A STRANGE MAGIC
Tales from the Loop tackles ‘big questions,’ but stays rooted in emotion
Tales from the Loop Streaming, Amazon Prime
With advanced buzz already comparing Tales from The Loop to Stranger Things, British actress Rebecca Hall admits that, when she first heard the pitch for Amazon’s new sci-fi anthology series, her interest was piqued.
But when series creator and writer Nathaniel Halpern, whose previous work includes Legion and The Killing, told her the eerie show was inspired by the paintings of Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag, she was immediately hooked.
“The idea that someone could look at some art and it would just touch their imagination to the point where they could come up with an entire universe of characters was really exciting,” Hall says in a phone interview from New York.
Tales from The Loop’s eight episodes (available on Amazon Prime) tells the story of townsfolk who live above the Loop
— a machine built to unlock and explore the mysteries of the universe. The strange otherworldly device — known as The Eclipse — makes things possible that were previously relegated only to science fiction.
Hall opened up about the Winnipeg-shot show and shared her picks for additional films people should stream while at home hiding out from the coronavirus.
This is a show that deals with big ideas. Story-wise, what was the hook for you?
When I first read it, it did a thing that I love in the shows that I watch, which is the capacity to deal with big existential questions and be fantastical, but stay rooted in human emotions. I love things that have a dark twist or have a kind of flair of cynicism to them. But there’s a trend, I think, when doing high-concept shows, to rely on that to the point of it almost becoming hackneyed. I found this so refreshing because it was grounded in an emotional truth.
QAThe story grapples with time travel, themes of science and philosophy, and our fear of death, as well.
QThe show takes time as the fundamental problem of being human, or the fundamental thing of being human. After all, if it weren’t for time, we wouldn’t grow up, we wouldn’t change, we wouldn’t die. We all deal with that and that’s conceptually big. The fact this show does that, and manages to dramatize it and make it entertainment, I found refreshing and original.
ADid you know how it was all going to unfold?
No, they hadn’t written them all yet. Nathaniel just told me the whole story, which honestly, I took with a pinch of salt. I had a hunch things would change. This is new to me and everything is so strange. It was weird for me to take the job without
QAknowing what it was entirely, but I trusted him.
TV is becoming more cinematic, and here we have episodes directed by Mark Romanek, Jodie Foster and Andrew Stanton. You’ve done TV before, but seeing how it has changed, were you keen to get back into this method of storytelling ?
I’m a big consumer of it. I find the long form, filmic television trend tends to be really exciting and innovative. One of the things that sold me on this was every episode is its own film. The directors align like that. They’re short films in a way, yet the whole show has a stylistic cohesiveness to it because of Nathaniel.
QAWas sci-fi a genre you were keen to do?
I haven’t read a lot of sci-fi, but a lot of films that I have loved you could consider sci-fi — Solaris, Stalker, even Clockwork Orange. But I don’t think I’m someone who gravitates toward sci-fi. I’m interested in any genre that’s done well.
QAFor the foreseeable future everyone is home, looking for new content to stream. What five films should they put at the top of their list?
Philadelphia Story. All About Eve. Shadow of a Doubt. Les Diaboliques. Night of the Hunter.
QA