2018 New York Comic Con
Day 3 (October 6, 2018)
At this year’s New York Comic Con, we got a chance to speak with Liz Heldens, the Executive Producer and Showrunner of the upcoming Fox series, The Passage. Joining Liz was Justin Cronin, author of the 2010 sci-fi, dystopian, monster horror novel of the same name which the show is based on. The Passage premieres on Fox on January 14, 2019.
Liz and Justin sat at the roundtable for a long time, much longer than we’re usually given access to creatives at these types of things. I appreciate them for answering all of the questions tossed at them. Liz and Justin spoke a variety of topics, including working together on adapting the novels to television; how people experience a story on a personal level; and the importance of telling a character driven story in a genre show.
“I certainly approached it as character first and genre second, which is how I think Justin approached the novels.” ~ Liz Heldens
“A book is an event and event happens every time it’s read.” ~ Justin Cronin
After the jump, check out transcribed excerpts from the interview with Liz and Justin, as well as video of the full unedited interview!
Liz and Justin, on working together adapting the novels into a TV show …
JC: “Liz is in charge. I wrote the books. Liz knows what she’s doing. This is her area of expertise. This is her specialty.”
LH: “I came to these books as a huge fan. I read them in 2012. I waited for The City of Mirrors [the third book in the trilogy, released in 2016] to come out. I pre-ordered it, like a geek. I waited. It’s been really nice for us and the writers to have access to Justin … even at a big picture level to make sure we’re sort of on the same page … Our first season is focusing on “Project Noah.” We have the time to build on what Justin did in the book. To kind of go deeper into some different characters. It’s really important to all us that it’s really true to what we love in the book. And it feels like the spirit of what is in the book feels like it’s in the show.”
Liz, on adjusting to a genre show coming from a background that includes Friday Night Lights …
LH: “Yeah, a lot of this is new to me. I’m kind of a weird fit for this show. But I do think, like when we met [looks at Justin], there’s some DNA of Friday Night Lights in this show.”
JC: “Friday Night Lights is my favorite show … prior to knowing Liz.”
LH: “I certainly approached it as character first and genre second, which is how I think Justin approached the novels. And, that’s what make it fun for us. To be able to play, to do character work on such a big canvas. It’s super fun. It’s great.”
Justin, on watching his novel be adapted for television …
JC: “Every time the book gets read by someone, it’s actually different … a book is an event and event happens every time it’s read. Moves from the mind of the reader, writer does half the work, reader builds a story in their head … that’s how art works, that’s how narrative works. So whenever anybody reads it, they’re seeing something different, experiencing something different, anyway. But it’s also private. I don’t see what they see, I only see what I see. So when it becomes television, when it actually goes into that visual medium … I’m seeing Liz’s dream.”
Liz, on how the relationship story makes the genre elements accessible to all viewers …
“So many women have read this book and are big fans. And I think it’s because of that relationship [Brad and Amy’s relationship] because you make the world, the genre stuff, so accessible to anybody because they can recognize themselves in some of the characters.”
Liz, on how she hopes to present stories for all the characters that invest viewers …
“As we got forward, we use flashbacks to tell character’s backstories and my hope is that you get invested with everybody just as much as you are with Brad and Amy. Shauna Babcock, we unpack her backstory in I think the third episode, and I think she’s got a super sympathetic story. And then you go, wow, she seems like a bad guy but she has this whole story,you understand why, the journey that took her to Project Noah. I hope we hook into everybody.”
Liz, on casting Saniyya Sidney in the role of Amy Bellafonte …
LH: “Saniyya [Sidney, who plays the lead character Amy Bellafonte] walked in and just took the part off the table for anybody else. It was just very clear the minute she opened her mouth that this was her part and it was nobody else’s part and that’s just the way it’s going to be.”
Liz, on how no one on The Passage (other than Henry Ian Cusick) is really from a “genre” background …
LH: “We just come from shows about human beings … on the Planet Earth.”