Cinemax’s new series Outcast, based on the Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) graphic novel of the same name, had its world premiere at the 30th annual SXSW Music, Film and Interactive Conferences and Festivals. While I wasn’t able to catch the premiere due to scheduling issues (I chose to interview James Caan instead), I was able to interview Adam Wingard, who directed the pilot and actor Patrick Fugit. The interview took place at a press roundtable with me, Daily Dead writer Heather Wixson and Pajiba writer Kristy Puchko. We all took turns asking questions about the series and here is what Wingard and Fugit had to say!

Robert was talking about the casting of the series and they were saying that you had some interesting stories about the audition process.

Patrick Fugit: As far as I know we only met with one kid. I got the part and then Phil Glenister got the part and they said they needed to cast who would eventually be Wren Schmidt. Then they were looking for this little boy. We came into the casting director’s office one day and Gabriel comes walking in. He’s small for a 10-year-old at the time. He’s still pretty small but he has an insanely large personality and he’s very clever. He comes into the room and basically just owns the room. He comes in, he introduces himself, he shakes everybody’s hands.

Adam Wingard: He’s got a handshake, yeah!

Fugit: So his mom is like “Cool, you do your thing” and she takes off. Then he just sits down in the chair and I can see him sizing me up.

Wingard: And he’s not nervous at all, or at least he doesn’t appear to be.

Fugit: No, he was ready for something like that.

Did he make you nervous?

Fugit: Yes. So he sits down and Adam’s like “Okay so, are you good? Do you have any questions?”

Wingard: Well I thought I had to talk to him like he was a kid. I’m trying to break everything down in very simple terms and he’s beyond that. I would say “Okay you’re going to go into scary mode right here.” But he’s not looking at it like that. He’s thinking about his motivation and stuff and he said something to that effect during the audition where he had this in-depth approach to it. We were all like “Uhhh…..yes?”

Fugit: So Adam says “Do you have any questions?” and Gabriel says “Nope. I’m ready.” Then we do a take which is us coming in and talking to him while he’s possessed and going back and forth between an innocent 10-year-old and a demon persona. And we walk in and he’s so in it and so committed that I couldn’t help but really just be in it with him. So we did the first take and I was like “I don’t see any other possibilities. This is the dude. I think I turned around and looked at Chris [Black, the showrunner] and was like [mouths “Oh my God”]. “Who is this guy?” So we did it a few times and Adam made some adjustments and what’s really impressive is when young actors can change and take direction because a lot of times kids are coached. So they memorize what to do but not really why they are doing it. Once Adam figured he could direct Gabriel with why he should do something and Gabriel could interpret that in his own way (like an actor is supposed to be able to do) he could just run with it.

Adam for you. Coming from a film world, what was the biggest change for you in terms of directing the pilot. Was there a big change for you in terms of story telling?

Wingard: There’s definitely a different kind of time constraint. You’re on a much more accelerated schedule than you are on a film so that in and of itself was kind of scary for me. The main thing that was different for me is that when you’re making a feature film you’re making something that exists as a singular event, unless you’re setting up sequels and stuff. With this, you know that you’re trying to set up at least one season worth of episodes so for me I was trying to make my decisions like picking locations and casting and designing the look and feel of it. I had to ask myself “Is this something that’s duplicatable?” One of the things that helped me out was working with someone like David Tattersall, our cinematographer, who also shot The Walking Dead pilot. He’s shot so many movies from Green Mile to Speed Racer and everything in between. And he really helped me look at how to get through something like this. On the flip side of that coin, the network and everyone who’s putting all of this money in still want it to look and feel like a motion picture and not like a network series so you have all of these pressures to make it look and feel like that. Except in this case you only have half the time to do it.

To follow up on that: When you’re directing a pilot you’re setting the tone for an entire series. Is there a certain kind of pressure that comes with that as well?

Wingard: Fortunately for me all I can do really is put what was on the page and Robert [Kirkman, the creator] was a great guide in that sense that he has a very distinctive idea of what the tone and everything was. I come from a more humorous horror background. A lot of the stuff I have has humor in it and the horror that I’ve done in the past has a lot of jump scares and things of that nature. So there’s actually a moment on the pilot where I was approaching a creepy scene where a character is sitting there and in the script this possessed woman comes up to this little boy and his smelling him and grabs his hair and pulls him out of the chair. Whenever I was blocking it out I thought it might be fun to do a jump scare version of that where it’s the same thing but instead of her kind of looming over him we creepily push in on the boy and a hand comes in and yanks him out. I was doing a couple of takes of that and was a good ways into it when Robert comes over and asks “Um, what are you doing right now?” And I said “Well I’m making a jump scare” and he’s responds with “Well why don’t you take another look at what’s on the page and just shoot that.” I pushed back a little and then he kind of reiterated that it’s not a show about jump scares or the moment of violence. It’s about the creeping dread of that moment. That was a big turning point for me, which was really the first scary scene we had filmed. This is a show that’s about the anticipation of the scare and not the actual scare.

So how did you choose to approach your character?

