On Friday July 9, “Haven” will debut on the Syfy network. Based upon Stephen King’s novella “The Colorado Kid” and developed by screenwriters Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn, “Haven” stars Emily Rose as FBI Agent Audrey Parker, a young woman who is drawn to a mysterious town in Maine where the inhabitants exhibit strange supernatural powers. Lucas Bryant also stars in the series as Nathan Wournos.
Rose and Bryant recently joined Ernst and Dunn for a special conference call with the press about the upcoming season, the inspiration behind the show and whether King himself will show up on the set.
Q: Can you tell us how this project came together?
Jim Dunn: I guess I’ll start since it started with me and Sam. Years ago we were working with the people who were producing “The Dead Zone” and their development person, Adam Fredo brought us “The Colorado Kid” and [asked if] we [thought] we could find a TV series in this. And we had this idea of making the town cursed or filling it with people with supernatural afflictions.
We jumped through a variety of hoops, the biggest one being Stephen King liking the idea, liking what we were doing with the basic core of his book and so that’s really where it all started. We sold it to ABC and eventually it migrated to E1 and Syfy and our international partners.
Q: Emily and Lucas, how did you join the show?
Emily Rose: You know, usually pilot seasons starting back, I ended up coming actually straight back from my honeymoon and getting settled back into normal life and hitting pilot season hard. And one of the very first ones that came across for me that my manager was really interested in and when I read was also very interested in was “Haven.”
Sometimes you read pilots and you’re kind of like “I guess I could grow to love it.” But this was one of those ones that was really special from the get-go where I really fell in love with the character. It was really exciting to me and I was turning each page looking forward to what was happening. And so I just got involved with auditioning right away and was really fortunate to be there when it all the dust settled.
Lucas Bryant: I read the pilot, loved it from the start, and then doing a little bit of extra generating machine, I found out that Emily was attached to it and so I went in there and I had had the pleasure of working with Miss Emily Rose before.
And so I told them that “she is a total nightmare and if they were going to be able to deal with her they needed me.” And they bought it. And then I also bribed them with Canadian chocolate bars which went down really well.
Q: Emily, you’re playing a different character than the lead in the book. Can you talk about where the book ends and your character begins?
Emily Rose: Actually when I read “The Colorado Kid” initially I had a very strong reaction to it. I sort of threw it across the room and was like “what? What the heck?” And then I picked it back up and Stephen King so wonderfully in his afterward sort of nurses you through it and kind of helps you digest it.
And I honestly think yes, I mean, not being the Stephanie character specifically but, you know, Audrey Parker. I sort of feel like this reader’s point of view kind of observing this town and this sort of quirkiness that’s existing. So in a lot of ways I think that’s super beneficial that the audience kind of observes Haven, this central character of this town through the eyes of her.
And while that character may not be completely written as a person in that story it’s kind of neat because you definitely as a reader are a character through the observation through [that] kind of the quirkiness that’s going on and I think that’s kind of the part that Audrey Parker takes is the place of the audience observing and kind of having to cope with all the strange things that are getting thrown at her.
Q: What was it that bothered you about the book?
Emily Rose: Oh well because it’s the mystery of it all. I think all of us really love to [know what happens] at the end. Or do we? This Colorado Kid is a mystery and it’s not tidy at the end. It’s not a tied up bow, it’s not kind of like and this is what has happened exactly to a T.
That was weird and nothing like strongly bothered me. I love the characters of (Vincent Dave) and I love the weird town. But it’s that initial reaction of being like what, I want to know what happened.
Q: Emily and Lucas, what would you say is the major blind spot for your character and how is that going to trip your character up as the story unfolds?
Emily Rose: That’s a great question. I would say I think the major blind spot for my character happens initially in the first episode with this sort of confrontation that she kind of comes to grips with there might be some kind of link to her past and her family and her roots. And I think that as those kind of [things] start unfolding in the story it will kind of start tripping Audrey up at times.
I think she’s so used to having this kind of defense and that she knows how to operate and she knows how to do her world and her day-to-day; but the personal and the emotional sort of things that she has to face, she’d rather not. So I think that’s going to be her sort of blind [spot].
