Love Bites in ‘Wolf Like Me’ with Isla Fisher and Josh Gad

This image released by Peacock shows Josh Gad in a scene from "Wolf Like Me," a six-part series debuting Jan. 13. (Peacock via AP)
This image released by Peacock shows Josh Gad in a scene from "Wolf Like Me," a six-part series debuting Jan. 13. (Peacock via AP)
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Love Bites in ‘Wolf Like Me’ with Isla Fisher and Josh Gad

This image released by Peacock shows Josh Gad in a scene from "Wolf Like Me," a six-part series debuting Jan. 13. (Peacock via AP)
This image released by Peacock shows Josh Gad in a scene from "Wolf Like Me," a six-part series debuting Jan. 13. (Peacock via AP)

Isla Fisher's character in the new genre-bending series “Wolf Like Me” is a romantic catch. Kind of.

She speaks four languages, makes cheese and pottery and is good at close-up magic. On the other hand, she can be distant and absolutely beastly. Oh, that reminds us: She has a pretty big personal secret.

“I’m a complicated person," she tells her onscreen potential romantic partner, played by Josh Gad, in the first episode. "I have a really complicated life.”

His character understands perfectly: He’s a bit of a mess, too, an emotional wreck since the death of his wife and he's trying in vain to connect with his tween daughter.

That's the set-up to the new ambitious Peacock six-part series that starts Jan. 13 and mixes slapstick comedy, adult drama and heartbreaking trauma. It's a story of two scarred people learning to be vulnerable again.

“Love is scary,” says Gad. “I think that however you slice it, we all have secrets. We all have baggage. And you don’t know what you’re getting until you’re in it. And then once you’re in it, it’s too late.”

“Wolf Like Me” was created, written and directed by Abe Forsythe, who previously wrote and directed the sci-fi horror comedy movie “Little Monsters,” starring Lupita Nyong’o and Gad. Like that film, “Wolf Like Me” mixes genres — this time romantic comedy and horror — to push into the absurd and come back with something sweet and dramatic.

“I was drawn to telling a timeless story in such a unique way,” says Gad. “Abe is such a brilliant caretaker when it comes to challenging his artists to tackle different tones and different genres and do that juggling act that feels so foreign and strange and impossible.”

Audiences are in for quite a ride right from the beginning, signaled by the series being set in the unexpected Australian suburbs and with the casting of Gad and Fisher. He's most known as the cuddly snowman in “Frozen,” while she famously played a comically unhinged love interest in “Wedding Crashers.”

“Casting Josh and Isla was a big step in ultimately articulating one of the main themes of this show, which is don’t judge a book by its cover,” says Forsythe. “This is not the usual way that I’ve seen them, which is what I’m asking the audience to do with the characters.”

Fisher and Gad had never worked together before but were friends and were ready for a little subversive fun. “I knew that I had a scene partner who was going to take this leap with me,” says Gad. “This felt like one of those opportunities to sort of break the mold that audiences in terms of perception have of myself and Isla.”

Forsythe, who is a 40-year-old single parent, drew on his own life for the script, confronting his emotional baggage and exploring the pressures of trying to reassure his child that nothing is perfect and nothing is permanent.

One lovely line of dialogue was given to Fisher, who tells her possible lover: “Messy is good. Break yourself open. It’s how the light gets in.” Fisher says she felt like the show was a risk and she loved the challenge: “As with all risks, if they pay off, then it’s worthwhile.”

Fisher says they trusted Forsythe and the characters.

“We both surrendered to Abe and it was his story. It’s a personal story for him. And so I think we found ourselves at the hands of a captain who is very confident and incredibly incredibly passionate about this story,” she adds. “We trusted the authenticity of the characters, even though the circumstances are ridiculous.”

The more horror parts of the show — Peacock has begged reporters not to reveal too much — Forsythe says is a metaphor that lets the audience bring their own experience and “reach a level of catharsis.”

“This is the first time that I had the time and the resources to be able to tell a story properly, where the resources matched the ambition to what I wanted to say with this show,” he says.



A Small Serbian Town Is Home to Robin Hood in a New TV Series 

Showrunner John Glenn poses with director Jonathan English prior to an interview. (AP) 
Showrunner John Glenn poses with director Jonathan English prior to an interview. (AP) 
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A Small Serbian Town Is Home to Robin Hood in a New TV Series 

Showrunner John Glenn poses with director Jonathan English prior to an interview. (AP) 
Showrunner John Glenn poses with director Jonathan English prior to an interview. (AP) 

Villages and castles from 12th-century England came to life in a small town in Serbia for the filming of a new series about Robin Hood that has just wrapped in the landlocked country in southeast Europe.

The 10-episode take on England’s beloved medieval outlaw who, in lore, stole from the rich to give to the poor, comes from Lionsgate Television, and is expected to premiere on MGM+ in the US and parts of Europe later this year.

The Associated Press recently visited the set in Simanovci, the village which is home to a film studio and not far from the capital of Belgrade. Thorough research for the series was visible in the scenography and costumes, taking the cast — and the studio — back in time to the stony interiors of a candlelit castle, complete with stained-glass lancet windows.

The “sweeping, romantic adventure” offers a historically grounded look into how Robin Hood grew up to become an outlaw-turned-hero in the wake of the Norman conquest of England, the producers say.

“We actually show the beginning of Robin Hood,” producer, director and writer Jonathan English, who was a main driving force behind the project, said in an interview. “We start the story with him as a child.”

Self-described as a “huge fan of all things medieval,” English marveled at Robin Hood’s persistent global appeal.

“You can stop a pensioner on the streets of Belgrade and he knows who Robin Hood is. You can stop a teenager on the streets of Beijing, and they know who Robin Hood is,” he said.

Asked whether the story is still relevant, following countless cinematic and small-screen adaptations, English insisted that “it is incredibly relevant, probably more today than ... 50 years ago or 100 years ago, even.”

“It’s a story about class and the absolute tyranny of class, people who believe that they can have everything and control everything and can own everything and everybody else could just, you know, get lost,” he said. “There’s always been wealthy people, but now you have uber-rich people. And the divide between the uber-rich and the rest of the world is extraordinary now.”

The show’s plot centers strongly on the romance between Robin and Marian. He is a Saxon forester’s son and Marian is the daughter of a Norman lord but they overcome the divide to jointly fight for freedom and against injustice.

Australian actor Jack Patten plays Robin, joined by Lauren McQueen as Marian. The two appear alongside Sean Bean as the notorious Sheriff of Nottingham, and Connie Nielsen, who plays Eleanor of Aquitaine, the queen of England and wife of Henry II.

Patten admitted he was nervous ahead of his “third gig since getting out of drama school.” His Robin is “any young 24-year-old ... trying to find his place in the world” and who “gets dealt some pretty tricky cards.”

McQueen said Marian’s character will be “quite empowering” for young women watching the series.

Filmed in multiple locations in Serbia and with hundreds of staff and crew, the series is “huge” even by Hollywood standards, showrunner and writer John Glenn said. He described the new show as “much more Peaky Blinders in tone” than previous incarnations, referring to the hit UK TV series about gangsters in 1920s Birmingham.

Both Glenn and English said they chose Serbia because of high-standard facilities and crews but also because of the natural scenery that could mimic a medieval English landscape.

“It’s hard to find ancient forests now in England,” English said. “There’s not a lot of undeveloped wilderness.”