STACK #132 Oct 2016

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THE LEFTOVERS

T he mysterious disappearance one day of 140 million people around the globe makes for one of the most compelling premises ever dreamed up for a television show. Is it the Rapture that will herald the Second Coming? Could it be an alien invasion? Or could it be a more sinister human- inspired conspiracy? But for the creators of The Leftovers – Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, who wrote the novel the show is based on – the series is less about the Sudden Departure (as it eventually called) itself, rather than the impact it has on a cross-section of ordinary people. “I can't deny that the hook of the book is the idea that this huge event occurred,” says Lindelof. “But the story that we're telling doesn't seem to feature anyone trying to figure that out. It would be the same as you or I saying, ‘We are going to find out what happens when you die’. I can tell you right now that if you put together a team of the greatest scientists in the world, the greatest religious experts in the world, and the greatest mediums in the world, we would still not be sure 100 percent that we had come to that conclusion.” Perrotta agrees that The Leftovers is concerned primarily with addressing important philosophical questions about faith, family and relationships. “If you're a contemporary middle-class American, you've lived your life in unparalleled comfort,” he explains. “Maybe without any religious faith at all. There's a kind of

• The Leftovers: The Complete

First Season is released on October 7.

mission. The subterranean mission is whether he's going to go crazy doing it because the stresses on him are enormous. Can Kevin preserve the order of the town and remain sane while doing it are the through lines of the show.” And just as the makers have kept viewers guessing about the Sudden Departure, they were also keen to keep them on their toes as far as the motivations of the characters were concerned. “Every character on the show should be questioned,” insists Lindelof. “How is this individual coping with the Departure? What is their coping mechanism? That's the question that should be asked, versus ‘Who is he?’ and ‘What's his agenda?’"

inertia through your life. This story places characters in situations where they're no longer able to have that comfortable passivity in terms of these questions. So it is a philosophical show in that sense, but these characters are living that philosophical question, not just pondering it.” Set in a small town in NewYork State, The Leftovers focuses mainly on the Garvey family, in particular chief of police Kevin Jr (Justin Theroux) who is trying to maintain a sense of normality, but is struggling to retain his own grip on reality. “To me, Kevin is somebody who's trying to guard and uphold the social order that exists, which is under threat,” Perrotta says. “So there's that overt

MUTE WITNESS Liv Tyler talks about the appeal of making the switch to long-form TV.

– the cult she joins are not meant to speak, even to each other – didn’t faze her. “It's interesting, the whole silent thing,” she muses. “As an actress, I tend to trim

“I feel like there are things being told in television that can't really happen in movies,” reckons Liv Tyler, who plays a new recruit to the sinister Guilty Remnant cult in The Leftovers . It’s the first major TV role the Lord of the Rings star has

ever undertaken, but as soon as she read by script, she was hooked. “I knew when I first heard the premise that I was very interested,” Tyler explains. “I love things that are a little bit off and a little bit mysterious and different. I grew up loving

The Twilight Zone and Twin Peaks . I felt like it had some of those elements as well as so much depth, and so much heart and soul in the exploration of characters and the world.” And the fact that her character would be mute for much of show

my dialogue back and feel I can convey certain things through emotions or feelings or looks. Sometimes my costars laugh and say that I should be a silent film star and that I was born in the wrong era.”

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