Lucas Bryant: I just [want] to mention also that Emily didn’t mention, she has a really hard time walking. That will affect her forward momentum.
But for me, Nathan [Wuornos] has a condition where he can’t feel pain so this has sort of alienated him from people and relationships recently and so I think that it’s intimacy that will sort of get in his way. But at the same time that’s something that when Audrey blows into town she kind of blows his world open. Don’t laugh, it’s true.
Q: Sam, can you give us some ideas about how the series will operate past the pilot?
Sam Ernst: We have two elements to the show. One is we are going to meet in each episode a supernaturally afflicted person like we did in the pilot and so we’ll tell that story, every week there will be a new person. So we’re doing this as a standalone show, each episode as a standalone episode so the people can jump in Episode 6 or Episode 16 or wherever they come in and they’ll be able to enjoy it.
However, there is a mythology to the show and Jim and I being Sci-fi supernatural geeks, we actually know the last scene of the series whether that’s Episode 25 or 75. We know that scene so we know exactly where we’re going and we’re going to unfold that over — each episode will have -— they will be stringing along to sort of talk about the story of Audrey and Nathan and the town of Haven and where it’s going.
Q: Emily, what super powered creatures are you looking forward to facing?
Emily Rose: In terms of the people that I want to encounter, I think probably someone that could jump from place to place would be kind of cool but the writers and producers and where it’s sort of going, they kind of like leaving me in a mysterious let me find it as it unfolds as well so I kind of enjoy that mystery as being what’s next. I never know.
Q: Can you and Lucas tell us a little bit about your experiences shooting the first episode of the series and some of the challenges stepping into your respective roles on the show?
Lucas Bryant: Well first of all, I guess the first shock was that we were here on the edge of the Earth. You know, we’re shooting in a little town outside of Halifax on the edge of the coast of Nova Scotia looking off into the great wide rest of the world. So upon arrival that was an immediate — well I thought we were shooting in Halifax initially and I learned we were...
Emily Rose: Shooting way outside of Halifax.
Lucas Bryant: Yeah, not quite in civilization but exactly where we wanted to be for this. I don’t know if you’ve traveled the south shore of Nova Scotia but it’s stunning and it’s a landscape that you don’t often see on television. So being able to capture that on film no less is a beautiful and exciting prospect and I think we were both kind of like strangers in a strange land for a little while when we started shooting which was a perfect place to be.
One of the immediate challenges is the weather. The pilot also deals with weather so it was all rather...
Emily Rose: Appropriate.
Lucas Bryant: Yep, and I mean, we got here in April and we started shooting in April and so in the scene in the pilot where Emily and I first meet each other, shooting that scene we were outside, it started off on a beautiful day and then it was black clouds and then it was pouring rain. Then we had hail and two rainbows by the end of the day.
And it was all in the same scene and it was, you know, I had very little faith that it would actually cut together but it does and it’s beautiful. And so we just quickly got used to that being the status quo. What you can expect during the day was everything to change every five minutes.
Emily Rose: I think for me one of the biggest challenges was Lucas and I have worked together before so immediately off the bat it’s one of those things where we get along and we kind of have a camaraderie. And there is that sort of — that kind of checking each other out sort of observing each other that happens in the first episode being like “okay, who are you and how do you run this town and who are you and who are you to come into this town and try to run it.?”
And so, that natural like sort of chemistry and familiarity I think works between the characters because in one way Audrey doesn’t want to feel anything sort of emotionally and then you have Nathan who can’t feel anything physically and how do those two sort of like interplay and how do they kind of walk that fine balance.
But in a way us working together before really helped because we have that natural sort of "we can fall into place and finish each other’s sentences."
But I think for me, I’ve been sitting with the pilot, sitting with the script for a little bit and so it’s to make each thing new and to make it “oh my word, what is this new place and who is this person and what’s going on and all of that.” So for me that was kind of like the fine little teeter-totter that I had to sit on.
Q: In the pilot episode, your characters have a little Mulder and Scully style interplay between them. Was it a conscious decision to pull off a reverse “X-Files” dynamic?
