Cult Times
Casting Cull
2003
We've had dead people as leads in genre shows before, but the whole lot of them? Stars Ellen Muth and Callum Blue provide some insight into their lives after death in quirky Fantasy drama Dead Like Me.
MGM Television has come up with a novel idea for a television show. In the
groundbreaking Dead Like Me, they start by killing the main character and go from there. Not many actors would be that thrilled with the idea of being bumped off in the first few minutes of a show, but Connecticut native Ellen Muth can�t keep the smile off her face.
"I play a character named George. Her real name is Georgia but people call her
George. At the beginning of Dead Like Me she is kind of lost as to who she is and where she wants to be in life. She tries college and it doesn't work out, and her parents make her get a job that she really dislikes and during her lunch break a freak accident occurs and she dies." Oh dear! Surely one of the shortest starring roles in history, then. "Not really," smiles Muth, "it just so happens that she was picked to be a Grim Reaper, which is someone who takes the souls of the living right before they die so that they don't suffer through death. Mandy Patinkin plays my boss, Rube, and he tells me whose soul I am going to take and where they are going to be."
Now, as if this wasn't a disturbing enough concept for most people to get their heads around, Muth also reveals, "I only get their initials and the time and the place. I kind of have to figure out who it's going to be so there's always that possibility that I am going to tag the wrong person." This less than reassuring news is divulged with the same deadpan delivery Muth displays on the show, before she breaks into a wide grin. "It can be a little stressful," she allows.
Comments that this line of work could be traumatic for one so young brings forth a tiny shrug. "Actually, what's appealing about the role is the character's dry sense of humour and the fact that she doesn't even realize that she's funny half the time. I also love George's curiosity about life and death and the fact that deep down inside she does care about people, but she puts on this front like she doesn't really care about anything and I kind of like that. George's sensitivity is very hidden, but when it slips out she very quickly makes it so nobody else sees it. She's very interesting to play
from that point of view. She's quirky. I like that."
Muth insists that there are all sorts of similarities between herself and the character, and proposes, "George tries to hide her emotions and I tend to do that. One of the great things about acting is that you are able to release all sorts of things through another character. My sense of humour is quite dry too. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's black, but its well hidden and, like the show, could very easily go right over your head because it's so subtle.' The actresses resemblance to George stops when it comes to the death thing, though. 'As far as being curious about death it concerned, that's never been something that's preyed on my mind as much as it has on George's,
but since I've been doing Dead Like Me I've been thinking about it a bit
more."
One could be forgiven for thinking that Dead Like Me could be a bit on the gloomy side for mid-week television, but in actual fact it's decidedly tongue-in-cheek and definitely played for laughs. A recent scene had Muth in hysterics. "It's funny because the one scene that I dreaded quite early on in the show but which I ended up loving because I had so much fun with is a scene where I'm in the toilet of a dead kid whose apartment I've taken over. I'm on the toilet and his parents walk in and I have to cover myself with a porn magazine. I couldn't stop laughing. I thought it was the funniest thing." She could have died laughing - if she hadn't already been dead.
Clearly at home and very happy with the scripts and the persona she's created, Muth does confide that there is one thing she hopes to see materialize for George in the future. "I hope to see her build up her confidence and see her become more comfortable with her sexuality because she hasn't really experimented with that at all, it hasn't even occurred to her yet. So I'd like to see her show an interest in men." Asked if that might not be a tad difficult seeing as how she is dead and all, the actress laughs. "Well, it is true that in her circumstances she doesn't get to meet many men, which is why I think it would be interesting to see a Reaper with a live person. Not for sex," she's keen to point out. "Just a warm relationship."
George's main relationships are purely 'in the family', specifically with her Reaper co-workers, such as Mason, played by British actor Callum Blue. A cheeky chappie, he announces, "I'm from East London. My character is called Mason and he's dead." Well, glad that's sorted, eh? "Not only is he dead," explains Blue, "he's also a crackhead. In fact, in the episode we're shooting, as opposed to 'shooting up', I'm smuggling heroin up my bottom and the package breaks, so I'm kind of bummed out. If you'll pardon the pun." Chuckling away, Blue goes on, "So anyway, he's dead, and when one in a million people die they become Grim Reapers in the Afterlife and that's what I do."
There's not a lot you can say to that other than ask what attracted Blue to the role as this larger-than-life person who takes other people's souls. Grinning from ear to ear, he proclaims, "I don't know about you, but I never have and don't think I will ever grasp that fact that I am going to die. It's like a thought that you can't quite ever envisage. In my experience, no one ever believes it, even when people around you die, so this whole concept is very interesting to me. What I love about this show is that it explores the fact that we all die and also what happens after. Not only the fact that some of us become Grim Reapers, but what happens to the souls we take - where they go and what they do. To me, as well as the treat that the scripts are so amazing, Dead Like Me has a very funny take on the whole concept. I think the life sense of the show is very English. It has that English eccentricity. It's witty and dry and I think it's very cool."
Given that escorting people away from this mortal coil could be construed as rather a well... grim task, Blue insists that, on the contrary, the show is all about life. "See, the show looks as though it is all about death, but for us, the five Grim Reapers, it's all about the living, because the main point of the story is that everybody who is around us is who is alive is dull. They don't do anything with their lives, whilst the Grim Reapers are colourful. They wear colourful clothes. They do things that they wouldn't be allowed to do in real life. For instance, we can eat as much fried food as we like and not get heart disease. We can smoke and take drugs or whatever and it makes no earthly difference. So I'm not concentrating on the death thing at all. It's all about
having a great life."
The actor does admit that he did do a very small amount of research before
embarking on this challenging role. "I did try to find out how my character died. It's truly fascinating. Mason died in the Sixties, and cops it as a result of trepanation, which is when you drill a hole in the top of your head." Why would any relatively sane person do such a thing, you might ask. Blue has the answer. "It�s a well-known thing," he maintains. "There are two people living in London with it at the moment. You drill a hole in the top of your head and a membrane grows over it and the process is meant to enlighten you. You're meant to be on a permanent high. They used to do it all the time in the Sixties." Flashing another cheeky grin, he smiles. "It was the only thing I researched and really was all I needed to know. It's probably all any of us
needs to know."
The small silence that accompanies Blue's last statement lasts as long as it takes for the two of us to burst out laughing at the total absurdity of it all. Then he says, "I've been laughing all week actually. There was a scene that Rebecca Gayheart [Betty] and I did that cracks me up even now. We start in a car and I'm about to go and pop a soul, but I'm doing a drug deal at the same time. Meanwhile, she is giving me one of those tests like you get in Cosmopolitan magazine. So I go to do the deal and am running out of this place and my ear gets shot off and all sorts of nasty stuff and she's still giving me this test. It's hilarious. I saw the scene cut together and it's really, really good."
The fact that this man is already dead begs the question, 'Why was he doing a drug deal in the first place?' Blue barely raises an eyebrow. "Because I get paid for it," he says, as if that's any answer. "You don�t get paid as a Grim Reaper - so you have to do something as a sideline." Ah! "That's why George works in an office, Roxy [Jasmine Guy] has got a job as a meter maid, and Betty and I do drug deals and steal stuff and walk around in everybody else's clothes." Breaking off, he shakes his head and sighs, "God! Mason is such an unsavoury character. I love him and I love this job. It's fantastic to play."
A bunch of the undead cavorting around carrying off new souls might not sound like they'd be the life and soul of the party, but Dead Like Me looks as though it could be a cult classic in the making. Make a date with death and make up your own mind.
- Thomasina Gibson
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