IR Interview: Alexander Ludwig & Jessica Frances Dukes For “Earth Abides” [MGM+]

The Inside Reel

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+.

Transcript

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

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