‘Containment’: Executive Producer Julie Plec & Stars Preview New CW Show

Executive Producer Julie Plec has a new show heading to The
CW on Tuesday night – “Containment” – a series set in Atlanta at the
onset of a deadly virus outbreak.

“I think the fun of this project is it really is not
like anything I’ve ever done, but it still exists in exactly the same emotional
world as stories I like to tell, so people who like what I do will be excited
to sort of feel the same feels,” Julie told Access Hollywood, when we
spoke to her recently at WonderCon. “They’ll get a good cry, they’ll get a
good scare, they’ll root for a relationship, they’ll get to really explore
friendship and that world. People who don’t like what I do can still watch
because it feels very different.”

The series follows a cast of characters including David
Gyasi’s Major Lex Carnahan, who is recruited by Claudia Black’s Sabine Lommers
to be a spokesperson as the CDC and government officials try to contain the
disease in a small area that is quickly cordoned off. 

The show will dive into not just the interpersonal
relationships of the characters – some inside the cordon, some just outside — but also the science of the rapidly spreading
virus that kills patients within a short time span.

Chris Wood, an alum of Plec’s “The Vampire
Diaries,” plays Officer Jake Riley, whom Lex sends
in to investigate the suspected source of the outbreak, quickly landing
him at a hospital at the center of the cordon where a doctor (played by George
Young) is trying to figure out the cause and a cure.

“It keeps you up,” Chris said of occasional
sleepless nights while filming the series. “The prep work for the show —
it’s the kind of thing that really does sort of stay with you and your heart
kind of breaks for the real versions of this story that exist in the world and
it’s something that’s a fictional story that we’re telling that is so grounded
in reality that it shakes you.”

Claudia, another Plec-show alum who played Aunt Dahlia
during Season 2 of “The Originals,” said her “Containment”
character, Sabine, who works for the CDC, impacted her deeply.

“[Sabine] has a similar strength and power… she’s very
cold and I think there is quite a mystery about her and I’ll be curious to see
what aspects of her are revealed when we get pickup,” Claudia told Access,
as she held up her crossed fingers, in hopes of a second season. “And what struck
me was how it affected me as an actor, to play someone who was actually a real
human, having to make these tough decisions, because when they’re wearing a
cape or they’ve got fangs, it’s supernatural, the stakes are high, but we don’t
connect to it the same way and that’s what amazing about ‘Containment’ is it
affects everyone.

“When you watch it, it’s visceral, it’s personal, it’s
a challenging show and I think what we’re asking of audiences is to get more
uncomfortable, to be prepared to be more uncomfortable and in return,
juxtaposed with the horror and the gore and the reality of what this
virus really would do to the body — because we did research that — in return,
you get these really interesting characters and these beautiful relationship
and this unbelievable tension of rooting for these people to be reunited,”
she added.

“Containment” brings together Plec alums and
newcomers to the fold.

David said when he went in to read for the pilot, Julie
explained her shows have a family feel.

“When I came in for my audition, I auditioned and then
they called me back in and [Julie] said, ‘Look, I just want to chat to you
about me and what this is about,’ with [pilot director] David Nutter alongside
her,” he told Access last summer at Comic-Con. “And then Julie said,
‘Look, what I can promise you is that it will be such fun, it will be an incredible
script, but family. It will be like a family.”

“Containment” premieres Tuesday at 9/8c after
“The Flash” on The CW.

— Jolie Lash