Kyle McMahon talks to Rupert Grint and the rest of the cast of M. Night Shyamalan's Apple TV+ series Servant for episode #32 of Pop Culture Weekly.
If you haven't yet started watching the new M. Night Shyamalan show Servant on Apple TV+ you should stop what you're doing and immediately get caught up. The series follows a young Philadelphia couple, Sean and Dorothy Turner (played by Kong: Skull Island star Toby Kebbell and Six Feet Under / The X-Files star Lauren Ambrose) who are mourning the loss of their infant, when a therapist suggests they use a lifelike doll to work through their trauma. Dorothy takes things a little too far, treating the doll like an actual infant and hiring a nanny to help out. The mysterious nanny Leanne (Game of Throne's Nell Tiger Free) comes to assist as Dorothy's brother Julian (Harry Potter franchise's Ron Weasley himself, Rupert Grint) begins to investigate the new arrival.
Servant is a claustrophobic, exhilarating masterclass in suspense, focusing on the four main characters and almost exclusively taking place within the Philadelphia home of the Turners. M. Night Shyamalan takes Tony Basgallop's story and directs it with a minimalist, "less is more" bravado that has the viewer anticipating each new reveal in this taught, edge of your seat thriller.
I spoke with the cast, as well as creator Tony Basgallop about Servant, inquiring about its inception through its execution for episode #32 of Pop Culture Weekly. Lauren Ambrose talked about how Servant is best served as a tv series: "This did not have the rush of where they're cranking out the scripts and you're getting the changes two minutes before you shoot.... This all felt very considered. We all had time to do our work... Night and Apple created the space for that. They created an environment of really creative exploration. Here is this family surviving, barely, this trauma, and in crisis. As actors, we got to play...There was just time for everyone to do their work."
When I asked Rupert Grint what the experience was like working on both a huge multi-billion dollar franchise and now a series with a small cast of four: "I'm not very good at watching myself, so I've seen the first ones. It's amazing. It's such a unique experience...Having it all in this one place. Everything is in this house. It (is) a really unique thing."
Creator / writer / executive producer Tony Basgallop states that he has an ending for the show, which he has planned to span 60 episodes, although he hasn't written them all yet. "I know where they're going as human beings....I can't tell you what season 4 is, because when we get to season 4 I'll have so many better ideas then what I've got now...It's that final point of where you want the characters to end physically...emotionally...Those answers are in my head"
You can watch Servant on Apple TV+, streaming now, with new episodes releasing each Friday at 12am. Check out my entire interview with the cast of Servant.
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