When one is playing a god-like character, it's safe to say you say you can't prepare by sitting around with Pringles and Netflix. Lee Pace certainly didn't do that to play the magnificently fit emperor of the galaxy in Apple TV+'s Foundation.
"We started shooting before the pandemic and and I was lifting a whole lot of weights, and then the pandemic started, and I basically cleared off a corner of the barn and did a bunch of yoga," Pace tells ABC Audio about how he got into shape to better look the part. "I did yoga every day for about two hours. And that was my kind of, you know, throughout the entire quarantine, through that time."
The regimen helped both Pace's body, and his acting."It was such an opportunity to think about my health, to think about, you know, this character that I was playing and really kind of think about...you know, your balance, thinking about what you're stretching, thinking about a specific part of the body and how you can control it," he says. I thought so much about the character and what the limits of control are, the fantasy of what control is."
In the series, Pace's Brother Day confronts the reality that his family's grip over the galaxy is under threat, because he learns that every empire eventually falls.
"That's what the character is, he's about control," says Pace. "It's like, you know, trying to hold sand in your hand. It's a slippery thing. You can try to keep it, but you won't be able to."
Foundation, also starring Chernobyl's Jared Harris, is now streaming on Apple TV+.