By Shannon McGrew
Inspired by Robert McCammon's New York Times bestselling novel "Stinger," TEACUP follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together to survive a mysterious threat.
For the release of the new horror/thriller series, Creepy Kingdom's Shannon McGrew spoke with actors Yvonne Strahovski ("Maggie Chenoweth") and Scott Speedman ("James Chenoweth"). During their chat, they discussed everything from their characters' emotional journey to the challenges of portraying a fractured family.
Thank you both so much for speaking with me today. Can you tell us a little bit about your characters?
Yvonne Strahovski: I pay Maggie Chenoweth, and she's married to Scott's character, James. We have two children and live on an isolated farm in Georgia—Maggie's a devoted mom and a veterinarian by trade, which comes in handy. Things are certainly not great when we meet Maggie and James, as their marriage is on the rocks, and the kids don't know about it. We start in this immediate sort of emotional space that feels very tense and dangerous, and things that fly off the handle at any given moment, and given that they do in other aspects of the show, it really adds to all the chaos as we build and get to the end of this thing.
Scott Speedman: I play James Chenoweth and am an English teacher by trade. I've cheated, and our family is in a dire place. But what's interesting about this show is the action, whether it's the interpersonal action of our marital demise or the actual genre elements coming down on us and having this show take place over 48 hours, the character stuff is revealed within the action of the show and are revealed by the circumstances, you know? I think that's what's interesting about this show. It starts in this very dramatic way between the two of us, and we think each of the characters is one way, and then throughout the show, they're tested and challenged, and we come to know them in a completely different way, especially with my character. We start not liking, hating, or not trusting him because he's not what you would think of as a show lead. It was a fun challenge to see if I could win the audience back over time along with my wife, Maggie.
You both are no stranger to the horror genre. What do you enjoy most about playing within that sandbox?
Yvonne Strahovski: I never approach it from this horror genre aspect. I always approach it more from the inside out. I see what the character is on the page and the journey she has to take, and that's the most exciting part for me. It has to have an incredibly marvelous emotional journey for me to want to be part of a project like this, and it certainly did deliver. I think we go from Maggie being this regular mom who loves her kids and wants the best for her kids and her relationship to turning into this mama bear/Terminator kind of a woman. I don't know how else to describe her, but she is challenged in the most unimaginable ways. That was really exciting for me to pull off because we are in the horror space, and we do have to be suspenseful, dramatic, and horrific, but we also have to be real while we're doing it. For my job, that's the most exciting part - the challenge of putting all these pieces together to deliver this character and then working with all the other actors and creating this family dynamic and this journey that we all go on.
Scott Speedman: I've really enjoyed working in this space. As an actor, I agree [with Yvonne]; that's how I look at it. It doesn't matter what I'm doing; I'm always coming at it from that point of view. As a viewer and somebody who puts stuff out in the world, what's cool is when this works, it really works. It really seems to grab an audience, and I've really enjoyed that aspect of it as a viewer. When I watch anything horror, I think some of our greatest directors - whether Kubrick or Friedkin or whatever - have done amazing horror pieces that are incredible, huge, cinematic, and beautiful, and that's always interesting to me. I feel like [horror] grabs an audience, and at this point in my career, I'm also interested in that. I think what we're doing with TEACUP is really going to grab the audience.
TEACUP's first four episodes are available now to stream on Peacock. Two episodes will be released weekly through Halloween.
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