NYCC: Lore

Lore is a new spooky show that will be streaming on Amazon Prime beginning Friday, October 13. Based on the incredibly popular podcast from Aaron Mahnke, the six episode anthology is a unique blend of animation, audio from the podcast, and live action storytelling. The stories told in Lore are true historical stories about the origins of things like werewolves, seances, and vampires. We were stoked to get to chat with the cast and creators of the show at New York Comic Con to learn more about it.

Holland Roden, actress and Brett-Patrick Jenkins, executive producer

Holland and Brett-Patrick continue to chat about the power of good stories, podcasts, and making Lore:

Brett-Patrick: My first job in Hollywood was for Rick Baker in special effects makeup….I love storytelling. I think in this day and age, it’s not relegated to one medium. Wherever and however you can get them…I want to work with people who inspire me….I think [makeup] is somewhat of a lost art form. I think makeup artists are incredible storytellers.

Holland Roden:I think as we commute, in this urban sprawl, it’s amazing that audio is such a lovely reincarnated form of entertainment for us.

Brett-Patrick: I think Aaron Mankhe is the Stephen King of podcasting.

Holland: I was nervous because I felt like I was going in on my first job interview in so many years! I had never acted outside of Teen Wolf for literally years….I was getting my feet wet again. i was so blessed ot have an amazing cast and really friendly grounded creatives who come from pretty spectacular corners of the industry.

Aaron Mankhe, creator and narrator

On what scares him:
The stuff that bothers me the most aren’t the creatures and scary things; it’s what people have done. We’re messed up, and we’re not better now. We’re really good at treating people badly when we’re filled with hate. That’s just a universal truth about humanity. When we’re hateful, we do some nasty things. That’s the stuff that creeps me out…I think there’s a lot of value in asking questions. What does it say about us that we’re obsessed with the afterlife? That says something about us…

If you want to see what lives in my soul, go watch The Village by M. Night Shamalyan. It’s a horror movie in a weird lose way, but it’s so much more. It’s about folklore and community and about doing what you’re expected to do versus doing what’s right. It is so beautiful. I love it.

Gale Anne Hurd, executive producer

On bringing this show to life:
It was incredibly exciting. it was wonderful, but it was damn hard. We shot the scripted elements between two and four days. We didn’t have any downtime between them. So, the costume department, construction department…they went to different centuries with different props and costumes. It was definitely the most challenging project I’ve done….Kudos to Amazon for saying, ‘There’s no template for this; no one’s ever done this, but let’s try it.’ We live in a time where there’s a lot of fear of trying something new, and they embraced it. We all wondered whether it was going to come together bc we couldn’t look at something else.

On what stories they chose to include in the anthology:
Since we were embarking on what we think is a new format, we wanted to have some that examined stories that everyone would be interested in. One of the origins of the vampire myths, one of the origins of werewolves, poltergeists, communicating with the other side. And then we wanted to throw some in there that were completely out of the box. Like the early treatments of mental illness….That’s the other thing. You actually learn facts in this that you didn’t know. You learn how people can take things and misinterpret them and that lives hang in the balance.

Kristin Bauer van Straten, actress 

On playing paranormal characters:
I can’t play the supernatural. I can’t play immortal. I can just play the person.

On getting strong female roles:
I feel like I fought for fifteen years to play a woman with any intelligence or any background. If you watch anything [with strong women], she’s never blonde. I felt like I was just struggling against the stereotype of what I look like. People just talk down to us; people just don’t imagine you have substance. And then I got Pam–and it was because she was written to be blonde in the books–and somehow I end up playing one of the strongest female characters ever written. Then [I got] Maleficent. Then I thought, ‘This is the type casting I hope sticks.’

Robert Patrick, actor

On getting into character:
I was very excited about putting on that wardrobe, finding the mutton chop look…totally losing myself in the character. I don’t get to do many period pieces…It was just very interesting. You’re dealing with a historic thing: the introduction of seances, where were we as a country, and who we were as a people. It was fun to go back and explore that.

On whether he believes in the paranormal:
I think the mind is very powerful and there are certain situations you find yourself in where you can scare yourself to death. You have to work your way out of it bc it can overwhelm you.

Lore premieres on Amazon Prime on Friday, October 13.