Lucas Bryant: Yeah, yeah, and I really fought to get Gillian Anderson’s hairstyle and color but no luck yet.
Emily Rose: Yeah, you definitely think of it stepping into the genre. You definitely know it’s out there. I think you know that it’s there and you know that it’s kind of the gauntlet sort of laid before you but you also want to make it fresh and new and its own entity in and of itself. So I think we take those sort of archetypes and characteristics into mind but want to make sure that we’re staying true to the people that we’ve been written as and how that plays out.
Lucas Bryant: Yeah and they’re great. I mean, they’re like a beautiful classic couple and I think we’re probably the next beautiful classic couple.
Q: We’ve heard that the series was originally called “Sanctuary” before the name was changed to “Haven.” What would the original title have meant for the series?
Jim Dunn: In the larger scheme of things it will be revealed why there are so many people with supernatural afflictions here in this one place. And the idea of naming it “Haven” or previously “Sanctuary” before someone else did a TV show with that name was that this is a place where theoretically for long periods of time these people are able to be without having their afflictions kick in but now we’re in a time when they are beginning to kick up again just when Audrey Parker happens to come to town.
Sam Ernst: And that’s something actually that we talk about in the second episode which I don’t think you’ve seen but Nathan actually reveals his perspective on what’s going on and how he knows what has happened in the past but he has no idea what’s happening in the future which is very consistent with the actors playing those roles.
Jim Dunn: And the writers writing them.
Q: Why do you think people want to follow these characters every week?
Emily Rose: I know that there’s a lot of kind of like procedural [dramas] and there’s also there’s a lot [of] paranormal weird stuff that people naturally are drawn to but I just hope that they’ll tune in because they can identify and enjoy spending time with these characters.
It’s always exciting when writers write the material like Sam and Jim have, where you’re really kind of like what is going on and what’s going to happen next. And then when you double that with a character that you enjoy hanging around and being with and joking with who’s also intriguing with their own sort of past ways, I think that’s a great recipe for a draw to come back and watch it every week. And because we’re the next beautiful couple.
Q: What did filming in Halifax, Lunenburg and Nova Scotia bring to the series?
Emily Rose: I always say that I think that Haven, Maine of course is the central character in this show and I think that Lunenburg and Chester and all these really cool places, you know, surrounding this area, it’s just eye candy.
It’s kind of like a lot of shows go out there and they’re filmed on the same lots in the same place and you see the same streets. And this is like I think you can agree from watching the screener it’s like stuff that you don’t see out there.
And doubled with the fact that we’re shooting on film and it’s very rare these days to be doing that to get the (greenness) of it. It really sets a tone and a place for us to play and to make these discoveries and it adds a certain weight. And Halifax, the people here and the crews here have been nice to us and really it’s a great place to be shooting.
I mean, I think the minute Sam and Jim they say, they stepped out in Lunenburg they were like “yeah, this is awesome.” And the minute I stepped out there I was like “okay, yep, I can’t shoot anywhere else, you know, this is perfect.”
Sam Ernst: It’s an absolutely beautiful. It’s an absolutely beautiful part of the world and it is a character in the show and that’s what we’re so excited about. We always saw it that way.
Jim and I spent a fair amount of time in Minnesota which has a lot of very - on the surface of it very normal people as you would think, whatever normal means. When you get to know them you find out they’re just as freaky as everybody else and certainly that’s true in Maine and Nova Scotia.
And of course, you know, I actually took the ferry from Maine to Nova Scotia and you don’t really feel like you’re changing cultures. It feels like it’s just a natural continuation from one group of people to the other. So it looks just like Maine of course and feels just like it. But everybody speaks a little funny. That’s the only difference I have found. And that’s just Lucas of course.
Lucas Bryant: That’s mostly me and (Jerry) our sound guy. He’s from Newfoundland.
Sam Ernst: Yeah, and although the crew is all of course local and they’re fantastic, just unbelievable to work with.
Q: Emily and Lucas, can you tell us what makes Sam and Jim’s scripts so unique?
