Landon Liborion returns as werewolf
Teen werewolf back on the howl in second season of Hemlock Grove
You may not hear actors talk much about it, but there are apparently some side benefits to those long hours spent in the makeup chair.
Landon Liboiron, the Alberta-born actor who stars as teenage Gypsy werewolf Peter Rumancek in the Netflix series Hemlock Grove, says his time being fitted with prosthetics and makeup significantly increased for Season 2, which debuts Friday.
“This year, there is this back piece I have to put on,” says Liboiron, 23, in a phone interview. “It took about two hours to apply on the makeup chair. Actually, you just lean forward and go to sleep and they work on your back for two hours.”
Bonus cat naps aside, Liboiron admits that reprising his role in the gruesome horror series was a touch daunting. It was uncharted territory for him.
His other TV roles, including a lead in the doomed Steven Spielberg-produced series Terra Nova and a recurring role in Degrassi, had a shorter shelf life.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever had to jump back into a character. I was really happy to be back to Peter. Peter is one of my favourite (roles) I’ve ever done. It’s just one of those things where you can’t overthink it. You’ve got to trust that he is still in you. You have to let him resurface.”
All this talk about transformation is appropriate when discussing a dude who turns into a werewolf. But that’s not really what Liboiron is talking about.
There are all sorts of frightening creatures in Hemlock Grove and, judging by the bizarre and grotesque transformations in the trailer, the second season promises to be more bloody and violent than the first. But the tag line for the second season, “Even demons have demons,” suggests it will also continue to highlight the humanity of those who live in the spooky Pennsylvania town. So even without his lupine tendencies, Peter offers a lot of depth for an actor to, er, sink his teeth into.
The fact both Peter and Roman Godfrey, the bloodcraving, half-demon rich kid who befriended Peter in Season 1, are the unlikely heroes in Hemlock Grove should offer a clue about the show’s dark nature. Twilight it isn’t.
Based on a horror novel by Brian McGreevy, Season 1 introduced us to a fictional steel town full of secrets.
Most of them revolved around the wealthy Godfrey clan, who oversee a mysterious biotech lab called the White Tower. Gruesome murders abound in Hemlock Grove, which turns Peter and Roman, who are natural suspects, into detectives to sort out who or what is killing people.
Season 1 ended with Roman and Peter having a falling out and a full-blown massacre occurring to the townsfolk that finally revealed the true killer.
“In Season 2, Peter and Roman are both dealing with their own responsibilities as new adults and also battling this inner darkness within themselves and facing their own beast instead of an exterior beast,” Liboiron says.
Hemlock Grove, which is produced by horror guru Eli Roth and shot in Ontario, did not receive the same sort of critical acclaim enjoyed by Netflix brethren such as House of Cards, Lilyhammer or Orange is the New Black. But like those shows, it has attracted devoted fans who tend to binge-watch the series in one or two sittings.
“Netflix approaches their TV series as if they were a 10-hour, or a 13-hour movie,” Liboiron said. “So the flow is different and there’s the liberty of not having to write towards commercials. We know they are going to binge. That’s how TV is watched now. So you try to approach the arc of the show with that mentality.”
Liboiron was raised in the small farming town of Jenner in southern Alberta and landed memorable early roles in Alberta-shot films such as Passchendaele and Mayerthorpe before moving on to Degrassi and the sci-fi spectacle Terra Nova.
Last year, he returned home to shoot the troubled western Forsaken alongside Kiefer and Donald Sutherland, Demi Moore and Siobhan Williams. Producers of that film left town still owing workers and suppliers significant amounts of money, which has cast a pall over the production.
Which, Liboiron admits, is a bit of a “bummer.”
But he says he enjoyed the homecoming just the same.