Page 14 - MidWeek - Aug 25 2021

14 MIDWEEK AUGUST 25, 2021
Sarah Wayne Callies turns up the heat as scores of listeners tune in to the former Hawai‘i resident’s thrilling post-apocalyptic podcast, Aftershock.
T he woman who made household names of TV characters such as Lori Grimes on The Walk- ing Dead, Sara Tancredi on Prison Break and Katie Bow- man on Colony is not only skilled at acting — turns out she’s a pretty darn good
winning sales pitch was nev- er more in need than when it came time to launch her cur- rent project — the scripted post-apocalyptic podcast Af- tershock. Her challenge: to persuade a number of actors to lend their talents to the se- ries without any thought of financial compensation.
As the star of films such as Whisper, Black Gold and The Show explains, “Here was my pitch: ‘I have no money to pay you and it’s not going to be anything great for your ca- reer. However, you can come to work in your pajamas, it’ll only be one day in the studio and ... I’ll owe you for life!’”
and just like that, Callies had the makings of something wonderful.
contact list. “But what I did say to everybody was, ‘If we ever get a chance to do this as a television show or film, the roles are yours.’ We’re not going to be like ‘Sayonara, Dave Harbour — welcome, Brad Pitt!’ It was more like, ‘You help me out with this and you’ ll be attached to the project no matter what hap- pens.’”
salesperson, too.
For Sarah Wayne Callies, a
The spiel worked like a charm. Notable actors such as David Harbour (Black Wid- ow, Stranger Things), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen, The Walking Dead), Tati Ga- brielle (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, The 100) and Janel Parrish (Pretty Little Liars, To All the Boys I’ ve Loved Before) immediately signed on to the project —
Admittedly, Callies also had other factors working in her favor beyond her sales ability. The actors she pe- titioned were mostly close friends of hers, and when she began to approach them in the summer of 2020, ev- eryone was available because “none of us were working due to the pandemic.”
Talk about a tough sell.
“Obviously, I didn’t have a whole lot to offer,” admits Callies, who says she cast the project out of her phone
The 10-part series — which released its first two episodes July 13 and is set to drop its eighth installment this week (with a special roundtable
Still, she deserves kudos for bringing the entire proj- ect together while keeping expenses at a minimum.
The results have been far greater than even she antici- pated as Aftershock’s positive reverberations are being felt everywhere.
discussion involving the cast to follow the final episode on Sept. 15) — tells the story of Cassie Wallace (voiced by Callies), a mother in search of her daughter after a vio-
lent earthquake rocks the West Coast and leaves LA in ruins. Out of this national emergency emerges an island
SEE PAGE 19