Survival mode
Earth Abides stars Alexander Ludwig and Jessica Frances Dukes reveal why this MGM+ series was both a dream project and the most demanding of their careers, as they play two people who come together at the end of the world.
For a series that begins at the end of the world, Earth Abides opens with a suitably minimalist cast. In fact, for most of episode one, Alexander Ludwig is the only actor on screen – and this one-man play only turns into a two-hander with the arrival of Jessica Frances Dukes in episode two.
It’s little wonder, then, that both actors describe the forthcoming MGM+ series as a dream project, yet one that tasked them with the most demanding roles of their careers.
Based on the classic sci-fi novel of the same name by George R Stewart, it begins as an unprecedented virus sweeps around the globe, wiping out most of humanity. Ludwig plays Ish, a reclusive geologist living a semi-isolated life who misses the whole event after falling into a coma and awaking to discover he is entirely alone – until he spots smoke coming from a nearby house, which he discovers belongs to Emma (Dukes).
Set over the course of a year, episode two sees them meet, grow close and eventually start a relationship as they overcome problems including a dwindling power supply, a shortage of fresh meat and a terrifying invasion of rats.
“It was one of the most creatively inspiring things I’ve ever done,” Ludwig tells DQ. “That role is the dream role for any actor. I always said when I finished Vikings, I’ll never have an arc like that again – until, of course, I got offered Earth Abides and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I thought I had a lot to do on Vikings. This is next level. It’s such an honour to be able to tell that story, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before.”
“I feel like we did such hard work, and we just gave everything we had,” echoes Dukes (Ozark). “It was one of those experiences you’re going to walk away from and know you did your job and be happy because it was a dream job. The people, the script, the characters, the story – it was a dream.”
After commissioning the six-parter from showrunner Todd Komarnicki (Sully), MGM+ boss Michael Wright let Ludwig know he was in line to play Ish after watching him as Bjorn Ironside in five seasons of Vikings, which was produced in part by MGM Television. The actor then began his own research into the character, even before he had read a single line of dialogue – of which there is relatively little in the pilot.
Until then, he hadn’t read Stewart’s novel. But when he did, Ludwig was “so blown away. Then when I got the scripts, I felt like the adaptation was brilliantly done,” he says. “It stayed very true to the novel but, in proper entertainment fashion, was able to keep the heart of it without throwing too much out.
“Candidly, there were moments where it was utterly horrifying. To be in that place for that long by yourself, it was crazy. But it was also so rewarding. I remember reading it and thinking it might be the hardest thing I’ll ever do. I was literally in every shot. And we were shooting long days and short turnarounds and very heavy stuff.”
Yet he was up for the challenge of making a show – produced by MGM+ Studios and Lighthouse Productions – that explores what might realistically happen if civilisation suddenly collapses and everything you take for granted every day disappears. “There are no zombies. It’s not that show. This is about people,” he says. “That was what was so interesting. God bless Michael Wright. He saw Vikings and felt like I was the guy to be able to bring this to life. I gave all of myself to this project.”
Featuring in almost every scene of episodes one and two, Ludwig admits he found the isolation the hardest. Yes, there was a crew to support him, “but when you’re the only actor on a set and you’re dealing with subject matter like you’re burying your parents and you’re finding out you’re the only person on the planet, I went to some places I didn’t think I’d ever go to in my acting career.
“I had some really hard moments,” he continues. “There were times when we were doing 16-hour days and I’d go to sleep for four or five hours and I’d have to be back at set in the morning and do it again and again for a month straight. It just never let up. But it served the story really well because that’s how he would have felt. So I used it where I could. But emotionally, this was the most taxing thing I’ve ever done.”
Then when other actors including Aaron Tvelt, Luisa D’Oliviera, Hilary McCormack and Howie Lai joined him on set – spoiler: there are other survivors besides Ish and Emma – “I could have cried,” Ludwig jokes. “I was so happy to just have other people.”
Taxing as it might have been for Ludwig, Ish, in the beginning at least, seems comfortable on his own. A gifted academic, he soon raids the local library and fills his San Francisco home with books. And he’s not entirely alone, after adopting a stray dog he finds on an empty highway. But after spotting chimney smoke in the distance, he races to find who else might be alive, and finds a gun-wielding Emma pointing both barrels at him from her rooftop. Though it might be an inauspicious start, they soon bond and their relationship goes from strength to strength.
