EXCLUSIVE: Hale Appleman Spills on the 'Biggest WTF Moment 'The Magicians' Has Ever Had!'
The Magicians just aired its most spellbindingly bizarre moment of all time!
In tonight's all-new episode of the smash Syfy drama, our high king and queen of Fillory opted for a more musical battle cry ahead of their royal war -- and ET has the exclusive behind-the-scenes scoop from star Hale Appleman on how they pulled it all off!
Appleman confessed that he knew a musical number was coming to The Magicians "at some point," but he was not expecting to burst into a rendition of Les Miserables' "One Day More."
"It totally blew my mind because I had done Les Mis when I was a kid in high school and I played Javert but [The Magicians showrunner John McNamera] didn't know that when they wrote that [episode] so it was super strange," the 31-year-old actor confessed, adding that he was "equal parts terrified and excited" for the challenge.
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"You only have so long to prepare for a TV schedule musical performance and so every day I wasn't shooting I was working on my sword skills," he said, referring to Eliot's epic sword fight that also took place in tonight's hour. "It was a whirlwind, that episode. It was really, really grueling for me and I did as best as I could in the time that I had."
As for the behind-the-camera challenges, The Magicians' Director of Photography Elie Smolkin said that the goal was to make the song feel like a "big movie" number within their small screen limitations.
"We wanted to allow these characters to feel what they were feeling," Smolkin explained. "We try not to distract, but we do all these little things to achieve that. Sometimes it's just about setting a frame and letting this actor do what they do."
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Smolkin gifted ET with some of his favorite stills from the episode, including a close-up shot of Summer Bishil's Margo mid-song. "She's just belting out Les Mis and we wanted to let that frame be there and show how epic she is and how strong she is and what a powerful woman she is," he said. "That is really important and I think we strived really hard to do that on this show."
Appleman dished that he's still delightfully baffled that they were able to pull off such a random musical moment on the series. "It's just a moment in time in which anything can happen on The Magicians. It's the biggest 'What the f**k?!' moment The Magicians has ever had. Like why the hell are we singing Le Mis?!'" he said with a laugh. "But hopefully, it's fun for everyone watching at home."
The Magicians airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy.
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