PASADENA, Calif. — The cast of WGN America’s filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Outsiders” (9 p.m. Jan. 26 with a commercial-free premiere) met the press Friday morning at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, and the timing couldn’t be better for the series.
The show’s plot — a coal company encourages a Kentucky sheriff’s department to evict a clan of squatters from a mountaintop so it can blow it up for coal extraction — isn’t a perfect parallel to the armed anti-government protesters holed up in Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. But there are enough similarities to buy the show some attention it otherwise wouldn’t receive.
“I don’t really know that much about it, to be honest,” said “Outsiders” creator Peter Mattei. “There are more contrasts than parallels. The Farrells are fighting for land they’ve lived on for 200 years. They’re not trying to take someone else’s land from them. Otherwise, people trying to hold onto what they believe and are willing to fight for, that’s always been part of our heritage.”
A reporter asked whether producers thought the connection might boost ratings.
“Well, probably in that cabin, yes,” quipped showrunner Peter Tolan (“Rescue Me”).
The series focuses on relations between an Eastern Kentucky town, including its deputy sheriff (Thomas M. Wright), and the mountaintop-dwelling Farrell clan, led by a matriarch (Phyllis Somerville, “The Big C”) whose son, Big Foster (David Morse, “Treme”), vies to succeed her when he’s not emotionally abusing his son, Lil Foster (Ryan Hurst, “Sons of Anarchy”).
“Outsiders” used Millvale to play Blackburg, the town at the base of Shay Mountain. The show filmed mountaintop exteriors at Henry Kaufmann Family Park in Monroeville, where a compound made up of a barn, an ATV track, a moonshine still and multiple shacks was built. Interiors of those shacks were constructed on one of the 31st Street stages in the Strip.
Mr. Hurst (“Bates Motel”) said he’d never been to Pittsburgh prior to filming “Outsiders.”
“My mother’s side of the family was from Cleveland, but I’d never been to Pittsburgh, so I had no real impression until I got there,” he said. “I loved it there.”
A self-described homebody, Mr. Hurst said he didn’t explore Pittsburgh too much on his off hours. Some family members and four large dogs came along for the duration of the shoot, and they all stayed in a rented home in Sewickley.
Given the focus on characters who live outside the mainstream, “Outsiders” is likely to garner comparisons to Mr. Hurst’s previous series, motorcycle gang drama “Sons of Anarchy,” where he played Opie.
“You’re dealing with what amounts to a secret society, which is a biker gang, which is a clan that lives by their own rules,” Mr. Hurst acknowledged. “That’s something very deeply American: We left from a bunch of people trying to rule us. We want to do it our own way. I think that’s the connection I take from both of these. At the heart of being an American we thrive on thinking of ourselves as outsiders. … But the characters I play — I don’t think they could be any more different.
“Lil Foster is really a lost soul,” he continued. “He’s so trying to find his way out from under the shadow of his very domineering father, and Opie was just solid as a rock.”
Mr. Hurst said he was initially attracted to the “Outsiders” role of Hasil, but he learned producers wanted only younger actors for that part. Producers came back and asked if there were other roles in “Outsiders” he wanted to read for, and he declined. Eight months later they asked again, and when he learned David Morse would play Big Foster, he agreed to join up.
“David and [executive producer] Paul Giamatti are two of my favorite actors,” he said. “I have a very short list — literally a list of 15 people I want to work with, and they’re two of them.”
More ‘The Chair’?
Starz may bring back “The Chair” for a second season after all. The produced-in-Pittsburgh docuseries that chronicled two newcomer directors making two different films based on the same story filmed in Pittsburgh in early 2014 and aired on Starz later that year. Executive producer Chris Moore said he wanted to make a second season, but at recent press tours Starz CEO Chris Albrecht said there was no movement on a second season as he was waiting to hear from Mr. Moore. Now he has.
Starz programming executive Carmi Zlotnik said producers are discussing a second season that would use different types of filmmakers, possibly entertainers who have never directed.
“Maybe an actor or somebody in a related field,” he said.
That would certainly buy “The Chair” more attention if celebrities starred in the series and allowed cameras to follow their experience.
“You’ve got to find the right script to be able to finance it as an indie feature, but it’s got to be compelling with a low enough budget,” Mr. Zlotnik said. “Then you’ve got to line up two filmmakers who are willing to direct and open their lives to the documentary.”
He said there’s no timeline for making a decision about season two.
As for a return to Pittsburgh, Mr. Zlotnik said that’s unknown.
“I know Chris Moore has an affinity for Pittsburgh,” he said. “We loved the experience. Right now it’s all about the script and what we’re gonna do, and that’s all in Chris Moore’s lap, and we’re waiting to hear what he proposes.”
Steeltown Entertainment Project was one of multiple entities involved in producing the first season of “The Chair,” and Steeltown president Carl Kurlander said he has also talked to Mr. Moore about season two.
“Steeltown will be involved [in] the new season, and we are very excited and buoyed by the attention the show got for season one and the good light it shined in Pittsburgh,” Mr. Kurlander said.
‘Hemlock’ writer to AMC
AMC ordered a new series from “Hemlock Grove” writer Brian McGreevy, who grew up near Charleroi. Mr. McGreevy, author of the “Hemlock Grove” novel and a writer on the first season of the Netflix series, wrote the AMC pilot with writing partner Lee Shipman and Philipp Meyer.
The series, a multigenerational drama about the rise of the oil industry, is based on Mr. Meyer’s 2014 novel, “The Son.”
‘Murderer’ redux
Interest in the Steven Avery case featured in Netflix’s “Making a Murderer” docuseries turns out to be a gift for other media outlets. TMZ has been reporting on it constantly for the past two weeks, and Fox News Channel’s “Justice With Judge Jeanine” will look at it Saturday night at 8, and later this month Investigation Discovery will offer its own take on the case in a yet-to-be-scheduled one-hour special.
Channel surfing
Starz CEO Chris Albrecht also confirmed that “American Gods” left Pittsburgh in November over the lack of confirmed film tax credits that were tied up in the Pennsylvania state budget impasse. The show is now set up in Toronto. … BBC America announced an eight-part “Doctor Who” spinoff, “Class,” that’s set in a contemporary London school and will air later this year. ... I won’t be reviewing the Golden Globes this year, but I will live snark it Sunday night on Twitter and Facebook. Follow me at @RobOwenTV or friend me at www.facebook.com/RobOwenTV.
Post-Gazette TV writer Rob Owen is attending the Television Critics Association winter press tour. You can reach him at 412-263-2582 or rowen@post-gazette.com.
First Published: January 8, 2016, 10:21 p.m.
