The new STARZ series Shining Vale stars acclaimed performers like Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear, Mira Sorvino, and Judith Light, though it also required the casting of younger stars, with Dylan Gage and Gus Birney being tapped to bring the project to life. Given that they’re much earlier in their respective careers as compared to their co-stars, both Gage and Birney not only had a rewarding on-screen experience, but also took away personal memories from their connections with their impressive collaborators. The young stars both weighed in on the experience of bringing the series to life in a recent interview. Shining Vale premieres on STARZ on Sunday, March 6th.
“Dylan and I were total buddies the whole time, and I don’t know what I would have done without him, but obviously I was so intimidated by Courteney and just thought she was beyond incredible the entire time,” Birney shared with ComicBook.com of her on-set connections. “But she was so much more down to Earth than I had … I’d put her on this bar of not being able to relate to her, and there were so many pieces of her that I connected to and that she really helped me with, just being a 20-year-old and navigating life. So I really connected with her.”
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Gage added, “Of course, sharing Gus’s sentiments. She was my buddy on set. We were the only two that were similar-esque in age groups, so we had to stick together. But I definitely had a connection to Greg. Every single scene where it was just me and Greg was just a blast to film. He’s just so natural with it, and he gets into character so much, and it’s like you can just feed off that energy and it’s very easy to just slip into it and do take after take after take, just putting a hundred percent in every time.
Shining Vale is a horror-comedy about a dysfunctional family that moves from the city to a small town into a house in which terrible atrocities have taken place. But no one seems to notice except for Pat, who’s convinced she’s either depressed or possessed — turns out, the symptoms are exactly the same. Patricia “Pat” Phelps (Cox) is a former “wild child” who rose to fame by writing a raunchy, drug-and-alcohol-soaked women’s empowerment novel (a.k.a. lady porn). Fast forward 17 years later, Pat is clean and sober but totally unfulfilled. She still hasn’t written her second novel, she can’t remember the last time she had sex with her husband (Kinnear), and her teenage kids are at that stage where they want you dead. She was a faithful wife until her one slip-up: she had a torrid affair with the hot, young handyman who came over to fix the sink while Terry was at work. In a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, she and Terry cash in all their savings and move the family from the “crazy” of the city to a large, old house in the suburbs that has a storied past of its own. Everyone has their demons, but for Pat Phelps, they may be real.
Co-stars weren’t the only figures that left an impact on Birney, as she expressed how her character also left a mark on her.
“I think I’ve learned something from every part I’ve played, and weirdly wanted to incorporate some of them into me as a person,” the actor admitted. “I think Gaynor is so strong and strong-willed, and who she is and proud of who she is, to a degree, and I love those pieces of her. And so I think when we finished this show, I missed playing her. Also, it’s important to me that the characters come off nuanced and they aren’t one thing or a cliche of something, and so she’s a layered person, for sure.”
Having previously starred in projects like Creepshow, Stranger Things, and The House with a Clock in Its Walls, this marks the latest genre project for Gage, with the actor claiming it was merely a coincidence he has starred in so many unsettling adventures as opposed to an active pursuit of such material.
“I guess there’s a lot of similarities between every single work that I do. I play multiple characters named Gabe,” the actor pointed out. “There’s a lot of coincidences, but I didn’t go after that. It just sort of happened, they fell into my lap, just like acting as a whole. I didn’t come into this profession looking for anything, it just sort of happened. But yeah, I’m definitely grateful to have worked on of those projects, and especially Shining Vale. This show is definitely special.”
Shining Vale premieres on STARZ on Sunday, March 6th.
Are you looking forward to the new series? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
