Page 4 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - Sep 1 2021

4 HAWAI‘I ISLAND MIDWEEK SEPTEMBER 1, 2021
Sarah Wayne Callies turns up the heat as scores of listeners tune in to the former Hawai‘i resident’s thrilling post-apocalyptic podcast, Aftershock.
T he woman who made household names of TV characters such as Lori Grimes on The Walking Dead, Sara Tancredi on Pris- on Break and Katie Bowman on Colony is not only skilled at acting — turns out she’s a pret-
be anything great for your ca- reer. However, you can come to work in your pajamas, it’ll only be one day in the studio and ... I’ll owe you for life!’”
of 2020, everyone was avail- able because “none of us were working due to the pandemic.”
felt everywhere.
The 10-part series —
point for the Honolu- lu-raised Callies.
ty darn good salesperson, too. For Sarah Wayne Callies, a winning sales pitch was nev- er more in need than when it came time to launch her cur- rent project — the scripted post-apocalyptic podcast Af- tershock. Her challenge: to persuade a number of actors to lend their talents to the series without any thought of finan-
“Obviously, I didn’t have a whole lot to offer,” admits Callies, who says she cast the project out of her phone con- tact list. “But what I did say to everybody was, ‘If we ever get a chance to do this as a tele- vision show or film, the roles are yours.’ We’re not going to be like ‘Sayonara, Dave Har- bour — welcome, Brad Pitt!’ It was more like, ‘You help me out with this and you’ll be at- tached to the project no matter what happens.’”
O
plight of indigenous peoples and their fight for control of their lands — and she found no better example of that than right here in Hawai‘i. Early on in the writing process, Callies insisted the script include a character that shows up on the new island, plants an unfurled Hawaiian flag in the ground, and declares, “I claim this is-
SEE PAGE 5
#
cial compensation.
Talk about a tough sell.
As the star of films such as
Admittedly, Callies also had other factors working in her favor beyond her sales abili- ty. The actors she petitioned were mostly close friends of hers, and when she began to approach them in the summer
“It also seemed to me that it would be an opportunity to tell stories that I’ve known my whole life that I haven’t seen very often in pop culture.”
Whisper, Black Gold and The Show explains, “Here was my pitch: ‘I have no money to pay you and it’s not going to
The results have been far greater than even she antic- ipated as Aftershock’s posi- tive reverberations are being
If anything, choosing a mys- terious island as the setting for the series was a major selling
The spiel worked like a charm. Notable actors such as David Harbour (Black Wid- ow, Stranger Things), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen, The Walking Dead), Tati Gabrielle (Chilling Adventures of Sabri- na, The 100) and Janel Parrish (Pretty Little Liars, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before) imme- diately signed on to the proj- ect — and just like that, Callies had the makings of something wonderful.
Still, she deserves kudos for bringing the entire project to- gether while keeping expenses at a minimum.
which released its first two episodes July 13 and dropped its eighth installment last week (with a special round- table discussion involving the cast to follow the final episode on Sept. 15) — tells the story of Cassie Wallace (voiced by Callies), a mother in search of her daughter af- ter a violent earthquake rocks
“I remember
thinking when this
kernel of an idea
was first brought
to me (by execu-
tive producers Ben
Haber and Patrick
Carman), well, I’ve
lived on islands and
oceans my whole life. I grew up in Hawai‘i, I live on Van- couver Island right now, and there’s something very specif- ic about living on an island,” explains Callies, who not only has the lead role in the script- ed podcast, but juggles co-cre- ator, director and executive producer duties as well.
the West Coast and
in ruins. Out of this national emergency emerges an island just off the California coast — which attracts doomsday preppers, indigenous activ- ists and a utopian cult, all of whom arrive in this new locale demanding their piece of the land.
ne of the storylines she desperately want- ed included was the
leaves L A
hawaiianrealty.com • hawaiianrealty.com