Like Riverdale, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and other comic adaptations set in and around schools, Deadly Class will live or die by the chemistry between its young leads.
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Luckily for the series, two of the stars told us during a recent interview that the behind-the-scenes chemistry is pretty great, something that will hopefully come through onscreen.
“The first time I think we talked to each other was in a conference room in a production office before rehearsing,” Maria Gabriela de Faria said of her co-lead and onscreen love interest, Benjamin Wadsworth. “You had back pain, and I gave you some essential oils.”
“I’m naturally kind of shy when I meet new people,” Wadsworth admitted. “I went in for like a handshake and she grabbed me for a hug, and then the next day I’m telling her that I have back problems and she’s like ‘Take off your shirt.’…She’s so lovely and maternal and so friendly.”
Their onscreen dynamic is interesting becuase while almost everyone at King’s Dominion is trying to play the people around them, Marcus wants to be as straight as he can — meaning that the way Wadsworth is approaching a scene and the way de Faria is approaching it are often at odds.
“I think it’s something we do whether we like it or not. We’re humans,” de Faria said. “I’ve caught myself trying to manipulate my fiancee — not in a bad way, but doing it — and I have to go inside myself to look for that. It comes out easily because I have such an amazing partner for that, really, and Ben’s work is so honest and so real that I just have to look at him. We had an amazing scene the other day where I got my bruises, and I just had to look him in the eye and everything’s there. There wasn’t much for me to do, because all the support I needed was there.”
“Marcus tries his best to not put on any sort of mask, so when he sees all of these people he thinks of as his friends with masks, he feels the need to challenge them on being the most real person they really can be,” Wadsworth said. “And that gets him in trouble sometimes.”
Ultimately, the series pilot is about Marcus finding something he can believe in and some people he can care about at King’s Dominion — and that is something Wadsworth says he can particularly relate to.
“I consider this cast to be my family, genuinely. I didn’t have many friends before I started. I was home-schooled, and I met all of these guys and they’re just the loveliest cast I’ve ever worked with and I hope to know them the rest of my life.”
Deadly Class will premiere on January 16 on SYFY.
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Image Courtesy Emmanuel Guimier/AMC
