Interviews
“Wolf Like Me” Creator Abe Forsythe on Werewolf Effects, Expanding the Lore and a Possible Season 3
All seven episodes of Peacock’s “Wolf Like Me” Season 2 are available to stream now (our review), doubling down on the charm and the werewolf complications introduced in season one. It makes for the perfect Halloween binge as October starts to wind down.
The series was created by Abe Forsythe (Little Monsters), who also serves as writer, director, and executive producer.
In season two, Mary (Isla Fisher) and Gary (Josh Gad) leap into the next phase of their relationship and face their biggest challenge yet: pregnancy. Typical anxieties for any expecting couple get exacerbated tenfold when the mom-to-be also happens to be a werewolf.
Without delving into spoilers, the second season ends on a cliffhanger, unlike the tidy, cathartic conclusion of season one. It’s the precise type of ending that demands a third season to see what happens next. Bloody Disgusting sought answers from series creator Abe Forsythe, and while this spoiler-free interview won’t ruin the journey for those who haven’t watched, the series creator does discuss the werewolf design and effects, expanding the lore for season two, and he also teases the potential for a third season of “Wolf Like Me.”
WOLF LIKE ME — “Episode 204” Episode 204 — Pictured: Josh Gad as Gary — (Photo by: Narelle Portanier/Peacock)
Viewers get to see much more of Mary in werewolf form this season, as well as a very cute werewolf pup glimpsed in season two’s opening sequence. Of course, Mary’s wolf form is distinctly feminine and in line with the series’ charming romantic dramedy tone.
Forsythe explains, “Odd Studio, who do all of our special effects, prosthetic effects, and the puppets and everything, it’s this amazing team based in Sydney, Australia. They won the Oscar for Fury Road. They’ve worked on movies like Alien: Covenant and Thor. It’s an amazing studio run by Damian Martin and Adam Johansen, and they did the zombies for us in Little Monsters. They’re such huge horror nerds, obviously. An American Werewolf in London was the thing that made them want to get into their vocation. But I know when I go to them, when I’ve got access to minds like that, it’s not about me dictating this is what I want or this is this.”
“I literally go to them and, in season one, it was, ‘We’re doing a show with a werewolf,’ and the only notes that I gave them were, well, Isla Fisher is playing the werewolf, it needs to be a four-legged werewolf, and it needs to be feminine. That’s all that I gave them,” he continues.
“Then their design that they brought back was incredible, the details that they found and ways of bringing those into their design and then executing it from a technical point of view. Similarly, without giving anything away, you see Mary’s fear at the beginning of [Season 2], and you see something else at the end of the season. I was trying to find fun ways of making those as different as possible. That gag with the nightmare baby was so much fun to execute because it was really just old school. It was just like a prosthetic belly with a puppet bursting out. For me, it felt like going back to Brain Dead, Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead.
“Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste and Brain Dead, I saw those when I was ten years old, and I was like, ‘This is what I want to do for a living.’ To be able to execute a gag like that is enormously satisfying for me because it’s like I’m finally able to indulge in what the 10-year-old version of me wanted to do as an adult. I know if I could have seen myself at the age of 40 when I was ten on set with a team like that, executing an idea like that, for me, I just would’ve been like, ‘I’ve come full circle.'”
Because season two is open-ended compared to the first, one of the biggest questions for Forsythe was whether he had an overarching plan for the series or if he was taking it season by season. Forsythe’s candid answer reveals how much the series has evolved since its inception and his fears about ending season two on such an unsettled note.
“Look, it evolves. But when we pitched this show initially to networks, I did pitch a three-season arc to it,” he tells us. “But then, season one was designed in a way that the ending was open for interpretation, but you got enough to know that these characters are going to be okay. I didn’t presume that I would get a season two. I wanted to create something that was satisfying for season one. When we did get greenlit for season two, and through breaking the story, I was like, ‘Oh, I really want to do season two now. I can see how we can keep pushing this and keep upping the ante and raising the stakes.’ But I certainly didn’t foresee the ending until about five weeks into pre-production. Actually, the police element of the script was the last thing that appeared. It appeared right before pre-production started. So, I was retooling and throwing a huge storyline out, which the police then came in and replaced.
“I think I had a similar reaction to what you just talked about, too. When it presented itself, it was like, ‘Oh my God, this is how it has to end. This is what makes sense.’ And then, ‘Am I really going to do this?’ Because it’s going to be incredibly unsatisfying if this is where the show ends. I am writing myself into a corner that I’m committing to continuing this story, which has already taken up three years of my life, and if it goes into a third season, will end up being about four and a half, five years of just me working on this other than anything else. But it just felt right. It just felt like the right thing to do. I feel like you just have to keep leaning into what it tells you it needs to be, and it was just screaming at me that it needed to be in there. Now here we are trying to work out, for me, I’m trying to work out how to get them out of that situation at the moment.“
WOLF LIKE ME — “Episode 207” Episode 207 — Pictured: (l-r) Isla Fisher as Mary, Josh Gad as Gary — (Photo by: Narelle Portanier/Peacock)
One of the most fascinating elements of “Wolf Like Me” is the way Forsythe and his writers graft familiar horror lore onto a slice-of-life dramedy grounded by emotionally authentic characters. When asked if werewolf and horror lore factors into his process at all, the series creator drops major hints on where season three could go. Hint: even more werewolf fun.
“In terms of the werewolf lore, interestingly, if you’re going into a genre thing, it was the same with Little Monsters; it’s like, okay, there’s just certain things that we need to know, that the audience needs to know about the rules. Are we following the rules, or are we breaking the rules? We try to follow the rules and communicate what those rules are, but not make it a show about any of those rules. I just think the audience likes to know, ‘Okay, it’s this; therefore, I can just relax now and just go with it.’ Then, you can start subverting those rules.
