Based on Blake Crouch’s international bestselling series of books and brought to life by suspenseful storyteller M Night Shyamalan, Wayward Pines is a 10-episode, intense psychological thriller evocative of the classic hit. Carla Gugino, playing Kate Hewson, gives us a peek into her character and the show
How would you describe your character KateIJ
Even describing her is a bit complicated. Basically our premise is Ethan, Matt Dillon’s character. He and Kate Hewson were Secret Service partners and at the time when they were partners, Kate was 27-years-old, hard-edged, basically someone who was an incredible partner. Ethan and she wound up having an affair, probably because in these jobs everything is classified so you end up sharing it with your (work) partner, and if your partner happens to be someone that you end up having feelings for, then things get complicated. So ultimately Kate takes off for Boise (Idaho) and decides that since Ethan had a wife and a child, she was not going to be a part of his life. So she leaves and she and her new partner go into Wayward Pines to investigate some money that has been funneled into this town. And they disappear, we can’t find them again.
There’s another side to your character that we’re learning about. She’s not happy in Wayward Pines…
We are going to find out that she is in fact running a rebel group planning an escape. I think Kate’s driving force is that she would rather die than live a lie any longer. I think that is ultimately what it comes down to. Initially she feels that rebelling is okay but then all of a sudden she thinks she is responsible for a woman and her son getting killed trying to escape. The producers ended up coming up with the idea that I was so traumatized thinking these deaths were on my hands, that I, for a while, really tried to tow the line and tried to live a life. And, of course,
she believes it is a government experiment. That is what I think her soundest theory is.
Before that are you double acting in a sense...
That is what is interesting about this character, what has intrigued me from the beginning when they asked me about doing it. I would get these flashbacks as the younger Kate, and then also be the perfect Wayward Pines Kate, and then also be the one who is running the underground scene seemed like an incredibly challenging role to play. And it has been. I hope we struck the right balance for Kate. It’s definitely challenging. She has had a really complicated history with Doctor Jenkins, Toby Jones’ character, David Pilcher, who has orchestrated this entire town, his alter ego persona as a therapist, and so in episode eight, it is kind of cool because we start to see how he utilized that kind of position to gain a lot of knowledge about these people.
Reed said it’s an opinionated cast and they talk about certain issues like you just mentioned. So do you people actually do thatIJ
Yeah for sure. I don’t think I have worked with a more eclectic people. There is not one wallflower in this cast. It really is a cast of exceptional actors with a lot of experience, and a lot of strong opinions and that can definitely make for complicated dynamics at times, but ultimately much better results. The nice thing is, and I can say this with all honesty, I love everyone. It’s a really, really great group. I think the producers recognize that the show has been made better with all the inputs. It just has been about excavating, because I think when you have such a heightened concept of this genre, it is really important to ground it in humanity and make these characters as much as you and me because that’s what makes viewers invest in the show.
You mentioned dictatorships. Are there also issues like post recession in the showIJ
Absolutely. I don’t know if we’ve had that much time to pose it in the show, we have in little moments. like we have seen Pilcher and his ego, and in fact we were having this whole conversation, because what you see happen when the shit hits the fan, so to speak, is that you see Pilcher’s ego get inflated. You have seen Sheriff Pope’s ego get big, and you have see Ethan’s ego get big, and they are like these male egos crashing against each other, and so there is an interesting opportunity if Pilcher and Pope die. All of a sudden you have a world where the women have an opportunity to potentially make some different decisions and certainly one of them is being fully transparent and telling everybody what is going on.
Surveillance, NSA and we see the cameras watching people in Wayward Pines...
Yeah, you are being watched, but how much are you being watchedIJ I remember when reality shows just started getting big and as an actor, I have always been so protective over my privacy, I was like— “There are people who just want to be famous for nothingIJ” There was a great scene that I really hope we are going to get down the road, because we are not going to get it now, with Arlene, with Siobhan’s (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) character and my character when I was in jail, and I say to her at one point, “Are you really okay with being hereIJ Why don’t you just want to get outIJ” And she says, “This is a reprieve for me. I don’t ask the big questions, I just ask the small questions. It’s all good with me, I just play solitaire.” That’s an interesting perspective. I hope we get that in the script.