Age of The Nerd
NOS4A2 has come and gone. The hit series based on the best-selling book by Joe Hill made a hell of a splash when it premiered on AMC back in early June. The series ran for ten episodes. The series wrapped up season 1 this past Sunday with a fiery two-hour season finale.
Joe Hill’s story creates a new take on the vampire tale. The world is introduced to Vic McQueen played by Ashleigh Cummings, and the evil Charlie Manx played sinisterly by Zachary Quinto. Vis has a gift; she can find things. On her bike, she pictures the item and then crosses the Shorter Way Bridge, and she is then brought to wherever the item was left. As she begins to discover this power, she runs into an evil man named Charlie Manx who also has an evil power. Manx feeds off the energy of children as he locks them in his evil black 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith. After Manx drains the children’s energy, he drives them to Chistmasland which is a twisted place in Manx’s mind where Christmas is every day. Vic will do whatever she can do to fight Manx and try to save the children before she loses everything.
It was announced at SDCC that NOS4A2 will return for a second season. No release date was announced but will continue the story from Joe Hill’s book. NOS4A2 is a great show and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Vic McQueen and Charlie Manx.
When speaking to actor Zachary Quinto about what he loved the most about playing the character of Charlie Manx, he revealed, ” I really haven’t done an adaptation like this before. So I really love the process of working on a character from the perspective of the book and the graphic novel. Then seeing how that was filtered through Jami O’Brien’s point of view. The scripts were all really complex and interesting. I was a little resistant at first. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go down this road again to play another type of supernatural villain. I have done it a couple of times in the past and this will probably be the last time you didn’t do it for a while.”
When speaking about what he was most excited to see come life on the series, producer Jami O’Brien told us, “Christmasland, The Bridge. The production design crew did a phenomenal job designing and building The Bridge. We have a great VFX designer and supervisor named John Bruno who worked on Ghostbusters and Poltergeist who did a great job in bringing all of these worlds and elements to life. They breathed life and movie magic into this series.”
Also, we asked if we were going to see any more Christmasland to which O’Brien revealed, “My hope is that we get more seasons and if we do, we’ll probably get a lot more of Christmasland.”
Talking about the overall “creepiness” of “NOS4A2” and how they address that with so many children on-set, Zachary Quinto says, “First, off I have to deal with a lot of children in this creepy setting. It was super important to me that the kids were well-tended to. I have to say that to the producers, and the production, in general, the well being of those kids was the number one priority. We made sure it was clear they had the opportunity to talk us or come back by the make-up trailer see me getting into the make-up. So when they know it’s fake, it’s easier and less scary. For some of the gruesome scenes, a child psychologist was brought in to set. I have to say I really respect the way this was handled, and it’s a testament to the integrity of our producers, and AMC, to make sure the environment was safe for all involved.”
Finally, Quinto discussed his relationship to The Wraith saying, “Well for me, The Wraith gives such a performance, and we all know how temperamental she is (entire panel laughs). It was fun to work with that car, and it’s challenging in some ways. If we get the chance to tell more stories I think between Charlie and The Wraith is a great source of really interesting possibilities.
You know, Joe [Hill], in addition to writing the novel NOS4A2 also wrote a graphic novel called The Wraith, which is really all about Charlie’s relation to the car and there’s a lot of back story. You learn a lot more about Charlie in that book in particular. So the, the two pieces were really companions for me as I was getting ready to shoot. Charlie is an [integral] part of Charlie as Charlie is an integral part of the car. So I joke that the car is a character in its own right, but it really is, and I hope we get to tell more stories.”
What was your favorite thing about the show? Are you excited for season two? We definitely can’t wait to see more!
