‘Hemlock Grove’: Everything You Need To Know
By: Chris Jancelewicz & Annette Bourdeau
Date: April 18, 2013
Source: The Huffington Post Canada

Note: This is a snippet of an interview with the cast and crew of HEMLOCK GROVE during a press set tour on December 12, 2012 in Toronto. I have included the parts of the interview with AARON DOUGLAS below. To read the full interview, click HERE.

1. It feels more like a 13-hour movie than 13 one-hour episodes. “Like a novel, it’s designed to work as a whole,” explains McGreevy.

“The cool thing about doing it for Netflix is there are no act breaks,” adds Douglas. “You don’t have those shlocky breaks where you have to watch a soap commercial and then wait to find out what happens. It’s seamless in that way.”

“This is something completely fresh and new,” agrees Skarsgard. “You hear ‘werewolf’ and ‘vampire,’ and think ‘Oh, God, this is something I’ve seen a million times before.’ But our show takes that and reinvents it and makes it a weird, special, unique show. I hope people appreciate this as something that’s completely different.”

4. There’s plenty of family drama mixed in with the murder and monsters.

“[The Godfreys] really do argue over what’s for dinner,” says Joel de la Fuente, who plays Dr. Johann Pryce.

“I feel like humans are ultimately worse than monsters,” says Liboiron with a smile. “The town has normal people, like the sheriff [Douglas] … they’re all reacting to this supernatural energy that they can’t explain. You see them slowly progress into their deeper, darker spots and they can’t fully grasp the seriousness of the situation. As soon as things get a little out of control, humans can do some pretty wacky things.”

6. “Hemlock Grove” is not a show about werewolves and vampires.

“I don’t really see it as a vampires-and-werewolves kind of show at all,” says Douglas. “It says it right on the poster: ‘The Monsters Within,’ and it’s a human hand coming out of a creature … it’s more (at least for me) about the dramatic human interaction and how human beings are with one another when strange things start happening.”

“We get asked the ‘Twilight’ question a lot,” says the book’s author. “There are unavoidable parallels between my work and that series, but in no way did I write the book with that franchise in mind.”

INTERVIEW – Aaron Douglas upholds the law in ‘Hemlock Grove.’
By: Kyle Wilson
Date: April 18, 2013
Source: The Nerd Repository

 

Odds are the majority of our audience on NerdRep.com will recognize Aaron Douglas for his stellar work as Chief Tyrol on Battlestar Galactica, but he’s a veritable “that guy,” having made appearances in numerous television projects over the last decade. His next role is in the third original series from Netflix, the supernatural family drama Hemlock Grove. Netflix and Aaron were cool enough to carve out some time for us to talk about all things Hemlock and a bit about the nerdy…

 

Talk to me a little bit about your character, Sheriff Tom Sworn, and how he fits into the overall mythology of Hemlock Grove.

The sheriff is the moral center of the show. When everything else starts spinning out of control the audience will always be able to go back to him as the touchstone of what’s right and wrong because he is…he is the sheriff. He’s a very everyday guy, a normal guy, likes to have a beer at the end of the day. He’s a father of twin teenage daughters and they’re the love of his life, but they’re also menaces, whirling dervishes. He’s a single father so he has that going on.

When bad things start happening in the town he’s the lawman that has to figure out what’s going on, and he doesn’t have any sort of understanding or belief in supernatural B.S. so he comes at it purely from a nuts and bolts, as a cop would, investigation: “Okay there’s a been a killing and let’s see who did it. If it’s not a who then a what, maybe a bear or a pack of dogs.” He’s really just a simple normal sheriff kind of guy holding on to a thousand kite strings in a hurricane. It’s a very small town that bad things start to happen in, and it really spirals out of control.

 

Netflix has really changed the landscape recently on how we view and consume television series. Do you think it’s beneficial to a show like Hemlock Grove that the audience gets access to the entire season on its premiere date?

Absolutely. Netflix does TV the way that I consume it. Game of Thrones is on right now but I won’t go near it until it’s done because I can’t wait week-to-week. I will literally watch it on a rainy day. I will power through all thirteen hours of it. Because like that, Hemlock Grove is a thirteen hour movie, and you wouldn’t sit down and watch Lord of the Rings in 15 minute snippets – you want to watch the whole bloody thing. So every episode is ten minutes of a two hour movie.