“But you can’t subvert something until you’ve set it up properly in the first place. I’ve just been in the writer’s room for the last week, actually with the same team that helped me break the season two story. We came up with something about what the werewolf does when you’re a werewolf. It’s something that I haven’t heard used with werewolf lore before, but it was a really satisfying discovery to make because we’d set it up without even realizing it.”
Forsythe continues, “And if we get a season three, there’s going to be a lot more explained about what happens. When you turn into a wolf, what does that bring up? What side of your personality or what side of the things that you have or haven’t dealt with are you going to be forced to deal with because you are in animal form? So it’s that thing of setting it up and then making it clear to the audience that we’ve got it under control and then subverting things as much as you can.”
Don’t miss this gem of a werewolf show; it’s available on Peacock now.
Only one episode remains in Season 3 of “Chucky,” and what a bloody road it’s been so far, especially for actor Devon Sawa. The actor has now officially died twice on screen this season, pulling double duty as President James Collins and body double Randall Jenkins.
If you thought Chucky’s ruthless eye-gouging of the President was bloody, this week’s Episode 7 traps Randall Jenkins in an elevator that feels straight out of an iconic horror classic.
Bloody Disgusting spoke with series creator Don Mancini and actor Devon Sawa about that ultra-bloody death sequence and how the actor inspires Mancini’s writing on the series.
Mancini explains, “Devon’s a bit of a muse. Idle Hands and Final Destination is where my Devon Sawa fandom started, like a lot of people; although yours may have started with Casper. I was a bit too old for that. But it’s really just about how I love writing for actors that I respect and then know. So, it’s like having worked with Devon for three years now, I’m just always thinking, ‘Oh, what would be a fun thing to throw his way that would be unexpected and different that he hasn’t done?’ That’s really what motivates me.”
For Sawa, “Chucky“ is an actor’s dream in that the series gives him not one but multiple roles to sink his teeth into, often within the same season. But the actor is also a huge horror fan, and Season 3: Part 2 gives him the opportunity to pay homage to a classic: Kubrick’s The Shining.
CHUCKY — “There Will Be Blood” Episode 307 — Pictured in this screengrab: (l-r) Devon Sawa as President James Collins, K.C. Collins as Coop — (Photo by: SYFY)
“Collectively, it’s just amazing to put on the different outfits, to do the hair differently, to get different types of dialogue,“ Sawa says of working on the series. “The elevator scene, it’s like being a kid again. I was up to my eyeballs in blood, and it felt very Kubrick. Everybody there was having such a good time, and we were all doing this cool horror stuff, and it felt amazing. It really was a good day.”
Sawa elaborates on being submerged in so much blood, “It was uncomfortable, cold, and sticky, and it got in my ears and my nose. But it was well worth it. I didn’t complain once. I was like, ‘This is why I do what I do, to do scenes like this,‘ the scenes that I grew up watching on VHS cassette, and now we’re doing it in HD, and it’s all so cool.“
It’s always the characters and the actors behind them that matter most to Mancini, even when he delights in coming up with inventive kills and incorporating horror references. And he’s killed Devon Sawa’s characters often. Could future seasons top the record of on-screen Sawa deaths?
“Well, I guess we did it twice in season one and once in season two,“ Mancini counts. “So yeah, I guess I would have to up the ante next season. I’ll really be juggling a lot of falls. But I think it’s hopefully as much about quality as quantity. I want to give him a good role that he’s going to enjoy sinking his teeth into as an actor. It’s not just about the deaths.”
Sawa adds, “Don’s never really talked about how many times could we kill you. He’s always talking about, ‘How can I make this death better,’ and that’s what I think excites him is how he can top each death. The electricity, to me blowing up to, obviously in this season, the eyes and with the elevator, which was my favorite one to shoot. So if it goes on, we’ll see if he could top the deaths.”
CHUCKY — “Death Becomes Her” Episode 305 — Pictured in this screengrab: Devon Sawa as James Collins — (Photo by: SYFY)
The actor has played a handful of distinctly different characters since the series launch, each one meeting a grisly end thanks to Chucky. And Season 3 gave Sawa his favorite characters yet.
“I would say the second one was a lot of fun to shoot,“ the actor says of Randall Jenkins. “The President was great. I liked playing the President. He was the most grounded, I hope, of all the characters. I did like playing him a lot.” Mancini adds, “He’s grounded, but he’s also really traumatized, and I thought you did that really well, too.”
The series creator also reveals a surprise correlation between President James Collins’ character arc and a ’90s horror favorite.
“I saw Devon’s role as the president in Season 3; he’s very Kennedy-esque,“ Mancini explains. “But then given the supernatural plot turns that happen, to me, the analogy is Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, the character that is seeing these weird little things happening around the house that is starting to screw with his sanity and he starts to insist, ‘I’m seeing a ghost,‘ and his spouse thinks he’s nuts. So I always like that. That’s Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, which is a movie I love.”
The finale of “Chucky” Season 3: Part 2 airs Wednesday, May 1 on USA & SYFY.
Dev Patel’s ‘Monkey Man’ Is Now Available to Watch at Home!
‘Infested’ Review – One of the Best Spiders Attack Horror Movies in Years
Five Underseen Vampire Horror Movies to Stream This Week
Limited Edition ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ Monster High Doll Releasing This Week!
Rated “R” ‘The Little Mermaid’ Horror Movie Coming Soon; Watch the Trailer
You must be logged in to post a comment.