Vision to talks about working on the series.

Watch the interview and read the transcript below.



***Edited for clarity and length***

SCIFI VISION: To start off, why did you want to be a part of this?

OLIVIA MORRIS: I think it's funny, whenever like we get auditions as actors, you know, sometimes you can see that they are brand new scripts, never been done before, and you sort of go, “Okay, I'll just, you know, guess.” And sometimes you get a really beautiful situation where you realize there is a massive world and legacy of the show that you're auditioning for, which can also be really daunting, because it's got a fan base, and it’s got people that care about it, and a team that already knows each other.

And I think when I first started reading the scripts and getting involved with the project, I really saw that as a huge positive. It actually was the first time I'd ever done something that had had like a previous life, you know, three movies and four seasons of a TV show. And it just meant that we had such a kind of encyclopedia of our show to sort of dip into, and if we needed more context or information, or if we ever felt like we weren't sure if we were still the same show that the fans loved, we immediately could tell that we were, because at the very helm of it is Dean [Devlin], and Dean has been there from the beginning. He truly is our like, encyclopedia of The Librarians. For the first few episodes, he was on set with us, and if we ever had any questions or queries, he was the go-to. It was amazing to have somebody so passionate and so knowledgeable about this huge world that we were sort of just entering with a guy that had been in it for a long, long time.

SCIFI VISION: Yeah. Speaking of that, did you go back and watch the originals at all?

OLIVIA MORRIS: Yes, we did. We didn't have enough time to watch all of them before we began. It was quite a short turnaround, but Dean definitely told us to go back and watch some pieces. And still to this day, we're on season two, and every now and again, I'll watch an episode here or there, and it just always gets me how, I mean, our art department has done such a phenomenal job, but I'll watch a new episode, and there will be an Easter egg from the episode somewhere in our annex that when I first looked at it, I was like, “Oh, I wonder what that is,” and then I'll see an episode, and I'll go, “Oh, what's that?” And I just think that the attention to detail, I hope - we want the fans that love the original show to sort of see all those Easter eggs and love it.

SCIFI VISION: Yeah, there’re quite a few [episodes]. So, what was your prep like for this? Obviously, she has quite the science background, but what did you kind of dig into for this?

OLIVIA MORRIS: Yeah, I think the science stuff, like playing smart characters is always a tiny bit daunting, because you really want to make sure, you know, with the scientific terminology, it has to be like, not the first time. It has to sound like it's their ABCs, you know what I mean? The thing that rolls off the tongue. So, there's a lot of looking a bit crazy in my apartment, repeating crazy scientific terminology.

And honestly, like, the scripts are so fun to research. You know, sometimes I'm not very good as an actor. I like understanding what I'm saying, which actually has meant I've learned so much from the show, because sometimes my character will be telling you how to, you know, create something that mimics noise cancelling headphones to defeat a monster, and I'm like, “Oh, I wonder how? I wonder if that science…” and I'll Google it. And it's always true. It's always correct, and I'm always blown away to the attention to detail. You know, Dean said at the fan screening the other night, like, the fans of the show are so clever, and they are honorary Librarians. So, I really wanted to make sure I, you know, as a scientist, try to make myself understand as much as possible, so that when the audience watches it, they sort of get to research it too, and it doesn't just sound like gobbledygook, if that makes sense.

SCIFI VISION: No, that makes sense. So, did you have a hard time with the accent? Because I didn't realize you had changed your accent.

OLIVIA MORRIS: Yeah. Do you know, I absolutely love doing an American accent, but we have an amazing accent coach. Me, Blue and Jess were on the same boat. Jess was Australian, but Blue is British, like me. We are all very supportive of each other, and we're very - We auditioned with the accent. So, hopefully, from the beginning, it was sort of there. But yeah, it was a lot of work.

I wanted it to be really perfect. Also playing an American, it's the same as like someone who's very, very smart, the American accent, maybe be more, like perfect and like tidy as an accent. So, it was really fun sort of creating the accent to match the character.

SCIFI VISION: Are you someone who stays in it the whole time you're working? Or do you kind of go back and forth?

OLIVIA MORRIS: No I [laughs] Maybe one day, if it's an accent that maybe I didn't feel quite so confident with, I would stay in it maybe a bit more. But no, I've now, especially by season two, I feel almost terrifyingly confident that sometimes I will be speaking in an English accent up to the wire, and then someone will call action and I'll be like, “Okay, so everyone, hi.” [laughs] I’m like, “I'm so glad that came out right.”

SCIFI VISION: What was the easiest and the hardest to connect with, character wise? I know, obviously, I'm guessing you may not be a scientist. But other than that, what?

