ABC’s new summer series The Whispers, from Executive Producer Steven Spielberg, premieres Monday night, June 1 at 10PM ET/ET.
The show features some very talented young people as well as some familiar faces that were well-loved from other shows — including Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes), Lily Rabe (American Horror Story), and Barry Sloane (Revenge).
Late last year in Vancouver, we spoke with the actors at a Whispers filming location for more details about their characters in this new series that spans many genres.
Heroes and Gilmore Girls veteran Ventimiglia, who also did a turn on Gotham this year, says that his character “starts off incredibly in the dark.”
“He has no memory of who he is…. he has no memory of where he’s going,” Milo explains about his character, whose identity is shrouded in mystery. “He just has this pull, this sense of direction that he has to follow. Kind of call it an instinct… to go somewhere. But it’s also very much a path of destruction – not by his hand, necessarily – but he’s cloaked in darkness.”
We do know more about Lily Rabe’s Claire Bennigan, who is a child specialist now returning to the FBI after spending some time away after the death of her husband. Her hiatus ends when a case brings her back to work. “At the time, it involves a child, and then it, of course, grows into something that is connected to me quite personally, and an all-encompassing global situation as well,” Rabe explains.Claire has a complicated relationship with Wes Lawrence, the character played by Barry Sloane, and the other very important relationship is the one she has with her son, Henry, who is deaf. “I think Claire, at the beginning, she really is grieving, and sort of alone, with the exception of her relationship with her son. Work is something that she’s able to throw herself back into, and particularly this case, and, of course, that brings [her] right back into these complicated and wonderful relationships,” Lily says.
Wes Lawrence is head of the Special Projects Division at the Department of Defense. “We pick up the story in the pilot, where he’s been sent to investigate something strange in the desert,” Wes’ portrayer, Barry Sloane, tells us. “He’s struggling with the relationship with his wife; he’s struggling with the relationship with his child. I believe he’s a good man, but is he a good father or a good husband? Probably not.” The first season will see Wes behaving more selflessly rather than selfishly. “Throughout the journey of this character, it’s all about making the right decisions, and what is right for the greater good, compared to what’s right for him as a person,” Sloane says. “Everything’s so intertwined. It’s such an interesting, complex group of characters,” he enthuses.
Ventimiglia describes his “John Doe” character as “incredibly different” from anything that he’s played before. “I think that’s always the nice thing. You get time on this Earth as a human being, as a man, to kind of grow and learn for yourself, and then you apply that to whatever you’re playing presently. I feel like the guy that I am playing in this show now, is completely different than anything else. But also, he’s got my face, my voice, my likeness… you try and mold some part of you into who this character needs to be, and what he needs to feel and experience, and give back to everybody else,” he says.
Milo looks to movies, not TV, for things that The Whispers could be compared to. “I kind of go back to movies [from] when I was a kid. I can’t name one, but ten thousand, but those with that idea where you have human struggle, where you have events… where you have the unknown, where you have something to learn… and what you’re seeing is the true mettle of a person. You’re seeing passion. You’re seeing decision. You’re seeing wrong decision. You’re just seeing human experience through extraordinary, unexplainable happenings,” he says about the show’s epic scale.
Sloane adds that he sees The Whispers as a thriller. “It reminds me of a lot of the amazing thrillers that I enjoyed from the 1970’s and 80’s,” he says. “It’s kind of got that type of ‘cold war/things getting inside your children’s heads, hearts and minds’… things that are terrifying from that aspect as much as everything else.”
The Whispers premieres at 10PM ET/PT Monday night (June 1) on ABC.
