ComicBook.com’s Brandon Davis caught up with Gale Anne Hurd, executive producer of The Walking Dead, to discuss her new sci-fi thriller series Falling Water on USA Network.
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Hurd explains that she grew up with a love for comic books, fantasy, science fiction and horror, leading to her impressive work on classic genre films including The Terminator, Aliens, Tremors, Hulk, The Abyss, and television series’ The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead, Hunters, and now Falling Water.
Hurd explains what drew her to want to work on this new project:
“To me I respond to everything based on what about the project would hook me and with Falling Water, I find the dreamscape something that people have dabbled in. There’s never been something that explores the dreamscape in a character-driven way that were able to with Falling Water“
Falling Water is a unique character-driven series that tackles the idea of dreamscapes vs. reality in a way that hasn’t quite been done before. Lucid dreaming is often difficult to portray on screen, however Falling Water gives us bizzare, visceral, and beautiful interpretations of the human subconscious.
“We really wanted the dreamworld to be incredibly immersive, and because Juan Carlos Fresnadillo [director] and I come from Features, every episode should be cinematic, if we have succeeded it should be like watching a mini movie every week.“
The three main characters Burton (David Ajala), Tess (Lizzie Brocheré), and Take (Will Yun Lee) interact and overlap with each other in the dreamworld, Hurd explains if they will ever cross paths in real life:
“Well, the interesting thing is that the dreamworld and the waking world influence each other. The mystery of what the dreamworld means and who’s fighting for control of that may very well bring them together.“
As far as Burton, Tess, and Take, hurd explained that the although most of the plot occurs in the overlapping dream sequences, that each of the characters has a personal connection which influences what happens in the dream world:
“Tess is convinced that she’s had a son, but everyone tells her constantly that she’s never had a baby and it’s impossible, but she’s convinced because she sees a boy in her dreams…and Burton who is kind of a fixer is madly in love with a woman, but he can’t find any evidence of her existence except in his dreams. So they’re all very actively involved in their own dreamworld.“
Falling Water has promise to ask the audience to take a look at the bigger picture of what our dreams really mean in an existential way. The show explores this concept in a deeper, more personal level, while connecting the main characters at their core through the subconsious mind and making them each swirl through solving a bigger mystery of who is in control.
Three people, who have no connection to one another, slowly realize that they are all dreaming separate pieces of a common dream. Each is on a personal quest, and they use clues found in their collective dream to help them find the solutions to their mysteries, which include searching for a missing girlfriend and a lost child. As the dreamers dig deeper into their investigations, though, they discover that their missions involve stakes that are much bigger than their individual agendas and that the visions they are seeing in their common dream could hold the key to the world’s fate.
Falling Water hails from executive producers Gale Anne Hurd of Valhalla Entertainment, Blake Masters and the late Emmy Award-winner Henry Bromell (“Homeland”). The pilot was written and co-created by Masters and Bromell.
Falling Water premieres on Thursday, October 13, 2016 at 10 pm EST on USA.