Emily Rose: We love when Sam and Jim’s episodes come around because their writing is fantastic. The thing that we enjoy so much honestly is the natural banter. And I think that’s kind of some of the feedback we get from people who have seen it is the natural, you know, we want more of that. We want more of the banter between these two oddities.
So to me it’s look hearing, I can hear Sam and Jim saying things sometimes and I read it and it’s so nice to read a script and genuinely laugh out loud at certain beats and it’s great because they have a really good ear also for our voices kind of how we finish each other’s sentences and man, does that make our job so much easier.
Lucas Bryant: It’s a bit classic. Sam and Jim as you may know were like Siamese Twins. They were attached until they were like 17 I think, right?
Emily Rose: So we’re really seeing their banter back and forth.
Lucas Bryant: So it’s basically them.
Emily Rose: Yes, Lucas plays Sam and I play Jim.
Lucas Bryant: And the first thing you notice about their scripts is they cannot spell for the life of them. No I’m kidding. They have a beautiful, I think beautiful marriage of, you know, the absurd and mundane and human. You know, everything is always very real and human even in these wild circumstances and I think, you know, they like being - having a Minnesota connection that they understand part of my roots.
My father is from North Dakota so I’ve been trying to use my father’s side of the family as a bit of an inspiration for Nathan to say. And so I feel I have a real - I think they can understand the location for that.
Q: The pilot was great, but it was hard to tell that it was adapted from a Stephen King book. Did that present any additional challenges or any additional or sleepless nights in trying to put this together?
Sam Ernst: I’ll tackle this one to start anyway. That’s a great question, because yes, we had all those things, sleepless nights, Jim and I sitting on my porch talking about this.
There are two sides to Stephen King for us and we are both huge Stephen King fans. There’s the creepy crawly and then there’s all the cool character real world people’s lives who suddenly go sideways on them. That’s what he does to us. That’s our favorite part of Stephen King.
And actually his new book “Under the Dome” which I read over Christmas break while we were just starting to write the first episodes of the show, I was struck by the fact that there was one supernatural element to that book of course which is of course the dome. And the rest of it was just how all these incredibly normal people deal with that thing and how everything just goes crazy because of that.
And out of that 1100 page book which left a welt on my belly as I would sit there and read it in my bed under covers at night with a flashlight — that’s actually true — I would say maybe 90 pages are supernatural, 50, and the rest of it is just all the sideways stuff.
So that’s what this show is about. This show is about people’s lives going sideways after something supernatural happens to them. And what we’re really excited about is tracking Audrey and Nathan and hanging out with them as they try to help these people deal with these things. Sometimes they help them deal with in very positive ways and sometimes things go horribly awry and watching these two what we hope are very real characters deal with that is the journey that we want to go on with them.
Jim Dunn: Just to add one more thing to that. One of the things in genre TV that can sometimes be a problem is that people get so hung up on the bright shiny toy of the supernatural thing or the Sci Fi thing that the characters don’t really get a chance to live and breathe and become real characters.
And we’re trying to take the other approach which is to use the supernatural elements of the show to highlight the lives of the characters and get more emotional involvement and interesting things into the lives of our characters.
Q: Will Stephen King drop by for a cameo?
Sam Ernst: We’re hoping for that actually. Charles Cartwright, who is the publisher of “The Colorado Kid” and pretty tight with Mr. King is actually writing at least one if not more of the episodes this season. He was the publisher of Hard Case Crime that “The Colorado Kid” was published under and is an author in his own right. And I know that King has been in, he has seen the pilot, he’s been involved in everything and believe me, please say we would love to have Steve King come in.
Emily Rose: Yes Stephen King, yes please come and visit.
Sam Ernst: I would rather have him in the writer’s room though than on the set although I’d happily take both.
Jim Dunn: Right, and Mr. King if you’re out there listening to this our show owner is good friends with the guy who owns the Boston Red Sox so, you know, if you want to get tickets for something come on down to the set.
Sam Ernst: Yeah, I’m sure he can’t get those on his own.
Jim Dunn: Yeah, yeah, that much money.
