Kirkman, Fugit have devil of a time with Cinemax's 'Outcast'
LOS ANGELES — Robert Kirkman is well aware his new demonic-possession dramaOutcast (Cinemax, Friday, 10 ET/PT) will be seen through the prism of his zombie classic, The Walking Dead, and the pinnacle of possession, The Exorcist.
He sees connections, but says the subject and approach separate Outcast.
The zombie and demon genres "are completely different … but I feel the (shows) will appeal to the same audience because there are the same surprises you wouldn't expect to see in a TV show," Kirkman says. The Exorcist is "a touchstone, so it's the best avenue to play against type and subvert expectations. At times, we're paying tribute. At other times, we're going in a different direction."
The 10-episode Outcast, which Kirkman created as a comic with artist Paul Azaceta, focuses on Kyle Barnes (Patrick Fugit, Gone Girl), a beaten-down man with a mysterious connection to the demonic world.
"He’s directionless. He's not very heroic. But, through Patrick’s amazing performance, you see these little things under the surface starting to break through as he gets a foothold in this world he’s found himself in," says Kirkman.
"He's inwardly very bright, but he keeps a lid on it to keep the people around him safe," adds Fugit, who joins Kirkman at the Outcast creator's Skybound Entertainment headquarters. "Throughout the season, he starts to learn how he can be more active in determining where he stands in this phenomenon."
Kyle teams up against otherworldly powers with Reverend Anderson (Philip Glenister, Life on Mars), an evangelist who illustrates the effort to veer from orthodoxy with drinking, gambling and colorful language.
Kentucky native Kirkman also veers from the Exorcist template by setting Outcast in rural West Virginia and looking at the Baptist, rather than Roman Catholic, approach to exorcism. (Fox is rebooting The Exorcist as a fall TV series.)
"There is a long tradition of Baptist exorcisms," he says, and he likes "keeping things grounded in small-town America." Visually, "I knew we were going to be in dark rooms doing exorcisms. Having Anderson step outside and it's this bright, vibrant landscape I thought would be a cool visual thing to do."
Outcast, already renewed for a second season, offers plenty of scares, including the self-destructive and aggressive behavior of an apparently possessed eight-year-old, Joshua Austin (Gabriel Bateman, Stalker). The psychological elements can be the most upsetting, Fugit says. "They’re not jump scares and they’re not horrifying, per se. They’re disturbing."
The series was developed in tandem with the comic book, which has published just 18 issues. By comparison, 78 issues of Dead were out when the hit show premiered in 2010.
Kirkman praises AMC, home to Walking Dead and spinoff Fear the Walking Dead, but says the freedom offered on pay cable "is jarring at times." He points Joshua, who's 8 in the comics books but whom Fox International Studios suggested aging up during series development to make it more acceptable to interested networks.
"When we landed at Cinemax, one of the first things they said was, 'We love it (but) it might be tame in places for our tastes,' " he says. "I said, 'Well, the kid's not 13. He's 8.' They were like, 'OK. Great.' They were completely on board with what I'd originally envisioned."