Which makes it tough for you guys because you only saw…three [episodes]? The press has been telling me that they saw three, which is tough because the first three are really just introducing everyone and what’s going on. It really finds it feet and gains momentum in the fourth and then it’s off and running.

It’s going to be a much better way of viewing it, to be able to just power through it and pause it when you want to pause it, you could be in the middle of the episode or not, you really need to treat it like it’s one thirteen-hour movie. I think that’s really going to help us because if you sat down and watched one episode at a time, there’s so much left unsaid in this show because we don’t spoon feed the audience, that there would be a lot of head scratching week-to-week.

 

On the creative side of things, how was it working with [executive producer and director]Eli Roth?

You know what? I didn’t have a lot with him. He was there for the pilot and then he had to go off and do a movie down in South America. My experience with him was one or two days on set maybe? Super nice guy. Friendly. Good director, obviously, had his obvious real vision for it.

But then he was gone and the person that really took over and drove the ship was Deran Sarafian and Mark Verheiden. Sarafian from the directing and executive producing standpoint, sort of keeping the train on the tracks and moving along and took out his giant iron and smoothed out the wrinkles, and Verheiden on the writing side, which was a little bit more of the creative in terms of story and arc and all of that kind of stuff, but together those two are the reason this thing is going to be special.

 

You worked with Verheiden on Battlestar, correct?

He’s the reason I’m on this show. He called me and asked me if I’d do the show and I said “absolutely.” Which was an opportunity to be on the ground floor of how TV is going to be produced and consumed going forward with Netflix, and I see Battlestar Galactica as a ground floor show in terms of sci-fi and how people view it and how people see it. Battlestar was always in the top three of downloaded TV shows on iTunes and DVR’d so that really changed how people watched TV shows, and now I think Netflix is going to do it again. I’m just feeling very fortunate to have done two shows in one career that are really changing the way things are done.

 

And did Verheiden write your episode of Smallville? I’m a huge Superman nerd so I remember your appearance…

Yeah! That’s exactly it. I did his first episode of Smallville. He reminds of that constantly. I say “Yeah, I’ve worked with Mark twice now…” and he says “No, no, no… three times. You did my episode of Smallville.” Yeah, way back in the day.

 

Did you read the novel Hemlock Grove before approaching the role, or do you prefer to stick with what’s in the script and how the director guides you along?

No, I’m a big reader. I read a book every couple of days and that’s what got me hooked to this thing. Mark called me and said “I’m doing this show and it’s based on a novel, go get the novel.” I powered through this novel, which I thought was just fantastic, and I called him back and said “Why?” and he said “Because I want you to play the sheriff.” I said “Yes! Done! Tell me when and where.” And my character is a lot bigger in the show than he is on the page.

 

What sets Hemlock Grove apart from other shows and movies that have a similar supernatural premise?

Everybody keeps asking me about the werewolf and the vampire thing, and if we’re saturated with too much of that, and my answer to that is we’re not really a werewolf/vampire show. It’s really about the human drama and the poster says “The monster is within” and there’s a hand coming out of a creature’s mouth and that represents the monster within all of us.

So our show delves into how people interact with each other and how people deal with each other when things start going horribly wrong. It’s very much like Battlestar, it wasn’t a sci-fi show about aliens and stuff it was about how those people dealt with each other, and how they took care of each other, and how they were awful to each other when things got really stressful and things went wrong. Our show is very much the same, the fact that one person seems to have come from a lineage of werewolves is really not much to do with the show. The mythology is more about the family and what they do and how they do it to each other than it is about anything else.

 

Lastly, NerdRep.com is all about nerding out on pop culture things. What are some things that get you to nerd out and get excited?

Oh yeah, I like Game of Thrones. I just marathoned all four seasons of Justified, I quite like that show. I do not miss and can not miss Archer or Bob’s Burgers. Those shows absolutely kill me, especially Archer. I love Mythbusters and my wife and I like to watch the cooking shows.

 

Well, that’s all I’ve got for you, Aaron. I appreciate the time. Come visit us next to time you’re out here for Phoenix Comicon.

I’m trying to remember if I was out there last year or the year before.. but I think I’ve been to that show two or three times and I’m sure I’ll be back next year after this show goes… I’ll be right back on the Con circuit doing the rounds for Hemlock Grove.

 

That’d be great, and hopefully we can talk about a Season 2 renewal.

Yeah, we’ll do it in person. Sweet!

