Last week, cast members of The CW’s upcoming revival of The Tomorrow People were joined by the show’s Executive Producers in Beverly Hills to talk about the new series, which begins October 9 and explores some young people with extraordinary abilities, centering around Stephen (Robbie Amell), a young man with abilities possibly beyond any they have seen before.
These people spoke at the CW’s day of the annual TCA Summer Press Tour, and in attendance were actors Robbie Amell (Stephen), Peyton List (Cara), Luke Mitchell (John), Aaron Yoo (Russell), Madeleine Mantock (Astrid), and Mark Pellegrino (Jedekiah) and Executive Producers Greg Berlanti, Julie Plec, and Phil Klemmer.
“For me it’s about being on the cusp of change, and it’s in a large sense, it’s about evolution, but it has a personal story. It’s about a coming of age, and by the time you get to college, for me, you’re kind of formed,” Klemmer says of the decision to put Amell’s Stephen character still in high school. “I just think the most sort of fraught period in any of our lives is high school, you know. That’s why there’s so many archetypical high school moments. To me it’s something we can all relate to, because it’s something that sort of sticks with us our entire lives, because it’s the period when we’re searching for ourselves and searching to define ourselves and it’s just much more poignant,” he says.
In England, “breaking out” and becoming one of the Tomorrow People was an analogy for puberty, and their version of Stephen was actually even younger than Robbie Amell’s. During the session, Greg Berlanti was asked about the comparisons between the new series and its original 1970’s British counterpart, which Berlanti and fellow executive producer Julie Plec had long been fans of.
“Julie and I have been talking about this show since we were in college, so that’s over 20 years ago,” Berlanti explains. “We were both fans of the original series when we were kids. This was before it existed on VHS tapes or the Internet. We got to college in the early ’90s and we both remembered loving the show as a kid; it played in reruns on Nickelodeon early in the morning. It was sort of pre binge watching, but I would still get up every morning and [I’d] watch these episodes of the series and it really spoke to me then as a young kid, and she remembered it too,” he recalls, talking about how the two of them would talk about the old series and about concepts like “jaunting.” “And there was this really creepy guy named Jedikiah and he’d, like, literally twirl his mustache, but he was a robot,” Berlanti says nostalgically. For this series, Berlanti would like to be true to the spirit of the show, including with certain character names, however, “our hope is that we kind of evolve and it’s its own thing.”
Mark Pellegrino’s Jedikiah is not a robot [as far as we know], but he does consider his character to be “the hero of the story” right now. “From the first scene,” he says. “I always think that the characters I’m playing are justified in their actions and heroic in nature. And I’m protecting the human race, so as far as I’m concerned, you know, you got to do dirty things sometimes to protect four, five, six billion people, how many folks are populating the planet.” Jedikiah has an interesting backstory - spoiler warning! – as Stephen’s father is actually Jedikiah’s brother, and he had abilities himself.
Jeffrey Pierce of Cult fame plays Stephen’s father in flashbacks in the series.
“We’d definitely like to have him back. He’s in the second episode,” Berlanti confirms. “We don’t want to give too much of the mystery away [of] what happened to him exactly. Obviously, you learn at the end of the pilot that they’re related and that he’s related to Jedikiah, that they’re brothers. That history between them is an instrumental part of the series going forward,” he teases.
For the younger actors, who might be known for more serious drama or even comedies, The Tomorrow People is a new journey into a sci-fi series that will involve them, to an extent, to play super heroes.
“It’s different, but it’s that much more exciting because it’s something new for me. And I love it. I love the genre. And it makes you feel really empowered when you have these superpowers and you’re doing these special effects and these stunts and these fights. It’s exciting to go to work when you have all that in front of you,” Peyton List enthuses, before adding what else she likes about the project. “I feel like on this show we also have a lot of character driven story, so that sort of comes into play as well as the fantasy and the sci-fi side of it. These characters are very much like real people and dealing with kind of extreme circumstances, but they’re trying their best to handle and make the right decisions in what they’re facing, so I’m enjoying that part of it as well.”
The Tomorrow People premieres October 9 on The CW. Come read some of our other coverage about the show and be sure to drop by our Tomorrow People forum! Here’s the series promo if you haven’t seen it already:
