STACK 132 October Issue

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THE LEFTOVERS
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mission. The subterranean mission is
whether he's going to go crazy doing
it because the stresses on him are
enormous. Can Kevin preserve the order
of the town and remain sane while doing
it are the through lines of the show.”
And just as the makers have kept
viewers guessing about the Sudden
Departure, they were also keen to
keep them on their toes as far as the
motivations of the characters were
concerned.
“Every character on the show should
be questioned,” insists Lindelof. “How is
this individual coping with the Departure?
What is their coping mechanism? That's
the question that should be asked,
versus ‘Who is he?’ and ‘What's his
agenda?’"
T he mysterious disappearance
one day of 140 million people
around the globe makes for one
of the most compelling premises ever
dreamed up for a television show. Is it
the Rapture that will herald the Second
Coming? Could it be an alien invasion?
Or could it be a more sinister human-
inspired conspiracy?
But for the creators of The Leftovers –
Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof and Tom
Perrotta, who wrote the novel the show
is based on – the series is less about
the Sudden Departure (as it eventually
called) itself, rather than the impact
it has on a cross-section of ordinary
people.
“I can't deny that the hook of the
book is the idea that this huge event
occurred,” says Lindelof. “But the story
that we're telling doesn't seem to
feature anyone trying to figure that out.
It would be the same as you or I saying,
‘We are going to find out what happens
when you die’. I can tell you right now
that if you put together a team of the
greatest scientists in the world, the
greatest religious experts in the world,
and the greatest mediums in the world,
we would still not be sure 100 percent
that we had come to that conclusion.”
Perrotta agrees that The Leftovers
is concerned primarily with addressing
important philosophical questions about
faith, family and relationships. “If you're
a contemporary middle-class American,
you've lived your life in unparalleled
comfort,” he explains. “Maybe without
any religious faith at all. There's a kind of
inertia through your life. This story places
characters in situations where they're
no longer able to have that comfortable
passivity in terms of these questions.
So it is a philosophical show in that
sense, but these characters are living
that philosophical question, not just
pondering it.”
Set in a small town in NewYork State,
The Leftovers focuses mainly on the
Garvey family, in particular chief of police
Kevin Jr (Justin Theroux) who is trying
to maintain a sense of normality, but
is struggling to retain his own grip on
reality.
“To me, Kevin is somebody who's
trying to guard and uphold the social
order that exists, which is under threat,”
Perrotta says. “So there's that overt
MUTE WITNESS
Liv Tyler talks about the appeal of making the switch to long-form TV.
:
“I feel like there are things
being told in television that can't
really happen in movies,” reckons
Liv Tyler, who plays a new recruit
to the sinister Guilty Remnant cult
inThe Leftovers.
It’s the first major TV role
the Lord of the Rings star has
ever undertaken, but as soon
as she read by script, she was
hooked. “I knew when I first
heard the premise that I was
very interested,” Tyler explains.
“I love things that are a little bit
off and a little bit mysterious
and different. I grew up loving
The Twilight Zone and Twin
Peaks. I felt like it had some of
those elements as well as so
much depth, and so much heart
and soul in the exploration of
characters and the world.”
And the fact that her character
would be mute for much of show
– the cult she joins are not meant to
speak, even to each other – didn’t
faze her. “It's interesting, the
whole silent thing,” she muses.
“As an actress, I tend to trim
my dialogue back and feel
I can convey certain things
through emotions or feelings
or looks. Sometimes my
costars laugh and say that I
should be a silent film star
and that I was born in the
wrong era.”