Justin Hartley On Gemini, Games & Getting Beat

It’s shades of Smallville’s Lana and Jason, as Anna Diaz is pulled into a whirlwind romance in Paris. Her new beau, Nick Korda, seems too good to be true — maybe that’s because he is. Now Anna is left wondering if he’s the love of her life or the key to her demise and what’s with the greasy yellow ring around the bath time after he takes a dip?

Questions, questions and more questions and even a few answers can be found when you watch the new NBC sponsored webseries Gemini Division starring Justin Hartley and Rosario Dawson. I caught up with Justin during a Smallville break and we talked about that, this, and why he’ll never offer to fix the pool again.

Set aside your quiver, Oliver Queen fans, Justin Hartley is in the house.

Why did you decide to work on Gemini Division?

Justin: I feel like this is where the future of our business is going is to the web. I believe there is a way to do it that is high quality, that looks great, that is going to grip people and get away from that stigma that the Internet is just a big porn machine. I was developing my own webseries, a sketch comedy kind of thing, when I got this call. When they said Rosario Dawson was doing it, I was like, you mean THE Rosario Dawson? It really interests me to see a bona fide movie star (she probably hates that phrase, but she is) doing something like this.

I think we’ve got our hands on something good. I’ve seen the first two webisodes, they’ve been released on NBC.com and there’s a new one on Monday and then four a week until they’re done – 52 of them.

How does working on a webseries differ from working on a TV series?

Justin: [Gemini Division] falls somewhere between the soap that I did and Smallville. When you do a webseries the crew is much smaller, the production is much smaller, and you may do a whole episode in one day. But when we shoot Smallville, the crew is much bigger and you have a lot more time to shoot it, many more angles, more coverage.

And, obviously, the [webisodes] aren’t 44 minutes either, they’re 4 to 7 minutes. Still, whether it’s a lot or a little in Hollywood you’re always trying to finish your day. You rarely hear of the 12-hour day that got finished in 6 hours. Usually it’s a 12-hour day that got finished in 14 if you’re lucky.

As for shooting the romantic scenes in Paris. . .

Justin: [Gemini Division] was all green screen. You had to imagine every single thing around you and it’s like, ‘you’re in Paris’ and god forbid you look behind you because it’s like, ‘no, I’m in a warehouse.’

In addition to being a webseries, Gemini Division will be the basis for an online multi-player game and that was something Justin could really get behind.

Justin: I am, at least, the biggest gamer in my neighborhood. We do Smallville in Vancouver so I’ve been going Vancouver, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Los Angeles and all this traveling is really taking away from my gaming time. And if you step away from it for five weeks, you’re horrible.

So I gotta ask. What’s your favorite game?

Justin: I haven’t had a chance to pick up Madden 09, so Madden 08 and NASCAR. I have them on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and I have the PSP when I’m in Vancouver.  I don’t have the Wii, which I would love to have, but I’d probably pull a muscle with all that. And Rock Star, I’m trying to get my wife into Rock Star.

Speaking of Rock Star. What about that infamous Guitar Hero match-up between you and Jared Padalecki?

Justin: He kicked my booty in that game! We talked about it before, he looks at me and goes, ‘hey Justin, I’m pretty good at this.’ I go, ‘great, your hand is broken.’ He’s like, ‘have you ever played this?’ I go, ‘how hard can it be? Four buttons and I’ve got really good rhythm, it’s not going to be a deal.’

So we go in there and I’m like, ‘what the hell?’ The green, the blue. . .it’s an amazing game and some people are so good at it they look like real guitar players, but if you’re playing a little bit past your talent level it’s really frustrating. [Jared] was excellent at it. ‘What have you been doing for the past couple of months?’ [Jared replies,] ‘just playing Guitar Hero, it’s all I do.’

But as much as Justin is a gamer and a now a web-star, he isn’t much of an Internet junkie.

Justin: I don’t have a MySpace or a Facebook though I have been told that I have several. My sister would call me, she’s really into that stuff, and she’d say, ‘you know there’s someone online that’s saying they’re you on MySpace and that you hate people and you’re telling them to go to hell.’  It used to get me really bothered.

Now, however, Justin has a different attitude toward the attention he gets online.

My agent called me the other day and said, ‘you have arrived my friend, there’s an official I Hate Justin Hartley blogging thread.’

That’s excellent that someone has taken their time to hate me. I hope they don’t take their time to find me, but if you want to take the time to hate me, that’s great, man.

Now that’s what I call well-adjusted!

Want to hear more?  Check out Superhero Profiles to find out how Justin feels about his Green Arrow costume. Then come back here tomorrow for Justin’s answers to my three favorite questions.

Justin Hartley frame photo courtesy of Shandrew Public Relations

Justin in Smallville Photo Michael Courtney/The CW