Fans of “True Blood” author Charlaine Harris are in for a treat this summer on NBC. The cast of “Midnight, Texas” attended NBC’s Summer Press Day to talk about what viewers will see during its debut on July 25 at 10pm. Most notably, was the presence of two actors we haven’t seen on TV for a hot minute: Jason Lewis of “Sex and the City” fame and Peter Mensah from the Starz series “Spartacus.”
Rounding out the all-star cast are Francois Arnaud, Yul Vazquez, Dylan Bruce, Arielle Kebbel, Sarah Ramos and Parisa Fitz-Henry. The show is led by a female, Monica Owusu-Breen who serves as the creator, writer, and executive producer. You go girl!
Owusu-Breen explains what we can expect from the freshman series as well as how important the characters are from day one.
“Well, I mean, this is Charlaine Harris’s novels that this is based on, she explained. “So, like all of her novels, it’s very character?driven. It’s also got this wild creativity. Like, it goes all over the place. You know, her characters are very three?dimensional. So they are funny, and they fall in love, and there’s passion. And so I do like to describe this show as all my favorite things in a blender. So I think we ride the tones of horror and action and romance and humor, and we don’t shy away from any of them.
These characters live with their powers. Manfred [Arnaud] sees the dead everywhere. He doesn’t take them always that seriously. He can have a good laugh about it, and it was important for me to maintain that because I think that one of the things I experienced when I read the books is I wanted to live in Midnight because I loved them all so much, and so, for me, there was a desire to make them that charming and witty and funny and engaging.”
Much like the HBO’s “True Blood,” things will get a little steamy though they will have more limitations since it’s airing on network television. Lewis’ character Joe Strong— an angel— is married to a man on the series, Chuy played by Bernardo Saracino. He got fans, who were dying to see more of him since seeing him last in the “Sex and the City” 2 film in 2010, excited when talking about what we can expect from the show this summer.
“I think you get to see some steamy scenes, period,” he said. His co-star Bruce adds, “Jason is shirtless in 20?degree weather quite often on the show as well.”
A Harris based series is nothing without at least one vampire. That’s where Mensah comes in. Lewis describes the character even better than the actual actor who plays him.
“He’s beautiful,” Lewis said. “But, also, there’s, you know, some really cool, new, imaginative elements that Charlaine introduced. I think that monsters like that, you look to Shelly. There’s a story of Shelly’s Frankenstein being a writing competition, who could write the worst monster, and Dr. Frankenstein is the worst monster, not Frankenstein’s creature. I think it’s that thing of being treated like a monster, and I don’t think there is anybody who hasn’t experienced that at some level, even the cool kids. You are treated like there’s something wrong with you or that ?? you know, being made an other, and that’s a very relatable character.”
Arnaud adds, “I think also vampires are one aspect of this mythology. Every character brings something different to the table. We are all wrestling with our inner demons, and it’s about controlling and taming them. It’s also ?? there’s a few ghost stories.”
Meet the characters from “Midnight, Texas” in this first promo:
