If you saw last week's premiere episode, you know that Cult is not have your average TV series. Created by Rockne S. O'Bannon (Alien Nation, Farscape), it's a CW show about a CW show -- also called Cult -- created by a mysterious man named Steven Rae, which appears to tie into some very ominous and even deadly events that are occurring, involving some of the show’s more impassioned fans.
I recently spoke to two of the show’s stars, Matt Davis and Jessica Lucas and when I mentioned to Davis that the show was ambitious but also somewhat complicated and asked him how he’d describe it, he replied, with a laugh, “’Ambitious and complicated!’ You know, it’s been an interesting challenge... How do you distill this high concept show into a sound bite that’s coherent? The idea, essentially, is that this is a show within a show that begins to blur the lines between reality and fiction, ultimately."
Matt Davis as Jeff and Jessica Lucas as Skye in Cult
Davis stars on Cult as a reporter, Jeff, who the pilot established had previously fabricated a story in the interest of implicating someone he knew to be guilty. Davis noted that in the midst of his investigation into the TV show, his character, “Definitely begins to flirt with his sense of justice and morality in the sense of what’s right and wrong. He does go dark, and he does press the limits even more so. You begin to wonder where he stands at the end of the day. He’s kind of the guy who will do whatever it takes to get the story out, even if that means compromising his integrity, I think. That theme is definitely played upon later throughout the season.”
Coming from The Vampire Diaries, Davis knows a thing or two about being on a CW series with a passionate fanbase. Given that Cult is about a CW show with a passionate fanbase, I asked the actors how much the show has fun with that idea. Said Davis, “There are little winks and nods here and there. I would have liked to have played with that a little bit more, but we were just so busy driving through the narrative that I think if Season 2 comes around, we’ll definitely have more fun with that sort of meta-ness of it all.”
Said Jessica Lucas, “I guess it’s weird that I’m on a CW show, and it’s about a CW show that everyone is obsessed with. You don’t really think about those kinds of things until you watch it, but it’s a cool mirror.”
As to how much danger Lucas' character, Skye, is putting herself in by investigating the very show she’s working on, Lucas remarked, “She has created some friendships within while working at the show. I don’t think anyone suspects her of investigating anything. She’s quite discrete. But there’s also that level of danger that she could get caught at any moment. Stephen Rae has an all seeing eye, and that plays into it as well.”
Davis stressed that, unlike his previous series, the threat on Cult, “Is not supernatural, but it does play with your psyche. It’s definitely psychological more than anything. I haven’t really seen the episodes - I’ve seen a couple of them. How they’re edited together, how the music plays, I think will accentuate that psychological thriller aspect of it, which is how it differentiates itself from The Vampire Diaries.”
Matt Davis in Cult
As for Jeff and Skye’s dynamic going forward, Davis explained, “We become really close friends, and we really rely on each other. It flirts with the romance here and there, but mostly we become a support system in a spin cycle of insanity. She becomes my center, and I become hers. We really rely on each other in that respect.”
When it came to who among those working on the show within the show might be involved in the dark events occurring, Lucas teased, “You never know. That’s the great thing about this show; there’s a lot of characters that get introduced in the subsequent episodes, and you don’t know. You don’t know anyone’s true motivations. Who can you trust, who can you not? And that’s part of the reason why Skye and Jeff bond so quickly, because they can only trust each other.”
Jessica Lucas in Cult
In the pilot, Skye revealed some tragic things about her past and her father disappearing. As to whether that is simply there as backstory or plays into what is happening with the mysterious events surrounding the show, Lucas wouldn't get specific, but said, “I think she has a larger reason for being so invested in Cult, and you find out what that is quickly. She’s on her own mission, and it happens to coincide with Jeff’s. She’s not there just to tag along with Jeff and be his buddy, no. She has her own reasons for being there.”
Circling back to the fact that Cult uses The CW itself as part of its world, Davis said, “I thought it was cool. I loved all that stuff, and I wanted them to push it even more. There’s a scene where The CW’s throwing a party for the Cult show. I called up Rockne and said, ‘Listen, we’ve got to fly a couple of my buddies out from The Vampire Diaries and have them in attendance at the party, like trying to get in.’ I would have loved to have had a moment like that, where you see Zach [Roerig], Michael [Trevino] and them at this party and bumping into Jeff, you know, have them do a double-take or something like that. But they felt like that would have been too much. But I was campaigning for a moment like that!”
Cult airs Tuesdays at 9pm on The CW.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @EricIGN, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman.
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
0 comments:
Post a Comment