Leonard Nimoy An Evil Genius?
Leonard Nimoy’s character William Bell in J.J. Abrams’ hit series Fringe has been portrayed as a highly ambiguous character from the beginning. Is he the bad guy? Is he the good guy? What is his connection to the overall Pattern? Is he responsible for all the events investigated by the Fringe unit?
*possible spoiler warning*
As season one unfolded events began to point towards William Bell as the series’ bad guy. In later episodes Agent Dunham (Anna Torv) becomes so convinced that Bell is responsible for the Pattern that she makes it her mission to go after him. However, by the time she eventually catches up with him we’re left to believe Nimoy’s character may actually be on the side of good.
In a recent interview with Star Wars.com, writer/producer Roberto Orci (Star Trek / Fringe) has flipped the William Bell coin once again, hinting that Leonard Nimoy may actually be potraying the “evil genius” of the series after all.
From Star Wars.com:
Q. Having Leonard Nimoy appear both on Star Trek reprising his role as Spock, and on Fringe as William Bell, — and having them both play with the idea of time travel and parallel realities — is an interesting crossover. Why did you want him to play such a pivotal role in Fringe?
Roberto Orci: It’s an idea that Bryan Burke had when we were screening Trek in Austin, and we were there with Leonard Nimoy for a day or two. And Burke thought that the character of William Bell that we’d been building up on Fringe should be Nimoy. We already asked him for so much, and J.J. emailed him and he was interested. There’s a certain logic to it. Bell is supposed to be one of the smartest men in the world; like Bill Gates meets Howard Hughes. So Nimoy’s credentials as one of the smartest characters in the history of the world is already established through Star Trek. It’s interesting to see him as a potential ambiguous, evil figure.
Of course, with words like ‘potential’ and ‘ambiguous’ we can never really be sure…
Read the full Star Trek centered interview here.
Fringe returns with its second season on September 17, 2009.
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