Darker Shadows

[syoung]

Hi Uncle Roger. Are you speaking of casting in terms of who was available at the time we were actively trying to make a deal with Dan Curtis? Or are you speaking in terms of today's actors, as though we've brushed it off and are giving it another shot? I have some definite ideas for casting in today's market. Sorry to say that Nicholas Blair wasn't a character we were focusing on, but there's nothing to say he couldn't have made an appearance in a later season, after the series found its legs and had been on the air for at least one full season. We only developed material for a First Season and an exciting three-way season finale cliffhanger. We did have a fairly complete list of characters from the original series, and it boiled down to simple storytelling -- the more characters you put in the storylines, things become too convoluted because there are too many characters the writers have to accommodate each week, not mention budgets the producers must keep the episodes within.

[Uncle Roger]

Well, I was originally thinking about actors from when Dan Curtis was approached. But I'd also like to hear some suggestions about contemporary actors.

[syoung]

Uncle Roger: We didn't discuss casting much, but we did have some ideas. Writers tend to visualize certain actors in roles as they write. It helps develop better characters to have a sense of what they look like in your mind. Do keep in mind that this was the late-1980s, and also take into consideration that this was Dark Shadows 20-years later. Here are some names we had in our thoughts as we wrote:
"David Collins" played by Terry Lester
"Susan Collins" played by Pamela Sue Martin
"Dr. Melissa Stokes" played by Meg Foster
"Seth Martin" played by Roy Thinnes
"Anton Rakosi" played by Ken Wahl
"Armand Delacroix" played by Geoffrey Holder
Of course we were amused to see Roy Thinnes show up as "Trask" in the 1991 revival series.
I'll write a separate post about my thoughts on contemporary casting. I'm sure you'll find it amusing.

[Uncle Roger]

Some very interesting casting ideas! Roy Thinnes was an actor that Curtis cast in many projects, so he might well have ended up on the series. Meg Foster, Geoffrey Holder and Ken Wahl are all great ideas. I really like Pamela Sue Martin as Susan but, since she quit both Nancy Drew and Dynasty, I don't know if she would have stayed with any series. But that point is certainly moot now.

[syoung]

Uncle Roger:

I'm glad you like some of those choices. Of course, casting isn't something the writer has a lot of involvement in, unless they're a multi-hyphenate, in which case they call all the shots. We only kept these actors in mind while we were writing, so we had clear pictures in our minds of what they looked like. By the late-80s, Pamela Sue Martin had run her course as a difficult actress. If a forgiving producer was willing, she would have landed new work. Had we actually been casting, I imagine our meeting would have included, "You messed things up pretty bad a few years ago... Have you got all that out of your system now? Are you going to do the same thing to me and my show? If not, go on, get out of here and go talk to Wardrobe to see what they think "Susan" will be wearing." Lol.

I was giving thought to the Part 2 of your question, re: contemporary actors filling new character roles in the Darker Shadows storyline, and I realized it's moot. Darker Shadows (original title "Return to Collinwood") was developed and created with the intention of bnringing back together at least 11 of the original series actors, along with the new characters/actors. The time for that is long passed. Back in 1987-88, many of those actors were still alive, or still yoiung enough to make the casting choices realistic. Now, we would either have to extensively re-write the thing in order to include only those original actors still with us. Frankly, though, I felt it was a pointless exercise, so I switched gears...

In my thoughts, I created the scenario of, "Dark Shadows has just come across my desk, and I'm the new casting director." As much as I hate the idea, I went ahead and assumed the new series was developed under Dan Curtis and, therefore, starts at the retelling of the Barnabas story all over again, with the Victoria Winters story also thrown in. Attached you'll see my "contemporary" casting choices for that fictional series, if it were launching and if it landed in my hands.

A couple of notes -- if this were a decade ago, I'd be advocating for Benedict Cumberbatch to play Barnabas. As it is right now, I think he's crossed the threshhold into "too old" territory. I'm thinking like a producer right now. Think about it. If he hired on now and the series ran for an entire decade, he'd be in his 60s. It would be the "Data Dilemma" all over again, where actor Brent Spiner now looks too old (and too fat) to play Data on Star Trek, yet they went and did it anyway in the Picard series. Totally did not work for me on a strictly visual basis. And please don't laugh at some of my other choices, like Molly Ringwald to play Julia Hoffman. She's in her 50s now, and she has that beautiful red hair, and she's proven to be a dynamite actress at this age with the productions she's been in. The right styling, and she's the perfect Julia... just as Helena Bonham-Carter was the perfect Julia in the Burton-Depp film. And don't you dare laugh at Mark Hamill as Prof. Stokes -- it's the perfect role to attract him to the show, complete with an excess of eccentricities to give him plenty to work with in his scenes. Hahahahahahahaha.