Hemlock Grove premieres its entire first season Friday, April 19th, exclusively on NetFlix.

Aaron Douglas Talks How His Character Fits into the Show, Humor, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, and More on the Set of HEMLOCK GROVE
By: Rob Vaux
Date: April 17, 2013
Source: Collider

 

Aaron Douglas is best known as Galen Tyrol, the beloved Chief and possible Cylon sleeper agent on Battlestar Galactica. His other sci-fi television credits include Stargate SG-1, Smallville, Eureka and the new Netflix original series Hemlock Grove where he plays a small-town sheriff on the trail of some big secrets. A jovial, upbeat man in person, he was happy to sit down with the press for a roundtable interview shortly after wrapping his shoot on Hemlock Grove. Hit the jump to read on.

I can’t believe you’ve wrapped.

I can’t either. I’m unemployed as of right now. You better be paying me for these interviews.

So I take it you play a sheriff?

No I just borrowed the coat. I’m actually a small Korean grocer. [Laughter.] Yes, I play the sheriff. Sheriff Tom Sworn. That’s what I do. That’s all I’m allowed to say. Thanks very much, it was great.

Since you wrapped, what’s been your favorite memory?

It’s a tough show. The material’s pretty heavy. The days on set are pretty exhausting emotionally, a little bit of physically sometimes, but mostly emotionally. Really, really draining. But my favorite time is — and it’s the same on other shows — away from set when you’re spending time with the actors and the producers. And you just have an opportunity to sit down and goof off, tell stories, tell old Hollywood stories, stories from your past, their past. It’s those connections, those friendships that I always take away and miss the most when we’re all said and done. Set is pretty damn boring. It’s hurry up and fracking wait. It’s nice when you’re not filming sometimes.

How does your character fit in with the show itself?

I am the sheriff of the small town and I am holding onto 10,000 kite strings in a hurricane. As things spiral out of control, I try to figure out what’s going on, how it’s going on, and who’s making it go on. I’m sort of the Columbo figure, but with both good eyes. I don’t do a lot of this, “Just one more thing.” Sheriff Sworn is really the heart of the show. He’s the center that everything spins around, and he’s very much that anchor, and all this is going on out here, and the audience can always come back and have a little settling point and find the humanity in the moral, straight line with him for a few episodes at least.

What’s his relationship like with the Godfreys?

Sworn has a good relationship with everybody. He’s the sheriff, so he has to be that politician and there’s no mayor or anything, so he’s the leader of the town, at least the political type figure. The Godfreys tend to run things otherwise. I would say that if he had a best friend, it would probably be Norman, who’s played by Dougray Scott. A great guy, both on and off camera. That was a treat, working with him.

You said he’s kind of a Columbo figure as we go along. Are the viewers going to connect with him that way?

I would think so. It is a bit of a whodunit and a what-the-hell-is-going-on sort of thing. I guess he would be the investigative eyes that the audience would sort of get piecemeal information as to what’s going on through Sworn. That makes sense. Look at me, I’m just making it up.

Are you funny on the show as well?

Nobody’s really funny. It’s a bit of a dark show. But they’ve given me these weird non sequitur lines that they talk about, even in the editing, these funny lines that are just out of the blue and out of nowhere; they just love the way that I delivered a few of them. I hope they become the lines — I have Battlestar fans that come up and quote Chief lines all the time — and I’m hoping I have Sworn lines. “Hey Sheriff!” Instead of yelling Chief across the street, yelling sheriff. “Good evening. Are you the sheriff of Hemlock Grove?” “I am.” “You’re on that Battlestar show, aren’t you?” “Indeed I was, you nerds.”

So what kind of arc does your character have during the 13 episodes?

Oh god. Well, like I said, it’s a small town where everything is going along swimmingly and then bad things start to happen. So as the sheriff of that town, when bad things start to happen and the spiraling gets even more sprialesque — that’s a word now — that arc becomes “what the hell’s going on” and then he sort of gets drawn into it a little bit more personally as well. So by the end of the show, he’s nowhere. He’s a thousand miles from where he started.

Can you tell us how this experience has differed from other shows that you’ve worked on? I feel like it is really pushing boundaries in terms of edginess but also in terms of its approach to storytelling.