“Ish’s weakness in the real world, or the world ‘before,’ was he is a recluse and a loner. That, in a weird way, then becomes his superpower at the beginning of the show,” Ludwig notes. “He can survive on his own, whereas most of us, including myself, would lose our minds. He finds purpose in it and talks himself through it and decides, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’
“As more people enter his life, he learns what love actually really means and he learns the importance of family and community, no matter what that looks like. You watch somebody literally try to rebuild civilisation, knowing that it will never be the same while doing everything they can not to replicate the mistakes we’ve made along the way. That’s what I love so much about it. It’s an introspective look at what it means to be human and what it means to be alive.”
Dukes first met Ludwig a couple of days before they began shooting, and found that all the preparation they had done individually meant she could immediately see them as Ish and Emma. “The beautiful thing about it was they are coming from two completely different worlds, and we got a chance to get to know each other as the characters got to know each other,” she says. “It was a really wonderful, almost parallel, thing happening.
“But the amount of work it took, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done, TV- and film-wise. I studied for about a month before, just getting ready for what has happened to her in order to come into that second episode and be in the moment, in the world and experience what I was experiencing.”
That prep began with reading Stewart’s original novel and then going through the script to draw out what Komarnicki and the show’s other writers thought about her character. “I was having wonderful conversations with them as well, like, ‘She is Mother Earth,’ telling me all the things she was and all the things she’s done and their idea of what world she comes from.
“When I read the role, I knew there was a lot of me I had to bring to it, which is my earthiness, my groundedness and my experiences. Then I find images that could possibly be her world. I make a playlist of songs that embody what I feel she is, and then after that, I go through and I process the beginning. I do the backstory and just wrote in my journal everything she went through up until we meet her on that roof.”
Emma’s “sound world,” as Dukes describes her playlist, existed in meditation and chakra music, tapping into the “earthy, goddess vibe” of the character in Stewart’s writing. That also helped put her in the right emotional state to deliver whatever scene was scheduled next.
Like Ludwig, Dukes never had any doubts about taking on the role, particularly with a real pandemic still in the rear-view mirror. “I didn’t even get to my role before I said yes. I was within the first few pages of episode one and I was in love with the story,” she says. “I’m a post-apocalyptic, end-of-the-world fanatic so I’ve seen every movie, every TV show that deals with that, so I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is it. This is what I wanted.’”
Why does she think Earth Abides stands out among its zombie-filled genre stablemates? “It’s scarier because it’s real. It’s about things that would actually happen,” she says. “When you talk about numbers on the call sheet, I always say Mother Earth is number one. That’s the difference. It’s not about destruction or annihilation, it’s about rebirth. It’s about hope. It’s about love.”
Dukes’ preparation for the role also included considering Emma’s race and the time period in which the original novel is set. “It’s not quite said [in the novel] she’s a black woman, but it is hinting that she might be a woman of colour,” she notes. “I had to be like, ‘OK, if she was a black woman in 1949, who is she now in 2024?’ That was really important to me and I think to the writers as well. Both characters in the book were very much of the time, but now the world is different.”
On set in and around Vancouver, Dukes says she and Ludwig connected “immediately.” They partnered with Komarnicki and directors Bronwen Hughes, Rachel Leiterman and Stephen Campanelli to create a collaborative atmosphere, with the actors encouraged to bring their own ideas to the production. Viewers will get to see Earth Abides when it launches in the US this Sunday, with Amazon MGM Studios distributing it internationally.
“I wouldn’t change the experience for the world,” Ludwig says. “It’s a really important show and it’s a very hopeful show.”
“It’s an epic journey of humanity, survival and fierce love,” Dukes adds. “When all those things we think are important go away, what’s actually important? I just hope people grow from this. Heal from this. Have hope from this. Call their family. Emma wants everybody to be loved and held. She has hope for the world.”
tagged in: Alexander Ludwig, Amazon MGM Studios, Earth Abides, Jessica Frances Dukes, Lighthouse Productions, MGM, MGM+ Studios