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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 New York 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 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
visit FEATURE DVD&BD
20 OCTOBER 2015
RAPTURE-PALOOZA!
Damon Lindelof andTom
Perrotta, the creators
of the latest HBO hit
The Leftovers, warn
that viewers seeking
easy answers about the
Rapture like that forms
basis of the series might
be left disappointed.
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 in
The 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.”