It’s by far the best thing I’ve done since Battlestar Galactica. Without question. The writing is exceptional. I got the book and I loved it right off the bat. The way that Brian writes, it’s got a weird sort of cadence to it. He writes how Yoda speaks, which is kind of odd. But I found myself having to go back and reread until my brain clicked in. It’s like I forgot how to read. It’s like when you go to England: you forget how to drive, so everybody’s coming at you. The show’s like that too. You’ve got to wrap your brain around what’s really going on. I love it because it doesn’t spoon-feed the audience. It’s not like, “Oh here, now we’re doing this.” There’s no spoon-feeding. You will have to pay attention. And what I love about people who love watching this genre, and sci-fi fans and horror fans, is that they’re really intelligent. They can follow story and they can follow plot and they can follow character and they love the character development, so I think people that are into that would fancy themselves an intelligent TV viewer, they’re really going to love this show.

In terms of doing it, my favorite part about the show is I got to work with my buddy Mark Verheiden again. I did his first episode of Smallville way back in the day when I looked like my thinner younger brother. Then, of course he ran the writers’ room for Battlestar. Then when he read the book and got offered this job, he thought “Aaron Douglas is Tom Sworn obviously” and he got Netflix onboard. So it’s been six months hanging out with Mark, which is just a wonderful thing because he’s such an incredible human being. Then making friendships with people like Deran Sarafian, who’s just an unbelievable director, just killed it on this show. And then just working with great material and great writing and interesting stuff. It’s nice to be able to get back to the days of, you get the next script and you immediately just start poring through it because you have to find out what happens. Even though you’ve read the book, they’ve changed it enough that you don’t know what the hell’s going on. Battlestar, you’d flip it over and you’d start at the back ’til you found yourself and go, “Oh he tells the general to walk away and — Yes, I’m not dead!.” That’s really how you lived. This show’s kind of the same because we’re like, “Who dies now?” So it’s… And I’m not splattered with blood. But maybe this isn’t my last scene. Working on has been wonderful from just every aspect. It’s been really cool. Other than being away from home. But that’s alright. I get to go home next week.

Do you think people will be happy with the changes that were made?

Oh yeah. I mean the book’s great, but the book’s only so many pages and to turn that into 13 episodes is a little thin, so they’ve really beefed that up and moved things around. Some of the characters that are a little bit smaller in the book have really been expanded. There’s a lot of people to fall in love with on this show. Even fat old guys like me.

You mentioned Battlestar Galactica. Do you have scenes with Kandyse [McClure] in this as well?

I do.

What’s your dynamic like and how is it working with her again?

Kandyse and I are old friends. She was probably my closest friend on Battlestar. Between scenes, we would retire to my trailer and cuddle up on the couch and watch Family Guy, just to sort of let it all go. So getting back to hanging out with her again is always wonderful. I absolutely adore that woman and she quite fancies me as well, so it’s great to be able to spend some time with her and have a completely different dynamic. She and I really didn’t have any scenes together in Battlestar, but in this show, there’s a lot of Sworn and Dr. Chasseur. I’m the sheriff of the town and she is in an outside police agency who comes in and starts to oversee and frack with my shit.

Being sheriff, are you in charge of a bunch of constables? Is there an office dynamic that we get? Or are you the lone wolf?

We don’t really visit the office, but I’m not a lone wolf by any means. There are a bunch of deputies that arrive in the show and they all have different dynamics, just as you do in life. They’re all fun, cool, good guys — and ladies.

There’s such a fandom around Battlestar. Is this the kind of show that will get that kind of crazed fandom as well or is it a different kind of beast, so to speak?

It doesn’t have the complexity of the political and mythological story of Battlestar. But the fans will love it, I think; just for different reasons. It’s edgy, it’s dark, it’s wonderful, it’s gory and grotesque and sexy, so they’ll love it for that. But there are interwoven stories and histories that you can cast your mind back and make up, and the dynamic of the families is pretty interesting. I have no doubt that people will love this show. If this is their cup of tea, they will drink a lot of it.

[Special Report] Werewolves, Rich Kids, Murder And Revelations On The Set Of “Hemlock Grove”!!
By: Evan Dickson
Date: April 17, 2013
Source: Bloody Disgusting

Note: This is a snippet of an interview with the cast and crew of HEMLOCK GROVE during a press set tour on December 12, 2012 in Toronto. I have included the parts of the interview with AARON DOUGLAS below. To read the full interview, click HERE.

