SAN DIEGO – Oscar-winner Melissa Leo is such a convincing actress that for a brief moment on the “Wayward Pines” press line at San Diego Comic-Con, she had me doubting whether I even knew where I really was.
“I think the show is full of, like a lot of [M.] Night ]Shyamalan]'s work, you think who know you're talking to, but do you know who you're talking to?” said Leo ominously. “Do you even really know where you are?”
Cue existential crisis.
Thankfully, I recovered just enough to continue posing questions to Leo and her co-star Toby Jones about the upcoming FOX “event series,” including whether shooting the filmmaker-driven show – which in addition to executive-producer Shyamalan features episodes helmed by such big-screen directors as Nimrod Antal (“Predators,” “Metallica Through the Never”) and Zal Batmanglij (“The East”) – feels at times more like shooting a movie than a TV seris
“In some ways yes, and in some ways not,” said Leo. “You know, in some ways it's really no different acting on a stage, or acting on a film or a television set for that matter. And in other ways there are things that are very different. There's a very different rhythm in shooting television, and then as Toby has pointed out quite a bit, and rightly so, there's something about our show, 'Wayward Pines,' that the look of it, to be in Vancouver, Canada, and have that huge massive sky and the size of things there in a way then becomes part of the show, and it's shot more like a film.”
“People's televisions now can make everything look like a movie,” added Jones, who was able to tell me essentially nothing about his character without the risk of spoiling one or more of the show's numerous plot twists. “And the way people watch TV [now], it becomes harder and harder to spot the difference.”
To check out the full interview – which includes Jones' interesting interpretation of the word “quirky” – click on the video above.
“Wayward Pines” premieres early next year on FOX.