From is here, people. And it’s time to get on board.
A sci-fi thriller from the producers of Lost with an insanely deep cast and a very compelling hook. What happens when you enter a town you just can’t leave, and the monsters there come out at night?
We were lucky enough to chat with the stars of the series Harold Perrineau, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Eion Bailey about how their characters fit into this world and what they’re hoping the audience connect with in their new show.
My first question for all three of you and starting with Catalina, if you could just describe for us a little bit about the characters you play on From?
Catalina Sandino Moreno: Yes, I play Tabitha Matthews. She is in this event with her family, and she is basically trading one nightmare from another. Before she gets stuck in the town, she’s leaving hell. I think any parent would agree. And when she arrives into town, she is thrown into this world that is completely unreal.
And she just has to deal day by day, I guess.
Harold Perrineau: I play a character named Boyd Stevens, who is the sheriff of this town that we’re in, and no one can get out. And I’m tasked with, at least at this point, tasked with the job sort of keeping everybody in the town as safe as possible and then hopefully helping us all figure a way out. And that’s who I am.
Eion Bailey: I play Jim Matthews, and I’m a father and a husband and a man struggling to heal a great wound in his family. And he cannot figure out how to do it. And he loves his wife immensely and loves his family immensely, and wants to hold it all together.
But we’re finding it really challenging at this point. And then we get thrust into something even more extreme, which is the nightmare of this place.
And over the course of the season, he has to grow up and become more of a man and a better husband and a better father than he was in order to have any chance of getting his family to safety and navigating this extremely perilous town.
Harold, what drew you to the role of Boyd? And in what ways did you find yourself connecting with him?
Harold Perrineau: Look, I think the writing of our show is just topnotch. I think it’s really, really fantastic. I think the show is really compelling. I personally like playing characters who have questionable motives
And this character, sometimes it feels like we’re not so sure about him. We’re not sure if he’s a good guy or bad guy. I feel like that happens sometimes. And I like those characters that have to get things done, but you’re not sure the way they’re getting it done is correct.
So the writing first drew me to it, then the idea that Jack Bender was going to be one of our executive producers and director. That drew me to it because having worked with him before. I knew that he knew how to do a show.
I wasn’t interested in doing the show about monsters. They’re coming to eat you.
He actually knew how to do a show that’s really about people. And that’s the part that’s scary, right? That’s the part they’re all invested in, like what’s going to happen to these folks? And I know that Jack knows how to handle that brilliantly, no question.
So the idea that I get to work with Jack Bender, again, and Jeff Pinkner, those are the things that drew me to it. Also, the rest of the cast then filled in, and I was like, “Oh, this is going to be really, really great.”
And I wasn’t familiar with John Griffin until just reading those first couple of scripts. And I just became a fan right away. So all those things drew me to wanting to be part of this show,
Catalina, From seems to be rooted in blood family and found family. Can you kind of speak to that family aspect of the series?
Catalina Sandino Moreno: Well, as a family coming in this world, having to tackle all the traps, I guess I can call them, that this world is thrown at us, I think it’s really important. Especially you see that first, Tabitha really wants her family to be together.
They don’t know where they are. They don’t trust anyone. They had a loss, as Eion was saying. They’re still wounded. They’re still very, very much wounded.
So, I just think that unity of family for her is very important, for them to heal. And I think throughout the season, you will find that some of the problems are resolved because they stay together.
Eion, how do you hope the audience connects with From?
Eion Bailey: I imagine people will see the parallels to their own lives and everything we see around us.
I feel like we all, on some level, feel a terror and can’t quite name it, or we do name it and make judgments about it, but we’re not necessarily correct. And we’ll question whether we’re right about what we’re thinking.
And the fact that these creatures that want to do us harm look ostensibly like how we would imagine our neighbors look is a really interesting notion. Because we walk through the world, and we’re taught to walk through the world, especially now in the last couple of years, to be scared of everybody.
Everyone is a potential danger. And we’ve all been, of course at different times, felt like we’ve been trapped in our own homes and can’t get out. So I think with everything that’s happened, especially in the last couple of years, this hits truly, really close to home and will for a lot of people.
And so, therefore it’ll just be about whether or not people are willing to feel that there’s some kind of relief in that, to experience that in a story version, that also is universal enough to not have to be specific and specific enough to not have to be or finds universality in its specificity.
But I imagine people, if they’re willing to look at the times, they’ll see a lot of resemblance to, to their own lives and everything we see around us, and that we’re all collectively living now.
Harold, with From being a horror series, is there a certain headspace that you have to get into when the material is this twisted and dark and scary?
Harold Perrineau: That’s sort of one of the things I was saying earlier. It’s like, it is listed as a horror, in the horror genre. But for me, I’m not so concerned about that aspect.
Like Eion is saying, we’re all living in what you might consider a horror amount of times. We are just human beings trying to get through it.
So for me, being in the town where we are, and we have monsters, doesn’t feel much different to living in my house while this virus around is trying to get to you, trying to duck it and weave it.
So for me, I don’t have to get into headspace about the horror of it all, but I do have to get into a headspace about the impending danger of it all.
And also, to fill out the character, I have to get into where the character is coming from. And so then there is a real headspace there that was really tricky to navigate because I needed to keep it close and available but not have it impact my actual family.
Boyd is coming from a place of real hurt and tragedy. And so, I have to be in that headspace, but I have to keep navigating it as we go. But not so much, like I said, about the horror, mostly about the internal journey.
We’ll be covering From all season long here at TV Fanatic, so look out for our weekly reviews and make sure to join the conversation.
From premieres on EPIX Sunday, February 20th at 9 pm.
Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.