Fugit: One of the things that’s always interesting to me about character stories is duality. For me what’s interesting about Kyle is his story is dark and his circumstances are very dark, but I like to try to get across that Kyle’s a very bright person and has a very bright arc and has these circumstances that surround him in darkness. That’s what he succumbs to when we meet him in the first episode and any character that appears one way but inwardly is something else is interesting to me. I wanted to get that across. I didn’t want him to feel to dark or down or depressing or something like that.

It’s kind of hard to watch a character that is one-note and dark. But the way you’re talking about Kyle it sounds like he has something that will make people want to keep with him. Is that something you think about?

Fugit: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like if a character is portrayed in one way and carries that momentum throughout then whoever plays that has to be really good at that note. You know, there are actors who are really good at that one note but most actors need more texture or variety to keep interested. I always think that if there’s more going on or a motivation to the character that they don’t get to express until they’ve discovered more about themselves then it makes it more compelling for the viewer to watch. You feel more of a desire to root for them or keep going because if a character is just a victim of the circumstances then he’s kind of annoying. So somebody who wants to be proactive and not be subject to anything is more interesting than the other way around.

Did you have a scene or a sequence that you found particularly difficult to film? Like one that after so many takes you were just like “Screw it, let’s move on?”

Wingard: For me I was nervous because there’s so much action with child actors. We’ve touched on that a little bit here but there’s some pretty extreme stuff that happens with Gabriel that involves him levitating and getting knocked around and all this stuff, so even beyond the fear of working with kids for the first time and being able to direct them in a way that feels realistic, I had a lot of questions as to how we were going to achieve the physical aspect of it. Those fears immediately went away once we hired our stunt coordinator and the rest of the team because they had a great handle on it. Hiro [Koda], the stunt coordinator, has a great knack of finding the perfect stuntperson for a kid. He’ll find a full-grown adult that looks like a child from the right angle and who can act believably in that kind of way and he’s able to coach the kids to do as much on-screen as possible while keeping them safe the entire time. But there was a lot of fears going into it but once we got going it was more a fear of if we could get all this and less about the technical ability of doing it.

Fugit: Yeah and sequences where you have to express physical space and time can be difficult to storytell because if you’re sitting there and watching it your mind can track what’s going on but as soon as you have to start telling the story and tell it for the audience then it become much more complicated. Like he’s talking about but also form the actor’s perspective there’s a lot of things that have to happen with your emotional pitch. Especially if you’re looking at a sequence like what we filmed which took two and a half days.

Wingard: Well it was sort of  several possession scenes spread out over the course of two and a half days. [laughs]

Fugit: So yeah two and a half days of pretty high-pitched physical exertion and portraying emotion on top of that and re-doing the makeup and hair and looking fake-sweaty again, getting blood off that may have happened. Add to that getting out of wire harnesses and stuff like that? It can be pretty exhausting. I think that going into that I kept wondering how Gabriel was going to handle it but the dude crushes everything so he crushed that too. He actually kept me going through a lot of it. I’d be like “What’s Wingard doing now?” But Gabriel is just 110% every take, all the time. He’s biting me and hitting me and jumping on me. That sort of thing.

Can you guys talk a little bit about the research you did with possessions and what you came into this with?

Wingard: Well I was already familiar with real-life possessions and a whole lot of different possession movies. The Exorcist is one of my favorite films. I sort of ironically but not really love The Exorcist II as well for different reasons. So for me I was really familiar with the idea but Robert’s approach to it was that he created this entirely new mythology to the way we were approaching the exorcisms and what I thought was fun was that you are watching characters who are looking at it the same way and playing by the rules that we know of it and then they’re kind of discovering that things are different and that this is the kind of thing that is a different reality than what we’re dealing with here. And that was also what drew me to the project to begin with. I didn’t want to do another Catholic exorcism movie or show. I want to tackle a lot of different sub-genres over the course of my career and exorcism is just one of those that is kind of lingering out there and if I’m going to do it it’s got to be something that’s really new and different and that’s what this is.

Before they send us off do you have anything you want to tease about the show?

Wingard: Um, that’s a good question. I don’t know.

Patrick is just hiding his face.

Wingard: [laughs] Um, well I think the pilot has a lot of surprises and mystery to it. That’s what makes it such a fun series. It doesn’t give you all the answers. I think it sets up the tone and feel and ha a lot of great moments but ultimately it leaves you wanting more and I think that’s what good TV does.

Fugit: Yeah. There’s always parts of the story that has a discovery period. Those are always really exciting to me. That’s what this first season involves. Establishing the rules of this world and sort of seeking out answers and things like that that I find really fun.

Were either of you superstitious about making a show about demons?

Wingard: I’m trying to think if I ever had any moments like that. I mean we were shooting in a real church and I didn’t want to be disrespectful to the people actually running the church. Even though the first thing we did is I think everybody was swearing like normal, but you’ve got to check yourself because at the end of the day you don’t want to be disrespectful. I mean it’s not my belief system but you still don’t want to disrespect.

Fugit: We had people put up signs up on garages on the street that said ‘Outcast’ is going to bring the devil to South Carolina.

Check out Outcast when it premieres on Cinemax on June 3, 2016!