Whither the wolf pack?
Hemlock Grove’s Landon Liboiron previews ‘weird wackiness’ to come
What a long, strange trip it’s been. Hemlock Grove, Netflix’s spooky and surreal original series, returns on Oct. 23 with its third and final season. Landon Liboiron, who plays Roma werewolf Peter Rumancek, talked exclusively with Postmedia News about the final 10 episodes.
The Jenner, Alta., native dished on where Peter and Roman stand, the search for baby Nadia and the new characters inhabiting the world of Hemlock Grove.
Q What’s the relationship like between Peter and Roman (Bill Skarsgård), going into Season 3?
A In the third season, they’ve been through a lot together and their relationship is back intact. And it’s back to normal in a sense, except that they have to find the baby, Nadia. But new characters start coming in on both sides of their lives. A new Upir comes into town that distracts Roman from finding Nadia. And Peter starts getting involved with Andreas (Luke Camilleri). So they kind of get distracted from their main objective of finding the baby, and it takes them apart for a while, But they’re still very much in support of each other.
Q How did you feel about how Season 2 ended?
A We were all very shocked at how Season 2 ended. We didn’t see it coming and I think you actually see it in that last shot when Bill, myself and Tiio (Horn, who plays Destiny), are all looking up at the giant lizard man. I think you can read on our faces how we felt about it. Q So you must’ve been happy about getting another season to wrap everything up.
A It was nice. Usually how Netflix works is that you shoot the full season and you wait five or six months and then it comes out. And then you wait another couple of months to find out if you’re coming back. With this it was like, “Oh this is over. We have to make the most of it.” We got to celebrate the end instead of wondering. It was a good nail in the coffin, so to speak.
Q How has your portrayal of Peter changed?
A The creator of the show, Brian McGreevy, wrote the first season and he left and our new showrunner came in for the next two seasons. I had developed the character with Brian — the story of the first season is based on his book. His view on the werewolf is a very spiritualistic thing — a religious thing, almost.
Instead of being the typical werewolf who’s like, “Oh I’m cursed with this thing,” Peter was very proud of the wolf — it was almost like a spirit in him.
So instead of watching all the werewolf movies, I just read about actual wolves. The parallels between wolves and Gypsies are very similar. And then in the next two seasons, it went along the lines of the more clichéd, “Oh this is a curse that’s getting out of hand.” It became more about the struggle of controlling it.
Q What do you think fans will be most satisfied with in Season 3?
A I think it’s different. It’s hard to explain. It’s still the weird world of Hemlock Grove, but it’s different. There are going to be new characters for fans to see. They may have an allegiance to these new guys, or stay loyal to Peter and Roman and Destiny. But I think they can expect the weird wackiness that I’m sure they’ve come to love.