San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
San Antonio takes center stage in Amazon Prime animated series
‘Undone’ unites city’s landscape, Latinx characters, plotline
LOS ANGELES — TV writer and producer Kate Purdy says she is thrilled her hometown will get some well-deserved recognition in “Undone,” her groundbreaking new animated series for Amazon Prime.
San Antonio is “such an interesting and unique place,” said Purdy, who grew up here and graduated from Alamo Heights High School.
Yet it is “often overlooked and not explored” on television and in movies, she added.
That was certainly true of NBC’s summer series “The Night Shift,” which took place in a fictitious San Antonio hospital but was shot in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Purdy aims to change that with “Undone,” which debuts Sept. 13 on the streaming service,
The emotionally engaging and visually arresting series is set in San Antonio, and it’s rife with familiar views of the city — the distinctive skyline, the River Walk, Austin Highway, a place of worship patterned after St. Anthony de Padua Catholic Church.
“It’s a world deeply inspired by San Antonio,” she said at a screening of the show for TV critics during their summer press tour.
It’s not just the city’s landmarks that make “Undone” feel like home.
“Many of our characters are Latinx, Mexican-American,” Purdy said, “and San Antonio is upwards of 70 percent MexicanAmerican, Latinx, so it’s an ideal setting.”
Purdy, who cut her teeth as a TV writer on the crime drama “Cold Case” and the sitcom “Cougar Town,” most recently worked on Netflix’s animated hit “Bojack Horseman.” She created “Undone” with “Bojack” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg.
The series revolves around a young woman named Alma, played by Rosa Salazar (“Alita: Battle Angel”), who discovers she can time travel following a near-fatal accident. The almostreal looking animation serves the story’s premise.
“We thought about shooting live action,” Purdy said. “But then when you go to CGI or the world starts to bend, you feel the shift.
“We wanted it to feel all in one piece. What we wanted to say is the truth is more flexible than maybe we tell each other. Anything is possible. We wanted a medium that reflected that.”
As part of the animation process, photos of different views of San Antonio were sent to Amsterdam and turned into lush oil paintings under the direction of artist and filmmaker Hisko Hulsing.
Composited into these scenes are the faces, voices and emotions of the cast, led by Salazar and Bob Odenkirk (“Better Call Saul”), who plays her father..
Finally, these elements come together via rotoscoping animation, where animators trace over photographed images, a process never before used in episodic television. At the reins was the veteran team behind Richard Linklater’s film “A Scanner Darkly” at Austin-based Minnow Mountain.
In “Undone,” Salazar plays 28-year-old Alma WinogradDiaz, a day care center employee who’s ill at ease in her mundane existence.
She’s tired of eating the same breakfast, taking the same commute to work and feeling blah about everything, even the news that her sister Becca (Angelique Cabral) is engaged to be married.
All this changes when a nearfatal car accident induces visions of her late father, who was killed when she was very young. He urges Alma to tap into a mysterious ability that allows her to travel through space and time. He hopes this gift not only will awaken her spirit but also enable her to somehow prevent his untimely death.
Purdy said she hopes the series inspires more questions than answers: “Is this ‘A Beautiful Mind’ or is this ‘The Matrix’? Is this really happening or is it all in her head? How much magic is in the universe and is the truth more flexible than what we tell each other?”
Salazar was an immediate convert.
“This was the first time I read a script and was so incredibly moved,” she said. “It’s also brilliant and so funny — genius work.”
The dialogue kept the actors engaged, she added, even though they were working in a studio space with minimal makeup, costumes and props.
Purdy said she has an intensely personal connection to “Undone,” which was inspired by something that happened in her own life.
“My grandmother on my father’s side was schizophrenic,” she said. “I always worried about my own mental health. And in my mid-30s I had a breakdown — suffered from depression and anxiety. I felt out of control.”
She first sought help in Western medicine and psychotherapy.
“But I ultimately found what I was looking for through ancient traditions, indigenous cultures, different shamans in Mexico and Polynesia and India,” she said.
“Sometimes there’s a lot of pressure in the West to always be happy. These emotions we feel that aren’t about happiness can often be leading us to find the right path in life — maybe they’re messages from beyond the veil, from ancestors who are breaking through and shaking us awake to do something else with our life.”
Another personal connection, of course, is the San Antonio setting.
“I wanted it to feel fresh, fun and very real,” Purdy said.
It rings true for Salazar and Constance Marie, the actress who plays her mom.
“What’s super-cool about what Kate wrote,” Salazar said, “is a lot of times Latino people will be cast in something that’s very cheeky Latino.
“It’s like, ‘Come over to the Hernandez house … enchiladas and a piñata,’ ” she added in a booming voice, filling the room with laughter.
“One of the great things about this project is these characters are so rich and so full, and they just happen to be Latino,” added Marie, who San Antonio fans will remember from “George Lopez” and “Selena.” “That’s not all of who they are. They’re a family with that universal connection that touches all of us.”