Eliza Coupe plays Tiger in the time travelling comedy Future Man. Photo: Catie Laffoon.
Eliza Coupe plays Tiger in the time travelling comedy Future Man. Photo: Catie Laffoon.
TV and movies are full of tough guys and action men, but there's no screen character today that's more bad-ass than Future Man's time-travelling soldier, Tiger.
"She's a leader, she's powerful, she has drive and determination to right the wrongs she thinks she caused, and she never gives up, so in that sense she's a positive role model," actor Eliza Coupe explains, before adding, with a wicked smile. "But her getting absolute joy out of someone being impaled in a bed of spikes is not necessarily the role model I would want for somebody."
The third and final season of this violently funny sci-fi comedy has just landed on Lightbox. And if you thought it was out there before, well, buckle up because this time the show really doubles down to go out in a blaze of zippy one-liners, outrageous situations and incredibly smart low-brow humour.
"I think the writers just went, 'Screw it. We can do anything we want cause what are they gonna do, cancel us?'" Coupe says laughing. "It would have been a disservice to this beautiful show, and this craziness, to have gone anywhere less than we went. We had to push that boundary and go as far as possible in order to honour the integrity of this insanity."
This time around Tiger, fellow future soldier Wolf and hapless everyman Josh Futterman have to elude the time cops hunting them, escape a Running-Man-style TV game show called the Die-Cathlon and venture to the place beyond time and space to save the world from being drawn into a time anomaly known as The Big Suck.
"Every single time I got a script I was like, 'holy shit. This is insane,'" Coupe enthuses. "But it all checks out. It's a tough genre because there are people who are wildly into Comic-con and all the gamers out there and time travel buffs ... these people will get you on anything so you have to cover all your bases. And we did."
To convincingly portray a killing machine Coupe says she poured the, "unresolved anger inside," into the role, before adding that she's, "since toned myself down in my real life," crediting daily meditation and yoga for her new serenity.
Derek Wilson as Wolf, Josh Hutcherson as Josh Futterman and Eliza Coupe as Tiger in Future Man. Streaming on Lightbox.
"It was fun to channel that anger and fierce competitive nature, to really throw all that stuff out there," she says. "You don't get to do that in real life. It was basically like a lot of primal scream."
One thing that's overlooked when people talk about Future Man is how progressive the show is. Yes, there's a subplot involving the transplant of an oversized male organ and a lot of jokes that crawled out of the gutter to find a place on the script, but it also presents a future where sexual fluidity is accepted, equality exists and powerful women run things. It feels like the show hasn't received nearly enough credit in that department.
"Yes! I agree completely," Coupe says. "It hasn't had nearly as much recognition as it should have as far as having an incredibly progressive and powerful female character. I felt that there are a lot of people out there being like, 'where are the big female roles?' and I'm raising my hand in the back being like, 'Hey! I got one. Guys, I got one,'," she says. "I don't know how people haven't noticed it but this character is incredibly progressive, this whole show is progressive. We abolish all stereotypes."
Josh, Tiger, and Wolf in Future Man. Streaming on Lightbox.
Coupe's a fun chat but like her character in the explosive finale episode, we're almost out of time. One last question. If she had her own time travel device where would she go?
"I want to go back and see how those Pyramids were made," she says, her voice hushing conspiratorially. "I want to see exactly what went down with those Pyramids. I want to be the one to uncover that shit. That's some serious shit."
LOWDOWN Who: Eliza Coupe What: Plays action hero Tiger in the cult, time-travelling comedy Future Man When: All three seasons streaming now on Lightbox