OLIVIA MORRIS: No, much to my parents' dismay, I'm not a scientist. But I think the thing that I was drawn to immediately, and I knew was going to be so delightful to play was - you know, we have a character who she's a scientist, everything is very black and white for her, there's no grey area. Everything, she understands the way the world works. And then we meet her immediately having to deal with the fact that nothing she thought was real or true is the case. And as soon as you get a character like that, as an actor, you just go, “Oh, that's gonna be fun,” because you have to meet everything with either so much curiosity, or in Lysa’s case, refusal. And I think that's sort of, and then you've got a character like Connor, who is completely the polar opposite, and so that character relationship is super fun to play, too. Because you just have two people that sit on different sides of the coin, and how do they interact? Yeah, the writers did such a good job of sort of setting all four of us up with such a brilliant starting point, that was great to play.

And then, you know, finding that sort of, Lysa gets a little bit less stubborn and starts to really realize there are some things out there that science can't explain. But she does explain a lot of it. She tries. And she does a pretty good job. But yeah, so I think I really loved and connected with her sort of stubbornness. I thought it was quite fun.

I think maybe it's alarmed me quite how much I'm like my character. Especially now we're in season two, I will sometimes be on set trying to, “but wait, this scientific, does that make sense if I,” and people will be like, Liv, we're talking about magic doors. And I'm like, “No, hear me out.” And everyone's like, “Liv, just just say the line.” I'm like, “No, I'm gonna have to work this out, unfortunately.” So, I am, yes, I am sort of becoming a little bit like my character.

SCIFI VISION: Well, that's okay. You kind of touched on this, but talk a bit about working with the different cast members, because you mostly have obviously scenes with the three of them.

OLIVIA MORRIS: Yeah, honestly, as actors, it's great fun to work with them, because they are such great energy, and super sort of happy to be there and passionate, and they all really care. So, firstly, that's [unintelligible]. But also, as characters go, I mean, again, less as a scientist, she's not met people like this, like Vikram is the most larger than life out this world sort of alien. She's just never met someone like that before. So, getting to interact with him throughout the season, and even in season two, is super fun, because I think Callum's choices are hilarious, and I have so much I get to play off. And obviously, we've got Bluey, who Connor is just the opposite of Lysa. I love our bickering sort of relationship, where they just are at each other a little bit, because I think, I mean, it's very fun to play, and me and Blue love playing it, because it's the right giggle. But also, I feel that chemistry isn't actually just about characters getting on; it's about feeling comfortable to mock each other and to wind each other up. And deep down you know they care for each other, but they care for each other enough to take the piss out of each other. And obviously, then my favorite is the day Jess, for episode one, did her reveal where she takes off the helmet and shakes her hair out. I remember being like, Lysa's never seen a character like that. I don't even think I've seen a woman like Jess. I was just like, phenomenal.

So, I think everyone is so different, and we make up such a great, I don't know, I hope such a really wonderful foursome, and I hope the audience like us and how we bounce off each other. And it really is great fun to play.

SCIFI VISION: Do you have a favorite episode or artifact or something that you can talk about without spoiling too much?

OLIVIA MORRIS: We meet Cupid at one point, and I have to say, I really liked meeting Cupid. I thought it was exactly what I wanted it to be and completely unexpected at the same time. And then there is an artifact, actually, maybe not an artifact, there's a character that we meet later down the line, that when we heard was going to be joining, we all were really excited about that, but I won't spoil it.

SCIFI VISION: Is there anything, I guess, still that you kind of would really love to see happen with your character? I know, obviously, I haven't seen everything, but just something that if we're up to you, you'd like to like to see her get to do?

OLIVIA MORRIS: We actually got invited to the writers room for season two. And I remember thinking, what could I possibly suggest that these amazing writers haven't already thought of? And I'll be honest, the only thing I suggested was a curiosity if they had to run through the magic door every single time they went through it. I wondered maybe the scientists might be able to fix it and maybe they walk. It wasn't met with anybody saying yes passionately, but I still suggested it. Because I heard from Christian [Kane] that the reason that they run through the door and get thrown out the door is apparently when they were working out how to do it in season one of the original season - and this is this is what Christian said, that Rebecca [Romijn] suggested that it throws them out. Little did they know that they would then have to do that the rest of the four seasons, and then we would have to do that for the rest of our show. And we were like, “ah.” So anyway, I suggested that. I don't think it's stuck, and that's fine. We'll keep running through it forever.

SCIFI VISION: Probably.

Well, thank you so much for your time; I appreciate it. I really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to seeing more. It's a fun show. A nice lighthearted fun show.

OLIVIA MORRIS: It's so lovely. Great escapism. I still find it funny and joyful, and I think that's remarkable. I've seen too much.