But how is working on a Netflix series different than working for a network? After all, there are fewer episodes and they are all made available on the same day. Director Deran Serafian (a longtime veteran of the small screen) answers, “Netflix is letting us spread our wings and letting us break the boundaries that exist in network television. For a director and a producer it’s a fantastic opportunity. It’s going to be hard to go back and do a normal show after this… It’s different than anything I’ve ever done. It’s a very twisted, Lynchian experience. It’s almost like a graphic novel.”

It also differs in terms of organization, with everybody making their own mini-movies (sans commercial breaks since Netflix doesn’t air spots), “After the pilot, each director gets two episodes to do at a time. I happen to be doing the last two episodes. They’re out of order, so sometimes I’ll be doing a scene from episode 12 or a scene from episode 13, so it gets a little crazy.”

Of course, there is one person who only got to direct one episode before departing to Peru to shoot The Green Inferno, Eli Roth. But Serafian maintains that without Roth’s vision, the show would be a very different beast, “Eli brings such a great, offbeat sensibility to it all. The aesthetic he established hangs on throughout the entire series, it doesn’t leave. Brian [McGreevy] and I also watched a lot of ‘Rosemary’s Baby’. There’s a sense of humor there that was a big influence on the show.”

How about the actors? They’ve been in this mindset for almost 6 months now. Aaron Douglas, who plays Sheriff Tom Sworn, says it hasn’t been easy grappling with all of the dark material, “It’s a tough show. The material’s pretty heavy, so the days on set are pretty exhausting emotionally. It’s really really draining. My favorite time is away from set when you’re spending time with the other actors, writers and producers. It’s those connections I’ll miss and take away when all is said and done.” 
Still, at least Douglas can toe the rudder a bit by being the straight man. “My character is very much the heart of the show, he’s the humanity and moral straight line. For a few episodes at least.”

Collider Visits the Set of Eli Roth’s Netflix Series HEMLOCK GROVE
By: Rob Vaux
Date: April 16, 2013
Source: Collider

Note: This is a snippet of an interview with the cast and crew of HEMLOCK GROVE during a press set tour on December 12, 2012 in Toronto. I have included the parts of the interview with AARON DOUGLAS below. To read the full interview, click HERE.

“The beautiful thing about Netflix,” McGreevy says as he walks among the cameras and lighting squeezed into Parkwood’s confines, “is that there’s so much freedom. We can do the things we want to do, go as dark or violent as the material demands, and not have to worry about landing the right rating. We’ve got great people to bring the material to life and a partner in Netflix committed to giving them the freedom to do their thing.”

That fact isn’t lost on the show’s cast, most of whom are wrapping up their schedule when we arrive. They speak fondly of their time there and stress how different this felt from other shoots. “I’ve been a part of some special shows,” says Aaron Douglas who plays the sheriff in the town of Hemlock Grove. “Battlestar Galactica was something that comes along once in a lifetime. But this one, it’s up there too. We all can do our thing and be what the show needs us to be. No jumping through hoops to please some suit back in LA or New York. Do you have any idea how awesome that is?”

Douglas finished his last shot just before speaking to the visiting press; he’s still dressed in his sheriff’s uniform, and his energy level is bouncy and upbeat. The rest of the cast and crew share his ebullience, even director Deran Sarafian working under a tight deadline to finish the last of the show’s thirteen episodes. He lets the press come in close to watch him set up a series of shots, while the lighting crew works hard to get the composition just right. He chats briefly with us and looks into his viewer. On the other end of the camera, Famke Janssen’s stand-in sits patiently as the crew does their work. (She resembles the actress so closely that several press members mistakenly approached her with questions.) Sarafian looks at the composition, nods and smiles.

“I’ve been directing television shows for a long time,” he [director Deran Sarafian] explains. “People are consuming it differently these days. They don’t like waiting a week to find out what happens. They’ll download the whole thing, take a sick day, and power right through it. We want Hemlock Grove to speak to that, to be the kind of vehicle through which those changes can be made to the medium.”

It’s a tall order, but there’s no shortage of confidence at Parkwood. More than anything else, the cast and crew feels hopeful that the show will become a hit… letting them come back and do it all again. “Everyone wants another season when you’re doing a TV show,” Douglas says, his smile growing broader. “But in this case, it’s a lot more than steady work. You don’t get this combination of elements very often. If they can keep it going past the first season… man, that’s going to be something worth watching.”