Again, please overlook any blatant typos or grammar errors. Fingers work faster than brain, and brain doesn't see the errors, so I just send things as-is anymore.

Have fun! Looking forward to your response.

syoung.

[Uncle Roger]

Some very interesting choices. My choice for Susan would be Kristen Alderson, who played Starr Manning on One Life To Live. Kristen is now old enough to be playing a wife. She can play the sweetness and convey the darker stuff as required. I could see Anton being played by James Marsters from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I could also see another One Life To Live actor David Gregory as David. He has the look of a leading man and the acting chops to play the darker stuff.

[syoung]

Uncle Roger... What you and others don't know is that in 2014-15 I dusted the original proposal off again with a new co-writer and we completely updated it for the current (at that time) TV market. Quentin didn't appear in the original version back in 1988-89, but he was a main character in the new version because Falcon Crest was long ago canceled and David Selby was available. What we ended up with had a much darker tone because series like American Horror Story had premiered in 2011 and were very popular. Things we changed from the original included: 1) Expanding David's family to include twin college age daughters Rosannah and Savannah, and middle-schooler son Brandon, 2) Making Quentin a main character, and 3) We tossed out the idea of casting original DS actors in certain roles because so many of them had passed away or were too old, which then offered us much more flexibility in the storytelling. Here's a little tidbit from the pilot script that evolved during this time.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Very interesting Scott. But alas...

[Uncle Roger]

Scott, I was rereading Darker Shadows, as I do from time to time and discovered a connection of sorts to myself. Richard Blumenthal, who was the lawyer for Sam Hall, later became the Attorney General of my home state of Connecticut. I was employed by the state for approximately thirty years. Mr. Blumenthal and I never crossed paths directly but his name was very familiar to state employees from various memos and policy decisions. If I had ever had the opportunity to meet him I certainly would have mentioned the project. Just to see what his reaction would have been.

[syoung]

Uncle Roger: I doubt Mr. Blumenthal would have had any reaction. I spoke with him once on the phone, then he provided the brief letter on behalf of Sam Hall, whom I also spoke with only once on the phone. The conversation went like this, "Sam wants me to send you a letter. What do you need that letter to say?" I explained what we were doing, and he said, "So, you need a Letter of Interest?" I said yes, and a few days later the letter was in my mailbox. Of all the original cast and crew of Dark Shadows that I contacted, Sam Hall was the least enthused about the idea of a TV reunion film. Someone tipped him off in advance that I would be calling, so he was able to keep the conversation to an absolute minimum. Violet Welles and Ron Sproat were right there in the writing process with us, but Mr. Hall indicated he would only participate at that stage if there was a check attached. So, he never read any of the material that was developed, as we never sent it to him.

[Uncle Roger]

You know, I'm not the least surprised that Sam had become what I shall politely call ornery. When Prospect Park did the short-lived online revival of One Life To Live, he was one of the many people who sued them for a piece of the pie. I don't think that the law suit went anywhere. Prospect Park had no assets to speak of. And it's been well over ten years since production ceased, the actors are still owed money.

While most of the writings about DS paint a very rosy picture about cast and crew, the book Llanview In The Afternoon paints a somewhat different picture of Sam. He said some rather nasty things about his longtime collaborator Gordon Russell, he said, in reference to Gordon's occasional acting career, that Gordon had been playing the part of a writer for years. Meow!

[syoung]

Oh, I definitely believe things weren't all wine and roses behind the scenes of Dark Shadows. Sam Hall wasn't unpleasant per se to deal with when I encountered him, but he was opinionated and was determined to only look out for himself. He didn't want to collab with Violet and Ron, he wanted to be in charge of the whole thing and be the only writer.

One aspect of that brief encounter with Mr. Hall has always amused me -- He was horrified that anyone would put as much effort into writing something like we were doing and not be paid for it. I did offer to let him read what we had at that time, hoping he would add critiques, notes, ideas, etc., but that was asking way too much from him without offering a payment to go along with the request.

Jim was good about warning me in advance of anyone he thought might be difficult to deal with, and there were a couple. I never really had any surprises when talking with the original cast and crew. Sometimes it was actually quite fun. I remember Jim saying Alexandra would be lovely to talk with, but in the end I would be wasting of my time. After I explained the simplicity of a Letter of Interest, she was like, "Oh, I can do that for you, and then we'll see how it goes"

[syoung]

Newby question for everyone -- if I wanted to post a collage type picture that was not related to this thread, is there a pictures, memories, memes or similar wall for such posts? Thanks.

[Uncle Roger]

Also on Llanview In The Afternoon, Sam also claimed that he and his wife (Grayson, of course, but not mentioned by name) saw young Judith Light in a play. That eventually led to Judith being cast as Karen Wolek on OLTL. I've never heard that anecdote anywhere else. But it sounds like it might just be true.