Actors Alexander Ludwig & Jessica Frances Dukes talk to The Inside Reel about approach, psychology and intention in regards to their new post-apocalyptic thriller series: “Earth Abides” on MGM+.
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00:00I
00:11Rural outbreak has occurred. It is highly contagious and legal
00:16Nature is taking back all that was once hers. Everyone's dead, hon. She's gonna fight us never let us relax
00:22I haven't seen anyone in the longest time
00:25I'm sure I was gonna die alone, but sufficiently provoked for a family to a knife fight
00:30There's hardly a creature on earth that won't turn and attempt to fight. I hope that's how we'll win in the end
00:39You know with a series like this it's so heavy the stakes are so heavy and yet
00:45What you both bring to this is a sense of hope and heart
00:49within that can you talk about that balance of psychology because
00:54You have to go to some dark places, but also some very joyful places
00:57Can you talk about both of your approaches in that way to this material?
01:02After you I you know, I
01:06processed what we had already kind of gone through with the pandemic and the things that
01:10Surprised me that became very important to me the fact that I had no access to my parents
01:15The fact that I couldn't my family was so
01:18Big for me. It wasn't about the things that I put high on the pedestal. It was about family
01:23It was about love it was about community
01:25and so those are the things that I definitely could could find and Emma and understand and also to just the
01:32ability to
01:33Become one with nature to hunt to to gather to put your feet in the earth and in plant all those things
01:40It just really really stuck true to me
01:43So I stuck to the things that are already in me and what I could learn from Emma
01:47as for man
01:49There's a little reason to think that he can escape the fate of other creatures
02:19You
02:42Know and on that note like, you know, so many post-apocalyptic shows about are about the end of humanity
02:49In this one is specific though
02:50I think what drew me to it was it's about the importance of humanity and connection and you know
02:57We've all been through a pretty brutal pandemic at this point
03:00And I think it's so refreshing to see a show that is a totally different take
03:06on
03:08On the end of the world, you know, it's it's about rebirth. It's about people and we explore
03:13Not monsters and zombies we explore, you know, the realities of what it would actually be like had this not stopped
03:20You know, what? What would you do if it was just you?
03:24my hope is that people finish watching this show and are just
03:27moved and
03:29By how lucky we are to live amongst each other in this in this world of abundance
03:36During 10,000 years his numbers have been on the upgrade
03:42In spite of war pestilence and famine
03:48No
03:53Wake up ish wake the fuck up
03:59Wait
04:05Fuck the fuck up ish wake the fuck up
04:17I mean, there's a primality of course that the show speaks to but it's interesting. I think
04:23Alex in the first three I think episodes, but there's like an anarchy of the soul that sort of is within him and
04:31You know emma sort of saves him because she can see the beauty in in it
04:35um, but could you talk about that because it's it's interesting because
04:39You know the trip to vegas per se I won't give up way too much
04:42But all these things sort of so, you know how you can sort of go within yourself
04:47But then you have to open back up. Can you talk about sort of that yin and yang within the character?
04:54Yeah, I mean, I love that you you said anarchy of the soul. I'd never heard that before but it's that's a really really
04:59um great way to explain it, um, yeah, I mean emma to ish is uh,
05:06The lifeline, you know, it's the life raft that that saves him. I don't think he would make it without her. Um,
05:13and
05:14you see
05:15you know that first episode for ish, but also for me personally was
05:19um
05:20Just a mountain to climb. I mean it was just like
05:24a one-man
05:25Play and it was so solitary and it was just
05:29Emotionally taxing in ways. I never could have imagined. What does a man run to when there's no more target to reach?
05:36Is the only way forward to go back start again
05:41To find underneath the rubble the original words of wisdom
05:46broken tablets
05:48forgotten songs
05:50Maybe the only way to survive the end
05:53Is to remember the beginning
05:55Please tell me you taught us something worth learning
06:01Come on
06:16I think ish is struggling with
06:19um
06:20His life's purpose and and what it all means and and what is it all for?
06:24If not to be shared with with other people and that's the irony in ish is because he was that guy
06:31Uh, he was a geologist. I mean he wanted to be away from the world until it was forced upon him
06:37Uh, and now all he wants is connection and I think you see that struggle
06:41Internally and so much of this show is about those internal struggles. The monsters lie within us
06:46Um, they're not around you. Um
06:49And and uh, thank god he he finds emma because it's uh, I don't know if he would have lasted much longer
06:57Once he finds her it's like he finds connection. He understands connection is beautiful connection
07:01Then he's like, I don't want anybody else to come by
07:04i'm like
07:06I'm just brought to you that this is good
07:08It's like no
07:10But it's so awesome what we learn about ourselves when we get the things that we don't want and then we realize we need it
07:15Then we're like, how do I protect this?
07:19So
07:29First time i've been excited about doing homework
07:41Yep
07:49So
07:53Lucky
07:55Come here
07:57There we go. It becomes a practical sort of idea of she can see into the future
08:03She can see what is coming and how to deal with it
08:05But she also has an empathetic edge to her where she's like, you know, you have to see the good in people
08:10Can you talk about that aspect of her because she knows when to take control when needed first is in the writing
08:17Todd karmanicki wrote such a beautiful
08:20Script and the book is so beautiful in the way it describes her
08:23It almost describes her as this half angelic half human and I remember when I was looking at it as an actress
08:28I was like, how how do I find the?
08:31How do I find myself in this because i'm so flawed and i'm reading this woman that I can't find the flaws
08:35And it's because she did have she's not hung up on the things that we deem important
08:40She's just hung up on what is actually happening in the soul. She is the clear example right here in the moment
08:46This is what we have to do
08:52This is a thistle tea, uh, it's good
08:58You're lying
09:04I have honey now you tell me
09:09Only bear I didn't have to shoot
09:12Hmm
09:15You hunt don't you only rocks i'm a geologist
09:22How old are you 27
09:26I don't normally look amish
09:30Do the beard suits you not your life the hair I could trim I used to cut my sisters
09:38I'm from pennsylvania
09:41Daddy was military
09:44Mother and nurse, thank you. I grew up camping hunting
09:52That gave me a leg up in case the world decided to end
09:57Um, and also, you know, she comes from a hunter or excuse me, um a military background father and a nurse mother so people
10:05and and and um
10:07Survival is her thing. Um, and so she teaches ish all these things that she knows, but she also learned so much from him
10:14Um, and there are things that she learns she's wrong about too. Um, very wrong actually
10:20And and that's the beautiful tug and pull but she has no problem saying i'm sorry. She has no that think neither one of them
10:27Um, but back at each other and that's a beautiful thing too that I love about them. They're like, okay
10:32Pivot. All right. I just learned something from you. Okay. I just learned something from you and it's a really beautiful thing to watch
10:38Yeah
10:48You