With Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, Diane Ruggiero-Wright was one of the developers of iZombie, the new CW series that leaves its audience as addicted to the show as Liv Moore is when it comes to brains.
Ruggiero-Wright was also involved with Veronica Mars, having written and produced for all three seasons with Mr. Thomas.
Many have made Veronica comparisons with iZombie, which also features a spunky blonde(ish) lead character with the ability to give good voiceover. There’s just one major difference: Liv Moore (played by Rose McIver) is a zombie, and she eats brains which also allow her to take in the abilities, affectations, and memories of those who had the brains that she’s eaten.
The show is good fun, and the second episode airs tonight.
A few weeks ago, we spoke with Diane Ruggiero-Wright about Liv’s abilities, comparisons to the Vertigo Comics series by Chris Roberson & Michael Allred that inspired iZombie, and more. Our questions are posted in bold type; her answers are not.
KSITETV’s CRAIG BYRNE: What made Rose McIver your perfect Liv?
DIANE RUGGIERO-WRIGHT: You saw her. She’s so damn charming, and she’s very smart. She’s funny. She just has this charm about her, and you find yourself liking her and rooting for her… Rose just has that. You immediately want to protect her, but you also know that she can take care of herself. She’s accessible, and warm… the perfect heroine, and you want to see her get strong and conquer. At the same time, she’s vulnerable enough that she’s accessible.
Do you feel that you won the lottery in the same way you did when you got Kristen Bell for Veronica Mars?
Definitely. We are very lucky.
Are there any abilities that Liv will be keeping for more than one episode?
No. She eats the brain, she gets those abilities, and then it kind of goes away. We always joke that we should have a scene where she flushes the toilet, and then she can’t speak Romanian anymore… but that would be gross, so we wouldn’t do that.
But, it only will last as long as she has the brain in her system. But emotionally, I think stuff will resonate. For example, she eats the brain in Episode 2 of the passionate painter – at the end, she tries to paint and sucks at it, but the emotion of it still stays with her, but not the ability to paint.
Is there ever a time when the abilities or memories go away before they’re meant to, for example, in the middle of the episode?
Definitely. We try and mix it up so it’s not so predictable. We actually will have an episode towards the end where she eats two different brains in an episode. That’s kind of fun, but we definitely try to mix it up.
Was there ever any temptation to keep the name Gwen Dylan from the comic book series?
There definitely was temptation. Rob [Thomas] loves a funny name, and we love funny names. We talked about giving her a name that kind of more playful towards being a zombie, and once we came up with Liv Moore, it was just too fun to go back. But we had definitely talked about it, and decided to go the other route.
Assuming iZombie continues for a while, might there be a possibility in the future that you will incorporate concepts from the comic book like ghosts and were-terriers?
If we talk 7 years later, who knows, if it’s a Supernatural kind of hit…. but Rob’s not necessarily interested in that world. We wanted to keep it [to zombies]. It’s also hard because you want everything to look good, and even getting the zombie stuff to look good is costly and hard. Once you get into were-terriers and ghosts that fly, there’s just more things that would possibly not look good and take you out of it. We wanted to really surround it in a form of reality.
Your show has some amazing opening titles based on the work of Michael Allred. Can you talk about them?
I could not love them more. I wish there was a way to wake up with an alarm in the morning and show that on my wall, and that’s how I woke up in the morning. He did them, and they look fantastic.
Rob found that song [“Stop, I’m Already Dead” by Deadboy and the Elephant Men] when we were writing the pilot. He sent it to me when we were writing, and was super excited about it. We knew from the beginning that that’s what were wanted for our show. Originally, he had wanted it as a cue in the pilot when we were writing, and then we eventually realized that it’s just so good that it had to be in the main titles. We fought really hard to get it.
iZombie is such a perfect mix of procedural and continuing story, which The CW has been trying to do for a while. Was that one of the edicts you were you given when developing the TV series?
It wasn’t an edict that we were given, but something that we had wanted to do, because Veronica Mars was very much like that, and having that engine is so helpful in breaking stories. We like having an over-arching mystery and then having one problem to solve per episode. It’s our sweet spot. So, we definitely wanted to do that. They didn’t mandate that at all. They were pretty open to everything.
A new episode of iZombie airs TONIGHT on The CW! Images from episode 2 can be found here, and a trailer can be seen below.
