Fans of The Vampire Diaries’ “Alaric Saltzman,” Matt Davis, were saddened to see his character depart the show at the end of the third season. Fortunately, Davis will be back on TV screens before you know it. His new series Cult premieres at midseason, and in it, Matt plays Jeff Sefton, a man whose brother, a huge fan of a TV series called Cult, makes a mysterious disappearance that is somehow tied to the show.
The show-with-in-a-show elements may have some echoes to how rabid fans of a genre television series could be. “I don’t think it’s ever come to the extremes that Cult takes it, but I certainly like that it addresses it as a theme,” he says.
“I was surprised that The CW was going to do it. In terms of the tone and the content, I thought it was really smart, I thought it was really engaging. I thought it paralleled the whole Twitter phenomenon in this really dynamic and creepy way that I was really inspired by. I was happy when I read it. Again, my head’s still spinning, because it was really the first script I read. It became an offer, and now we’re here at Comic-Con. It happened so quickly that my head’s still spinning,” Davis says when asks about his initial impression of the project.
Davis Tweets frequently as “ErnestoRiley” and has a direct line that way to his fans. Has doing Cult made him more paranoid about social media? “Not really. I’ve gone through my paranoid phase, so that’s all gone. I like being able to play upon it creatively, and telling a story that feeds on paranoia and will allow a lot of leeway to explore, engaging the audience through social media through the show,” he says. He does point out that Cult is right up his alley. “My personal favorites in terms of films and whatnot are psychological dramas, so I prefer that aspect of Cult than I did the Vampire Diaries. Where Vampire Diaries was all very supernatural, for me, I was disconnected from the terror a little bit because it was so supernatural. But with this, it’s rooted in reality, that makes it more interesting and ultimately scarier,” he says.
That isn’t to diminish his time on The Vampire Diaries, which he genuinely seems to have appreciated. He has revealed that there are plans for him to come back to the vampire show, but he is not sure at what capacity hill return will be. He has confirmed that he has talked to the producers, and that returning “definitely” will be weird. “It’s weird being here, too, with Vampire Diaries, they’re all flying in… Ian keeps asking me, he’s like ‘Are you here for Vampire Diaries or for Cult?‘ I’m like ‘I’m here for Cult.‘ So it is interesting to cross over and cross back. It will be an experience. It’s great. I’m thrilled about it. I don’t know how exactly that will play out, creatively,” he says.]
Matt’s new character, Jeff Sefton, will begin his Cult journey in search of his missing brother. “That is certainly the impetus that jumpstarts the whole thing,” Davis says. “How far, and how long he’ll be missing, how long I’ll be tracking him down, I don’t know. It’s hard to say. It definitely is what triggers him into Cult.” As the show has not resumed shooting, Matt is unaware of what is coming next — and he is perfectly okay with that. “I prefer the ambiguity; I prefer being in the dark,” he says. “I think it keeps it dynamic; it keeps it fresh. A lot of actors want to know all the answers. They want to have it all laid out, to make them feel secure and safe, but I think that for me, it’s better, creatively, to not know.”
Cult premieres midsesaon on The CW. Stay tuned to KSiteTV and as soon as we know of a premiere date, we’ll share!
