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Emma Ishta & Kyle Harris Talk New ABC Family Series “Stitchers” – Read the Q&A!

We are so excited for the premiere of ABC Family’s newest series Stitchers!

With only four days ’till the new season premieres, CS4U is giving you the breakdown on what you can expect from the show straight from Kirsten and Cameron themselves, Emma Ishta and Kyle Harris!

If you aren’t familiar with the show already, Stitchers follows Kirsten (Emma Ishta), a young woman recruited into a covert government agency to be ‘stitched’ into the minds of the recently deceased, using their memories to investigate murders and decipher mysteries that otherwise would have gone to the grave.

Working alongside Kirsten is Cameron (Kyle Harris), a brilliant neuroscientist whose passion for the program is evident in his work. The secret program is headed by Maggie (Salli Richardson-Whitfield), a skilled veteran of covert operations, and includes Linus (Ritesh Rajan), a socially immature bioelectrical engineer and communications technician. Kirsten’s roommate, Camille (Allison Scagliotti), a gifted computer science grad student, is also recruited to use her skills to assist Kirsten in her new role as a ‘stitcher.’

CS4U caught up with Emma Ishta and Kyle Harris to talk all things Stitchers! In our interview, Emma and Kyle tell us what we can expect to see from their characters on Stitchers, the most challenging part about playing their characters, and what they are most excited for the viewers to see. Emma and Kyle also talked about which moment in their lives they would stitch back to and a funny on-set secret — read the Q&A below to find out what it is!

Stitchers premieres Tuesday, June 2nd @ 9:00PM ET/PT on ABC Family.

Cs4U: What can we expect to see from your characters over the course of the season?

Emma Ishta: Kirsten is a computer science grad student and she gets recruited by this covert government agency to hack into the brains of deceased people.  She has this condition called temporal dysplasia that affects her in two different ways.  The first way is it affects her ability to comprehend the passage of time, so every moment to her feels as if it’s always been there, like she’s constantly experiencing déjà vu.  And it also affects her ability to emotionally connect with herself with her own emotions and also with the emotions of other people.  So throughout the season you see her become a part of this crazy program and how that affects her as a human being throughout the course of all the adventures they go on.

Kyle Harris: Cameron is the head of this Stitchers program that Kirsten is the subject in and you start to see his process.  As soon as he meets Kirsten, his world is flipped upside down because now he’s got this beautiful girl inside of his lab that he has to navigate his emotions for, but at the same time feel responsible entirely for because, as you learn throughout the season, there are some things that went wrong in the past in this Stitchers programming and he vows to never have it happen again.  So he’s just contemplating his emotions with Kirsten as are they romantic feelings or are they actually just overbearing parental feelings in a way because he’s got such a responsibility to protect her at all costs?  You start to see him grow as more of a hero and guy as she pulls him out to the street and basically takes the crime fighting into their own hands and that’s sort of different.

Emma Ishta: They really challenge each other and change each other and draw things out of each other that weren’t there before they met, and interestingly give each other little parts of their own personality.

CS4U: What’s the most challenging part about playing your character so far?

Emma Ishta: I think for me it’s tracking Kirsten’s emotional evolution as she goes through the season.  Every time she’s stitched into somebody else’s memories, she feels what they felt and it reconnects pathways in her brain, so that she’s able to reconnect with her own emotions, and that affects a person.  Imagine spending 23 years of your life or since she was 8 years old, not really feeling anything, not really connecting.  Now all of a sudden you have these really strong emotions pouring at you.  So I think the hardest thing for me has been tracking her journey as she evolves into an emotional being.

Kyle Harris: “Cameron’s relationship with Kirsten and knowing that ultimately she is slowly learning about herself and feelings and what it means to have sympathy and whatnot, but yet he’s still enamored by her and finding himself falling in love with her.  But he knows at the end of the day there’s no hope because she doesn’t really know herself yet, so why is he contemplating his feelings for this person that doesn’t really even really know the idea or the emotion of love.  So it’s a constant battle of why do I even waste my time with this…yet I need to because it’s my life’s work at this point, so juggling that.”

CS4U: If you could stitch back in your life, which memory would you go to?

Emma Ishta: “I’ve been asked this question before and I’m going to say the same answer I said then.  I’m going to say my wedding day.  It was full of joy and laughter and love and there was rain.  And people were dancing barefoot in the rain and mud everywhere and it was so unifying and wonderful and if I could experience that again, I would in a heartbeat.”

Kyle Harris: “I think for me it’s probably getting the phone call that I got this job because there’s that actor who didn’t really think this would necessarily be a possibility, but he was going to try anyways.  So many times you come home from a long hectic day on set or whatever and you want to complain about it… but you’re like “a million people would kill to have your hectic day, so remember that this is a blessing and that we get to do what we get to do.”  I’m very thankful for that.  But to go back and look at that excitement and that enthusiasm of me getting that phone call to keep driving forward as hopefully the show progresses and continues for seasons to come.  I haven’t had a wedding, so I really couldn’t say much [laughs].”

CS4U: What are you most excited for the viewers to see?

Kyle Harris: “I’m excited for them to see a sci-fi procedural show on their favorite network that they’ve never seen before. I think we’re branding a new way for the network and we’re very proud of what we’ve been doing. I think people are going to be able to relate to these characters and whether they’re into sci-fi or procedural or just cool human beings that are smart and using it in cool ways, I think that’s really fun.  I think it’s going to reach out to a lot of audiences.”

Emma Ishta: “I completely agree with Kyle.  It’s so different for the network, and we’re excited for the audience base and new people who might watch the show to see something different that we’ve been working on.”

CS4U: Do you guys have any secrets or hidden talents or anything that happened behind the scenes when you guys were filming the episodes that you would be willing to share with us?

Kyle Harris: “I fall at least once an episode on the stage [laughs].”

Emma Ishta: “I am an exceptionally talented cleaner. I’m very good at it.  Kyle can sing beautifully; he’s spent a lot of time in musicals. I can sing also, not maybe quite as well, but I can sing.  What’s been going on on set?  We laugh a lot out there.  All of us have a lot of fun.”

Kyle Harris: “If they ever release a blooper reel, it could be more entertaining than the show itself [laughs]. Just based off the amount of time that I’ve fallen on my face and—”

Emma Ishta: “Kyle has trouble going up and down stairs—[laughs].”

Author

  • Juliet Schroder

    Juliet is the founder and executive producer/host of Celeb Secrets and Celeb Secrets Country. When not reporting on the latest news in pop culture and country music, she enjoys traveling, spending time with friends and family, watching sports and exploring the latest fashion trends. Juliet holds a B.S. in marketing from St. John's University.

Juliet is the founder and executive producer/host of Celeb Secrets and Celeb Secrets Country. When not reporting on the latest news in pop culture and country music, she enjoys traveling, spending time with friends and family, watching sports and…

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