How Shirley Manson was Cast in The Sarah Connor Chronicles
August 29, 2008

With news and updates on the upcoming Terminator Salvation hitting the net between the first and second seasons of Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, fans of the show now have something to get excited about when Season 2 begins with singer and Garbage front-lady, Shirley Manson, in the cast for the premiere on Monday, September 8.

With The Sarah Connor Chronicles almost ready to get a full season run after the writers’ strike interrupted its debut, The Deadbolt caught up with series creator Josh Friedman on a recent conference call to get the scoop on what’s in store for Sarah Connor’s sophomore outing. While Friedman revealed that the new season will be radically different in its episodic nature, with the aftermath of the truck explosion from season one and the death of an unnamed character, the show’s head Terminator told The Deadbolt’s Troy Rogers how he arrived at casting Shirley Manson in her first acting role.

According to Friedman, landing Manson for the role of a CEO of a high-tech corporation was more personal than fans would expect. "I’ve known Shirley well for a couple of years and off and on for many years. She’s a friend of my wife’s," Friedman explained. "Personally, I’ve always enjoyed her and I’ve known her as a performer. And last year when we were doing the show, whenever I’d see her I used to joke with her about coming on the show to do one episode or something like that, because she never acted and we were like, ‘You should come, do one thing - come be a scary terminator for an episode or do something like that.’"

As Friedman elaborated, much of their talk about appearing on Sarah Connor never seemed to be anything more than wishful thinking, as Josh continued. "She always said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re never going to do that.’ And then this year, when we started casting, I actually wasn’t thinking about her for this part. We just started casting this part and somewhere about a week into casting I thought, ‘I want to bring Shirley in and see if she’s up for it; see if she wants to do it.’"

Somehow eerily fitting but oddly bizarre given Shirley Manson’s alternative image, Friedman revealed how he made contact with the Garbage singer while she was attending a funeral in Europe where she agreed to drop by the production for an audition. But, as Friedman wrapped up, it all felt natural but Manson still had to pull her own weight. "... it sort of happened organically. But she also had to go through the entire audition process like any other actor. She was given no extra points for being Shirley Manson. I think she was given minus points by people who thought she couldn’t do it."

When pressed on whether Manson was the CEO of the famous Cyberdyne, Friedman set the record straight for us. "It’s not Cyberdyne, but she is a CEO of a large company."