Kevin Durand knows how The Strain trilogy books ended but he knows the creators of the TV show plan a few twists and changes and that means nobody’s safe….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Television shows and movies have been based on literature almost since the art form was created, but it never took away from the overall storytelling model.
You knew going into Romeo and Juliet that the star-crossed lovers weren’t going to make it out alive, but how they got there in the first place was the crux of the entire story.
In today’s age, series like Game of Thrones have thrived off of material previously created in books but rather than follow a straight line through the pages, writers and show runners have started to weave a different path to make a more unique version and one that lives on its own away from how the author originally intended to tell the story.
Sometimes it works out well (Game of Thrones) and other times it spirals completely away from the source material to the point where the original writer would be hard pressed to even recognize the characters (True Blood, Dexter).
As The Strain presses forward into the final few episodes of its second season, the show has taken a few forks in the road where the books originally written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan went the other direction, but unlike many series based on books, this show has the creators on board as executive producers who work to guide the story from episode to episode.
Originally released as a three-volume set of novels, The Strain has developed into a similar yet different version from the books to adapt it for television. The show is currently in the middle of season 2 with a third season already set for 2016 and show runner Carlton Cuse has stated that the series would run no more than five seasons in total.
Kevin Durand, who plays exterminator and vampire hunter Vasiliy Fet, found out with last week’s episode where he nearly got infected by some rogue worms that would have turned him into a bloodsucking fiend that all bets are off and nobody on the cast can assume they are safe just because their character did or didn’t make it to the end of the books.
“As you saw with that last episode, that last episode itself could have been a finale and when I read it, I was like ‘oh my god, this is bigger than any of the episodes we did in the first season, where are they going to go from here?’. So if you take that as gauge of where we’re heading, it just keeps getting bigger. The fireworks keep getting much more explosive. Our mission just continues to get more and more complicated,” Durand revealed this week.
“When we were shooting it we were like let’s shoot it and see what the fans think. It’s a really close call. Did he get infected? Did he not get infected? So many people were tweeting me asking whether I was infected or not. We’ll have to wait and see I guess!”
Durand is one of the most popular characters on The Strain, but being well liked won’t save him from being killed or possibly even turned into a vampire if that’s what the story dictates.
It’s a fun change from the books according to Durand, who read the source material when he got the job so he could best understand the character he was going to be playing on screen.
The story on The Strain will continue to evolve and change and Durand says no one in the entire cast can sit back and relax just because they do or don’t make it to the end of the novels. The trick of a good story teller is to keep the audience guessing and he promises del Toro and Cuse are masters of illusion so don’t be surprised if something bad happens before the end of season 2.
“Guillermo (del Toro) and Carlton (Cuse) have both commented on the fact that the show is its own living, breathing organism. So even though we have this wonderful skeleton from those three books, there’s things that have really been changing. I don’t think any us can get comfortable,” Durand said.
“I was joking around like in that last episode, I almost got wormed, maybe I did. Who knows. I think there’s at no point in time while playing Fet am I getting comfortable with the idea that he’s going to make it to the point in the books because I really don’t know. That’s honestly a lot more excited to me. Knowing that I really have to just be in the moment and enjoy it as long as I possibly can cause I’m having such a blast on the show. I don’t know when I’m going to go — none of us do.”
The Strain returns with a brand new episode on Sunday night at 10pm ET on FX with a full recap for the show on NerdcoreMovement.com.
